When The World Ends

Battlefield. Blood, sweat, stink, corpses, curses, magic flying everywhere, no aim in sight. Sirius Black had never seen such devastation, not even in the years he'd eaten, slept, and breathed danger and destruction with the Order of the Phoenix. The Order - they'd been good, they'd worked for good, but the only effective methods were so harsh. And now, as they defiled the Hogwarts grounds, grounds he had considered so sacred, with blood and sweat and villainy and misguided righteousness, Sirius remembered how things had been once. He knelt behind a garden post - had this formerly been Hagrid's garden? It was unrecognizable now - and remembered.

Since his escape from Azkaban five years earlier, he had been in gradually progressing stages of remembering things. For the first two years after the escape, when he'd lived in the Forbidden Forest and the caves near Hogsmeade as a dog, thinking only of guarding his godson from whatever dangers might have come the boy's way, he had recalled practically nothing. His life had revolved around move-sleep-eat-breathe-Protect Harry. Protecting Harry was more important to him than anything, it was the last thing he could do for Lily and James...the last thing he could do for any of them. Their lives had all ended because of his mistaken judgment: he had been the one to encourage Lily and James to make Peter their Secret-Keeper. That was as unforgivable as if he actually had handed them over to Voldemort. He might as well have.

But then, after Harry finished his fourth year, after the Triwizard Tournament and Voldemort's resurrection and Fudge's denial of the whole 'sticky situation,' Sirius had begun to remember things, albeit not by choice. Dumbledore sent him to retrieve the remainder of the order, including Remus Lupin - Remus, his old lover. Remus of the moonlit nights and honey-amber-sunlight eyes and smooth arms. Remus of the secret smiles and liquid fire kisses. And between seeing all of their old friends whom still lived, and returning to his lover, Sirius could not help but recall the things that had passed between them all.

It seemed stupid to remember those things at this moment, really - there was a battle going on around him, a war against Voldemort, the war that surely would have come to a head nearly twenty years before had Voldemort not lost his powers when his killing curse rebounded off of Harry. This was a war twenty years in coming, and absence makes the wand arm a bitch to train again. This battle was a fucking disaster, Sirius noted, with no strategy to either side except to try to kill someone, and it didn't really matter whom. The field was littered with bodies. He had lost count of those whom he knew were dead, and those who were still on their feet and fighting.

He tried to catch his breath, shook his wand arm to get the feeling back into it, and prayed that if there was a God, that He or She might let Remus and Harry survive this.

He closed his eyes, saw a fleeting image: Remus's house since he'd been living there after the resurrection. Cottage in the woods, open window, moonlight from the orb halfway through its cycle flooding onto their bed. Light that lit up Remus's honey-amber-sunlight eyes and sandy brown hair, so attractively tinted with silver here and there, and his smile - lips beckoning Sirius to bed, to his arms.

He opened his eyes again, knowing he could not hide from battle. It was still waging around him. He had not stumbled upon Remus or Harry's bodies yet, therefore he had to get up and keep fighting. When they were gone, Sirius would be gone as well. He rolled from behind the garden post, lying on his stomach, summoning all the strength he had ever possessed to get a good aim for a killing curse. His old Order ways of thinking hissed at him, 'Would Dumbledore approve of the killing curse?' But to hell with Dumbledore, he wasn't at Sirius's side now, he was fighting in some other part of the field. Sirius squinted...if he could get a clear shot at just one Death Eater...

Too hard. He'd have to settle for a more imprecise shot. He hit one - Macnair, he thought - but wasn't sure it killed him immediately, like it was supposed to. Just knocked him over, probably wounded him. 'Better than nothing,' he thought, turning a little to the side. Minerva McGonagall was actually beside him, her dark hair flying everywhere, an ugly cut gashed high on her cheek. She was favoring one arm, trying not to lean on it. Their section of the field seemed to hold wand-snipers of a sort from the Light side: a group of nearly five or six of them, lying down to take cover, aiming their wands to take out anyone they could fix in their sights. Sirius had never seen McGonagall fight like this before.

Looking to his right, he saw Harry and Ron standing back-to-back, dueling, trying to cover each other. They were good friends. Sirius had always meant to ask Harry if Ron was his lover, but he'd never gotten around to it - too shy, too busy, too uncomfortable. Whether they were more or not, they were good friends. They were like Sirius and James had been, best friends. 'Protect Harry,' Sirius thought, and blasted a weak killing curse at the Dark wizard approaching his godson. The wizard was halted enough so Harry could finish him off.

It made Sirius hate himself to think that he hadn't killed Peter when he had the chance - he'd left the rat alive mostly so he could prove his innocence, have his name removed from the registers of Azkaban. Now, though, he would have gladly taken a thousand more years in Azkaban if it meant Lily and James's son would not have to kill a man in battle at the age of seventeen.

Somewhere farther past Harry, Sirius saw a sight that made his next curse all the stronger: Remus, alive and on his feet, lips pulled back in a growl as he cursed a Dark witch for all he was worth. When she was down, their eyes met, somehow, across the field, each man wanting to know that his mate was still alive...that there was still a reason to go on fighting.

Amidst the burning, we'll be churning

You know, love will be our wings

The passion rises up from the ashes

When the world ends

How had this happened? Sirius remembered again, even as he tried to kill and managed only to wound yet again. His powers had never fully returned since Azkaban. How had they all gone so wrong, so inexplicably, horribly wrong? Himself, Remus, Lily, James, Peter - things were supposed to be good between them. Life was supposed to exult them and lift them up on high, cherish them and reward their deeds with all of its bounties. Life was not supposed to reveal one of them as a traitor, one of them as so cursed he was not viewed as human, one of them framed and imprisoned and left for worse than dead, two of them treacherously murdered.

In Azkaban, Sirius's only reason for surviving was an oath stronger than blood, an oath promised to his brother - an oath to care for Harry like he was his own son. If he had been a romantic, he would have tried to claim that Remus was his reason for continuing existing, but that was not true: all his memories of Remus were so very happy that he could hardly remember his lover at all after the first two years. But his memories of the Potters - they were painful, they remained. And Sirius had failed Lily and James both so miserably, the only thing he could do for them now was protect Harry. That was how he survived - every instant he drew breath was a focus on somehow saving Harry from Peter, the villain whom he knew was still alive - there had been dangers for Harry even in those unaware days...

Ron and Harry had split up. 'No,' Sirius thought, wanting to scream at Harry, 'don't turn your back, don't leave yourself open!' But Ron was going one direction, completing a circle some others were forming for a spell that needed a tremendous amount of power, and Harry was trying to watch both his back and his front at the same time. He was so powerful, Sirius noted, powerful enough to use the killing curse to defend himself and not have to say it several times to finish someone off like Sirius did. Harry had all the magic and wit and nobility and strength and beauty of his parents. If there was anyone in the world Sirius could have ever cared for like a son, it was Harry.

Then Sirius saw it, and it made his heart stop. Lucius Malfoy's son was approaching Harry from behind - Draco, was that his name? - he was going to sneak up on Harry from behind and kill him like a coward. Sirius screamed something but knew Harry would never hear him, and ignoring the threat of being hit by an off-course spell, launched himself to his feet to protect his godson. "Behind you," he was screaming, "behind you!"

Harry turned around and saw Draco, and cried, "Expelliarmus!" The other wizard's wand flew into his godson's hand, leaving him defenseless. But instead of killing him, Harry stopped, and saw another, far direr situation: Death Eaters approaching the circle Ron had joined. A circle consisting of Dumbledore, Ron, Hermione, and assorted others...a circle that was muttering the one spell that had probably kept them all from being killed thus far, a protective spell around the Light encampments. If that spell was broken, they were all in trouble, beyond trouble, they were as good as dead--

Alastor Moody, old Mad-Eye, saw it too. He used the killing spell; Harry disarmed them. And although Sirius didn't want his godson to become hardened to the reality of death, he wished suddenly that Harry had killed them as well, because one of the ones he'd left alive was reaching down to a body, picking up a wand--

For the second time in as many minutes Sirius found himself screaming to his godson, who did not hear him fast enough this time. The nameless Death Eater took the stolen wand, pointed at Harry's back, and shrieked, "AVADA KEDAVRA!" - but at the same instant, another familiar voice was crying the same spell at the Death Eater.

It all happened so fast - Sirius ran forward, trying to catch Harry, praying and hoping and crying at the same time that his godson was unharmed - Remus kicked over the body of the Death Eater he had killed, when he had seen it trying to take down Harry - Harry fell forward very softly into Sirius's arms, bowling them both over onto the grass.

Sirius knelt, cradling the tall boy - Remus crouched beside them, keeping an eye out for more Death Eaters approaching. Harry's eyes were wide and green behind his glasses, seeing nothing but the two faces above him, and his breathing was quickened. "Sirius," he grunted, trying to reach up and touch his godfather's face; Sirius caught his hand and gripped it tightly.

"I'm here, Harry - you're going to be all right," Sirius said, though even as he spoke the words he knew it wasn't true. Harry may not have been killed instantly, but the force of the killing curse was so strong that it would surely finish him off in the next few minutes.

Harry knew it as well. He shook his head slowly, frowning. "...Don't think so... I'm sorry, Sirius...love you."

"Love you too, kid. Just don't be sorry," he said, blinking fiercely. He didn't want Harry's last memory to be of him crying. "You've done great things, Harry. You saved Dumbledore there, you saved us all. You're a hero."

"...Am I?" A faint smile crossed his lips, then he grimaced as a spasm of pain shook his body.

"Yeah. You're a hero--" The older man stopped speaking as his voice broke, full of emotion.

Remus bent over and put a hand on Harry's shoulder. "We're proud of you, Harry. You've done so much for us all." Harry smiled again, his eyes beginning to close.

Sirius spoke again, feeling the need to tell his godson something, anything, that would make his last moments as good as they could be...to tell him how much being his godfather had meant to him. "You're a hero. You're worth more than all of us. You're such a great person, Harry, you're a great wizard, and your mum and dad would be so proud of you..."

"...And now I'll see them again," Harry murmured, his green eyes almost closed, but his smile still present. Sirius knew he must not have felt any of the pain by that moment.

"Right." Tears were dripping down Sirius's face as he leaned close to his godson's face, whispering. "Rest now. Go to your parents."

Harry sighed, his eyes closed gently behind his glasses; but his smile never faded from his face as the last breath left his body. Sirius shook with emotion as he bent over and embraced the body of his godson, of the boy he had loved as his own son.

"Well, well," a sneering voice drawled over his shoulder, "the fag murderer and the Boy Who Didn't Live After All."

Sirius leapt to his feet again, his mind gone. He took the blond boy's throat in his hands and crushed it without any effort at all. No one was going to defile Harry's memory, not after he had died trying to protect everyone else. His death meant the rest of them were still alive. Draco Malfoy's eyes rolled back into his head and in a minute, he was as dead as Harry. Shaking, Sirius let the body fall to the ground, then dropped to his knees and held Harry once again.

Remus took his lover and the still-warm body and held them tightly, encircling them with his arms. "He was the best of us, Sirius," Remus whispered, a cross between comforting and reverent and mournful. "He was the best of all of us. He died a hero's death, just like Lily and James. He's with them now."

Sirius blinked back tears - had he really just strangled Lucius Malfoy's son? - and muttered, "I loved him like my own son, Remus. I loved that boy."

"So did I." Remus held his lover even closer. "And I love you too."

And it all happened so quickly, again. Sirius wasn't sure exactly what events transpired, only that as he was looking around, holding his wand ready, he felt the rush of wind brush by him, saw the faint flash of green light, and then Remus was staggering into his arms like a drunk, only much, much worse...

"Remus!" he screamed, helpless, as Remus's wide eyes stared at him. "No, Remus, please, no..."

Remus's arm was flung about his neck - there were no Death Eaters coming towards them to visibly finish them off. Perhaps it was a misfire, perhaps a deliberate attack from someone they could not see, but someone had hit Remus with the killing curse. Sirius thought he would faint - his vision began to go black around the edges - to lose within the same minute his son and his lover--

"Sirius," he gasped, as Sirius clutched him around the waist, trying to hold him up. "Oh--"

"No, Remus," Sirius whispered again, his eyes filling with tears again. "What can I do?"

"...Not dead yet..." Remus whispered, and a sudden look of calm came over his ghostly pale face. A quirk of a smile, like a shadow of what remained on Harry's corpse's lips, began to play on the werewolf's visage as well. "...not yet, Sirius..."

"What can I do?" He felt the tears spilling down his face, clinging beneath his chin.

Remus seemed to swoon against him, leaning further into his embrace. "...Willow..." he murmured, half-pointing in the general direction of the tree.

The Whomping Willow. Lifting Remus into his arms, not caring if they were hit by a spell or accused of deserting the battle, Sirius ran as fast as he could without tripping over the sprawled corpses to the Whomping Willow. He felt the branches slash at his face but didn't care, he was so fast, and he pressed the spring with his toe and the trapdoor opened and they were inside and it was dark and cool and eerily silent...

"Sirius, I'm all right," Remus whispered, as Sirius cradled his lover in his arms much as he had just done for his godson. "...not going to die yet. I've got some time."

"You're going to live," Sirius said vehemently, pressing his lips to the other man's forehead. "You're going to live, I swear it."

"How?" he asked, very sadly, very simply. Sirius was silenced. "...No, I will die, but not yet. I get to tell you good-bye first."

Bitter tears were still coursing down Sirius's cheeks. "Please, don't die, Remus - I need you. I can't live without you. Harry's gone, if you're gone too, then I won't have any reason to live..."

Remus seemed to get a second wind - perhaps the curse had not been very strong after all. He was lying lax in Sirius's arms, across his lap, but his honey-amber-sunlight eyes were alert and never left Sirius's gray ones. "It's all right, Sirius. This is the end." He sighed, and the expression on his face was not happy but peaceful, as if nothing at all were wrong. "It doesn't even hurt. It's just the end."

"The end?" Sirius repeated dumbly, lost to his fading lover's logic.

"The end of all things. Or of all our things, anyway. They're all over..." The werewolf's voice was dreamy. "Voldemort is going to win now. We cannot stop him. But someone will, someday. There's a give and take, in the universe. Like the moon. Everything moves in cycles. This is the end of our cycle - we're all waning, Sirius, it's the end of our time. But there will be a new moon soon..."

Sirius's tears were still flowing. "Don't leave me, Remus," he begged. "I can't live without you."

"No, I'll never leave you..." Then Remus struggled to sit up a bit, shifting on Sirius's lap. "You can come with me, you know."

"Come with you?"

"Come with me." There was a firm assurance in his lover's voice, Sirius noted. He was so confident now...like there was no alternative. "We're mates. We're bound together in life and death and love."

Sirius smiled against his tears, recalling the familiar words. "Our Binding Ceremony."

"You remember that..." Remus smiled proudly. "Good. All my telling you to remember things when you came back to me, after the Tournament...it worked, did it? Of course... Our Binding Ceremony."

And Sirius remembered one of the happiest days of his life: the day he and Remus had sworn their undying love for each other, had bound themselves together for eternity. Lily and James had been preaching the virtues and pleasures of married life to them, and a month before Harry was born, Sirius and Remus had gathered a few of their closest friends and their parents, and pledged themselves to each other for all time. The rings, which looked like wedding bands, had been their prized possessions, so of course Sirius's was confiscated when he was taken to Azkaban. Remus had given him another one, though, just two years ago, and they had recited the vows to each other in the safety of Remus's bedroom, then made love...

Sirius remembered, and knew Remus was thinking of the same, the moment they had clasped hands in their white robes and looked into each other's eyes and said the words. In front of their friends, Peter and James and out-to-there-pregnant Lily and Dumbledore and their parents, they had delivered the vows together: "...bound together in life, and in death, and in love."

"We've always been meant for each other. Fate, or destiny, or whatever brought us together. But we could never have lived without each other," Sirius murmured, stroking his lover's soft sandy brown hair. Remus nodded in assent.

Memories flashed through him wildly as they looked into each other's eyes. In a moment, they remembered everything that they had done together, everything they had been through, everything that was the essence of their love. Meeting each other on the Hogwarts Express when James had introduced them; the first time they had kissed, in a sort of haphazard run-by-kissing way one starry night; the shameless, indebted gratitude in Remus's eyes when Sirius and the others transformed for him that first time; the way Sirius had approached Remus so shyly about his feelings for the werewolf; the first time they had made love, another starry spring night when they were at the castle alone for the holiday; the first time they confessed they loved each other; the way Remus had cried when Sirius suggested the Binding Ceremony.

More thoughts, but each progressively darker. Peter's subtle hints that led to their suspicions of each other's true alliances; the day of the Fidelius Charm; that bitter Halloween, finding Lily and James's bodies in the rubble of their houses; the trial, when their eyes had met across the room and neither had been able to look at each other; the years Sirius spent in Azkaban, the years Remus spent homeless and wandering and alone. Both so alone without their mate.

"Lily and James, and now Harry, and you..." Sirius muttered, tears finding their way to his eyes once again. "It's just so sad, Remus, it's all such a damned shame. I would have died a thousand deaths for each of you."

"You don't have to, love," Remus whispered, reaching a frail hand upwards to cup Sirius's face. "What you told Harry - it's true about yourself, too... 'You're a hero. You're worth more than all of us,'" he quoted. "You've been beyond loyal - to me, to Harry, to Lily and James, to everyone. You're so good."

"No, you were always so much better than me," Sirius corrected. "I never deserved you."

"No - we were always meant for each other."

And they each remembered so much more. The night in the Shrieking Shack when they had found each other again, at long last; Sirius's arrival at Remus's secreted-away house; their reunion, the rekindling of their love as Sirius had been healed by his lover; the last three years they had spent with each other, together again at last; the tenderness with which they kissed, they made love, they professed the words of it to each other...'I love you.'

"I love you, Moony," Sirius whispered.

"I love you, Padfoot."

"I love you, Padfoot, so come with me," Remus urged again. "It doesn't even hurt... Let go. We'll be together forever, like we always knew we would be..."

"How do I do it?" Sirius found himself whispering, his voice barely above a breath.

"Just be with me and let go," Remus instructed. "Lie down beside me...hold me..."

Sirius obeyed, lying next to his lover so they were face-to-face, belly-to-belly, foot-to-foot. Like how they always laid together every night, before or after they made love, just so they could see each other. They stretched out their arms and held each other tightly, pressing close together - not in a sexual move, but a simple expression of intimacy, wanting to be as close together as possible. The world above them could have gone to hell, for all they cared. They were together...

"Are you frightened, Siri?"

"No, Remie." Pause. "Are you?"

"No. It doesn't even hurt..." Remus's voice was beginning to fade slightly, like it did when he was drifting off to sleep. Remus was going to sleep, Sirius told himself, and he himself should sleep as well. They could hold each other all night long. There would be another morning, another day for them to make love again - they would be together. "Together forever," Remus murmured again.

"Forever..." Sirius could feel his own eyes beginning to close, just like Remus's. Before he forgot, he leaned forward slightly and pressed his lips to Remus's. They did not open their mouths, did not kiss so hungrily like they always did when they were making love, but kissed chastely and purely, like they had the first night they decided they were going to be 'together'. They kissed like they had the day they performed their Binding Ceremony.

"Where will we go?" he asked Remus, with the tone and intent of a child anticipating a bedtime story.

"Anywhere. Everywhere." Remus's voice was soft but oh-so-happy. Sirius managed to open his eyes to see the expression of utter contention on his lover's face, and that in turn made him happy, happy enough to close his eyes to better envision the sights Remus was describing. "We'll go back to our childhoods and know everything about each other...back to the days when we were Marauders, and we first fell in love...we'll go back to the days when we were both gone, all those years, and we'll live them right. And we'll be with James and Lily, and we'll watch Harry grow up... You want kids, Sirius? We'll have our own kids... We'll see the world. We'll have our own world, and it will start when this one here ends..."

Against him, Sirius felt Remus draw in a sharp breath. "It hurts a little bit now," he admitted.

"I'll make it better..." Fumbling for his wand, Sirius muttered a Numbing Spell over Remus's body, and the werewolf's breathing eased a bit.

"Thanks, Padfoot."

"You're welcome, Moony."

They were silent, breathing in each other's sent, resting finally in each other's arms, in the cool of the passageway that they had happily run so many times before. Finally, Sirius asked, "Remus?...Do you feel bad about leaving them, up there?"

Remus sighed. "No," he whispered, and his voice was almost inaudible, but still happy. "No...they're still waning. Our phase of the moon...over. It's over. Aren't you happy?"

"Yes. Happy - to be with you."

"...me too." He slowly pressed closer to Sirius. "We'll run the forests of the night...make love a thousand times over, and each time will be better than the last...'cause it's our world, our world is just beginning..."

Sirius noticed that while Remus's breathing was growing shallower, his own was as well. "And...I just let go, Remus?"

"Right - just...let...go..."

Silence - unassuming, gentle, beautiful silence. The world above them could have been gone, neither of them would have known or cared. Down here were the last remnants of their world, and that was about to end, to transcend into the truth of their true world, their world with each other.

"I love you, Remus."

"I...love you...Sirius..."

He felt Remus relax oh-so-slightly, oh-so-gently, in his arms, and he chose to think that his lover was merely sleeping, resting after they had made love, and it was time for Sirius to sleep as well. He held Remus tight, for he was still so warm, and he let go of everything else.

I'm going to love you

I'm going to love you

When the world ends

I'm going to hold you

When the world is over

We'll just be beginning...