Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Nope, not me.

A/N: Finally… the long-awaited Remus chapter! Next chapter will be another Sirius interlude…

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Remus didn't know how he had managed to get past the sentries that guarded the Department of Mysteries. He didn't really care either.

He stood on the stone dais, and he watched it.

Every bad thing in his life seemed to be connected to that veil. She was bad, his mother hissed into his mind, and so I took her.

And so this is what she would have seen, Remus thought.

The only time he had ever seen this chamber, Harry had been in dire danger and he had thought of nothing else. He had sprinted along behind Sirius, a race against time. They had to get to Harry before Voldemort did, they had to!

And they had.

But the veil had eaten Sirius, and his music was gone forever.

He went down the stone steps they led to the sunken pit where the veil stood, looming ominously in his mind, and sat on the last one, staring at it.

HE - IS - NOT - DEAD! Harry had roared, and Remus had had to hold him back, stop him following,

What's to stop me following? Remus thought suddenly. Why can't I step through the veil too?

He stood. "Sirius," he said firmly, "I -"

And then he heard it, and he sat back down again with a start.

Harry had said he had heard whispers from behind the veil. Remus had not noticed last time. I was a bit preoccupied with saving Harry from following, he thought wryly.

But Harry had not said whether he had heard words.

And Remus could hear words. He could hear exactly what they were saying.

"So… if we were to do this…?"

"No, I don't think that will work."

"Why not?"

A sigh. "It will take me a very, very long time to explain."

"Then explain, Aberforth! We have time. We have more time than anything else! This is the Void, remember!"

"Please, don't argue. It will do no-one any good."

It was that last voice that sent him surging to his feet, the voice he had not heard for many years. He took a step closer to the veil, and another, and another. The whispering was almost like shouting now,

"Sweet Merlin, I just want to put a damn hole in this damn place so I can damn well get out!"

"We all do, more than anything. You know that, my love."

The veil was right in front of him. Bracing his arm on the stone frame of the archway, Remus gingerly pulled back some of the black curtain. He could feel whatever it was that lay behind the veil trying to pull him in with an eldritch force, but he resisted.

Instead, he called out, hoping his voice could reach those he loved best.

"Sirius?" A pause. His voice cracked. "Regina?"

*

"Remus, what in Merlin's name are you doing here?"

He wheeled. "Aemilia," he said hoarsely, "I can hear them. Him. Her. I can hear them behind the veil!"

Aemilia descended the stone steps. "Look, Remus," she said softly, putting her hand on his arm, "I know you… want to think you can hear them. But… they're gone. You know they're gone."

"No, they're not!" he said fiercely, wrenching his arm from her grip. "Padfoot! Reggie! Can you hear me?"

There was silence behind the veil. Absolute, deafening silence.

"Sirius?" Remus sobbed. "Regina? Please say you can hear me, please!"

Aemilia pulled him back and sat him down on the stair, then enfolded him in her arms. "Remus, I'm so sorry. But, you must understand… they're -"

"Moony?"

Remus was back on his feet in a flash. "Padfoot?"

"Remus - is that you? Can you hear me?"

Tears were pouring down his face. "Yes, Sirius, it's me!"

"Remus!" A woman's voice this time, a voice he had not heard in so many years.

"Reggie," he almost whispered, choked by his tears. "Oh Reggie… I've missed you so much!"

"Why is this happening?" Aemilia murmured, standing behind him.

"What?" Remus asked her.

"Remus, who is out there with you?" Sirius's voice again.

"Aemilia Fudge," he replied. "Listen, Sirius… if I can talk to you… can you just walk out of there?"

Sirius sighed audibly. "Not thinking so, Moony… we can't see the veil, even if we can talk through it. In here… it's almost as if your voice is coming through some kind of loudspeaker - albeit a really a quiet one. Incidentally, what are you doing with Aemilia? I didn't think Cornelius Fudge would be too high in your good books right now."

Just like Sirius, Remus thought happily. Life and death situation - and he asks we about trivialities.

"My father and I disowned each other," Aemilia snapped, "so I'll thank you to hold your tongue, Black."

"Feisty as ever, then, Fudge," Sirius's voice floated back.

"You know what this means, don't you?" Regina's voice this time, sounding excited. He had not heard her voice for so long, and he revelled in it. There is no-one in this life dearer to me than you, Reggie, Remus thought.

"Er, no," came Sirius's reply.

There was a note of real exhilaration in Regina's voice as it came floating back through the veil. "It means that the security of this place has been breached!"

"It must be the magic," came Sirius's excited voice. "There's magic here now!"

"That's it!"

Remus turned. "What's it, Aemilia?"

"The key to the lawsuit!"

"What lawsuit?" came Sirius's voice.

"Your will, Padfoot," Remus replied through the veil. "That's why Aemilia has been around - she's our lawyer."

"What about my will? Are you contesting it? Why?"

Remus sighed. "You had Lily and James's papers in your Gringotts account."

He winced as Sirius screamed an expletive. "WHY THE HELL DIDN'T I THINK ABOUT THAT? OF COURSE THEY WOULD HAVE LEFT THEIR PAPERS TO ME! WHY WAS I SO DAMNED STUPID!"

"Shhh, Sirius." He could almost picture the two of them now, just on the other side of the veil, Regina's arms around Sirius, calming him down.

There was something so serene about her, Remus thought sadly. So tranquil. And I lost her - no, wait, I didn't! She's still here!

He heard Sirius sigh. "What's happening to the papers?"

"Well, by some technicality of fiscal law, they ended up being willed to the Dursleys," Remus answered.

"THE DURSLEYS? THE BLOODY MUGGLES?" He heard Sirius take a deep breath, and another - probably, he considered, urged on by Regina. "So you're contesting the will."

"Yes," Remus replied, but he was cut off by Aemilia.

"Remus, don't you see it?"

"See what?"

Aemilia's dark eyes were bright with excitement. "If we can talk to them," she said, "then they're not dead."

And Remus understood. "And if they're alive… it would void the will!" he breathed.

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