I Did Not Die

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

~Mary Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there. I do not sleep.

Something was poking Sirius in the side of the head. It was sharp and uncomfortable and oddly familiar.

"Nggghf...Prongs," Sirius groaned, opening one eye blearily. "I don't care if I'm late for Transfi--oh." Sirius' other eye opened of its own accord with the sheer shock of being truly awake and remembering that he wasn't at Hogwarts anymore. But then what had been tapping his head? Sirius turned around to look...

"Gnah!" ...And half-leapt half-fell off the side of his bed. Luckily, he was so tangled up in his blanket that he wasn't badly hurt--instead he just hung suspended off the edge.

"You'd think you'd get less ridiculous-looking with age," a voice said, and Sirius could tell without looking that James Potter had that stupid, wrinkled-nose look on his face he always got when he was just barely holding back laughter.

"S'not funny," Sirius grumbled. "Anyway, what are you doing here? You're dead." It seemed a very reasonable question, under the circumstances. James poked his head over the side of the bed.

"You need help or something, mate? You look like a mummy." That, Sirius reflected, might be very true, but it didn't exactly answer the question.

"Yeah? Well, you're too young. What're you, fifteen? You died ages after that--you should be older-looking." This did not seem to perturb James.

"That does not perturb me," James informed him. "And I would think that if your best friend returned from the bloody grave, it wouldn't perturb you either."

"About that 'returning from the grave' thing..." Sirius ventured, but James waved him off. Sirius frowned.

"Are you haunting me?" he enquired, eying James suspiciously. James grinned evilly and made a spooky face.

"Mwahahaha," he said, and considered that response enough. "You're not going to be like Moaning Myrtle and follow me around forever and poke me in the head when I'm sleeping and pop up at inopportune moments to make rude comments, are you?" Sirius enquired with a suspicious frown. James considered this idea.

"No," he finally concluded decisively. "But that's mostly what I did when I was alive, so it does sound like something I would do."

"But then..."

"None of that's really important," James told him, somewhat impatiently. "I'm here, aren't I? Sitting on the edge of your bed, poking you in the head like I used to do every morning for seven years. Except for at first, when you hated me. But the point is that it's the only thing that'll get you up, so now you're awake and I'm here. Poking you. How I got here isn't really important. Your puny mortal mind couldn't even begin to comprehend it, anyway," he finished with a self-satisfied smirk. And suddenly, James was exactly right. It wasn't important. Sirius' best friend had returned from the bloody grave, as James had previously pointed out.

"Yeah, well if you're solid enough to poke me, you're solid enough to be punched, so just watch out," Sirius retorted. James laughed, and something about it convinced Sirius, because he suddenly grinned and lunged at James.

"I missed you, Prongs," he said plaintively, his face lodged somewhere near James' elbow. It was knobbly enough to be, anyway. "I went to your house, and it was all rubble with dust everywhere and--"

"...And I know what you found next. I was there, Padfoot, remember?"

"But Peter killed you..."

"No he didn't," James corrected. "Voldemort did. And I should know, after all." Sirius, not seeing the distinction, snorted disbelievingly. James continued as if he hadn't heard.

"You know, being dead puts a lot of things in perspective," he said thoughtfully. "And one thing you learn right quick is that people do odd things, make terrible mistakes that they regret forever, without any good reason. Happens all the time. Could you condemn everyone who's ever made mistakes, who accidentally tried to kill his best friend?" Sirius winced at the last part, remembering the Whomping Willow incident. "That doesn't make what he did any better, but just...he used to be our friend once, our best friend. And just because he isn't any more doesn't change the past. Anyway, I'm telling you. Nothing about those years after Hogwarts is important right now." Again, the moment James said it, Sirius believed it wholeheartedly. It had something to do with how James looked so exactly like he used to when they were at Hogwarts that Sirius secretly wondered whether all the years between then and now had even happened at all.

"Well then, if you aren't here to haunt me until I draw my last dying breath, why are you here?" James was silent for a moment, thinking about it.

I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.

"D'you remember..." he began suddenly, not appearing to realize the non-sequitur. "That one winter in third year, with the blizzard? And Hagrid had to clear paths through the courtyard, and it was so cold that in the dungeons, our potions would actually freeze as we were making them?" Sirius smiled nostalgically, caught up in the memory.

"That was the Day That Will Live on in Infamy," Sirius remembered. "The greatest snowball fight in the history of the snow-falling world. We made an entire igloo that Saturday, complete with a snowball arsenal in the back." James laughed.

"And it was the warmest part of the school, because you were curious about how Eskimos didn't freeze immediately in houses made of snow."

"So we spent all that Friday afternoon in the library, researching, so we could make it authentic."

"...and Remus got really interested, so just as we were getting bored and splashing ink onto each others' noses with our quills, he was combing the Muggle Studies shelves," James interjected.

"But we made it in the end."

"We made it in the end," James echoed. "...At least until a well-placed snowball hit Peter in the face and he went toppling over," he laughed.

"Ye-es...but you were the one who ultimately collapsed the roof. Peter just knocked into you..." Sirius pointed out very helpfully. "Moony was really devastated about it, too..."

"Shut up," James shoved him playfully. "It was about to be captured by that massive Hufflepuff army anyway--at least I saved it from falling into enemy hands." Sirius only smirked.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

"Do you remember that seventh year End of Exams party?" Sirius asked with a laugh. James snorted.

"No school, too much alcohol, and all the girls in our year. And you wonder whether I remember? Mate, I could barely remember that party the next morning."

"That's what I thought," Sirius said, sounding satisfied.

"Oh, don't sound so smug. I was Head Boy at the time. I couldn't condone massive vats of Firewhiskey being rolled onto Hogwarts grounds!" Sirius only grinned.

"That didn't stop you from drinking from the aforementioned massive vats." James assumed a saintly expression.

"That was different. The barrels were already there--some despicable rule-breaker had smuggled them into the Gryffindor common room. If I hadn't consumed the Firewhiskey, who knows what impressionable first years could have gotten their innocent young hands on it?"

"Ah, of course. For the good of the children...Saint Potter, they will call you, and your selfless deeds will live on in the minds of Hogwarts students forever."

"Exactly. They will sing songs of praise. Long ballads with catchy choruses and a cool guitar part in the middle."

I am the gentle autumn rain.

Sirius and James debated for a moment about the necessity of a guitar, and somehow the conversation managed to develop into Sirius' assertion that James was not allowed judgment, because he was clearly insane. For proof, Sirius asked James to contemplate that one time, with the Quidditch. No more needed to be said. But James said it anyway.

"That wasn't my fault," he protested, in an argument that he'd clearly presented many times before. "It didn't look like rain when I, very unsuspectingly and innocently, proposed a nice game of Quidditch among four friends who love Quidditch and don't ever hold grudges...ever..."

"It was already starting to drizzle, and the clouds looked like when your mum was making eggs and forgot about them and nearly burnt the house down. Those eggs, the gelatinous soot-colored ones that looked like cooled lava."

"Well how could I possibly know there would be a typhoon in the middle of October--in Scotland, of all places? I didn't, did I, so it's not like you can really blame me..."

"Oh, I can. And I do. I thought I would never be dry again--my broom got waterlogged, and your hair stayed flat without magical aid. This was clearly a natural disaster. And we played Quidditch all through it."

"That was a great game, though."

"That was an excellent game. Peter--"

"...attacking the hoops with a bat, and Moony--"

"...with those ridiculous stunt-flying tricks, I know!" Sirius muffled his head in his pillow, he was laughing so hard at the memory. James practically shoved his fist in his mouth, attempting vainly not to make noise. As they struggled to regain control, Sirius was suddenly struck with a memory.

When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.

It was maybe second year, and they'd brought the entire Gryffindor house, not to mention McGonagall, down on their heads. They'd made too much noise that night, too. It had started out innocently enough. Peter had woken up early that morning, and he was sneaking around trying to find his robes when he'd walked into Sirius' bed. This, of course, had awoken Sirius as well, and he was forced to mete out a just punishment. Or so he explained to McGonagall later. He'd considered the situation entirely resolved when he'd lobbed a pillow casually in Peter's direction, not at all prepared for the volley of retribution that had followed. It seemed Sirius had thrown the pillow too hard and hit Remus in the face.

This, of course, was not Sirius' fault at all. He was tired, and it was dark. James, of course, had woken up immediately after to flying pillow-feathers, and at some point a telescope had gotten thrown into the corner of the room, setting off an entire box of Fillibuster's fireworks, which in turn wreaked havoc on all their possessions. And it just wasn't fair that they'd all gotten detentions and owls sent home to their parents--if anyone had bothered to properly consider the situation, she would have realized that none of it could have been avoided, really.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

"...Spent all that Sunday sorting Potions ingredients," Sirius mused aloud. "Do you remember that, Prongs? ...Prongs?" Sirius blinked. The room was empty, only a slight indentation of the mattress showing that anyone had been there at all. "Prongs?" Sirius tried again cautiously. Nothing. "James, if you're hiding under my bed, I swear, you'll really be dead this time." He waited for a few seconds. "No, James, I take it back. You won't really be dead, because you aren't really dead! I thought we've been over this--'none of that's important now,' right?" James didn't answer, but Sirius used the moonlight shining through his window to check in all the dark corners of his bedroom anyway. Just in case.

Still nothing. This wasn't how it was supposed to turn out. James was supposed to be alive, and they were supposed to live happily ever after because everything would return to how it used to be, and wouldn't Remus be so pleased to see Prongs again, and how could James pass up an opportunity to see his son, who was sleeping right upstairs at this very moment? Sirius didn't believe--couldn't believe--that this was all there was. Just one short visit, and then nothing ever again except the waiting and the hoping that some day it might happen once more, that his best friend would be "not dead," or rather "dead, but loitering around the place anyway for his own nefarious purposes." Sirius couldn't breathe just thinking about it. His bed was spinning, and suddenly the whole room swirled black.

***

Something was poking Sirius in the side of the head. It was sharp and uncomfortable and oddly familiar. He opened one eye, and then the other. Sun streamed through his window, and he gave a little groan of pain as the bright light hit his face. He squinted, trying to find the source of the poking, but there was nobody in his room. Sirius felt a strong sense of déjà-vu, even though he couldn't for the life of him remember why.

The curtains shifted, and papers rustled on his desk.

"Who's there?" Sirius called out sharply, reaching for the wand sitting on his bedside table. There was no answer, except for a sound blown in by the wind, so faint Sirius could barely hear it.

Mwahahaha...

Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.