Title: Memory Makes the Man
Author: CC
Dedication: To Tiger, the one who knows my good memories better than any other.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Remus has brought Sirius back from beyond the veil despite warnings that things might go wrong, and unfortunately they did, now can he fix it?
Spoilers: POA, OotP
Disclaimer: Not Sadistic. Much. Not JK. Got it?
Archive: FFNetFugitive, Siridenail, SBRL, 3/4 (all when finished.) FFNET while in progress

I know I was warned. They all told me there would be side effects, that there was no telling what could go wrong. But they wouldn't let me kill myself either, so I did what I had to do. But this is almost as torturous as living without him. To have him standing here in front of me, just as he always was, so wonderful and beautiful and full of life and to know he doesn't remember a single moment of his life. Of our life together. He doesn't remember me. He believes me when I tell him who he is, he accepts that he loved me, he agrees he must have loved Harry... But it's like he's talking about someone else's life. There's only one thing left to try before I admit that I have caused more harm than good. Today I'm not going to tell him about our past, I'm going to show him. And as we walk through the days we lived together through the magic of a pensieve I hope he'll come back to me, because I still can't live without my Siri, and if he can't remember me how can he love me?

I start with the day we met, twenty-nine years ago. Sirius was in Flourish and Blotts, hiding from his father, who was at the bank, and I came in to visit my cousin Aurora, who was a clerk there. We spent hours together that day, hiding and causing mischief.

We follow our younger selves for hours. As the memory is drawing to a close I hear Sirius whisper "As much fun as you are I really should go back to Father..." just before his younger self recites the same line before us.

I whisper back, "Call me, our house is six Maple Drive, we're on the floo network," Then I listen to my eight year old self say the same.

"I remember this," He tells me. "I called you the next day. Mum interrogated me about you. She called you a few... names."

"She often did that," I tell him without revealing my hurt at that.

"She forbid me to speak to you," This he says as if the words hurt him.

"She often did that as well," I tell him letting a bit of my feelings show.

"I never listened," He says this as if he thinks it will surprise me, and perhaps it does a bit, I didn't know that he never listened.

As the memory fades to black around us he looks at me with such hurt in his eyes, "My mother hated me. I hated my mother..."

"I know Siri. And if you could remember just the good it's all I'd show you, but life is taking the good with the bad," I tell him wishing so badly that I could hold him as he hurts like this, but he still doesn't remember the me that had that right.

"I don't want to stop Rem," evidently the childhood memories brought back the nickname that was only ever between the two of us as well. "I need to remember, how could I go on from here without my past? It just seems a bit... horrific that I had that kind of relationship with my mum."

"I know. And if you hadn't been made the man I know and love by rebelling against that woman I'd probably be sickened by it."

"Show me something else Rem," He takes my hand as he says it, and I try not to read anything into it.

The next memory swims into view slowly. It's our first September first, I'm just coming into the muggle part of the station with my parents and Aeneas to find him waiting for me. The young Sirius calls out, "Oi Rem! There you are, I've been waiting."

"You shouldn't have been here so early Siri," I here my own voice answer, "I told you when we'd be getting here."

"I wanted to get away from Regulus," young Sirius says shrugging.

"Regulus was a fool," Sirius says to me, "he died a fool."

"Yes he did," I agree softly. "But it still shouldn't have happened."

"You know how it feels. To lose a brother you didn't quite like but you still loved..." He says this uncertainly.

"And Aeneas didn't die any better because he was on our side," I tell him sadly. "Come on."

We follow them through the barrier, and wait while my mother said her good byes. We follow them on to the train. Though Sirius had known James for years longer than he'd known me I never met him before that day and couldn't show Sirius any earlier image of James, so we both watch this introduction with interest. "At that age James thought girls were icky and liked to charm their hair orange just to hear them yell," He tells me, looking at James with such recognition in his eyes, "And his mum grounded him for all of Christmas break this year because he tried to sneak his broom unto the train."

I chuckle, "I didn't know that."

"Could we skip to the sorting Rem? This train ride wasn't very interesting the first time," Sirius says softly as I watch seeing the very first signs of what our relationship grew into in the way our young selves leaned against each other as we played exploding snap with James. We were subtly cheating in order to demolish James, who Sirius had already told me considered himself an expert at the game, but that only required closeness, not contact.

I shake myself from the thought and consciously steer our way through the memories surrounding us to that of our sorting. Sirius's name is called third. As the hat drops upon his younger head Sirius whispers in a fair imitation of the sorting hat, "Ah, another Black."

"Go ahead and banish me to Slytherin already."

"But you're no Slytherin my boy, too caring and loyal for that."

"So I don't have to go to Slytherin because of them?"

"No. This is about you, and you are a Gryffindor." As he says it so does the sorting hat and I turn to move on.

He squeezes my hand, "Wait Rem. I want to hear what it said to you."

"That's part of my past Siri, not yours," I say reluctantly.

"But as I'm beginning to remember, there's a good reason I'm still clutching your hand Rem, your part of my past, and I hope you'll be part of my future as well. If that's going to be the case, knowing just this little bit more about you may benefit us both."

I nod slightly, adjusting our linked hands so that I can relax my wrist. The sorting hat is placed on the head of my young self and as Sirius did I narrate, "Oh my, a werewolf at Hogwarts."

"Yes sir, Dumbledore made special arrangements for me."

"Well there is only one place for a boy like you."

"The dungeons with the Slytherins then? I expected it, being a dark creature and all but I will miss Sirius terribly."

"Nonsense. You're a courageous young man with a very difficult disease, not a dark creature. And if there is a braver sort than you, well I've never met one. You're a Gryffindor if I ever saw one."

Sirius nods slowly, clearly having remembered something else, "Show me the day we found out."

Suddenly, as if Sirius had called it up on his own, which I would have believed he was capable of before the veil, we are outside the willow in the first pale rays of dawn. There is a light blanket of snow on the ground and a chill in the air around us. The willow stills and I emerge, weak and bleeding slightly, but free from major injuries. As I take the first step up the path there is a shimmering and Sirius throws the cloak over his arm as he slips the other about me. I ask no questions, knowing he must know to have waited for me like that. "You should have told us," Young Sirius says simply.

"I didn't want to lose you," I responded.

Both incarnations of Sirius whisper in my ear, both then and now, "You could never lose me. Not to fear or pain. Not to stupidity or death. I'll always be with you Rem, I promise."

Sirius kisses my neck softly, "I still mean it every bit as much as I did then."

"I believe you, I always did," I reply softly as my younger self asks if the others know.

Young Sirius' voice rings over the quiet, "Yes, they know. And they're still your friends too. We'll keep the secret Rem, you can trust us."

~TBC~

as soon as it gets 10 reviews