Cast your eyes on the ocean;

cast your soul to the sea.

When the dark night seems endless,

please remember me.

--Loreena McKennitt: "Dante's Prayer"

The Past...

Sirius was in the kitchen when he first heard it: an eruption of sneezes that, for the first time in a long while, were not his own. A guilty smirk crossed his face. It seemed that the sinus infection had been the fault of a cold, not allergies. Now it was Harry's turn to share in the ailment, and he was suffering hard.

Hedwig peered up toward the ceiling at the sound of her master's dilemma. Sirius chuckled, the grin not leaving his face.

"It seems our dear Harry is getting sick," he said to the owl. Hedwig hooted in reply.

A few moments later the young man came stumbling down the stairs that lead directly to the kitchen of Grimmauld Place. His eyes were watering from the violent blasts of sneezes, and he sniffled constantly between "good mornings" and debates on what to have for breakfast.

"Seems you're the one who is going to be suffering a role reversal," Sirius laughed as they eventually enjoyed some cream of wheat with toasted rye bread.

Harry grumbled his response. "Yeah, yeah," he said, though the laughter did not die from his eyes. Sirius grinned in return, spooning at his meal with a sense of thoughtfulness. A million things were running through his mind, all the while wondering if there was something in this accursed house that would help ease the uncomfortable experience of nasal congestion and other such sicknesses.

"Meh," Harry groaned, leaning back and rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fingers. "How the hell did you deal with this?"

Chuckling, Sirius shook his head. "I'm not sure. Let me see if we've got something." He took his bowl to the sink and rinsed it, then proceeded to search the cupboards for some sort of ingredients to help against Harry's plight. "How bad is it?" He asked, shuffling through some dried lime skins and orange peels. "Severe, or endurable?"

Harry made to answer, but another fit of sneezes interrupted him. He groaned once more, leaving Sirius to answer the question for him. "Severe it is, then."

Harry laughed. "Why not?"

Sirius shook his head and began to mix together a few ingredients. The lime skins, along with some bay leaves and some mint powder to take away the bland taste. Potions and their ingredients had never been Sirius' strong suit, but he was confident, that as long as there was no risk of poisoning, he could make something to help an illness.

Harry was no exception.

"Why don't you go lay down? I'll bring this to you when it's finished."

Sighing, Harry pulled himself heavily from his chair and nodded in agreement. The wizard half expected Harry had collapsed into a chair in the sitting room when a muffled thud echoed into the kitchen. Frowning, Sirius half wondered if the virus had grown stronger between it's transfer from him to Harry. Perhaps something as simple as his bubbling concoction, now sitting on the stove (he hadn't really felt like using the fireplace) wouldn't be enough? He moved to add a few more lime skins, then stopped again.

Being younger than Sirius, Harry's immune system might not be strong enough, and that was why it seemed so much worse for him then it had been for Sirius. Adding more ingredients then made over-drugging the boy a frightening possibility. He had seen first hand what happened to a person who took too strong of a potion. The side affects could be deadly!

The man froze, staring at the bubbling concoction with dread. Suddenly his confidence drained away, the liquid quickly evaporating before his very eyes. Sirius turned the stove off to eye it distrustfully. Should he risk it? Or would it be better to just wait it out?

Another parade of sneezes echoing in from the sitting room made sweat break on his temple. Holy hell, he'd never doubted himself so much before! Why did he now?

"What on earth is wrong?" came a cracked voice from the threshold. Sirius jumped, whirling to see Harry staring at him with his brow raised in question. "You look like a mouse cornered by a cat."

The man forced a laugh, his gaze dancing back to the pot with concern. "Do I? I'm sorry...I was just wondering..."

"Wondering what?" Harry crossed his arms before his chest, leaning against the doorway with one foot propped up by its toes against the floor. When Sirius didn't answer, his countenance dawned an apprehensive expression. "What's wrong?"

Sirius breathed a sharp sigh. "I...I was just wondering..."

"Yes, we already got that far."

"I was just wondering if, ...if this potion..."

Harry shook his head, chuckling. "I have confidence that you won't poison me, Sirius."

"You do," Sirius stated with another forced laugh. Harry only shook his head again, stepping forward to examine the pot's contents. He harrumphed and peered over at his godfather with the air of a criticizing school professor. Harry put on this incredibly Severus-like facade for a few more seconds before finally bursting into a fit of laughter.

Sirius, who was utterly confused, simply looked dumbly to his godson who seemed to have a greater knowledge of what was going on than he did.

"You're funny," Harry said at long last, wiping tears from his eyes.

"I...I am?" Sirius asked, still wearing is dumbfound stare.

Nodding, Harry rested a hand on his godfather's shoulder. "You worry too much, for one. And two, lime peels, to my knowledge, are used to make a sauce for Witch's Wally. Congratulations, Sirius! You've learned how to bake a delicious magical delicacy."

With that, Harry collapsed into a fit of giggles right there on the floor. Sirius, amazed, simply stared down at the pot's contents for a few more moments before finally following his godson's performance of roaring laughter. His face red went in embarrassment, though his eyes were watering from the incessant giggling. Within moments his stomach ached from the heaving guffaws that he and Harry had been sharing.

"That was ridiculous," Sirius sighed, wiping tears from his eyes. Harry sat across from him, his body propped up against the wall. He was still shaking his head.

"It was hysterical," he corrected.

"That too."

There was a moment of pause. All they did was revel in the silence and reflect upon the humor of the past few minutes. Sirius could honestly admit that he hadn't laughed that hard in a long time. Since he'd been with James, as a matter of fact.

His gaze flickered up to the image of his godson, still red-faced and glistening-eyed from the fit of laughter. Harry's own eyes trailed up to Sirius' face , and for a moment they simply stared at each other. The moment didn't last long enough, it seemed. Harry, nervous, switched his gaze back to the floor; a sign that they still hadn't completely adjusted to life together. Sirius sighed and stood, brushing off his robes. Harry emulated the action, adding a few more sneezes before casting his godfather a reassuring grin.

"Think I'll just wait this out." He winked and headed upstairs. Sirius grinned, his gaze following Harry up the stairs until he was out of sight. When he heard the water of the shower running, he started up piling through his ingredients and a spell book, trying to find a recipe for sinus infection maladies.

The Present...

Sirius flopped violently from side to side in his bed. His groans of anguish from these nightmares he could not escape reverberated off the ceiling, rattling the walls and disturbing the paintings that were now very wide awake due to the raucous this unrested man caused.

In his dreams he saw always the same thing: Harry, his godson, lying face down in his own blood. His body...beaten, bruised, and broken. His mouth...open in a plea of mercy that no one came to answer. His eyes...sightless. His His face...scared. His body...unmoving. Always was this the image that haunted Sirius' dreams. An undying image: Of a dying little boy.

Had Remus stayed at Grimmauld Place that night, he'd have rushed to pull Sirius away from these nightmares, waking him with tea and reassuring words before returning to his own chamber, and undoubtedly, his own nightmares too. But this night Sirius was alone, and the man was aware of it now as his ethereal feet swept through darkening corridors in hopes to answer that scream of terror before it was too late. Though his heart knew upon waking that Harry would not be there, Sirius earned some peace of mind from seeing the child in his dreams.

A child? In truth, Harry was anything but. Yet to Sirius, who trusted no one else with the boy's safety, Harry was a child. The son he did not have, and might never be given the chance to have. This was only one reason why the child, the boy, was so important to him. The fact that he was James' son only brought them closer. There was a bond between them that was present regardless of such a connection. Harry was his to watch over. His to care for and protect. His to love and be proud of.

Somewhere...Sirius had failed.

He awoke in a cold sweat, the eternal image of Harry's shattered corpse forever plastered to his lightless eyes. The dreams were becoming more and more real. Now he had felt the blood in Harry's hair. For one dreadful moment, he had the inkling that the thick substance still clung to his fingers and clotted beneath his nails. A glance at his own hands, clenched to the point of whiteness about his sheets, proved otherwise.

But the feeling remained.

Were the fates trying to tell him something?

Merlin, what was happening to him? Sanity slipped like sand through his fingers. Everyday Sirius felt himself teetering on the edge of reality, a little closer to the ledge than the day before. Only a little, but eventually those miniscule measurements added up...

...to a fast fall over the pinnacle of his mentality.

Darkness swirled like a fog before his eyes. Fragments of color danced in a frenzy before his eyes, but the darkness neither shied away or lessened. It simply was. All substantial light was cast by either the moon or the stars, both of which lingered beyond his window. Their dance went unnoticed, slow as it was. Yet as his eyes bought the coldness of the moon, so did his eyes grasp the dreamlike quality of the celestial bodies of stars.

Here was his comfort. The last one allowed to him.

Stars that glittered high above his head. Sirius, the dog star, and his namesake, glittered brighter than ever. This fact he marveled at, for it did not seem fair.

He recalled his astronomy lessons, so many years ago: Sirius was a binary star, meaning that it was actually one star circled by (or stationed next to) another. The two mutually created the glorious brilliance that went under the same name. Sirius Alpha, and Sirius Beta. Or Sirius and Harry, he'd joked one night as he and his godson gazed up at the being in awe.

The statement had humored them both, but now as Sirius gazed up at his namesake he wondered if that were true all along. Sirius himself had never been an individual shining star. In his school days, he and James had glimmered in their own glory and basked in each other's, making them an excellent duo and the most popular kids in school. Even beyond their school days nothing had changed...

...until he had lost James.

Thirteen years beyond that he'd found Harry, and now that same relationship had resumed. Sirius and Harry were a dynamic duo. In some cases, it almost felt like James was back. But there were differences, and Sirius always had to remind himself of such things before looking up and saying: "Hey Prongs, did you and Lil get a good snog last night?"

Yes, things would never be the same. But having Harry had made things better. For the time being. Now, even that was gone, and the possibility of never getting it back was as frightening as losing Harry all together.

Sirius sighed, leaning back into his pillow and staring at the ceiling. His eyes did not close again in sleep.

Hey everyone! Sorry about the long wait, but life has been busier than normal. I regret to say that I will be out of town until Friday and will not be updating anything, that's right, anything, for a while. So please, read and review, and hopefully I'll be hearing from you all again soon.

Take care!