1994

Interlude

For one year—one shining, twisted, complicated year—Sirius had two missions in life: to kill Peter so that he could kill himself. He'd thought he had nothing but his cell in Azkaban left to look forward to, and he certainly didn't think that any of his old friends would believe him if he told them that he was innocent. He had no evidence that James and Lily had swapped him for Peter as Secret-Keeper, and no one from the Order was likely to hear him out after Peter martyred himself with his own supposed death and the deaths of all those Muggles. Sure, if he caught him, he could turn Peter in to the authorities instead of killing him himself, but Peter had been permitted to live for thirteen years too many, and Sirius had no intention of letting him live when he had already served thirteen years of a sentence for Peter's death. Finally killing Peter would ensure that Sirius got what little justice he could for the murder of two of his best friends, and with that complete, he'd thought he'd have nothing left to live for.

But then—miraculously—Remus met him, met him and believed him, and so did Harry. Peter escaped Sirius for the second time, but not before Harry somehow made Sirius believe that maybe Peter didn't have to die to get justice: maybe James wouldn't have wanted becoming a murderer to be in Sirius's future.

Suddenly, everything was going right. He had Peter in his grasp, he had a godson who was going to move in with him at Grimmauld Place, and Remus was at his side. And Remus—

It was like all the awful years in Azkaban when Remus surely believed he was guilty had never happened, like the awkward years after their breakup didn't matter anymore. Remus hugged him and held onto him like he was the only real thing in the world, and Sirius—

—lost his proof when Peter transformed into Wormtail again and abruptly was forced into hiding.

"I'm sorry you're stuck in here," says Remus the first time he visits Sirius in the cave near Hogsmeade. "First Azkaban, and now you're still not free."

"Ah, it's all right. I spend most of my time as the dog, and that helps the time pass faster."

With a bounty still on Sirius's head, they haven't been able to communicate much. They send each other occasional owls, never too frequently so as not to raise suspicion about whom Remus is communicating with. Today is the first time they've seen each other in person since that fateful reunion in the Shrieking Shack that began with such promise and ended in such devastation. Remus looks old, much older than Sirius remembers him, but he's sure that Remus has got nothing on how Sirius aged for thirteen years in Azkaban.

"I just can't believe it," Remus says now. "I mean, it's horrible about Peter—to know that he wasn't who he thought he was—but I thought I had lost both of you, him to death and you to the Dark side. Now Peter's the one who's gone dark, and you're not only innocent, but back with me. I've missed you, Sirius."

"I'm afraid I'm not who I used to be," says Sirius apologetically. "If you're looking for your old friend back—I've changed."

"Not so much that I can't recognize you in there," says Remus with a smile. "My headstrong, bighearted Padfoot."

He's looking at Sirius the way he used to when they were dating, like he did before everything went wrong and they fell painfully out of each others' lives. "We shouldn't… um, you know," says Sirius clumsily. "We're different people now. It wouldn't be right to force things. Besides, we never really resolved…"

"I don't care how we left things before," says Remus. "You're back, and we're here, and I still love you."

Sirius smiles. "I love you, too. Of course I still do."

xx

1995

Emmeline doesn't really allow herself to believe that Sirius is alive and back and innocent until she sees it for herself. She knows about it for a few weeks before she allows herself to actually go back and visit him at Grimmauld Place, where he's moved with Remus. She still remembers this house from having visited him here when they were children—it was a lot cleaner and more habitable back then than it is now.

"Sirius," she whispers when she's seeing him face to face for the very first time. He just stares at her with sunken eyes until she bites her lip and envelops him in a hug.

The boy she loved so naively as a fourteen-year-old is still here. The man who pulled those long shifts at Scrivenshaft's with her is still here. But of course—if Sirius is innocent, that means that Peter is the one who's guilty. It's probably selfish, but a large part of Emmeline wishes Sirius had never returned to them so that she could go back to a reality where her boyfriend hadn't been working for Lord Voldemort this whole time.

Remus is there, too, and Emmeline gives him a hug once she's let go of Sirius. She used to see Remus for tea most weekends after Peter disappeared, once he moved out of the flat she was renting for them and Dirk Cresswell took over his room, but they fell out of the habit a long time ago. Maybe it just hurts too much to hold onto people who remind Emmeline of such darkness.

"I'm sorry about Peter," says Sirius. "I know it must have been—difficult to swallow—finding out about him."

"I don't want to talk about it," Emmeline says. When she thinks about giving her soul up to Voldemort's mole, being in bed with him—she doesn't think she can take any more of it.

"Have you seen Mary lately? How is she?"

"No, not in a long time," Emmeline admits.

Remus nods. "Me, either. I keep meaning to swing by her house and fill her in that Sirius is back here with us, but I just…"

She knows exactly what he means. "I'll stop by there after I leave here, if you want," she offers.

"Yeah, that would be great. Maybe you both can come by here together sometime."

They don't seem to really know what to say to each other after that. Emmeline is sure that they're both full of horror stories, Remus about poverty and unemployment and Sirius about Azkaban and living on the run with a stolen hippogriff, but they don't seem to want to talk about themselves any more than Emmeline wants to share how bad her depression has been ever since she lost Peter, how most days it's been a struggle to stop herself from slitting her wrists again. The only thing that's been keeping her afloat has been knowing that Peter wouldn't have wanted her to kill herself, but now, she's being forced to reevaluate everything Peter ever said to her. Did he ever care about her the way she thought he did? How long exactly has it been that he's been working for Voldemort?

But Peter isn't dead like she'd thought he was, and there's a part of Emmeline that keeps celebrating the knowledge that the man she loves is still alive. Maybe someday she'll track him down on a mission and confront him. Maybe she'll find a way to convince him to tell her everything.

Maybe he'll still love her like she still loves him.

xx

1996

Remus and Sirius don't have much time left together.

Remus couldn't tell you how, exactly, he knows this, but he does. He can feel it. Every morning he wakes up with Sirius at his side, he listens to Sirius's heartbeat and tries to memorize the way it feels under Remus's ear, like he can freeze time and stay in this moment forever. But he can't, of course, and they have Order matters to attend to, and he faces each day with the knowledge that their time is running out.

Mostly, they talk about nothing consequential, but every once in a while, Sirius will recount a happy memory of James or Lily or even Peter, back before they knew what he was. Remus thinks that Sirius mostly just wants to remind himself that their friends live on in their memory, that missing them doesn't make him crazy. Remus gets it—he misses them, too.

He doesn't really ever see Emmeline or Mary anymore, but he swings by St. Mungo's to visit Alice and Frank sometimes, bringing them little pieces of the Drooble's Best Blowing Gum that the Healers say Alice likes. When he unwraps it and holds it out for her to take, she looks at it like she doesn't know what to do with it, but opens her mouth a fraction so that Remus can hold it up to her lips and press it inside. She chews it, blows a tentative little bubble, and then smiles a little when the bubble refuses to pop.

One morning in June, Remus has a sick feeling in his stomach that he can't seem to shake. He lies rigidly in bed for about ten minutes before Sirius sleepily rolls into him and says, "Whassa matter, Moony?"

"Everything's fine," he says. "Go back to sleep."

"No," says Sirius.

And really, that's fine with Remus—if he's right about this, if their time is really running out, he wants to stay here in secret with Sirius as long as he can and make the most of what little time they really have.

Tomorrow, he'll wake up feeling as hollow as he did the day he thought Sirius murdered Peter and Lily and James. He'll have to start all over again figuring out who he is without Sirius in his life, and he'll feel more disconnected than ever from the person he used to be, back when he knew who he was because he defined himself by the people closest to him. Tomorrow, he'll go back to seeing darkly, totally overshadowed by the loss of the only person left whom Remus considered to be close to him.

But for now, Remus savors this moment and presses his lips to Sirius's cheek, telling himself firmly that tomorrow can wait.

xx

END OF BOOK THREE

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A/N: Heads up—there's more. We're going to go backwards in time and diverge from canon, so if you don't like AUs, stop here! (But I hope you keep going because imo the AU part is the best part of the fic!)