Author's Note: Harry Potter and the rest is to J.K. Rowling. This idea came from the image stuck in my cousin's mind concerning The Order of the Phoenix.

And So The Clock Ticks

What Remus could remember about Sirius best was his smile. A decade and more in Azkaban had not been able to take that away from Sirius Black, unlike the rest of his life and maybe even a bit of his sanity. Two years ago, when Sirius had run away from the infamous wizard prison, the Ministry had put up posters in hopes of Black getting caught before he could catch up with Harry Potter. That was a bad time for Remus, worse than his first lycanthropy or when his friends had accosted him about his monthly disappearances from Hogwarts, because then he can't even get out of his house without seeing Sirius again, remember things best left alone, the gaunt face that used to be so full of life blinking, blinking up at him.

It was a memory of a nightmare. The fear and anger getting lost among the pain and confusion, and he couldn't remember anymore what parts of it triggered what emotion. Betrayed, Remus hated it that Sirius can still look at him like that, living haunting the living although Remus was pretty sure neither of them was really much alive anymore. One time he pulled a poster off from the wall and started to tear it up, in private, thinking of Sirius Black as he had been at Hogwarts, and then afterwards, joining the Order of the Phoenix. The same boy who had helped Remus through his countless Potions disasters and who had held his hand the whole night after the rest of the Marauders found out about his 'furry problem'. That same boy who grovelled and pleaded for Remus to forgive him after getting another student almost killed (even if that student was the horrible Snape), that was the boy who betrayed his best friend. The boy who swore against evil and all the Dark Arts who proved to be as Black as his name. The boy that Remus didn't feel like he'd known at all.

And then before Remus knew it, he was crumpling the poster into a small ball, crumpling and not tearing it to pieces and knew that he couldn't really hate Sirius Black after all.

He didn't need to. And he couldn't have explained to anyone how exactly he had felt like when he saw Peter's name in the Marauder's Map and put all the rest of the puzzle pieces together in his head. Same puzzle and same pieces, but put together differently this time and he had to kick himself afterwards for forgetting what time of the month it was in his haste to see Sirius Black, who was indeed the same person Remus had known all along. Only older now, and with haunted look that Remus had never thought would rest comfortably on such a proud and beautiful face. But never broken, that much was evident. And when he gave Remus a ghost of a grin, like the echo of his old smiles, Remus felt the same warm feeling of being safe, of belonging. And for the first time in a while Remus felt like everything can become right again. Not as everything had been right before, but a shifting of the balance, and that smile was something like light at the end of the tunnel for him.

A decade and more spent in Azkaban that had made Sirius' smile brittle as the most delicate glass, the refracted light that was all the more beautiful because it was imperfect.

And now, sitting on Sirius' bed after that battle at the Department of Mysteries, Remus tried not to think of all that he'd lost. Truly lost now, and he wondered if it would have been better if Sirius had stayed in Azkaban, safe and hated by Remus Lupin who wouldn't have known any better, wouldn't have known what he'd missed.

There was that picture of the Marauders back when they were still students at Hogwarts on the wall with Sirius' posters of Muggle women. Smiles and ghost of smiles, and Remus could remember Sirius' grin when he showed the rest of the Marauders those posters. Not that Sirius acted like he was particularly interested in anything else but getting in trouble, and the posters had been nothing more than another way to thumb his nose at his mother, who had started trying to get them off the wall the very moment Sirius went back to school.

So the last thing Remus saw of Sirius Black was his smile, the arrogant laughter that never ceased to anger Bellatrix his cousin, before the veil could hide all that away from Remus and everything else besides.

He did not think on it. Rather focused on that time, dinner down at the basement kitchen with Harry and the rest. The Weasley twins setting the table and nearly cutting off Sirius' hand with a knife in the process. That was what Remus saw, in his mind's eye, Sirius laughing as the twins apologized. A person who can laugh after that.

"I thought I'd find you here."

Remus turned around, seeing Tonks standing at the doorway of Sirius' room and the worried expression on her face that was starting to blur in with the rest of everyone else's face. They all wore that same expression when they looked at Remus, walking around him on tiptoes, wondering if he'll break down, and when.

"I'll be down shortly."

"Would it hurt you terribly to cry?" she said, softly. "Sometimes, that's the only way...."

Remus smiled, shaking his head. "Let's go. Molly's probably worried sick."

And he was still smiling when he closed the door behind him and Tonks because that was what Sirius would have expected of him. Because that was what Sirius would have done, and Remus had failed his friend for such a long time he could only do so much, at least. Picking up the pieces, the shattered glass of his smile, shining brightly.