Author's Note: Holy sh...I updated!?!?! Bet you're all happy. Anyway, I guess I should apologize, but I'm too tired to. Remind me apologize in the next chapter. I've been busier than hell this past month, and this is the first opportunity I've gotten to write in a long time.
The Present
"You've got to be kidding!" roared Sirius as he ripped his hands through the mop of shaggy black knots he passed for hair. The face in the fire jumped at his sudden change of tone. Alastor Moody clicked his tongue a few times, trying to find something more reassuring to say. "This has been going on for weeks now!"
"They're leading us around by the nose, I know, Black," growled the weary Auror. There was a mad glimmer in his eyes that informed Sirius just how angry Moody was getting, but that did little to ease Sirius' pain. "For now these leads are all we have. Anything they do to slip up could lead us closer..." he trailed off, not wanting to say too much.
Sirius sighed in defeat, collapsing back into an armchair. The stress over the past few days showed like years on the once handsome man's face. Gray streaks were becoming more and more noticeable in the black mesh atop Sirius' head. A haunted flicker was all that lurked in the once lively, jovial eyes. Strong hands now shook with nervous tension, and beyond all this there was still the fact that Sirius neither ate nor slept much these days. He was dying, not one person could deny that. His body was withering, his soul had dried, and his heart...well, his heart had been stolen from him long ago.
"Thank you Moody," Sirius growled, and stood to leave the sitting room. Alastor watched him go before pulling his head from the fireplace.
"A broken man, that one is," he growled to the faces around the table at his own home.
Not much above an impressive flat these days, Alastor Moody was not one for fashions or impeccable tastes. He lived a purely Spartan lifestyle. The kitchen was barely the size of a two car garage; inside sat a wooden dining table with a total of four chairs, each fashioned in similar designs. Three more chairs had been added to accommodate the extra guests. Moody stood before them all as their introductory orator.
"Black, I assume you mean?" asked Kingsley, sitting in the furthest corner and occupying a white, whicker chair.
"Who else?" asked Nymphandora Tonks. "Can you blame him?"
All seven heads shook in agreement.
"Well, he knows now," said one Remus Lupin, closest friend to the newest conversational topic at hand. "That is something."
"Hardly the hope he needs," argued Minerva McGonagall, her brow creasing in a deep frown.
"Or the reassurance," added Dedalus Diggle, uncharacteristically somber this evening. "Poor kid."
Remus snorted. "Sirius is a few years your elder. To call him a kid would be highly inaccurate."
"I was thinking about Harry," Diggle retorted defensively. There was a sudden pause in which not even a breath could be heard, as if the name itself had momentarily poisoned the air around them.
"We're all thinking about Harry," Tonks reminded them. "He's been the reason we've sent ourselves into these maddening frenzies for the past few weeks. I don't think the Order has ever participated in a more massive search and rescue!"
"And never have we gone so long empty handed," sighed Alastor Moody, unintentionally bringing the atmosphere down to an all time low that evening. A sudden and impressive resolved hardened his features then, and he looked upon the Order with a glower that made them shrink back slightly in their seats. "This is not acceptable."
"What would you have us do, Moody?" Asked Tonks, her hands arcing over her head in wide circles to emphasize her helplessness, and that of those around her. "We've been on this search for weeks, almost a full month, and we're no closer to finding Harry than the day he disappeared!"
"I know that," Moody growled. "Are you saying you're ready to give up?"
There was a pause in which no one answered. The silence was just as unnerving as having someone simply stand and say 'yes'. Moody growled again, but this time it was more guttural. More forceful. Almost primitive.
"Is that what you're saying?" Moody asked again. Still, no one answered.
Sweat beaded from Dedalus Diggle's brow. Remus sighed sadly and looked out the window toward the moon. Kingsley shifted uncomfortably in his chair. McGonagall abruptly became strangely interested in her fingernails, while Tonks simply lowered her gaze shamefully to the ground.
Too angry to even speak, Moody turned from the room. Yet, even as he reflected upon his anger, so did he reflect upon their logic. The search was becoming tiresome. With no proof that Harry was even alive, the Order could do little else but simply hope that he miraculously returned at some point soon. They had other things in which they needed to focus their energy on. Time could not be wasted in the quest to save one little boy, regardless of who he was...and what he meant to all of those who knew and cared for him.
With a sigh, Moody reentered his kitchen.
"On to other things," he announced with a guilty cough to clear his throat.
Tonks frowned. "Alastor?"
The aged Auror lifted his head heavily to gaze at the young woman who addressed him now. His eyes had taken on the dull glimmer, the essence, of what thrived in the very depths of all their hearts: defeat. "Yes, Nymphandora?"
She flinched away the utterance of her first name and stared on, incredulous. "About Harry, then?"
Alastor shook his head. "No, Tonks. Harry is beyond our grasp. We cannot hold on to hope any longer. We must march on, and hope for the best."
The news from Remus that same night, that the Order had abandoned Harry's case, left Sirius Black in a state of numbness beyond depression. Beyond hopelessness, beyond despair, beyond the desire to die; he drifted somewhere away from all such things, and had found a place much darker to reside in.
What was left in Sirius could not pass for a living being. Instead, it struck Remus as being more like an animated corpse then anything.
"It's late," Remus said after a long time of reminiscing and pondering. Raids that would never happen and plans that would never be put into use, yet it gave Remus a measure of comfort to think such things. The foolish man in him still held out for Harry to return, but Sirius had no such spirit alive in him.
He eyes Sirius now, lying frighteningly still in his armchair, breathing in and out as though it were the only movement allowed to him anymore. Surely there were a million things spinning behind those sightless eyes, all of them lost to Remus. He hadn't even registered the words spoken to him. Remus sighed,
"It's late, I said."
Sirius blinked, the first time in a while. "Is it?" he asked, not moving his head, nor shifting his gaze. "I didn't notice." He stopped, pausing to consider his words. "It's all the same, after a while...don't you think?"
Remus grinned, happy for the conversation. "What do you mean, old friend?"
"Night and day. After a while...you can't tell the difference anymore. It just all blends. The only night that really comes to you is the darkness of your mind when your eyes shut because they cannot stay open any longer. To me, that is night."
Nodding, Remus considered this. "What, then, is day?"
Sirius sat in quiet contemplation, still unmoving from his seat.
"Harry was day," he said after a while. "His smile was the sun. His laugh a running brook, newly thawed from winter's chill. His eyes and hair the symbol of what grass should be...wildly, deeply green, yet free and unkempt."
Remus could not help but chuckle. The association was uncanny, though slightly comical.
"You speak of him as though he were indeed such a grand essence."
Sirius nodded unconsciously. "He was." There was a pause, and a frown creased the already deep lines of the old aging man's face. "He is." There was a note of determination in Sirius' voice that no negative statement could deter. "He will come back," Sirius continued, his brow knitting in grim resolve. "Harry can't die."
There was a cold chill now seeping into Remus' blood. A long time ago, they had held that same belief about someone else dear very dear to them.
"I know what you're thinking," Sirius continued unexpectedly. "And you're probably right. I'm being foolish, once again I am allowing childish, impossible hopes to guide my sense and reasoning. I should know better, of course."
"You have your reasons, Sirius," Remus replied in a calm whisper. "I am glad that some still cling to hope."
"What else do I have?"
Comprehending this logic, Remus stood and made for his cloak. "I'll write a letter to the Minister first thing in the morning. Just because the Order has given up doesn't mean our Ministry has. Our or Headmaster."
"Our our Gamekeeper," Sirius added with a chuckle. It was hollow, yet at the same time Remus found some convincing reassurance that a shadow of his old friend had suddenly flittered into the room for a moment.
He peered over toward the fire, suddenly lost in memory. "How is Hagrid these days? I don't see him anymore."
"A shade better than I."
Remus flinched. "That grand, eh?"
Sirius nodded silently, and slipped back into the quiet, dead trance that haunted him so much these past few weeks.
"Do take care, Sirius," called Remus before opening the door. A short laugh echoed back toward him, as though mocking the meaningless joke. Remus shook his head, in spite of it all.
Sirius listened to his friend leave. The door clicked with a finality that echoed dully in his heart, shattering the warmth and security that he had managed to draw in from the atmosphere around him.
The days were growing long, and dark. Life seeped from his veins, as well as his willingness to survive. The Order had given up. All of the world had given up, it seemed. Sirius alone clung to the thin strands of hope that were allowed to him, and groped helplessly for some that had been ripped away.
Absently, Sirius pulled out his walled from a pocket in his robes and opened it up to find a picture of himself and his godson. They were both staring at him with incredibly cheesy grins...until suddenly Harry's hand slipped up to put a pair of bunny ears behind Sirius' head.
For the first time in a while, a true laugh echoed forth from Sirius. It didn't last long, but for a moment it breathed life into his dry spirit.
"Harry, I'm sorry..." he sighed, setting the picture aside on a nearby table. "I couldn't save your father. I couldn't save your mother. I couldn't even save myself! How the hell was I supposed to think I could save you?"
With that, Sirius rested his head against the back of his seat and let his eyes close. Perhaps there would be some peace in dreams...
The Past...
A songbird harped its merry tune from a tree branch, a little more than a foot away from the kitchen window over the sink. Sunlight glistened through the opening, allowing the life-giving yellow bars of warmth and radiance to caress the room. Sirius leaned against a wall, admiring the sheer beauty of the light. In Azkaban he hadn't seen much of the sun, and when he had been on the run he'd never had time to admire it, or stand in it and bask in its warmth, none of that.
Now, he took the time to enjoy little things like that. Sunlight, moonlight, starlight, hot butterbeer with good friends and warm company. These were the days he had longed for, but had lost all hope of obtaining. Here he was now, his hands behind his back and a smile on his newly tanned features, watching the trickling light of day cast itself over his home.
"What are you doing?" Asked a timid voice from the not-too-far off corridor. Sirius turned his gaze toward the source and found his godson eyeing him peculiarly.
"Watching the sunlight," he replied honestly.
Harry grinned, shook his head, and walked away, leaving his godfather to his own thoughts. Thoughts, he knew, he didn't have the right to interrupt.
Watching him go, Sirius could not help but feel slightly embarrassed. Of course, Harry hardly understood the importance this held for Sirius. Sunlight represented hope to him. It was one of those beacons he had given up on, only to have it returned to him.
Kind of like Harry.
The boy represented hope to him. Harry represented everything Sirius ever believed he needed out of life. Love, companionship, hope, youth, innocence, strength, courage...of course, Sirius could always go on.
But here, now, Sirius desired to sit and watch the sunlight.
"Are you going to be in here all day?" The voice sounded again, this time closer, and laughing.
Sirius, surprised, jumped and turned to find his godson's face smiling into his own. Laughing more out of his own embarrassment than anything, Sirius began to scratch the back of his head, grinning sheepishly. "Er, why do you ask?"
"We had a meeting today, remember?" Harry lifted up both of their cloaks as a sudden reminder.
"At one thirty."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "It's one twenty eight."
Sirius' shoulders slumped forward. He took his cloak and draped it over his shoulders, then reached for his hat on the shelf by the doorway.
"Are you all right?" Harry asked. Sirius, caught off guard by the sudden empathetic tone of his godson's voice, looked up. Harry's green eyes glittered in the dance of the light across his face, and a thin smile brightened his features even more.
For a moment, Sirius simply marveled at the image it made. "Nothing," he replied, and Harry nodded, happy with the answer. Upon turning, however, the boy missed his godfather's affectionate smile directed at him.
Perhaps Sirius didn't need the sun so much, just as long as he had Harry....
The Present...
Sirius awoke the next morning to find dawn on the horizon. His gaze flew out toward the newly birthed sunlight...
...but he found no hope in this day's new-coming light.