Title: Soulmates Never Die

Author: mao

Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters, likenesses, and original plotlines belong to J. K. Rowling and her management companies. The title and brief bit at the beginning belong to Placebo, from the song "Sleeping With Ghosts." No copyright infringement is meant by this; it's just a little plotbunny that had to be expressed. I'm making no dinero off this whatsoever.

Author's Notes: Yes, I realize it's been done about twenty-five million times, but it's my first Potterfic - it's not going to be perfect. Just the same, be brutal.

Warnings: Language. Angst. Slash of the Remus/Sirius variety. Nothing graphic, but if the idea of two men being in love offends you, turn back now.

***

It seems it's written

But we can't read between the lines

Soulmates never die.

You're gone. You werre there - so close for a moment, that I could reach out and touch you. I could have grabbed the back of your robe, pulled you hard out of the path of her spell, perhaps saved you - perhaps not. I couldn't do anything though - I wasn't even fighting.

I just stood there and watched as she attacked you. I watched as you flew past me, suddenly still, into death. Even then, I should have blasted her - I could have hit her with the Avada Kedavra in an instant, and you know I never could have done it before. But there was an intense stillness on your face as you flew past - a stillness that had never been there before. All you've done - everything you've been through and seen - you'd never lost that spark of life that made you so attractive to me in the first place.

I'm glad you got that last Christmas though. That we were able to lie there together, warm in our love and the heat of the fire and the joy of the house. You were so happy to have us all there, so happy to finally wrap your body around mine again, with Harry safe under your roof.

I'll treasure the memory of you that evening forever.

After you finished the dishes, you came upstairs, your smile still hot on your face. You opened the door to your room, though it was clear you hadn't been expecting me there. And your face lit up again, shining in the light of the fire I'd lit for us.

"I didn't think you'd be waiting for me," you said softly. You came over, sat softly on the edge of the bed, hands in your lap, averting your eyes as though you were afraid of what would happen if you looked clean at me. I lay my head in your lap, forcing you to look at me. Your eyes, such a delicious black, stared gently back into mine. You were scared.

"How could you? You think I could forget you after so long? That I could forget you ever?" I reached up, running my hand down the side of your face, brushing the thick dark hair out of your eyes and behind your ear. "Why, did you forget me?" I was trying to make it sound playful, but I guess I didn't quite succeed.

"The whole time I was in Azkaban, you sustained me." You smiled, nearly grinned, and the look was contagious. "Whenever I thought I wouldn't be able to survive it, I thought about you - about your mind, your simply delectable body -" you ran one pale hand down my chest, pausing in the hollow of my pelvis. "And when I thought about you...it was easier. I never knew if you'd wait for me." You flopped back on the bed and I rolled over, moving so I was parallel.

"Of course I waited, silly," I traced a finger down your nose, gently outlined your lips."No one else could ever have compared to you."

You sucked my finger into your mouth for a moment, kissing it and suckling it. The shivers ran down my spine, into my groin, and I yanked it out.

"And then two years! I wanted to come and see you that night, but I didn't know what you believed - where you were -" you dropped off, lowered your eyes. "And then you were at Hogwarts, but I couldn't take the time to find you, not with Harry in danger like he was." And then you met my eyes again, pleading for my approval.

"I missed you. But I did - and do - understand." You leaned forward then, and kissed me. As I pulled off your robes, then divested myself of my own, you murmered gently into my ear.

"Be gentle. It's been a long time."

Afterwards, we lay together, with your arms warm across my body, and suddenly I was crying. You wanted to know what was wrong, but I had no way to tell you. I couldn't find a way to tell you how scared I was that you'd do something stupid and be taken away from me. I didn't want to tell you how selfish I knew it was, to want to keep you locked up, hidden away, where it was safe for me to love you.

I just cried and cried, and you held me while I sobbed into the smooth alabaster of your shoulder. As I was dozing off, you murmered to me, so softly I almost didn't hear you - "Soulmates never die."

Did you know you were going to die? I mean, of course you knew - everyone knows that someday they will, in fact, die - but I wonder sometimes if you knew when you left the house that you were walking to your doom.

I hate Harry for it. For being sensitive? It's stupid, I know. And I shouldn't. But you risked yourself for you, and much as I love him, I hate him for it. I'm trying to conquer that hate, and I know that I am, bit by bit. I know you wouldn't want me to blame him.

When she hit you - that stupid bitch of a cousin - with that curse...in that moment, your life passed before my eyes. I know it should have been passing before yours', but you were already gone. I saw you as you were at Hogwarts, when I first fell for you - your hair in your eyes, that way you walked, as if you were unaware of the eyes of the world on your beauty. The way I could never seem to criticize you, no matter how cruel or judgemental you were to other students who didn't fit your standards of near-perfection. And the way you kissed me, let me take you, gently the first time, in the Room of Requirement.

I'll never know what unspoken test I passed, what hidden void I fulfilled. You had and left James - that I know. You dated so many different girls at Hogwarts that even to this day, I can't ever figure out how many of them there were, or what their names were. But somehow, for some reason I'll never fathom - you chose me.

And now you're gone.