June, 1996

Remus stepped into Grimmauld Place. He took off his shoes. He left them on the mat. He looked at the door. He turned away from the door. He went down the stairs and into the basement kitchen.

He saw Sirius sitting at the table, reading the Prophet, in that red bathrobe and those god awful old slippers. He hummed as he read. Milk dripped off his spoon, no cereal upon it but Sirius never cared about that.

"Hello, Moony," he said brightly, grinning. "Didn't hear you come in. Everything go all right at the Ministry?"

Sirius wasn't in the kitchen. Remus was alone in the kitchen. Why wasn't Sirius in the kitchen? Where was Sirius?

"Good morning, Moony," said Sirius again in the same tone. He looked up from the newspaper for the first time – the second time – the first time. It was as though he hadn't spoken when Remus had seen him just a second ago. "Didn't hear you come in."

Sirius wasn't in the kitchen. Where was Sirius?

Remus decided it was time to look for him someplace else.

He walked back up the staircase and was vaguely aware that his neck hurt. He realized his shoulders were hunched and tense. He tried to relax them. He found he couldn't. He had to find Sirius.

Where was Sirius?

He went upstairs to Sirius' room and knocked softly on the door. It opened under his touch. Sirius had forgotten to close it on his haste to get out the door. Remus could see him now, pulling on a pair of shorts with careful and graceful movement. He turned away from the closet with a shirt in his hands and started at the sight of Remus. "Moony!" he began, then gave a knowing smile. "Shouldn't sneak up on a bloke. Not that you saw anything you haven't seen before, but –"

The room was empty and cold and the covers on his bed were rumpled. A window open. Curtains floating in the breeze. Where was Sirius? Remus had seen him just a second ago.

He walked toward the window and stuck his head outside it. The air was fresh. It looked like rain. He came back in and realized he was kneeling on Sirius' bed. He jumped off with horror and felt inexplicably angry with himself, like he had just committed blasphemy, like he was damned forever, but ah, wasn't it a bit late for that?

He left Sirius' room and shut the door carefully behind him. He went up to see Buckbeak. Remus saw Sirius feeding the Hippogriff, humming happily, and Sirius wasn't there.

Where was Sirius? He had to be somewhere.

Remus swallowed and walked back downstairs. He stepped into the drawing room. There were two chairs in front of the fire. The curtain flapped at the open window. Remus was drawn to it, and stuck his head out again, feeling the first drops of a cool summer rain on his face. He stood there for a long time, veil – curtains, that is, curtains – flapping behind him. He glanced behind him and suddenly saw Sirius sitting in one of the armchairs, staring at the fireplace in which there was no fire, simply staring, eyes blank, hands tight on the arms of the chair, and he was thinking about Azkaban, which meant he was thinking about very little at all, and Remus had to save him from that. He sat down opposite Sirius and offered a smile.

"I've been looking everywhere for you," he said quietly.

Sirius jolted out of his reverie and looked at Remus. He was looked younger; there were fewer lines in his face and his teeth weren't as yellow and his hair was lighter, fluffier, and Remus felt the insane desire to run his fingers through it. "Oh, hello, Remus," Sirius said quietly. "Fire's quite nice, isn't it?"

Remus stared sadly. "I loved you, you know."

Sirius' eyes were sad. He flickered – thirty-six years old, seventeen years old, twenty-one years old, then somewhere in the middle again. "I know."

"Don't lie. Don't you lie. Don't you fucking lie to me." Now Remus gripped the chair and his voice shook and he felt such anger at Sirius for leaving him, his hair stood on end, a growl threatened to escape from his throat, he was almost the wolf and Sirius didn't care. Sirius only stared with sad, sad eyes.

"I'm not lying," Sirius said. He was thirty-six again. "I know. I know you loved me, because I loved you and I watched you and you loved me."

"No," he said. "I never told you. I haven't told you for years, not since…" and Sirius was twenty-one, Remus' favourite Sirius and the one he hated for thirteen years for making him love him. "How could you know?" he asked desperately.

"Remus, think of who you're talking to," he said, smile sad enough to match his eyes. "It's me. It's just me. I know every inch of you, so don't."

A whine escaped his throat: involuntarily, desperately. "Why are you calling me Remus? Why won't you call me Moony?"

"I play with Moony. I talk with Remus." Sirius reached out and grasped Remus' hand; Remus' hand convulsed against air and tears stung at his eyes. "We loved each other and that was all. We both knew I couldn't make you happy, not after Azkaban. We tried and we failed. But we loved each other. We can't love each other now."

"Don't say that," he whispered, tears falling in earnest, a lump in his throat stopping sound. "I love you now."

Sirius flickered, not in age this time, but in corporeality. He came back with that sad smile, mixed in with a grimace. "You can't love a man who's not there."

Remus' breath hitched against his will. "Where are you, Sirius?"

Sirius smiled, more warmly this time, and the muscles in his hand made a squeezing gesture against Remus' but he felt nothing but the breeze coming in through the window. "I'm simply not here."

"But where are you?"

"I loved you, and I knew. Don't ever forget." Sirius kept smiling and stayed motionless as he flickered once, twice, over again, hand slipping from Remus' grip, going back in time, thirty-six to twenty-one to seventeen to fifteen… "I loved you, Remus."

"Sirius, no! Sirius! Sirius!"

And then he was gone.

Where was

The truth hit Remus like a spell to the chest. He ached. He placed a hand over his heart and rubbed to try to make the ache go away.

"I'm simply not here."

The ache wasn't leaving.

"I loved you, and I knew."

He rubbed harder.

"I loved you, Remus."

Unsteady hands launched him from the chair. His feet moved and his heart ached, it ached, please stop aching

He was staring into Sirius' room again. The covers were still thrown carelessly aside. Knee marks wrinkled the sheets where Remus had poked his head out the window, looking for Sirius through the curtains. Through the veil.

He realized his face was getting wet with warm drops and cold. He was crying into the rain, looking for Sirius. He climbed back inside and looked at the bed beneath him. He'd mussed up the bed again – should it be, be left alone? If Sirius wanted it that way, then that's how it should have stayed. How could Remus have been so foolish?

He grasped onto the headboard for support, no longer sure of his own sturdiness, and he wept. He wept for all the times he could have told him but didn't. He wept for all the times he wanted to kiss him but didn't. He wept for all the things he thought of to save him, both after the fact and at the time… but didn't.

His face was on Sirius' pillow, and it smelled of him. Remus clung onto it like it was the only thing keeping him alive and lay on Sirius' bed, wishing there was another body to warm him up as he had wished so often when he was alive but didn't ever pursue, a body to make this ache go away, a gorgeous, muscular body that he fit into just right like they were pieces of a bloody puzzle to tell him he was loved and to whom he could tell the same.

But no matter how many times he begged the pillow through his tears and mourning to tell him where Sirius was, there was no body.

There would never be a body.