.prologue.
He was falling, through years and centuries and millennia, dropping, rotating and spinning towards nothing. His back arched into an unnatural shape, an indicator of the most physical sense that earthly concepts no longer applied.
He wasn't really aware or conscious, shit, he wasn't even alive. There was some kind of sense he had that told him he was simply there. That, in some crazy, parallel universe, he existed.
The air was thick around him, sucking everything he'd ever remembered or seen or experienced along with him, stripping him bare, although somehow lifting his chest and releasing all those memories from his conscience, releasing the guilt or hate or shame.
It felt almost as if it did when he took some of those crazy muggle drugs with Remus that one time after seventh year, and they'd felt so detached and alone, and couldn't feel each other even though they were touching for twelve bloody hours. Those little orange tablets had lifted Sirius up, up and away just the way he felt now, except he was falling and falling and just not crashing.
And somewhere back from where he had come, he was faintly aware of Harry, and he was aware of wanting to yell back to him, envelope him with his arms in a show of brotherly love and tell him it was different, he wasn't really lost...
But he was alone.