Title: Here There Be Monsters

Pairing: Established Sirius/Remus

Rating: M

Summary: "My father told me once that the most important thing every man should know is what he would die for." But dying for someone is not the most difficult sacrifice a person can make. SBRL Non-canon compliant.

Warnings: Sirius lives! Graphic displays of intimacy between men in later chapters. Also some angst.

Notes: From the strange mind that brought the fanfiction world terrible, humorously poetic, perverted bubbles. Be patient with my imagination.

Right, so the idea for this rudely attacked me while I was trying to get to sleep one fateful night and it hasn't left me alone since. This is the long story that I've promised and I've been writing frantically at it. Pre-written chapters will be uploaded in regular installments while I continue to write the ones after those. I'm being strict with myself to take my time with this one as I really want to get it right, so criticisms and praise are treasured alike. Encouraging reviews do my James-sized ego wonders ;)

The connection with the title will be explained in later chapters.

Quote in summary credited to Tana French.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Chapter 1: Sacrifices From The Heart Are Dearest Of All.

"Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it."
- J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

OOOOOO

It was not something that he had planned.

Remus Lupin was a logical man; a patient, persevering thinker who took refuge in the safety of reason and planning. But not today. There was no time for taking refuge in logic or planning. There was time only for action to satiate the ravenous hunger of grief. He needed to act and act rashly.

It was not something that he had planned.

His footsteps were quick and unhesitant in the dark hall and he neither listened for sounds of unexpected movement, nor looked askance for unwanted interference. He knew the way and that was all that consumed his mind. Nightmares and dreams had brought him here too often and not often enough. The familiarity, however, did not lessen the anxiety. Again, anxiety was something he did not have the time for.

The rooms deepest in the Department of Mysteries were the ones with the harshest, most unnerving chill in the air, invading lungs like a sinister gas, bringing bone-deep tremors to the most resilient of witches and wizards. Indeed, the room that Remus had now stepped into made his limbs feel stiff and reluctant with cold, his insides trembling with a cold dependent not on temperature and his legs quivering with the instinct to retreat. He pushed on, regardless. He'd fought sorrow and regret too long to be deterred now, when he was standing before the very thing that had stolen life and love from him – the same thing that would now return it.

The veil fluttered before him, a life, a breath, a voice of its own, beckoning to him, unintelligible whispers playing on his most heartfelt desires and hopes. Today was the day that he would yield to such temptation. And he was the more determined for it.

He held out his hand before himself and raised his wand to his palm, grimacing when his spell sliced into his flesh and sharp stinging pain flowed up his arm. He was always surprised to experience physical pain now; after everything he'd experienced he sub-consciously believed that physical harm was no longer painful to him and he was unerringly surprised whenever he was proven wrong. He clenched his fist, feeling his lip curl back as the hot, slippery blood seeped from the deep cut and the contrast of the tickling of blood on his palm and the pain that tore up his arm slightly unsettled him. The sacrifice was necessary, however, and it was comparatively small and insignificant to what he planned to do next.

He opened his fist and stretched his arm out in front of him, palm outwards as if halting an invisible foe. He hesitated for a mere moment of contemplation before pushing through the veil, palm first for the necessary blood sacrifice.

He had thought that he would feel cold and that he would experience the sensation of falling into darkness, but he was wrong. There was no sensation at all. No darkness, no cold, no sense of gravity or lack of gravity. There was not even the absence of feeling or sight as that would be something. There was just...nothing. He even found himself unable to comprehend such as thing as 'nothing' as thoughts would have given substance to that which was not there. In fact, he couldn't even feel unsettled by that.

Then sharp tingling, running from the cut on his palm and up his arm. Gradually, feeling began to run from his palm up to his arm and around the rest of the body, and he realised that he had not in fact been breathing or living, as he knew it, before. Just as he was beginning to feel emotions coming back to him, fear and determination vying for first in his heart, his feet connected with something solid. His knees did not buckle with his own unexpected weight, and his eyes did not feel the need to adjust to the brightness; it was all just there.

Though his emotions did not seem to have the same neutralizing restrictions as he felt himself freeze in shock at what he saw.

He was standing in a room almost identical to the room with the veil and archway in the Department of Mysteries, where he had just been. But on the dais sat a small boy. He did not need a mirror to know that the boy was a younger version of himself.

The younger Remus was very small, not older than seven or eight and he swung his skinny little legs back and forth rhythmically, the heel of his scuffed shoes hitting the dais with a steady thump thump thump as he did so; an action that Remus vaguely remembered had grated on his mother's nerves and was one that he did whilst young whenever he'd been deep in thought. However, the boy did not look deep in thought. His bright amber eyes were lit up with curiosity and Remus thought he detected the slightest glint of mischief in the steady childlike smile.

"You're here for him, aren't you?"

Heart thudding madly at the small, vulnerable voice, Remus found his voice escape in only a whisper of, "Yes".

He thought he heard the thumping of his younger self's shoes speed up but he couldn't be sure. In any case, the child gave no other indication that Remus' words meant anything to him.

"What if he doesn't want you to be here for him?"

Remus faltered. This was something that he'd not allowed himself to contemplate as the idea was too gut wrenching, too painful. Sirius had said nothing but death could keep him from him, Remus, and this was not death. Sirius would come back to him. He would always come back. No matter what it took, he would always come back.

"He's needed there. Harry needs him".

Remus was surprised to find his voice a little louder and steady despite the gaping hole in his explanation. Harry was not the only one who needed Sirius.

The child cocked his head to the side slightly, as if regarding him on a new level and answered, "But how are you going to get him back?"

Remus felt desperation start to claw at his insides but he kept his outer appearance calm.

"Whatever it takes I'll do it. Whatever sacrifice needs to be made will be mine".

"What about your own life?"

The words seemed so wrong and disturbing coming from the young version of himself with the sweet, innocent smile and childish demeanor, but Remus was prepared for this question and had dwelt on it for too long to be hesitant about his answer.

"Yes. My own life for his, willingly given".

"What about mine?"

Remus stiffened and stared at the small figure, confused as to what it was implying.

"I'm not sure I know what you mean".

The boy laughed freely, amber eyes bright and his high-pitched, childish giggles strangely transformed in Remus' eyes as menacing and all-too knowing.

The boy stopped laughing gradually and answered, his smile wide, "You can't lie to me anymore, Remus. Now tell me: would you give my life for his?"

Remus felt dread rise in his throat – he honestly didn't know what was being asked of him. How could he sacrifice the life of his younger self? Would that mean that he would never have lived? Or would it mean that a part of him would die?

"I – yes, I don't know what you mean but whatever it is, I would do it. For him, I would do it".

The child abruptly stopped swinging his legs and his smile dwindled to a much sadder, wistful smile that looked far too old and weary for someone so young.

"You could have me, you know. You could live your life again, start from young and do things differently and have all the things that you've ever dreamed of. You could change the night that you became a werewolf, you could save yourself all the years of pain", Remus started, freezing as he felt temptation niggling at his mind, even as his younger self continued to speak, "You could have everything you ever wanted. The only sacrifice you would need to make is that he cannot come back with you, he cannot live his life again as you would".

Remus felt his mind spin through his thoughts frantically. All the heartache and pain he could save himself and others from; this boy was offering him the chance to live his life as a normal, happy person. He would be able to see a full moon through human eyes and never experience that unbearable pain ever again. He could be a real person, escaping the prejudice of the wizarding world and get a real job and not be so afraid and wary all the time. His parents wouldn't have to sacrifice everything that they had for a son that brought them guilt and sadness every time they looked at him, and his friends would never have to bear the burden of his secret or make the sacrifices that they had to help him. But would any of it really be the same without Sirius? Would he ever be truly happy knowing what he'd given up? The loyalty and often frighteningly intense love that he'd been blessed with when staring back into Sirius' eyes – was that now a necessity for life? And more importantly, it wasn't his right to give up this chance for Sirius and for Harry, and as he discovered, for himself.

"I can't do that", he surprised himself with his calm, determined voice, "I came here to send Sirius back to where he's meant to be – whatever the cost, to give up my life if I had to and that includes this".

His younger self stared at him, deep eyes boring into his own for what felt like an age but somehow felt like not long enough. The burning amber eyes, identical to his own, felt as if they stared right into the very depths of his soul, carefree, childlike smile completely gone and the small face now a mask of sorrow and hurt. Remus wanted to help him, he wanted to relieve all the pain and anguish he knew the child would experience with his decision and he felt the burning, irrepressible urge to apologize and tell the boy that he took it back, that he would sacrifice anything for him. But he remained silent.

Then something out of the corner of Remus' eye caught his attention. In the archway behind the boy was Sirius. However, it was not Sirius as he knew him.

He was a boy, no older than the young Remus sitting, motionless and quite unperturbed by the naked boy seeming to float just beyond the veil behind him. Sirius' eyes were closed and he looked almost as if he were sleeping. Then he began to change. The limbs grew, stretching and twisting smoothly to form an older, larger body; that of a teenager. He continued to change, face and body rapidly growing hair and growing to form a man, the man that Remus had known before Azkaban, the man that he had loved limitlessly before the years of torment. He felt his heart clench painfully at the sight, emotions crowding within him until he wasn't sure what he was feeling anymore. And then Sirius was steadily changing again, growing older but gracefully so, without the crippling influence of Azkaban, growing into the mature aged and then old man he should have eventually become, had fate been kinder. And then before Remus' eyes, he was shrinking, skin smoothing and becoming hairless again as he transformed into a small baby. The process began again and Remus stared, transfixed in awe and wonder as the baby became a boy again, until the young Remus' voice, high and childlike but clear and wise beyond its years, spoke smoothly and evenly.

"A sacrifice made with a heart that spoke purest love, so now purest love for love's sake the heart must willingly sacrifice".

Remus' eyes fell to the deep amber of his younger self, eyes full of pain, sorrow and a determination he recognised as very much his own, before he tore his eyes away again and looked back to Sirius to see a mature man, grey eyes looking back at him.

The next thing he knew, he was being pulled back by an unseen force, the small dejected figure of the boy and the archway getting smaller and smaller, the whispers from behind the veil intensifying to thunderous, inaudible roars until Remus couldn't hear himself shouting for Sirius over them. The world twisted and blurred into cold blackness, roaring wind whipping around him before he fell hard to the cold, stone floor of the Department of Mysteries room, the veil once again whispering innocently behind him.

The last thing he saw before the room swam before his eyes and the blackness of unconsciousness claimed him, were clear, grey eyes, looking deep into his own, confused and worried but wonderfully alive.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

My deepest apologies: spellcheck is fucking with me something terrible and I've always been averse to the idea of having a beta for myself. My head is so fat with pride that I'm surprised I can fit through doorways. :/ Someone needs to deflate it, but for now I'll stick with my idiotic mistakes D: Sorry!

Also, I've just started writing another very long, SBRL fic, an AU one this time. Just a couple of weeks before I start university too. What is my life? Never fear, I shall neglect neither this story nor that one and I will write frantically with all the spare time that I have as writing is one of the few things that truly makes me happy. That being said, it will likely be a week or less between updates once I run out of pre-written chapters.

Reviews make my day!

:)