It was three AM, and Sirius was not going to fall asleep.
He was curled up on the most comfortable sofa in the common room (probably too comfortable, in fact), attempting to read A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration, a book so heavy his legs were falling asleep and so dull the rest of him was as well. The words were swimming across the page like so many confused minnows, but he was going to finish this chapter...
He was broken from his reverie by footsteps across the room. "Sirius?" Remus had descended from the boys' tower, and he shuffled over to Sirius' couch, flopping down beside him. "'S three in the morning. What the hell," he said flatly.
"Studying," Sirius said as distastefully as one could while suppressing a yawn. "You got any idea where we can get Mandrake leaves?"
Remus peered over at the book. "Slughorn's prob'ly got them, why?"
Sirius gestured at a passage. "According to this, you've got to keep one in your mouth for a month to become an Animagus."
"You're not serious?" Remus said, furrowing his brow.
"I wish. I mean, I can barely read at this hour, much less something probably written in the middle fucking ages, but try and figure out what else this is s'posed to mean."
Remus shook his head, staring off into the distance distractedly. "You know, you really don't have to do this. The Animagi thing, I mean."
Sirius frowned at him. "I know I don't. But you're my friend."
Remus leaned over and kissed him.
Suddenly, Sirius felt more awake then ever before.
It was at once very sudden and something that had been years in the making. Unexpected in the moment, but an eventuality. Somewhere in the back of their minds, they'd always known they'd end up this way, lips interlocked, Remus gently running his hand through Sirius' hair, Sirius closing his eyes, a soft sigh of content escaping him. Sirius cupping Remus' jaw in his hand, and Remus simply melting into him. In any universe, under any circumstances, these two would somehow manage to fall in love despite it all.
This, Sirius knew, would be the memory he'd conjure Patronuses with. This would be the thought he'd hold close as tenderly as Remus' hand on his darkest days in Grimmauld Place.
They managed to hold each other like this for an unreasonably long amount of time, breaking apart for a moment to breathe, then falling back together again. Even when they were finally through, they remained entangled with each other, Sirius sleepily resting his head on Remus' shoulder and Remus tousling a strand of his hair. They didn't say anything- they didn't need to. They'd kind of said it all.
It was an unusual place to wait for death in. The walls were plastered with moving posters in neon colors, a massive hot pink one depicting a conjured buffalo falling atop a bewildered wizard, captioned, "ENUNCIATE." A bookshelf dominated the east wall, filled with thick volumes and probably every book Miranda Goshawk had ever written. The room was only illuminated by moonlight seeping through the large window, which was barred over with iron spiderwebs.
Sirius lounged before the window in Flitwick's unreasonably high floating chair, surveying what he could see of the grounds. He had no word of what had become of Harry, the other two, or Remus- when they'd brought him to the office, Flitwick had refused to say a word to him, shaking with fear or fury at what his former pupil had become. (Snape had also denied him news- Sirius had given him the finger when his back was turned, which had made him feel a little better, but not much.) He was hoping, but only half heartedly, to catch a glimpse of Remus before-
Someone rapped on the door.
"We're coming in now," said a low voice. "We're armed with our wands, so don't try anything."
Sirius didn't dignify them with a response. What was he going to do, fistfight them? He hadn't had his wand in twelve years.
A pause. "The dementor is with us."
And Sirius' blood ran cold.
The door creaked open, letting in a bare flicker of torchlight that only made the scene more ominous. Cornelius Fudge entered, his omnipresent bowler hat for once absent, exposing his bald spot. Dumbledore came in beside him, his face neutral, but there was something regretful in his eyes. And behind Dumbledore was the dementor.
It moved towards him with a menacing sort of slowness, the kind that implied it wouldn't hurry because it didn't have to. Its prey was going nowhere.
It stopped just a foot or two before him, not nearly enough space- Sirius had barely noticed, but he'd instinctively backed away from it, pressing himself up against the window. It was near enough now for him to feel its hot, ragged breath on his face.
"Any last words?" Dumbledore asked softly. Sirius didn't think he was able to speak.
"Right then," Fudge said with an air of let's-get-this-over-with. "Dementor? You may kiss him."
And finally, slowly, slowly, it drew back its tattered hood.
In all his years in Azkaban, Sirius had never seen what was beneath a dementor's hood. Now he realized that if he had, he wouldn't have lasted this long. It was the dark gray of factory smoke and polluted rivers, solidified into something that looked almost comically like a Muggle child's rendition of a ghost. It had no eyes, just shallow depressions where the sockets ought to be- no nose to speak of, either. But it had a mouth, and it was open.
Sirius was slumped on the ground now, curled in a tight ball. How was he supposed to fight this? A happy memory? At this moment, he wasn't sure if he'd ever had a happy memory in his life. He thought of James, of Lily, and especially of Remus, but all he could see was James and Lily sprawled on the ground, lifeless, Remus in the forest right now, clawing his own skin to shreds, and what they'd tell him when he finally limped back to the castle. Sirius wondered who'd break the news to Remus that he was gone.
He felt a sudden flutter in his chest, like a second heartbeat. It spasmed there for a moment before rising up to the base of his throat. He weakly attempted to force it back down, but to no avail. The thing rose higher with an odd tingling sensation rather like a limb falling asleep. And then, suddenly as anything, his soul was gone.
Sirius' head lolled back, hollow and stupid. The dementor, satisfied, departed, leaving the body that once was Sirius Black on the floor behind it.