"A ghost!" Sirius cried happily. "Of course! Why didn't I think of it before?"
"Attaboy, Sirius!"
"Yes, yes!" Sirius exclaimed, thinking aloud. "Like Nearly Headless Nick! Or that History of Magic professor, the one we used to throw quills through. Ghosts are practically alive… why isn't everyone a ghost?"
"You have to understand what you'd be sacrificing," said the stage manager, as though speaking to a rowdy young child. "Few are given the chance to return, and even fewer go through with it."
Sirius leaped to his feet, arms wiggling with nervous energy. James looked nearly as happy as Sirius, but the stage manager was glowering.
"What do I have to do? Where do I go?"
The stage manager was exasperated. "You just walk back through the veil. But I'm warning—"
But the stage manager never got to finish his warning. Sirius ran to the archway, then with a second thought ran back, kissed Lily on the forehead, squeezed James's hand, and strode confidently beyond the whispering black veil.
The stage manager put his face in his hands. After a moment, he stood and faced James accusingly.
"Why did you do that? Don't you remember how torn Lily was when she came back here?"
"I just think Sirius deserved the option!"
"You just want to live… no, haunt vicariously through him!"
"Perhaps… But perhaps also I just want to give him the choice that Lily had."
"And it tore her up inside!"
"And I think she's better off for at least knowing she'd had a choice!"
They were both shouting now, but none of the sleepers were disturbed. The stage manager turned aside.
"At any rate," he said through gritted teeth, "he'll be back soon enough."
"Oh I don't know about that," James replied. "He just might surprise us. But if he does return," he said, now yawning, "wake me up so's I can make fun of him."
And with that, James fell asleep.
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Sorry about the brevity, folks. I had stuff to do this morning. But I'm just gonna take the opportunity to respond to some of the reviews. First of all, thank you for the overwhelmingly positive response! I should write fanfiction more often—it's really an ego-boost for a writer.
Sapphireskies, with all the questions—keep reading, silly girl!
BryteTwilight—if the stage manager reminds you of someone from the Matrix, so be it, but it's purely unintentional as I've never seen the movie.
EmpressSasami, who thanked me for writing often—well I'm doing this as a writing exercise of sorts, and what's the point of exercise if you don't do it every day! ;-)
GroovyGirlHP, who wanted to know what this was based on—it's structurally inspired in small part by the third act of Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town," but really the influence is so small that I needn't have mentioned it, except for my own integrity. Nevertheless, it is an amazing play, and if you're interested you should have no trouble finding a community theater production; it's a standard.