A/N: Laptop has given up. RIP, old friend. I will miss you dearly. Am posting this from a borrowed laptop. What is my life? Sadness all round, fellow WolfStarians, sadness all round.

This one is a bit all over the place. Let's say it's Sirius going a little bit mad, okay? Okay.

6. blessed

Love isn't always magic,
but if I offered my life to the magician,
if I told her to cut me in half
so tonight I could come to you whole
and ask for you back,
would you listen?

It is Christmas Eve. Sirius knows this because Fudge walked by today whistling cheerily and wished him a Merry Christmas on his way home.

Home.

It is a strange word, and Sirius can no longer bring to mind a particular place that seems to fit it. Not Grimmauld Place, no, no. Not Hogwarts, not anymore, not when every memory of his dormitory is filled with the smiling faces of the boys that war swallowed whole. And not the dingy flat he shared with Remus for a few short weeks, before suspicion crept under their skins and doubt blossomed in their chests.

Sirius paces, walking up and down his cell. He is restless. His limbs are strangely alive, jittery and unsteady and Sirius thinks that he does not need a home. He just needs out. Merlin, he wishes he could run.

But he can't.

All he can do is take the six strides it takes to cross his cell and turn swiftly on his heel, muttering incessantly and thinking, thinking, just thinking.

He thinks it is Harry's seventh Christmas. Maybe his eighth. He is unsure.

He wonders if Remus visits. James and Lily would like that, Sirius thinks.

He wonders if Harry is happy.

He wonders if Remus is happy.

He wonders what happiness feels like, and whether or not Remus can remember how he tastes. He wonders if Remus would want to, if Remus would kiss him again if he saw him, if Remus drowns the memories of Sirius' touch in alcohol and the touches strange men and women.

He wonders if the moon ever really was bright enough to blind him, if Peter thought he could save himself, if Lily died with her back to Voldemort or if she stared him in the eyes, if colour is a thing that lives beyond the walls of Azkaban.

He tries to remember what red looks like.

Red. Gryffindor red, Lily's hair red, fresh-scars-on-Remus'-skin red.

Christmas red.

It must be well past midnight by now. It is silent and the stars that Sirius can see through that high window are twinkling and shining like promises that maybe soon, maybe he will get out of here.

He remembers a quote, something that may have been shoved down his throat by his mother or whispered into his ear by a lover once long ago. He does not know anymore.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Yes, Sirius will get out of here.

One way or another.

"Merry Christmas," he murmurs, and his voice is low and rusty, disuse tarnishing his syllables and sitting like dust on his underused lips.

He shifts to Padfoot and curls up on the floor.

Maybe tonight he will dream of Christmas with Remus and mistletoe kisses and the sweet release of death.

(He doesn't; he dreams that he is a star and he's shining on Remus' face and Remus is smiling. But Sirius is a falling star, and he falls and falls and Remus stops smiling and starts running and Sirius dies in the night sky and everything fades to black except, except-

Except for the shine of Remus' eyes.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

He wakes up feeling sick.)