Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything connected to it. Unfortunately. I wouldn't mind owning Sirius Black... Or Tom Felton...

Author's Note: I need a beta. I don't have one. Checking-over my own writing makes me nervous. Anyone interesting in beta-ing this story for me?

This chapter actually only took me four hours, over the course of three days, to finish. I'm still hesitant about posting it, however, because of last chapter's reception -- Chapter Seven received the least reviews of any of the chapters posted to date. Come on, fellas and dolls... review, won't you?

Review Responses:

Slim Shady: You'll find out, just wait and see. And M.L.E.S is the Magical Law Enforcement Squad. It's a canon term, hun. Hehe, I forget sometimes, too. Thanks for reviewing!

Le Diablo Blanc2: Thanks! And oh, yes, they're definitely going to be pissed.

SpicySugar: Eiah! ((backs away and cowers)) Sorry! But I can't answer those questions... They're important ones! It would give things away! I hope the chapter following this one clears some things up. ((feeble, apologetic look)) I don't make it confusing intentionally, you understand... Hehe.

Bex: You're mean, Sissy. I'm stealing your cat. Hmph. So there.

o.o.o.o

Death Idles Not

Sirius didn't notice at all when Petunia Dursley nee Evans arrived in Death. He didn't know enough about the area to recognize the signs of it. But Regulus, who'd been there quite a long time, and been given a full course in the business upon his own arrival, noticed right away.

'Oooh,' he whispered, stopping quite suddenly. 'I've been waiting for this. Come on, we've got to hurry.' And Regulus took off in a very different direction than the one they'd been heading. Being made of mist or fog or something, he floated along quickly, barely skimming the ground with the bottom of his feet. Sirius had to jog to keep up.

'What's going on?' demanded Sirius as he hurried, slightly out of breath.

'Lily Potter's sister just died,' Regulus explained blandly, slowing just the tiniest bit. His brother still found it hard to keep up with him.

'Oh.' Sirius thought about this for a second. 'Um, why are we hurrying, then? I don't like Petunia, or didn't when I met her. And she treated Harry horribly.'

'Yes, I know, that's the point.' Regulus had to pause, both talking and walking, to look unbearably smug. 'That's the thing, you see,' he went on after a moment. 'She treated Lily Potter's boy terribly, and Lily's been watching for years. And now, since the officials always allow you to see your relatives just after they get in, Lily can finally do something about it.'

Sirius blinked. He cleared his throat. 'You seem to know a lot about this. For someone that didn't get on with that sort of people while alive, I mean.'

'Well, everybody down here knows all about Lily Potter being angry at her sister,' stated the dead Black. His tone suggested that he thought this would have been quite obvious. 'Because everybody down here knows about anything that has to do with Harry Potter -- did you know, there was a running bet whether he'd end up here before you did? Well, I suppose there still is a bet, seeing as you're not properly here, by rights, but... Well. You know.'

Sirius, however, did not know, but could not seem to find the words to say so, and in the end just nodded mutely.

'Come on,' encouraged Regulus, starting up his brisk pace again. 'We've only got a little while; as a Muggle, it shouldn't take Petunia long to get through the initiation process. Muggles always seem to have a great deal less of the preconceived, unbendable notions about Death. When presented with the facts of things, they're always easy to convince.'

'Yes, all right,' mumbled Sirius, having no idea what he was saying. He once again had to trot to keep up with his brother. 'But where are we going, exactly?'

'The Entrance, of course.'

o.o.o.o

Lily Potter had a lot of practice being furious. And, if James said so himself, she was quite good at it. Even being dead did nothing to diminish this -- in fact, James thought it added to how intimidating she could very easily be.

This particular instance, he'd never seen her angrier. Which was saying something.

Sure, he was angry, too. But not nearly that angry. For one thing, Petunia wasn't his sister, so he didn't feel betrayed by her treatment of Harry -- he was just God-awful appalled and rightly furious.

Pacing in the relatives' waiting area near the Entrance to Death, Lily looked like she was about to make someone else spontaneously combust, dead and magic-less or not. Which was why James was standing all the way across the way, talking to Mr. and Mrs. Evans -- who, it was worth noting, also looked rather miffed at their longest-lived daughter. But then, they might just have been annoyed at the mode of Petunia's death because, honestly, she was their daughter. Death-by-magical-snake was a horrible way to go, for anyone.

Except perhaps Bellatrix Lestrange.

(James reserved special levels of anger for her.)

There was a loud clanging noise, and Petunia suddenly appeared under the large stone arch that led nowhere. She was looking rather apprehensive and nervous.

Fortunately for her, she spotted her parents before anyone else (quite a lot of people had turned up). Her expression cleared instantly, and she let out a relieved sigh.

'Dad! Mum!' Petunia breathed, advancing a little with her arms outstretched. This was a common reaction for people seeing parents they'd been fond of while alive. Petunia did not, of course, seem to see James standing on Mr. Evans's right. This might have been a good thing, or might not have, as Petunia had advanced nearly all the way across the room before anyone heard it.

Lily, who'd been momentarily frozen with rage upon seeing her sister for the first time in a decade and a half, suddenly inhaled. Then she screamed a vicious word that one shouldn't normally call their sisters (but which James felt was entirely appropriate for Petunia, though perhaps put to better use describing a female dog).

It was Petunia's turn to freeze, though in her case it might have been out of shock and fear rather than indignation or anger. 'L-Lily?' she stammered, looking around. At first she couldn't locate her sister, for the incredibly large crowd of stranger faces.

But she did spot the redhead. Just before Lily flew at her in a rage, barely restrained by a suddenly appeared and familiar looking young man with black hair, who was not Lily's husband, most definitely.

Lily's husband was glaring at her with a murderous look in his dead hazel eyes. 'You foul, horrible, wicked, self-righteous pig of a woman!' James snapped, restraining himself from what he would have liked to have said.

'You treated my son like your pet slave, Petunia!' yelled Lily, struggling against the grasp of the curiously solid-looking young man. Another, who looked almost exactly like him, except less substantial, joined him in holding her back. 'My son! How could you? How could you hate me that much! He was a baby when he was sent to you!'

Petunia didn't think it would be wise to explain her reasoning there. She looked around. A lot of strangers, all unsettlingly anger-faced, surrounded her. She could see her parents, but they looked very disappointed indeed. She swallowed uncomfortably.

'Oh, Petty,' murmured Mrs. Evans, holding her husband's hand and crying sadly. 'Oh, Petty. We thought we'd raised you better than that.'

'I... I don't...' Petunia stuttered, having no idea what to say.

The solid-looking black-headed man let go of Lily and turned around. He leveled pale, angry, cold, living eyes on the blond ex-Muggle. 'It,' Sirius stated on no uncertain terms, advancing toward her slowly, 'it is a damn good thing you're dead. Otherwise, when I got back I might have had to kill you, just on principle for what I've learned down here.'

Petunia glanced between James Potter and Sirius Black, and then to Lily, who was still struggling fiercely against the Sirius-copy. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted.

o.o.o.o

'Father and Mother were always disappointed in me, you know. Well, mostly Mother. And it was all because I wasn't at all like you,' said Regulus. He and Sirius were somewhere far away from the Entrance, sitting alone somewhere in a vast wasteland that to Sirius looked just like all the others in Death. Sirius was resting indian-style, sort of curled in on himself, playing lazily with the loose dirt in front of his legs. He'd made a sort of pyramid out of it already, and was in the process of adding to it.

'Huh? Me? They hated me!'

'Yes, well, that was just because you were everything a Black should have been, but very rarely was, except you didn't have that very Black-like restriction of only thinking of Purebloods and nobody else as people. Why, you single-handedly stood up for yourself and rebelled against a powerful, powerful force; willingly gave up privilege and money, showing admirable self-sacrifice, in order to support what you believed in. You made statements, Sirius. You attracted attention. You stood out. You were proud and independent and intelligent and freethinking.' Regulus shrugged. 'Which was the biggest insult of all to Mother. She wanted to hate you for not being a proper Black, but you were more of a Black than the one she married, and she knew it. She thought the least you could have done for your family was to have kept that a secret. But really, the whole world knew it.'

'Except me,' corrected Sirius, looking rather dazed. His hands shook, and his pyramid started to crumble of its own accord. 'I didn't know it.'

'Yes, except you,' Regulus agreed readily, nodding. 'You didn't seem to know it, even though all your friends did. I knew it, too, of course. But that didn't do me much good, as I never had a chance to be what you were. Mother's only delight in me was that I thought the same way she did -- or rather, thought what she wanted me to think. I had no backbone, I wasn't like Sirius, I didn't do things myself, I was too much of a lapdog. I wasn't Sirius. Oh, yes, she hated that, as well. Two perfect sons, neither of them what she wanted. Two! And she'd only meant to have one, you know.'

Sirius just stared at him.

'What?' demanded Regulus, leaning back against an outcropping. The stretch of solid, even ground they were sitting on was narrow enough that when he straightened his legs out, he had to hold them up or they'd dangle at the knees into one of the ravines. 'Why are you looking at me like that?'

'You've never... I mean, when you were alive...' began Sirius, incredibly confused and not knowing how to explain why. 'That is...'

'I've been doing a lot of thinking, Sirius,' whispered his younger brother, averting his eyes and looking rather said. 'I haven't got much of anything else to do, here. They wouldn't give me a job, and, well, it's been years. You get bored around here, if you don't find something to do with yourself. I chose thinking.'

'Thinking about me?'

'Well, after Mother showed up, you were the only one left to watch -- that's the other thing I've been doing, watching people -- and when I'd watch you, I'd think. Because, no offense, or anything, but while you were in Azkaban you didn't really do much, and even Mother was more interesting.' Regulus shot him a sort of half smile that actually reached his eyes. 'And when I'd watch you with Harry, before you "died"... Well, it reminded me of the way you used to treat me, before Mother and Father started making so much of a big deal out of how different we were. I always meant, you know, to apologize, for not listening to you. If I'd listened to you to begin with, I could have saved myself a world of trouble.'

Sirius grunted, picked up a rock and threw it as hard as he could. It landed in a ravine quite a ways away, with a barely audible thud. 'If you'd listened to me, all that would have gotten you was death by one of our relatives -- that's what I was in for, before Azkaban. Only reason I lived as long as I did was pure dumb luck.'

'And some other things,' remarked Regulus almost idly, shaking his head. 'But in the end, one of our relatives did kill me, so I don't think it much mattered when that happened. It could have saved you some grieve, probably.'

Sirius was silent for several minutes, and Regulus didn't try to interrupt whatever it was he was thinking.

'A brother, to run away with me? Some kind of family, even after I renounced all of mine?' mused Sirius quietly, to himself.

'Oh, you had all that. That's not what you needed me for.' Regulus looked extremely bitter for a moment. 'You had James, after all. I was talking about something else.'

'What... what do you mean, I had James for that?' asked the elder Black; Sirius looked confused.

Regulus really actually smiled this time. He seemed to think this was all slightly amusing. 'James was your brother, in exactly the ways I wasn't your brother. I remember, when you got sent to Azkaban, he threw a God-awful fit. Tried to get them to let him go back as a ghost, so he could prove you hadn't done anything; he couldn't bear the thought of you in that place. Me? I just laughed because you were laughing.'

'He... he was angry?' breathed Sirius, his voice sad and a little choked.

'He was worse than angry, Sirius. He was wicked furious,' stated Regulus, draping an arm around his brother's shoulders comfortingly. 'I've only ever seen someone that furious a few times, all of them down here. And all but one of them James, actually.'

Sirius sat up straighter. 'Oh?'

'Yeah. He's been constantly furious, over the last Living-year, about what some teacher at school was doing to Harry. Kept trying to get the officials to let him possess her, or something. The teacher was using blood quills on him, you know -- except you probably don't -- and Lily and James were both ready to kill. But James was angrier.'

'What?' Sirius couldn't imagine Lily Potter not being just as worked up as James if someone was doing something to their son that they didn't approve of. 'Why?'

'Because you didn't do anything about it.'

'... What!'

'You were Harry's godfather, you weren't in Azkaban anymore... I guess James thought that meant you should have been able to stop it.'

Sirius's eyes brimmed with tears he didn't realise he was close to shedding. 'When else was he that mad?'

Regulus cleared his throat and didn't answer.

'Reg? Tell me.'

'When you showed up,' hissed Regulus reluctantly. It was as if he felt guilty for what he was relating. 'It was like there wasn't any kind of the normal fleshie-compulsion for him. There was just this anger. Surely you must have been wondering why he didn't show up sooner? Well, it was because he was pissed as hell at you. You'd let him down again.'

'Oh, god.'

The corner of Regulus's mouth twitched. He quirked an eyebrow instead of letting the smile out. 'But then you got into trouble with all of us other shades, and he forgot all about something so trivial as that... just got mad at us because we were putting you in danger. Knight-in-shining-armor-for-the-best-mate to the end, I suppose.'

'Oh, god.'

'You can stop saying that any time you like,' chuckled Regulus, turning to look at his brother. Sirius's head was bowed and cradled in his hands. The arm Regulus had thrown around him curled, letting him brush his fingers questioningly against the older man's neck. 'Sirius?'

'I've been... a horrible disappointment to him. And to Lily. I could have gotten out of Azkaban at any time, you know, but I didn't. Laziness, I guess. Only bothered to leave when I knew Harry was in danger -- but he'd been living with those beastly people all those years.'

'I know.' Regulus nodded, his forehead touching the side of his brother's head. 'I know. Everyone knows, here in Death. Mother thinks she ought to be proud of you for letting down the blood-traitors, but she isn't, because you let yourself down, too, which means you let down that sparkling personality she was always jealous of. James isn't half so mad as Lily thinks he should be, though.'

'You're not helping,' choked Sirius, weeping into his once-perfect, aristocratic hands. 'I don't need to hear about how he's forgiven me more than I deserve.'

'Don't you?'

Sirius shook his head wordlessly and moaned. 'Reg. I've made such a mess of my life, and I didn't even know it. How couldn't I know it?'

'Death does things to people,' Regulus said, his tone wry. 'Even if you don't really die.' He paused. 'But you will, you know.'

'What, die? Of course I --'

'No, you'll die here, if you stay too long. This isn't any place for the living. Once a year passes out in... out there, your life is considered forfeit and you're stuck here.'

For a moment, Sirius looked scared. 'I'll... Oh, god. How long have I been here, Reg? How long?'

Regulus had to think about this for a bit. 'Well, you were here before that thing with Harry, but not much before it, so... Oh, I'd say, about two or three months, in normal time.'

'But, it's only been a day and a half, here.'

'Yeah. Time passes differently here. Everything is different here.'

Sirius sighed. 'I'm never going to be able to -- Wait. What did you just say, about Harry?'

'Oh.' It took Regulus a second to remember that Sirius didn't hear all the news of Death naturally, the way he did. 'Well. Apparently James noticed that people were having a funeral or memorial service or something for Harry, but--'

'WHAT?' screamed Sirius, leaping to his feet, eyes glowing furiously despite the telltale signs of recent tears.

'--but he's not dead,' Regulus assured Sirius. 'Harry never showed up here, and he's not running around out there as a ghost, but everyone there thinks he's dead.'

'What the...' gasped Sirius, looking bewildered and sad and angry all at the same time.

'Yeah, we're not sure about it, either.'

Sirius was looking around wildly, running his hands through his hair and letting fresh tears run unchecked down his face. 'I've... Oh, hell... I've got to... to...'

'I know, brother,' whispered Regulus, standing and placing his hands on Sirius's shoulders. 'I know.'

Sirius gazed at Regulus imploringly... perhaps wishing he were James, perhaps marveling that he was finally the person Sirius had always hoped, might have known, that he could be.

'Merlin, Reggie. I've never been this glad you were around.'

And then Regulus showed all his teeth, his smile only the tiniest little hint tinged with bitterness, rather like the finest sort of almost-dark chocolate. The most expensive sort. The best sort. And Sirius smiled as well.

Regulus was finally showing his best side to Sirius.

o.o.o.o

'Gah.'

James was at a loss. He'd been so surprised, so pleased to see Sirius there when they'd confronted Petunia. But he hadn't had a chance to say anything to Sirius -- Regulus had dragged his brother away almost as soon as Petunia hit the ground. Sirius had still looked amused that she'd fainted.

'Damn,' he swore savagely, kicking one of the leafless trees. But that didn't seem like quite enough, so he kicked and swore some more. 'Damn, damn, damn, double damn.'

He picked a good-sized stick off the ground and swung it, hard, against the tree he'd been kicking. At which point he realised that it was, in fact, a branch that he'd been swinging.

'I hate you, goddamn it, world, I hate you,' he screamed at all of the nothingness around him. 'I hate you! Do you hear me, you piece of shit?'

He glared at the earth under his feet, the trees, the sky. He was utterly, utterly alone. He cradled the branch close to his chest, like an old friend. 'I HATE YOU!' he screamed so loudly, he thought his throat might fall apart from the force of it.

'You're so bloody fecking unfair,' he moaned, sort of crumbling to the ground, his knees hitting it hard. 'Unfair. I can't be there as my son grows up -- and now he's disappeared -- and now I can't even take this one chance I have to speak to my best friend, just because of a bunch of silly rules. His brother, whom he didn't speak to for years in Life, gets to spend all the time in the world with him. But I can't hardly talk to him at all.'

James choked out, around a racking sob such as he hadn't let himself feel since he'd come to Death, 'I want my Sirius back. I want my Sirius back.'

o.o.o.o

Hearing a distinctive fwoosh, Albus Dumbledore looked up from his desk, to see the head of an ordinary-looking middle-aged wizard floating in his fireplace. His eyebrows lifted, but otherwise he appeared unruffled.

'Yes?' he prompted, setting aside what he'd been working on.

'Sir,' the wizard began in a rush, 'someone's been going 'round all the shops, buying copies of those books you said to keep a watch on.'

Dumbledore rose from his seat, coming around his desk to crouch in front of the fireplace. 'Which ones?'

'The Grindelwald, and the first You-Know-Who wars ones, sir,' the wizard answered. He looked quite nervous, and kept glancing behind himself. 'Sir, I've really not got much time, but I had to tell you.'

'That's all right,' Dumbledore assured him. 'Who was it, buying these books?'

'Don't know, actually -- no-one's been able to identify him, but I am sure it's the same person.'

Dumbledore sighed. 'Very well. Thank you, Tebbs.'

'Er, sir,' the man said uncertainly. 'There is... one thing more.' He looked even more nervous than he had before. Dumbledore frowned.

'Well?'

'This same person's also been buying some seemingly random history text,' Tebbs stated hurriedly.

'Seemingly?' prodded Dumbledore, frowning very seriously now.

'Yeah. We thought at first that they were just covers for the other books, the ones we were watching for, but we looked into 'em just the same,' explained Tebbs.

'And?'

'The one thing the texts all have in common is that they all have some significant mention of the Potter bloodline, sir.'

'Oh, my God.'