Breaking Rules

Hereafter Evermore

Author: Rylee Jane

Rating: M

Summary: Harry has left England behind, and Voldemort's forces have taken over. In the Hereafter, Sirius receives a proposition he can't resist. Rated for language and some adult content.

Disclaimers: I wish, oh how I wish, I could say I owned them. But they're all J.K. Rowling's. God bless her.

A breeze blew across the hill, ruffling the grass at his feet and Sirius smiled. The sun shone, as it did every day here, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was so warm that Sirius had shed his robes, was sitting barefoot in the sweet-smelling grass, just relaxing. He preferred to never be cold here. It reminded him too much of the time he'd spent in Azkaban, with the Dementors hovering overhead, threatening to suck out any pleasant feelings he'd ever had.

This place, though, was the exact opposite of Azkaban. Here, he was always warm, always happy. Here, even the bad memories of life were coated with a numbed feeling, as though they'd never really happened to him. Here was a beautiful place to be.

Sirius? A voice broke into his mind, a pleasant female voice that always seemed to hold a hint of laughter.

Hello, Genevieve, he answered without speaking.

He felt, rather than heard, her chuckle. May I visit you?

He smiled. She always asked, although he'd told her many times that it was unnecessary. You may.

She appeared beside him a second later, smiling down at him. Her hair was a soft, deep red, not carrot-orange like the Weasleys', but a darker color, almost auburn. Her skin had a silvery sheen to it, that had immediately told Sirius that she wasn't now, and never had been, human. She had a nice smile, although it was a bit too wide, making her look a bit odd.

"How are you?" she asked, sitting cross-legged on the ground next to him.

He laughed. It was a common joke between them, as there was no way that he could be anything but okay here. He was never anything less than perfectly happy here. "Well as could be expected in the hellhole," he muttered, grinning.

She chuckled, shaking her head. "You have to be the biggest nut I've ever met, do you know that?"

He nodded. "I suppose so. Have you been busy lately?"

She frowned just slightly, the light in her eyes fading. "Too busy. It seems that Voldemort has been working overtime."

Sirius sighed, feeling a slight ache in his chest. What would have depressed him terribly in life made him feel only a small amount of sympathy here. It wasn't that he didn't care anymore. He still cared enormously. This place, however, made it impossible to feel true grief for anything. "How many?"

"Twelve this week," she said softly. "Two of them children."

Sirius winced. "Bastard."

She nodded. "Yep." She shifted her legs, straightening her skirt. "I came to talk to you about something. I'm sorry that I couldn't tell you about this before, but we're required to wait three years after your arrival, to give you time to adjust."

He glanced at her, then looked away again. "I've been here three years already?"

She smiled. "Time goes so quickly here, doesn't it?"

"You can say that again."

"Anyway," she continued, looking slightly nervous. "You are permitted, if you wish, to go back and watch over your loved ones." He turned to look at her again, opening his mouth to say something, but she held up her hand. "Please, let me finish. You will go back in spirit only. You will not be seen, not be heard. You can't communicate with them at all. They won't even feel you there, no matter what you do. You can only watch and listen. You cannot, in any way, interfere with their lives."

He nodded, swallowing hard. "But I can check in on them."

"You can. Keep in mind, however, that not being able to help them in any way can leave you feeling frustrated. It can, and most likely will, leave you less contented when you return here."

He snorted. "Less contented? That would hardly be enough to make me not go."

"Sirius, there are---." She stopped, sighing. "When you go back, you can pick up their emotions. If they aren't perfectly happy, perfectly content, which they never are, then whatever emotions they're feeling will come back with you. If they're sad, you'll be sad. Anger, pain, whatever, it comes back with you. You'll be like a sponge for their emotions."

He shut his eyes briefly, finally understanding. The contentment he had felt here for three years had left him with very little memory of any other emotion. He had no definite memory of what pain, or sadness, or anger felt like. He only knew that all of them were much less pleasant than the sensations he had grown used to feeling here.

He also knew that there was a lot of pain in the world now. Harry had left London, and no one knew where he was. Without his presence, Voldemort had all but taken over, not only London, but a substantial area of Europe. Murders were commonplace there, now, and the grief and pain that Voldemort left in his wake was worse than they had ever seen. It was, he had been told, only a matter of time before the whole continent was completely under his rule.

This was what he would be returning to, if he went to see Remus, or Arthur and the remaining Weasleys. They were all still fighting the good fight, and losing impressively.

A thought came to him. "Do you--- do you know where Harry is?"

She nodded, a little hesitantly. "I do. But be forewarned, young Mr. Potter is in no better shape than those in London."

Sirius had asked, long ago, if the Death Eaters had Harry. When he'd heard that Harry had gone missing, he'd almost found himself hoping that he'd be able to see him again soon. It was a terrible thought, he knew, but if Harry had died... But Genevieve had assured him that Harry was not dead, nor had he been taken by Death Eaters. He had simply given up, left London and never told anyone where he was going. Until now, Sirius had never thought to ask where he'd gone, only whether he was safe. Which, he'd been assured, Harry was.

"What's wrong with him?" Sirius asked now, feeling that tugging in his chest again. "He's not hurt?"

Genevieve frowned, lowering her eyes. "He's fine physically. To say that he's well, however, would be untrue. You know how Harry is. He's been severely depressed since your death. He feels that anything that has happened with Voldemort since he left is his fault." She sighed softly. "You must understand, he's had no contact with London or anywhere else in Europe since he left. He has no idea what is actually going on there."

Sirius started to say that that was a relief. Then he realized something. Harry was a smart kid. He would surely know that things were very, very bad in Europe. He would know that Voldemort having free rein meant that people, Muggles and wizards alike, would have been killed. Only, knowing Harry the way he did, he knew that Harry could have exaggerated this in his mind, imagining the circumstances to be much worse than the reality.

"He thinks he's responsible?"

She nodded. "He blames himself every minute of every day for running away the way he did."

Sirius swallowed again. He hadn't been able to believe it when he'd heard that Harry had left London. It was completely unlike his godson to turn tail like that. Not, he reminded himself, that Harry could be blamed for wanting to get away. The boy had, at the age of sixteen, seen and felt more pain and horror than most people could imagine. That he would decide he'd had enough was more than reasonable. As much as Sirius liked to believe that he would have been brave, had he been in Harry's position, he doubted that he would have fared much better.

"Who could blame him?" Genevieve broke in gently. "I doubt I would have been able to conjure half as much bravery as he did. I still think him a hero."

Sirius barked out a laugh, ignoring the fact that Genevieve had just invaded his thoughts. It wasn't a surprise that she had, because he knew she had the ability, and she did it only when she felt it necessary. "He shouldn't have to be a hero. He should have been left alone."

"We all have our destinies, Sirius. Harry was meant for a much larger one than most of us, but he was also given the strength to handle it."

Sirius wheeled to look at her. "Are you saying he shirked his destiny? That he backed down from his fate when he didn't have to?"

"No," she said gently, reaching out to touch his arm. "Harry is not done fighting, Sirius. It is unfortunate that he has still more to do. He's not done anything that wasn't in the cards in the first place. He will rise again."

"How can you know that?" Sirius asked, an edge to his voice. Somewhere deep down, he knew that he was remembering, to a much lesser extent than he had known in life, what anger was. "How can you know?"

She squinted up at the sky and waved her hand. "It was written long ago. There are some things that are predestined. Harry will fight again."

"Will he win?"

She smiled slightly. "That isn't yet known. I wish I could say otherwise, but not everything is predestined. Whether he will win or not is all up to Harry."

Sirius shook his head. "I don't get all the metaphysical stuff. I don't get how you can know that he will fight again, but not if he will win or lose."

She chuckled softly, then motioned to a tree that had just appeared at the bottom of the hill. "Okay, see that tree there?"

Sirius nodded. "D'you make that?"

"I did."

"It's nice."

"Thank you. Anyway, look at the trunk. That trunk is fate. That trunk is something that has to be there, the foundation for the branches. The branches, however, are not predestined. They grow as the tree wishes. The branches are our choices. They branch into even more branches, some shorter, some longer, but all ending."

Sirius looked at them carefully. "If that tree is Harry's fate, then the branches are all the things that could happen to him?"

"Yes. It was determined, a long time ago, where Harry would be at this point in his life. That he would run from what he was facing. Everything that he's done up until now is the trunk. He's about to reach the branches."

Sirius sighed. "Do any of the branches involve him losing?"

Genevieve frowned. "I'm afraid so. The short ones. The ones that end in broken, jagged edges. Those are his defeats."

Sirius winced. There were many branches that looked as though they had been hacked off, ripped from the tree with little thought. Some, however, had grown long, branching off several more times until they reached up to the sky and ended in a tapering point. Sirius could only imagine that those branches were the ones that led to a peaceful, non-violent death after a long, mostly happy life. "There are too damned many branches," he muttered. "How is he supposed to know which are the right ones?"

Genevieve shook her head. "I'm afraid I can't answer that. He may not know. Some of the safest are also the flimsiest. Some of the thickest and sturdiest are also the shortest. It's not apparent why we choose the ones that we do. What I can tell you, however, is that the branches continue, even after we die. You are at a branch now, yourself."

"The choice of whether to go see Harry or not."

"Yes."

"Can you tell me which is the short branch?"

She laughed. "I'm afraid even I don't know that one. I tell you this only because I want you to understand that you must think carefully about this choice. Don't be rash about it."

He started to wave off her statement, then sighed. "All right. I'll think about it."

She nodded. "Let me know when you've made a choice." And then she disappeared.

He noticed, however, that the tree remained.

Ta-Da! Chapter 2. I will be sending 2 to the betas sometime soon, so read and review and give me some incentive to hurry this thing along! This is going to be a Sirius/Harry story, but not a slash story. Come on, that would just be a bit gross, don't you think? Thanks for reading. You ROCK!