A/N: This is the last one-shot I'll be posting before it's time for the sequel to My Everlasting Love, at least for now. There are a few other ones I need to post later on, but I believe this last two-shot is the perfect preparation for the sequel, which is called You Only Live Twice. I hope everyone will enjoy this, and as always: silent readers are silver, but reviewers are gold! –Mara.

Ever After (Part One)

When Mary took a deep breath and slowly opened her eyes, she was under the impression that she had closed them only a minute earlier. But that didn't really make a lot of sense. No, when she was trying to force her fuzzy brain to wake up, it felt more like she was waking up after a particular good night of sleep. She was about to lazily stretch her arms over her head when she began to realize that she wasn't lying in bed. Instead, she seemed to be floating around in a sea; apparently in shallow water, considering she was peacefully floating towards a sandy beach. Mary frowned and lifted her head to see where in Merlin's name she had ended up now. Unable to recall why she was here, it seemed the right course of action to first establish where and what she was doing here.

Mary crouched in the water. It was at that moment that she noticed she wasn't wearing any clothes. She instinctively wrapped her arms around her chest and frowned at the nearby beach, now only a few feet away. It stretched out as far as the eye could see, eventually shading into low and high dunes with marram grass on top. Mary shivered in the water (even though it wasn't all that cold). Where was she?

"If only I would have some robes," she thought. Almost instantly a pair of neatly folded cobalt blue dress robes appeared on the beach. If Mary had blinked she would have missed it, but now she had seen it appear out of nowhere. Right after she had been thinking about it… Was she in some kind of Room of Requirement?

Regardless, Mary knew it was time to investigate this beach, what she was doing here, and how she could find her way back home. She knew she had come to this place for a reason, but was unable put the pieces of the puzzle together. It felt like someone took a big chunk out of her memory so that a few crucial bits of information had gone missing. She slowly got up and walked the beach, picked up the robes (it reminded her of the silky-looking dresses the women of ancient Greece and Rome used to wear) and put it on. The dress fit her like it was a second skin, but Mary wasn't all too surprised about that. If this really was a room of requirement, it would have made no sense if it didn't fit.

But what an odd room of requirement this was. Mary turned around as she was slowly scanning her surroundings. She squinted when her eyes fell on… was that the roof terrace of the house where Sirius proposed? It sure looked like it. Mary smiled despite herself when she found herself standing on the roof only a moment later and automatically dropped her gaze to her hand, only to establish that her engagement ring wasn't there. She frowned. "What the…?"

She would never take that ring off on her own accord. Something must have happened to her. Something bad. Mary furrowed her brow in concentration as she forced her brain to think back. After a few vainly attempts she could finally recall some horrible images: a stormy Halloween, Sirius leaving on his bike, the hateful face of Bellatrix Lestrange, a guilty-looking Peter, Alison Zabini roughly forcing her down to the floor, a devastated Remus holding her hand, Bellatrix pointing her wand at a cot…

"Erin!"

Mary had called the last word aloud. Her voice echoed over the empty and peaceful roof terrace, but she wasn't feeling all that calm anymore. She had to find her daughter. Something was wrong, and although she didn't know what was going on, she did know she would feel better once she had found Erin. She blindly started to walk around the terrace, occasionally lifting flowerpots and moving plants back and forth, anything to find some kind of trail which would lead to her little girl.

Mary had only just lifted another flowerpot when she got the feeling that she was being watched. Crossing her fingers that Sirius had come looking for her and not some Death Eater, she turned to shoot the person a hopeful look. It wasn't Sirius. It wasn't even a man. The girl sitting on the edge at the other end of the terrace next to the fire escape had blonde hair, and although the girl was watching her curiously, Mary could – even from this distance – spot a certain sadness in her eyes. She didn't say anything, though, and after another uncomfortable moment of silence, Mary was forced to ask: "Can you help me?"

The girl, still eyeing her curiously, didn't reply immediately. "With what?" she asked eventually.

Mary frowned. That voice sounded strangely familiar. Surely that couldn't be… No, that was impossible. Dismissing the ridiculous thought from her mind, she said: "My daughter. A baby girl. She has to be around here somewhere. Can you help me find her?"

"You lost your child?"

Mary flushed. "No. Well, yes… But it's not what you think!"

"One would call that irresponsible."

"I only just woke up! I have no idea where I am…" Mary ran a nervous hand through her tangled wet hair. "I… I don't know what to do or where to go, but what I do know is that I have to find my baby girl."

"Erin's not here."

"I know that or I would have found her on my o-" She fell silent mid-sentence. "How do you know her name?"

The girl twisted a lock of her hair around her finger. "Didn't you tell me?"

"No."

The girl rubbed her nose. "Oh." She jumped off the edge and started walking towards a perplexed Mary. The way she walked, like her voice, seemed so familiar. With every step she took, her figure became more detailed, but it took another minute before Mary could finally see she had been right all along. "Brice!"

The girl smiled at her. "I knew you would catch on eventually. Hello Mary."

Mary walked towards her, positively aching to give her long lost friend a hug, but seemed to walk into an invisible barrier she could not cross. "What is this?"

"It's a barrier."

"I can feel that! Why is it here?"

"Because you still have to come to terms with your fate."

Mary stared at her in confusion, but realization eventually dawned on her. She could see (not even mention talk) to her friend, and she had been dead for quite some time. Therefore, she also had to be… "Brice…"

"Yes, Mary?"

"Am I dead?"

Brice shot her a look. "The fact that you're here and talking to me is a clear sign that you have, indeed, passed on. You can see me, right?"

"Yes."

She nodded grimly. "Then yeah, you moved on. To this place, that is. You're not exactly there yet."

Mary frowned, looking confused. "Where?"

"Hereafter, ever after, the next world, the great beyond. Whichever you prefer."

"So when will I get there?"

"As soon as you're at peace with what happened to you."

"Hmmm…" Mary said thoughtfully. "Is Erin there?"

"Yes, she's with Lily and Marlene."

"Okay, then I'm good to go." She nodded briskly and took a determined step to the barrier when Brice help up her hand. "What?"

"You don't know the entire story. It's… Look, I…" Brice signed and, not the for the first time, Mary saw a sincere sadness in her friend's amber eyes. "It's Sirius."

Mary closed her eyes. For a moment she had completely forgotten about the most important person in her life. "Oh God… He must be devastated that Erin and I passed away."

"Yes… He's devastated. Among other things…" Brice shot her a close look. "How much do you remember about what happened?"

Mary put her face in her hands. "Not much. Just some vague images of Bellatrix Lestrange, Peter, Remus. Something was wrong with Peter, I think. Did he get attacked too? I just don't know. My memory is all hazy."

"It will come back to you eventually."

She shot her friend a pleading look. "Well, until then, could you please give me a quick recap?"

"Sirius wasn't the Secret-Keeper. Peter switched places with him at the last moment. They, like James and Lily, thought it was the ultimate bluff and a way to keep you and Erin safe at the same time. It would have been, if it weren't for the fact that Peter was the traitor of the Order."

Mary gasped. "Oh yes, now I remember! Peter was there. He assisted the Lestranges on their mission to murder all the Order-babies and their parents in an attempt to revive Voldemort."

Brice nodded. "Exactly."

"But why does that have anything to do with Sirius?"

"No one else knows the truth, Mary. Our entire world thinks he betrayed the Potters."

Mary frowned. Something about that didn't make sense. She massaged her temples in order to remember something else, something important… "That's not true!" she exclaimed triumphantly when she finally remembered how and where she died. "I knew. Bellatrix's curse didn't kill me instantly, I was taken to St. Mungo's. Remus took me to St. Mungo's! I told him before I died, Brice. He knows!"

Her friend shot her an uneasy look. "No, he doesn't, Mary. He thought you were rambling because of the drugs and the shock you were in. He didn't realize you were telling the truth."

Mary stared at her friend, fists clenched at her side. "B-But he told me he would help... help Sirius." She swallowed with difficulty. "He lied to me," she whispered, feeling a tear slide down her cheek.

There was a flicker of annoyance in Brice's eyes. "You were talking nonsense, Mary! No one, not even Dumbledore, could have figured out what your incoherent babbling meant. And even if they did, who would believe it? Don't you dare call Remus a liar! He's suffering enough as it is."

"I didn't mean it like that. I just thought I found a way to save Sirius." She tiredly rubbed her eyes. "Speaking of that, where is he?"

Brice hesitated. "I… I'm not sure if I'm the right person to tell you."

"What do you mean? This only just happened, so I assume he's been taken into custody by the Ministry?"

"This didn't just happen," Brice said uncomfortably after another pause.

"What do you mean?"

"It's Spring. You died over six months ago."

Mary stared at her friend in shock. She suddenly felt like she was about to faint. Ignoring the rapidly multiplying dancing spots in front of her eyes, she flipped an empty flowerpot upside down and sat on it. She dropped her head between her knees and had to take some deep breaths before she managed to calm down. "Six months?" she asked, feeling bemused. "But how is that possible? It feels like I fell asleep a few hours ago."

"It takes every soul a different amount of time to get here," Brice explained. "Depending on how they die, how it makes them feel, if they're able to reconcile with their fate. Lily passed on rather quickly, whereas it took James over three months."

"Bloody hell, but six months? For Merlin's sake!"

Brice smiled sadly. "If it makes you feel any better, it took me about eight months before I was able to leave my haunting dreams of never-ending caves behind and move on."

"But wait, didn't Remus carry you outside?"

"That was just my body, not my soul. Look, you also need to know that time passes in a different way up here, so stop feeling bad about yourself, alright?"

"I'll try."

"You better. You have a tendency to feel guilty over things that aren't your fault."

She shot her a significant look and Mary felt her cheeks reddening fast. "Do you know I blamed myself for your death?"

Brice nodded grimly. "It was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard. Well, once I got here, of course. I didn't know it at the time. Gideon and Fabian had to fill me in on that one."

"Fabian and Gideon?" Mary asked. "They're here too?"

"Of course they are. They were my… ah, welcoming committee, if you will."

"Right. So how did it go?"

"They tried to make clear that this is not the end of the world and that it's far lovelier on the other side. Regular big parties with a never-ending stash of Butterbeer, unearthly beautiful people, you know the drill." Brice waved a dismissive hand before arching an eyebrow. "Come to think of it: they made it seem that being dead is like… The coolest thing ever."

Mary giggled and Brice grinned as she rolled her eyes. "They were right to some degree, though. It's not a punishment at all to be up there."

"So how did Fabian and Gideon feel about how I felt after you… passed on?"

"Gideon understood what you were going through to a certain extent, Fabian was mostly annoyed about it. And I agreed with him. How you worked out that what happened on Esha Ness was your fault is beyond me."

Mary sighed. "Looking back, I don't understand what I was thinking either. Remus and Sirius had to knock some sense in to me."

Brice sighed and fiddled with the hem of her sleeve for a moment. "Merlin, I miss Remus so much."

Mary got up from her seat and looked at Brice. "He missed you too. Still does. He just seems to be incomplete without you, you know. I suppose he'll always be that way," she said sadly.

Her friend suddenly smiled mysteriously and Mary lifted an eyebrow. "You know something I don't."

"You bet I do," she grinned. "I just happen to know that Remus will find happiness again at some point in his life. With a girl who can change her hair color at will."

"A Metamorphmagus?"

"Yeah."

"And you're cool with that? Him being with another woman, I mean?"

Brice arched her eyebrows. "You wouldn't want that for Sirius to happen?"

The honest answer to that question was: no. Mary would find it extremely hard (if not impossible) to ever picture Sirius with someone else but her. That was, if he ever got out of prison. She shrugged moodily and decided to drastically change the subject. "That's not really the point now, is it? Where is Sirius? I want to see him."

Brice shot her a concerned look. "Don't you think it would be better to wait with that until you feel stronger? He won't know you're there anyway."

She looked at her and noticed her friend was avoiding her gaze. "Brice," she demanded. "Where is he?"

"Azkaban."

Mary's stomach plummeted with force and she flopped back down on the flowerpot in shock. "No, no, no," she stammered, still looking perplexed, but already feeling the panic rise up in her throat fast. She noticed she had started to hyperventilate. "No, no… But he didn't betray any of us, he was just trying to protect me… he's innocent!"

"You know that and we know that. He probably still knows it too, but no one else does."

"Peter knows."

"Yes well, but if we have to wait until that rat goes all noble…"

Despite everything, Mary snorted. "Touché."

They sat in silence for a long time. It was Brice who finally broke it. "So… Ready to go?"

Mary turned and frowned at her. "I thought you said it wasn't possible…"

"You now know the whole story and are still at peace. Therefore, your soul can cross the border."

She huffed. "It doesn't feel like I'm at peace."

Brice sighed, and Mary knew her well enough to know she was starting to lose her patience. "Do you want to visit Sirius or not?"

"Yes!"

"You can only do that if your soul is one, and that's only possible when you're on my side of the ah... In your case, shall we shall pond?"

Mary nodded slowly and got up once more. She shot Brice a look, who held out her hand. "I'm ready," she said solemnly before taking her friend's hand and stepping towards her.

"Welcome home," Brice said and they hugged close for a moment.

"Did I have to touch you to cross over?"

Brice shook her head, laughing. "Nah, you just had to feel it, but I thought you could use a hand."

Mary let go and looked around. The beach had morphed into a flowery field. She shot a look over her shoulder. "How do I reach Sirius?"

"Are you sure that's what you want to do right now? Don't you want to see Erin?"

Mary shot a longing look ahead, feeling a strong urge to hold her daughter in her arms, when her thoughts turned back to Sirius. "She'll be safe with Lily," she said. "How do I do this?"

"It's like Apparating. Close your eyes and think about his current whereabouts and that you want to find him. You'll fade away here and appear there. Just remember, Mary: he won't know you're there and you cannot stay down there forever."

"How long-"

"-It's different every time."

Mary nodded grimly, stepped back and closed her eyes. She thought strongly of Azkaban and that an innocent Sirius was locked up in there. All by himself, surrounded by several convicted Death Eaters and Dementors. He needed her more now than ever before, and although she wasn't exactly sure how she – being dead and all – could make any difference, she was more than determined to help him in every way she thought possible.

-End of Part One-