Bad Faith Island
A Harry Potter Pirate Story
by VG Jekyll

21. The Lost Souls
Dedicated to: USAcat

Sirius watches his godson wearily. The boy-or should he say 'man', by Merlin, and he had missed out on the boy growing up!-is pacing back and forth on deck next to the railing, looking frequently up to gaze out over the sea.

Déjà vu; hadn't Colin been doing the exact same thing?

Sirius put comforting a hand on Harry's shoulder, noticing the short flinch going through the young man's body at the contact. "Who are you looking for?" he asks.

"A thief."

"A what?" Sirius asks startled, not having expected this answer.

Harry smiles sadly at him. "He stole my heart…"

He?

"He stole my heart and I want it back!" Harry suddenly stares piercing at his godfather. "We have to find him, Siri!" he persists.

"We're doing all we can, Harry. But you know that it might be a futile search. It was already a miracle that we were able to find you. I think we should go after that treasure-I mean, your father wouldn't have wanted Voldemort to get his hands on it."

"I don't care about the bloody treasure! We have to find Draco!" Harry hisses venomously, his eyes flashing brilliantly. Sirius takes startled a step back and then sighs.

"We shall try for a bit longer, but I can't promise anything."

Harry gives him a short nod and stares out over the water again, desperation showing in both his stance as his eyes.

At sunset, the young ship less captain finally has to come into terms that he might not see his Draco ever again.

"I'm sorry Harry; you will have to give up on him." Harry pretends not to hear him, but Sirius knows better.

"We're heading for Acromantula; perhaps you'd better rest right now. Who knows what may happen on that blasted island."

"He's not dead, Sirius," his godson tells him, quite certainly.

"If you say so," Sirius can't hide the doubt in his voice.

"I was hoping that even if we didn't find him, we'd still be able to find-" he chokes on his sentence as he finally can't stop the tears from leaving his eyes.

"Find who?" Sirius demands to know, thinking there's something fishy going on here. Harry can't look him in the eyes as he utters only one name.

"Remus."

It feels as if all the air is knocked out of Sirius's lungs and he gasps for air as dark spots start to swirl in front of his vision.

Sirius laughed at his friend's antics, but then his attention was drawn to someone else. "Moony," he breathed and the other just raised a hand in greeting.

He stared daunted at his longtime friend, a boy when he had left on a ship some months ago, a man now. Sirius took startled a step forwards and watched how his friend jumped gracefully down and strode the last few meters to Sirius.

"Moony," Sirius repeated softly as he stared up at Remus, noticing that the werewolf had become a few inches taller than him. Remus grinned at him, whirled around to send several throwing knives to people that were attacking his crew, and turned back to Sirius.

"Missed me?" Remus asked playfully, only to have Sirius pounce on him and hug the air out of his lungs.

"You-? He-? Remus wasn't on board, was he? I heard that wrong, right? Right?" Sirius asks desperately, but Harry sighs and one look in the now dull green eyes makes Sirius' heart ice cold.

Remus just had just been through a terrible transformation. Aboard 'Lily's Revenge', in the bowels of the ship was a cage where he had his monthly transformations. Sirius had come down when the transformation was over and he helped Remus out of the cage, wrapping a warm blanket around the poor werewolf's shivering body.

"You alright Moony?"

"What do you think!" growled Remus and stumbled with Sirius help towards a cabin where Sirius would be able to treat his wounds.

Sirius was just wrapping bandages around the amber-eyed man's arm when his attention to the task was broken by a soft whisper. "Padfoot, I've been thinking… James and Lily want to get married, and it's great for them! But,it made me think…"

"About what?"

"I want that too."

Sirius halted in his actions, not sure if he had heard his friend right. Did he just say what he thought he had said?

"Get married?" he asked hesitantly.

"No," Remus shook his head. "To have someone to love, to hold, to be with me when I need them…"

"Oh," Sirius had no idea how to react to that. What could he do when his friend told him something like this, when he himself wished to be the one who filled that place in Remus' life? Sirius yearned to be with him, love him, hold him when Remus needed him.

"And I realized something," Remus continued, staring blankly in front of him as Sirius tried to continue wrapping the cloth around his arm.

"What?" Sirius asked, trying to sound as his normal self.

"I already have someone like that in my life."

That statement hurt. Remus already had someone? Sirius tried to act indifferent. "Oh, like who?"

Remus turned his head to gaze at him. "You," he whispered softly, the emotion in his voice startling Sirius to the depths of his being.

"What? Who? Me?"

He has got to be kidding me!

Remus nodded slowly. "You," he repeated and as if they were playing out a script, both leaned slowly forward, eyes locked onto each other, and then they kissed.

"We have to find him!" Sirius shouts, too far in despair to realize he was repeating what his godson had been yelling earlier on.

Harry shakes disgusted his head at him. "If it's for the one I love, then finding the treasure is more important. But if it's the one you love-"

"I've lost him one time already, Harry! TWELVE FUCKING YEARS! I don't want to lose him again! I can't bear that! It would kill me!"

"What do you think of ME? At least YOU had the chance to love him! I didn't even have to chance to tell him of my feelings! He thinks I still see him as nothing but a slave!"

Harry ruffles erratic with a hand through his already unruly hair. "Listen, they can't be dead! Not when we need them so much! We will find them!" the youth says, sounding sure of himself.

"We have the right coordinates, the mutineers don't as far as we know, so we'll head straight for the island. Perhaps we will be lucky and find them on the way."

"-but if they'll be alive will be another question," was what Sirius mutters darkly before he and his godson turn around to address the crew.

To Be Continued