CHAPTER 26

BY THE END OF IT ALL

Sirius was standing by Snape's bed, watching the fragile rhythmic rising and falling of his chest under a grey wool blanket. He kept having this impression that the barely seizable movement was maybe nothing more than a fabrication of his tired mind.

He rested his hand, lightly, on Snape's chest, and waited… The rising and the falling — slowly up, slowly down, slowly up, slowly down — it was there, faint but steady.

Withdrawing his hand, Sirius leaned over and placed Snape's wand on the nightstand by the bed. Snape would want his wand when he woke up, Sirius knew.

There was a small orb of light glowing silver on the bedside table, probably Remus' doing, and Sirius found himself wondering whether it served any purpose other than as a nightlight.

"You're all right?" Remus asked, coming into the room.

"Rem, what is that? And why did it turn black?"

Remus glanced at the glowing orb that had just changed colours.

"It's dark blue," he corrected with a frown of concern, tapping his wand to the orb.

Lines of different colours, some jagged, some curvy and others almost flat, materialized in the air a few inches above Snape's chest.

"Dark blue," Sirius said. "Why is it dark blue?"

"It's only for monitoring," answered Remus, inclining his head towards the small orb. "It's a Life Bulb."

"Why did it change colours?"

"White — well, grey in his case, is the baseline," Remus said, directing his wand above Snape, at the coloured lines, which started moving. "And each colour shows abnormal processes for —"

"Remus." His tone rose a hint. Remus glanced sideways at him. "Why did it change?"

"I don't know," Remus answered calmly. "Blue is for cerebral activity."

"Brain damage—?"

"What—?" He blinked at Sirius with a start. "No. No, no, his vital functions are fine — for what just happened, I mean — for someone who's just been dead. Trust me, they don't come any finer than this," Remus tried to lighten their moods with a poor joke and a warm smile.

His smile, though, faltered swiftly as Remus took in Sirius, and his lack of a reaction.

"Just… Let me look at these," Remus said tiredly. "I'm not a Healer. I need a bit of time to figure it out."

For another while, he kept his wand trained on the coloured diagrams, suspended in mid-air over Snape, and his attention pinned to the patterns of their movement.

"It looks like he's dreaming," Remus concluded, eyes drifting over the shifting lines, "quite disturbingly, but only dreaming nonetheless. Nothing more."

The flickering lines and colours made no sense to Sirius. The orb, to him, was gibberish. The dreaming, on the other hand...

He clasped his fingers, softly but firmly, over Remus' hand that held the wand.

"I don't think he'd want us looking into that," Sirius said.

Remus lowered his wand, and the lines faded away.

For a long moment, Sirius felt Remus' gaze boring in the side of his face; he didn't turn to meet Remus' eyes.

"I wasn't," Remus muttered. "I wasn't looking at anything. It was nothing but a display of physiological processes, nothing more."

"I see…" Sirius nodded absently.

A sterile silence spanned between them, Remus watching Sirius, and Sirius watching Snape — the fragile rising and falling of his chest, so feeble it seemed delusory.

Sirius wished Remus wasn't here. He loved Rem, like a brother and more. But he felt he could not be with anyone right now. He could hardly tie together thoughts, could barely feel a thing, could make no sense of any other human being. He felt like a defective toy thrown in the sea, carried aimlessly by the tide, careening astray in the vast colourless ocean under unending colourless skies.

It made no sense.

"Let's drink?" Remus asked.

Sirius agreed and followed Remus out into the corridor. He stopped in the doorway, though, to cast another glance at Snape.

"Rem, how would you rate the comfort of the hallway?"

"You want to stay here," Remus summarized, "in front of the room?"

Sirius nodded absently. "I guess. I think I'd rather be here for a while. "

"Well, why not?"

Remus' voice behind him held an unmistakable note of contentment, and Sirius found the contentment, whatever the reason behind it, to be achingly misplaced.

He turned to find Rem's smugness had something to do with a bottle of Firewhisky and two glasses sitting atop the small drawer in the hallway.

"I brought the drinks upstairs earlier," Remus said with a smile. "Figured you'd want to be here."

Sirius nodded, lost in his own thoughts or the sore absence thereof. He couldn't really tell which one it was.

"Should I pull up chairs?" Sirius asked.

"The floor is fine."

Remus filled the glasses, handed one to Sirius, and they both sat down in the hallway, side by side, across the room where the orb still flickered dark blue by Snape's bedside.

Were it not for the glowing bulb, from a distance, Snape would seem to be dozing off peacefully.

Sirius leaned his head back against the wall and let out a tired breath. He closed his eyes for only a moment.

"Could you help me out with some potions?" he asked, turning his face to Remus. "For when he wakes up. I figure it couldn't hurt to have something."

"Sure," Remus nodded. "I was going to, anyway. He still needs medicine — quite something if he's to avoid going to Mungo's. You both do." Remus watched him appraisingly. "He can't go to the hospital, can he?"

"No."

"Quite a mess," Remus said.

"Quite."

"At least Patrolcho missed his boat… on my account, and I can get everything from him."

"Can you get Pink Blood potion?"

Remus blinked, surprised. "I can try. I'll see if —" his eyes glistened, unsettled, as he surveyed Sirius. "To be honest, I doubt even Patrolcho has it readily brewed."

Sirius nodded in understanding.

"You should have told me it worsened," Remus said, the concern not in the least hidden from his voice. "I'll drop by more often. It isn't Pink Blood, but, well — company is better than nothing, right? Keeps some of those nasty visions away."

"I'm fine, Rem."

"Right. Of course. Still, having a friend around can't hurt. Besides, my neighbours are renovating; the noise peg in my apartment is —"

"Remus," Sirius' voice rose a notch. "I'm fine."

For a long moment, Remus didn't say anything. He was glancing Sirius over, looking a bit confused — trying to figure out the obvious. In the end, he did.

"Oh," Remus said and blinked away, to Snape. "It's not for you."

Sirius shook his head. "It's for him."

"Is it that bad?"

"I've seen enough, and it isn't pretty."

"I'll see if I can find any."

"Thank you."

"You never asked for Pink Blood for yourself," said Remus after a while.

"Well…" Sirius brought the glass to his lips, only to lower it back without taking a sip. "You can't find that thing anywhere in Europe; it costs an arm and a leg, and we only have two pairs of those between us."

Remus' face lightened to a tired smile. "You've grown quite fond of him, haven't you?"

"I don't know, Rem," Sirius chuckled without humour, staring into his glass. "I tried not to — I swear to God — but, by the end of it all, he kind of left me no choice."

Sirius found himself bringing the glass to his lips again; he really did not feel like drinking.

"Are you all right?" asked Remus, resting a hand on his shoulder.

Strangely enough, Sirius was shaking his head very faintly. "Yeah," he clarified. "I'm fine."

"Want me to have a look at that?" Another soft-hearted question from Remus, and Sirius followed his gaze to find a small stain of blood on the arm of his shirt.

"No, I'm good."

Remus nodded and didn't insist.

Having Padfoot run to the hospital on an injured leg must have pulled open that cut sustained in Longmoon. Sirius didn't feel it was anything to concern himself with. Not right now.

After everything that had happened, it seemed, in a way, vulgar to give thought to so little.

He was still high on Yarrow anyway. Couldn't feel a thing. Not only his body was sedated, but his mind was dully numb too.

Maybe it was the Yarrow doing that, or maybe he had felt too much and had been broken in too many ways in one night, and now the pieces just had to lay there, scattered all over for a while, suspended in numb nothingness, before he could pull them back together and make sense of feeling anything.

"What's that writing on your hand?" Remus asked.

Sirius turned his palm upwards, slightly puzzled. He'd all but forgotten.

"Got it from a girl," Sirius replied with a faint smile. He wished he could look smug and a bit boastful when saying it but couldn't muster that. "She said I should write to her. She's a Healer."

Remus gave him a very long and very quizzical look.

"Where'd you meet a Healer?" he asked, only to realize there weren't many options for an answer. "You went to Saint Mungo's."

"You didn't think I'd let him die on my kitchen floor, did you?"

Remus smiled, kind as always.

"No. No, I didn't... You love your tiles too much for that."

"You know me well, old friend," Sirius laughed grimly.

"How is she?"

"Stunning," Sirius replied, vaguely bemused that he could remember Minka at all. "Pretty and pretty brave."

"Does she know who you are?"

"No — but I have the impression she knows just a bit more."

"A bit more than…?"

"You know…"

Remus contemplated the fact. "Did anyone see you?"

"I'm not sure," Sirius said, turning his face to watch Snape lying in bed. The small orb by his side was again glowing silver, and seeing that, Sirius felt solaced, in a way. It was but a lethargic trace of the feeling, but it was there. "Guess we'll find out in the coming days."

"In the coming days… ?"

Remus downed his Firewhiskey and leaned his head back against the wall.

"If the Ministry starts the hunt for you in London again... it's a matter of days before you'll be—" he examined Sirius, briefly. "I only hope, Padfoot, you've not put yourself in greater danger than all of this is worth."

Sirius touched the glass to his lips but didn't drink; he set it back down on the floor.

He hoped he had not understood Remus' words quite right.

It was morning when Remus left and just before noon when he returned with a fresh stack of potions from no one other than living legend Potions Master Juin Guillard Patrolcho.

"Here, drink these," Remus said.

It was quarter after noon when Sirius found himself seated at the kitchen table with an assortment of no less than four potions and a glass of water aligned before him.

"That's quite a collection," Sirius assessed.

"You ran to Mungos and back on a wounded limb and two broken ribs," Remus said, sitting down in the chair beside him. "You're bloody insane. I don't know what you expect after that — a vitamin pill and a cup of tea?"

Sirius popped open one of the vials. "I'm quite all right, Rem." And poured the content into his glass of water.

"You're on Yarrow," Remus said. "You don't feel a thing on Yarrow. You could be dead, and you wouldn't feel it — on Yarrow!"

Rem's arguments were adding up, Sirius reckoned as he poured the second vial into his glass. Besides, it was long since he had heard Remus speak in a tone so tense, or since he had heard him rant. Remus was ranting. And Sirius wished he would stop.

"How long since you last slept a night… ? Or half of one even?" Remus asked.

Sirius would have answered, but he couldn't figure out the maths right now.

Too tired to carry on popping potion vials or to continue listening to Rem, he propped his elbows on the table, clasped his hands together and rested his forehead against his clenched hands.

"You've barely slept in four days; you fought in Longmoon, went through hell alone last night," Remus summarized, and Sirius couldn't understand why he was doing it. He wished Rem would stop. Just stop. "You're not all right, Sirius. No matter how many times you repeat it."

Sirius lowered his hands and glanced at Remus, then around the kitchen.

The blood had dried on the floor; the blankets still laid sprawled out on the ground, and the white tiles behind the kitchen sink were splattered red.

Remus regarded him, pained, hazel eyes filled with concern, and Sirius was fed up.

"It wasn't my hell, Rem," he said, his own voice hoarser than he was used to. "Not last night. Not in Longmoon. Not in between. I'd appreciate if we could agree on that."

For a lengthened moment, Remus didn't speak. He hadn't flinched or frowned at Sirius' cutting tone. If anything, it seemed as though watching Sirius was putting Remus in some sort of pain, almost physical, in a way.

In the end, Remus nodded, hardly at all.

"We agree," said Remus, earnest, and gentle. "It doesn't buy your way out of taking these, though. Drink up and go to bed."

Sirius nodded in acceptance and complied.

Some minutes later, Remus was out of the door, with an unrequested promise to visit in the evening, and Sirius was lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling.

He didn't understand why he didn't want to see Remus. If anything, he had taken care of all the mess Sirius had been unable to fix. Maybe it had nothing to do with Rem; maybe he simply couldn't be around anyone for now. Snape didn't count. He was out cold. It was as if he wasn't even there.

Sirius pushed himself groggily out of bed, walked out of his room and down the corridor to the bedroom where Snape laid in bed, passed out — Sirius appraised the orb — peacefully.

Bowing down, he reached for Snape's hand and held it for some few seconds in his. It was cold, but not that cold.

Somehow, everything that had happened meere hours ago seemed now a world away. All else, too, felt worlds apart. All but the room they shared, which was very quiet, and the hand in Sirius' that was slightly cold.

"I don't know why you did that…" he said quietly, "but you were very stupid, I hope you're aware."

He let go of Snape's hand, and found he couldn't move from the spot.

It felt lulling in a way to watch the fragile breathing under the grey blanket. Perfectly rhythmic. Again and again.

Standing there, taking in the even measure of those breaths, Sirius felt worn in every possible way. It seemed the only thing he could make sense of was the nearly imperceptible rising and falling of Snape's chest.

He sank to his floor, by Snape's bedside, and leaned his back against the wall and continued counting, in his tired mind, the cadence of those breaths — again and again, and again.

"What do you say, Snape?" he said. "When all this is over and you're done dozing off in my guestroom — we take a day or two off, you and I."

Sirius leaned his head back tiredly, that steady beat still pulsing inside him, an undercurrent to his words and his thoughts and, really, everything.

"Go on a trip somewhere away… hiking the mountains, drinking beer. You know" — He closed his eyes, still counting the breaths — "get to know each other. To learn you are still a nerdy git and I'm still an arrogant prick. And we can both agree we have nothing to share between us — and we can set our records straight. How about we do that?"

He let out a long tired sigh.

"Just you and me."

Snape, out cold, of course had no opinion on that.

Sirius took it as a yes and was asleep a moment later.