"If you were given the chance to do anything you wanted, what would you do?" The other three marauders all looked up from their activities to stare at Sirius. He was weird that way. Everyone would think he was just mindlessly staring off into space, but then he would ask questions or say things that forced the people around him to think deeply. It was vaguely unsettling.
James stared at him from behind his chess/exploding snap game he was playing with Peter. "What?"
Sirius repeated his question, still looking up at the maroon ceiling. "If you were given the chance to do anything in the world you wanted, what would you do?"
"Easy," James answered sitting up straight, "I would live forever."
Sirius turned his head so that he could give James a wondering look. "Are you sure?" He nodded. "That would be a horrible existence." The others gave him strange faces. Sirius flipped on his side in the chair, letting look at everybody comfortably. "Think about it. You live on forever. Everyone you know around you ages then dies. You will never really age. If you get married, your spouse would eventually become angered that they alone must grow old. They will leave you to suffer on eternity alone. It would be a painful and dead existence."
Remus tried to think of something that could in no way have a down side. "I would want to know anything and everything possible. Whether it was written down or by word of mouth."
Sirius flipped onto his back returning to his hobby of staring up at the endless ceiling. "That seems as though it would be a tortuous life. Knowing anything and everything possible would make you the main target for attention. People would want to know when they will die, the next best financial move, if there really is a God or something. Even if you could mentally control all that information and willingly tell people, how could you deal with telling someone that they're going to die in less than a week, that their baby will be a still born, that-that the person they truly love, will betray them, and essentially kill them. How could handle all that pressure?"
Once again Sirius had put a dark damper on what would normally be a relaxing, cheery, evening. James and Remus both looked at Peter, hoping that he would rescue them from this awkward conversation.
"I would like a lifetime pass to Honeyduke's and of their candies. There! Try making that depressing!"
Sirius looked at him with a straight, stoic face before bursting out in laughter. "That's a good one Pete!"
Looking rather pleased with himself, Peter turned back to the chess/exploding snap game he and James were playing, as Remus returned to burying himself in one of the gigantic books he borrows from the library.
Sirius looked back up at the ceiling, contemplatively. Remus poked his head and looked over at him. "What would you want Sirius?"
With out missing a beat he responded. "I would want to die." This brought the two others out of their game. "It's easy. It's simple. It's cruel and it's selfish. Basically it proves that I'm human."