The gleeful, grinning eyes of his cousin were not the last thing he saw as he stumbled back– his stomach swooping at the sensation of falling through the air. In the fractional time that seemed suspended for an eternity, his eyes ticked over Bellatrix's shoulder to sweep a last look at those he loved the most. To the little family he had somehow cobbled together in the ruins of his life. It was funny how important it became to him to look at them in that moment. Somehow he knew that it wasn't just a stunning spell she had hit him with, this was more permanent than that.

Harry's stunned and dismayed face and his desperate shout for Sirius drew the room's attention, but he seemed unharmed, save for a few bruises. Good, he'd be okay.

The shout pulled Remus' focus over. Regret passed through the gutted yet resigned expression as he watched his friend fall backward. If he had the time, Sirius would have felt guilt at leaving his friend behind for a second time. Remus and him had always walked the lonely paths.

Tonks' shock of pink hair fluttered as she stumbled down from one of the graduated pews where she had fallen earlier, in a rush towards him. Her eyes were wide in horror and knowing she wouldn't make it on time. She had been a joy to rediscover. Family, blood, that hadn't cast him aside. He hated leaving her behind, but maybe she and Remus could heal together.

Finally, his wandering gaze unexpectedly fell on the prone form of Hermione that had seemingly been tucked away in hopes that her limpp form would be out of the crossfire. He hadn't seen her all throughout the battle, and had pressed down his worry for her in a pragmatic attempt to focus on what he could control. His hand reached out on instinct for her and the jolt of fear that he'd meet her on the other side was the last thing that gripped his heart before the misty curtain behind him swirled apart and he fell through.

The curtain fell, and his vision of the room beyond obscured to shadow.

All at once he felt nothing. Like he had become the mist that hung over a dark lake. There, but with no substance that a gentle breeze couldn't brush away. The weight of his body was gone. There was no pulsing beat of his blood rushing through him, no touch of wind or breath in his lungs, no heat from the fight, no sweat sticking to his skin or burning in his thighs, nor the fatigue in his wand arm. Nothing.

Nothing, except the hand that reached out for Hermione that had landed against the stone arch and involuntarily gripped tight to the rock edge.

He could feel the cool, rough ridges of the stone underneath his hot and sweat slick finger tips, and the thumping of his heartbeat in his palm. The heated air of the dark chamber beyond brushed ever so slightly against the fine hairs that grew on his knuckles. The band of elastic that stretched over his wrist, and the dangling charm that tapped against his skin. Every detail of sensation was burned into him as if it was the only focal point in the universe. The battle he had just been ejected from, the mad woman who had thrown him back, the people he left behind in the living world, were all as distant as a dream half forgotten upon wakefulness. For a moment his hand was all there was. The entire universe was stripped away to that one solid bit of his existence. The primal understanding of being was felt in the palm of his hand.

"Hey, Padfoot," a familiar voice broke through the hypnotic haze that could have lasted forever.

Sirius' attention snapped towards the voice. It was jarring. Sound seemed alien and unnatural to the void he found himself in. The mist that curled around him parted and– just as startling as the voice– there were two figures walking through it. Two painfully and wonderfully familiar figures.

In his shock, the grip on the arch began to loosen.

"No!"

Red hair rushed towards him. Her own hands reached out and clasped his arm and pressed it back towards the barrier. He couldn't really feel her fingers but he could feel his hand pressing more firmly against the stone beyond. That was the only thing that gave any credence to this being real.

"Lily?" Sirius croaked. Disbelief and awe coated his whole being as he looked down at the green eyes that perfectly mirrored her son's. "James?" He looked up at the other figure. A near carbon copy of his godson looked at him with a smile. They were young in ways that he didn't remember. James' face still had that softness of a youth that had passed Sirius long ago. Yet, they were ageless. There was a maturity that hadn't been there before that made Sirius feel younger than he had ever felt before.

"It's us, Sirius," Lily confirmed with a huff, maintaining a hold on his arm. She gave him a perfunctory smile before her face fell into seriousness again. "As much as I want to have a tearful reunion with you and my husband, I need to ensure you understand that under no circumstances are you let go of the doorway." She looked up at him with that same stern expression she always had on her face when she'd confront them over some reckless behavior that had her worried. "You were lucky you managed to grab hold of it in the first place."

He tried to speak but was too stunned. James approached him, reaching out to wrap him a hug he could not feel. Remorse filled him as his mind struggled to find the feeling of his friend's arms around him, like eyes straining for shapes in pitch black. James always gripped a little too tight and tilted his head to knock skulls.

"James! You are not helping!" Lily gritted out and broke the moment between them. "Sirius, you need to hold on. Don't let go." He had unconsciously tried to wrap his arms around his friend, and Lily held fast to his arm. The pressure against the stone bit into the creases of his palm. "As long as you hold on you can still leave. As long as part of you is still in the living world, you are still alive and the way back is open for you."

Confusion bloomed in him. "I'm not dead? But I…"

"No," James said. "By some miracle, you're not. So, for the love of Merlin, don't let go."

"If I'm not dead, how are you here?"

"You're in the… in-between," Lily answered. She said the word almost as a question. "I'm not exactly sure what to call it. The spirit realm, purgatory, limbo? We've never decided on what to officially name it. But, It's like a holding area between life and death," she elaborated. "I think we were brought here to help you pass through."

"Thankfully, we aren't needed in that capacity. You're not fully here, you're just 'looking in,' as it were. But, enough about all that! Didn't you miss me? You did right?" James said with an exaggerated pout that had Sirius dazedly barking out a laugh.

If he could cry, he would. What a dumb (and situationally unaware) question. It was such a James thing to ask.

"Of course I missed you, you dumb buck," Sirius said, his quip landing softer than intended, all the force had been driven from him. Damnit. He wanted to cry. "How could I not? I haven't gone a day without the guilt of you not being here didn't eat me alive." He somehow heaved out.

James' goofy grin broke into a bittersweet smile. "I know. But, I couldn't be more grateful that you've been there for Harry."

"But, I haven't," Sirius lamented. He wondered if he had had the ability if he would have choked on the words. "I failed. I haven't been there for Harry. I lost so much time…Time I can't make up."

"You've done what you could," Lily said, her voice softer now. He looked down at her and her green eyes showed him no reproach. "You fought for him. You've put him first in ways no one else has or could have. You've endured more than anyone for him. You've done what was deemed impossible, just to be there when he needed you. Even now, you risked your life for him."

He shook his head in denial. "I'm so tired," Sirius admitted. He looked over to his invisible hand that held himself to the living world. It would be an easy thing, letting go. He was already most of the way through, all he had to do would be pull his hand back to him and he'd be free from everything. No more war. No more isolation. No more imprisonment. He could rest and be with James and Lily. Maybe Reggie was out there in the Great Beyond. His brother who had made all the wrong choices, yet was still his sweet baby brother in the end. He could finally fill the void they all had left in him. That gaping wound that never healed. That never had a chance to begin healing until recently. Maybe he could find peace for once. "I don't want to fight anymore." His hand was pressed impossibly tighter to the arch. His own efforts nearly lax as Lily held him in place.

"Don't," she said. Looked at him with determination and a touch of protective rage. "Don't give up on your life. Not when Harry still needs you. Not when we still need you there."

"He doesn't," he couldn't help disagree. He shook his head. "He has Remus, the Weasley's… Hell, the whole Order is there to support him. In the grand scheme of things, maybe my usefulness has run out and letting go is the best thing I could do for everyone."

"Don't you dare, Sirius Black," James said, his voice matching his suddenly flinty gaze and his wife's determined glare. "You can't do that to them. Not while you have a choice in the matter. You can't do this again. You can't leave them behind." He sounded nearly panicked. He looked at Lily desperately for help.

Lily looked just as distraught. Her brows pinched together as she gnawed her lip. "Sirius, you have things to live for. You know that. You have Harry, you have Remus…"

"I need them but they don't need me," Sirius countered. "I…I think it's my time."

"What about Hermione?" blurted James.

Sirius stared at his friend in surprise, his fingers jumped to curl around the stone in response to the name. From the corner of his vision he could see Lily's scathing look directed at James, like he had said something he wasn't supposed to disclose.

A moment passed before it all came back to him. It felt like it should have been a staggering revelation; a discovery that shook the foundations of his soul. A break in the glass. But instead it was like fitting a missing piece inside of his heart, or the ice of Azkaban finally melting from his bones inside the warmth of her arms. Remembering Hermione was like remembering the sun existed after twelve years of winter.

The expression on his face must have been enough for James to know that he remembered. "She needs you. Don't you remember how much she needed you? You aren't going to do this to her again, are you?" he asked pleadingly, he searched Sirius' face, looking for confirmation that his best friend wouldn't choose to follow them.

He was her Sirius. All those years ago the distinction between the one she would speak of and himself seemed insurmountable. He hadn't been that older, jaded man made of loss and isolation that she had grieved for. He had been the troubled youth that still had hope in the world, and friends that stood beside him. Yet, here he was. Now the very same man as the one in her memories. The very same boy that still wore her daisy charm on his wrist. And he was on the cusp of breaking her heart and setting in motion the events that first brought her into his life.

"How did I forget? How could I forget her?" His voice came out broken. His mind was a whirlwind of the forgotten memories of a person that had been so dear to him that she had changed everything he had thought he had wanted in life. "How could I…?"

"Time's magic doesn't work the same here. Out there, your memories were buried to preserve the timeline," Lily said softly. Her face was apologetic now, his distress melted away her disapproval. "You aren't supposed to remember. If you pass all the way through the Veil, the loop begins again. Hermione will go back and meet you there in 1976. If you remembered or went back through to the living now, the loop would probably end. You would alter the course of events. Time blocked off your memories so that the loop would remain intact. But here, in the in-between, her magic is weak. You can remember because you are outside of time, in a way."

"But, if I live, I'll forget again," Sirius said, reading the underlying message. If he went back, the loop would end, but he would forget everything once more. The first time in his memory he would know her would be as that fourteen year old girl who risked her life to save her friends and save him from dementors. His godson's best friend. Not the young woman who fell through time from the war torn future and upended his heart. Not the woman who had lost everything she had loved and yet had the strength to love again. But how could he bear an afterlife knowing that he could prevent so much of her pain just by living? How could he say he loved her if he couldn't sacrifice his heart for her's? The girl who had shown him that he –now– was strong enough to love again after knowing nothing but pain, despair, and cold for nearly his entire adult life.

"If I go back, none of it will have happened. I won't have found my heart that night. I'll have to lose her to save her," Sirius said, unsure if he made any sense. It was a lot. Processing the memories and resigning to lose himself once again. He wondered if he would regret it once he went back to the living; once he forgot his reason why. Choosing to live would erase one of the most precious parts of his life. One he would have only just rediscovered.

"It happened, Sirius," James spoke up urgently. "No matter your choice, it all happened. It just won't happen again."

"James is right. Your soul has gone through this loop over and over again. And so has her's. Somehow that tied your souls together. You must have felt that in a way you never have before in this go around. You've never had this chance before. You have always fallen through the Veil and started the loop over again. Perhaps the magic that buried your memories is wearing thin after so many cycles? Regardless, you have the opportunity to end it here, now. Change your destiny. It doesn't mean that it never happened, just that you have a chance to finally walk a new path." He watched as she risked freeing one of her hands to press against his unfeeling cheek. Showing him easy affection that once upon a time had been hard won. "You waited so long for her. Faithful to her when she was only a shadow in your mind." Her voice was a plea. A plea to live a life that didn't end in tragedy and deserted hearts. "She's always been your guiding light. Even when you couldn't remember. It might be different now, but different is not the same as lost."

Different. What a bittersweet word. Could he love Hermione in a new way? A different way? His soul had rested alongside hers from the moment he heard her say his name back in 1976, from the moment she reached out for him when no one had ever needed him. He loved her before even fully knowing her. Like she filled in an empty part of himself seamlessly. He knew couldn't knowingly abandon her. Not when she had crawled inside his chest and had replaced the ashes left behind. Because, hadn't he also loved her the moment she held him when he had been in despair, confined once again in his second prison? Hadn't he already started to hope for a new future? One that she had seeded inside of his heart with her own hands; once again redefining what was possible for someone as broken as him. To be a home and shelter for those he loved. For Harry, Remus, and her. For the small family he had collected for himself.

No. He had to return.

"You need to go back now, Sirius," James smiled, like he already knew the decision Sirius had made. "You're needed there." He looped an arm around Lily's waist, pulling her away from Sirius.

The pressure left his hand as she let her arm fall from his. Leaving him gripping the stone archway with his own strength.

"Will I remember this?" he asked, searching their faces desperately. Attempting to memorize their features and cataloging the details that no camera could fully capture.

"It'll be like waking from a dream," Lily answered. A melancholic expression hidden behind a smiling veneer. She wished for him to remember, but Lily had always been realistic.

"We're always with you, Padfoot. We're with you, and Harry, and Remus, and Hermione. So, I don't want to see you like this again until you've had every happiness you've been owed," James said affectionately, before mischief infected the sentimental grin. "Make sure you have lots of curly haired babies in the future!"

Sirius couldn't bring himself to respond to the chaff as Lily shot James a scalding look and pinched his arm. The twitch at the corner of her mouth belied her amusement at the demand. It was reassuring to see them happy and whole; even if it was death that had allowed them to be that way. They had earned their peace many times over.

"I love you both. I'll take care of Harry. I promise I won't willingly leave him alone," he said, pausing at the end for one more moment to look at them and briefly allowed himself to wish he wasn't returning alone.

Turning to the formless mist that obscured his hand, he concentrated on pulling himself through. It was harder than he imagined. Having no feeling of his body made it difficult to intentionally move. He could feel his hand flex and pull, his fingers scraping against the granular surface of the stone. Unconsciously he had reached with his other hand and gripped the arch through the shroud. The sudden sensation from his other hand seemed to be what he needed to startle his body into motion. In one quick stride, he passed through to the side of the living.

The first full thing he felt was his lungs painfully expanding, his knees slammed into the marble floor as he gasped in air. His vision tunneled even as spots of light dotted behind his eyelids when he blinked. It was like coming up from being deep underwater and taking a breath just before losing consciousness. He almost didn't notice when hands grasped his shoulders as the room lit up around him. The blue cast that reflected in the marble painted the scarred face near his own. He barely recognised his oldest friend in his addled state.

Remus looked at him in astonishment as he hauled him away from the archway. Sirius' head was spinning as he tried to hang on to the memories that were slipping away like grains of sand in the wind. He heaved on air, desperately trying to articulate something – anything– that could preserve a shred of what he was losing moment by moment.

"Herm…Her…" he tried to gasp out Hermione's name. Even now her presence was disappearing from his past. Leaving behind a shadow that confused him.

Loud voices were all around him, some speaking to him, some shouting from across the room, but they were all indistinct, warbling, nonsensical syllables. But they were distracting him from remembering, the noise was dissolving the threads of memory even as he tried to grasp them. What was he just trying to say? It had been important. Detrimental, perhaps.

As his vision cleared he took full stock of the room around him. He searched the corners, a frantic energy zinged through him as he took stock of the aftermath of the battle he had unwittingly left behind. Tonks stood over a few immobilized darkly cloaked figures that were kneeling by her feet, her wand drawn in a defensive position as she watched them closely. Blood dripped down her wrist, and there was a gash in the shoulder of her robes. She looked pale, but the relief in her eyes was clear when she spared a glance their way. A glaze of unshed tears made her eyes bright.

Moody hobbled over to the incapacitated Death Eaters, dragging an unconscious mook behind him by the scruff of his robes and threw him unceremoniously into the collection guarded by Tonks. He nodded to her as she handed him a bundle of wands. Behind them was the huddled group of teenagers that had dragged them into this mess. Kingsley hunched over them, his wand was out waving it over a prone figure.

He recognized Ron and Ginny, their flaming hair stood out even in the blue light. Painful looking welts wrapped around Ron's arms and neck as he giggled next to his sister, his eyes glazed like he had taken a dose of powdered Dragon's Claw. Ginny sat carefully so as not to jostle her ankle that hung at an awkward angle.

"Sirius, can you hear me?" Remus' voice cut through the remaining fog that clouded Sirius' mind. The grip he had on Sirius' shoulders tightened almost to a painful degree as relief and disbelief warred on his face

"I hear you," Sirius finally got the breath to answer. "What happened?" He was still looking over at the kids. Neville stumbled over to sit, with a bloody nose, with Ginny and Ron.

"I thought… I thought you died. We all saw you fall through the Veil."

A small figure inched over to sit just behind Remus, as though waiting to be called to for help. He recognized the blond girl from his outing to Hogsmead with Hermione.

Hermione. He didn't see her. Harry was missing from his sight as well. A swell of dread pooled in his stomach and he frantically started searching the room.

The anxious thumping in his chest nearly masked the clanking approach of Mad Eye. The surly man had both his eyes fixed on him and his perpetual scowl seemed to deepen on his approach. There was blood matting down the side of his head and smeared across his forehead.

"You seem to have made it a habit of making impossible escapes, Black," Moody raked out. His magical eye scanned him top to bottom a few times, searching for who knows what.

From behind Moody, Kingsley moved just enough to expose a crown of curls scattered across the marble floor.

It was like a sucker punch in the gut. The moment before falling through the Veil suddenly materialized into the forefront of his mind. Seeing her motionless on the ground, her limbs akimbo, made him feel cold. He lunged to get to her side, not even fully aware he was moving but instinctively needing to be by her side to see if she still had breath in her lungs and blood pulsing in her veins.

A forceful blow knocked him flat on his back. Moody stood over him with his staff pressed firmly into the center of his chest. The ex-auror stared intently at Sirius, his scarred and mangled face scowled menacingly down at him.

"What did your mother tell you when you started playing AC/DC in the library?" Moody asked. His face never broke from absolute distrust and skepticism.

Sirius stared at the man, his mind still reeling. He tried to take a few deep breaths, his chest pressing up into the bottom of the staff painfully each time as he collected the memories he needed to answer the question.

"She said, 'I hope one day your ears are cut off as you're made to drink dragon piss.' Not one of her more creative quotes, but memorable nonetheless," Sirius answered, gritting his teeth as he waited to see if that satisfied Moody's paranoia.

The magical eye began to swivel around, a good indication that Sirius was in the clear. He made to move towards Hermione again, but was stopped once more by the staff, and Remus' hand on his shoulder.

"You have more pressing matters to attend to. Granger is being looked after, but after you went through the Death Veil, Harry chased after Bellatrix. Dumbledore went after him, but I don't know where they ended up."

Sheer frustration bit into Sirius at the sudden confliction he felt. The burning need to check on Hermione warred with his need to go after his godson. He allowed himself a beat to feel his conflict before he logically conceded that Moody was right. Whatever fate had befallen Hermione, he was unlikely to be of much more help than Kingsley getting her out of here and to a proper medical facility. It made him feel sick, not knowing anything about how critical she was. But, not even having eyes on Harry, and knowing he decided to chase after his psychopath of a cousin was just as terrifying.

He stared into Moody's face, the scowling man only lifted a knurled eyebrow at him and lifted the staff off Sirius' chest when he nodded his agreement.

As soon as the pressure was gone, Sirius was up and running down the corridor he had pointed towards. The thought of chestnut curls splayed out on the floor haunting him even as he frantically searched for the boy that he swore to protect.