December

Sirius Black lay in half-darkness, watching a solitary snowflake that drifted aimlessly outside his window. The fire had long-since died away, but the room had yet to grow cold. In the fading light, Sirius could just make out the face of the person that slept restlessly beside him.

He's looking so much older. We both are. The blonde hair that Remus had once possessed seemed to be turning ashen, his face was lined and garish in the meager flame. Sirius eased an arm around him tentatively to avoid startling him. The muscles along Lupin's side were taught, even in rest. They were not the muscles of an athlete, nor those of a teenager- they were those of a soldier who had been away at war too long. Sirius traced his fingers over one of the scars on Lupin's back. He himself had fewer such scars to boast- externally, anyhow.

Remus's stays at Grimmauld Place seemed to be growing fewer and further between. Sirius was not permitted to know where his old friend disappeared to for days and weeks at a time. The Order had deemed that each wizard should know only that which was absolutely necessary. In the event one of them was captured, this was meant to ensure that minimal information was gained. The plan made perfect sense, so naturally Sirius hated it.

There was nothing he could do. There were times when Sirius's thoughts would grow desperate, when he had wondered why he had escaped Azkaban at all. Life in hiding within the walls of Grimmauld Place might as well have been prison, save for the Dementors.

Sirius shuttered involuntarily. He had beat the system, had survived Azkaban and managed to get away. He had escaped with what was left of his sanity, gone to save his godson and make one last desperate grasp at the life he had once lived. The Dementors had not been able to steal all of his memories away. Memories of James, and Lily, and-

"Remus?" Sirius moved closer to his friend, who'd been murmering aloud. Neither of them was known to sleep soundly, if they bothered to sleep at all. He was at least thankful that the house was quiet, that the portrait downstairs silent at last. Mrs. Black always seemed to startle more easily when Remus stopped by. "Scum! Filthy beings! How dare you contaminate this house with your disgusting acts!" Come to think of it, Sirius mused, her dialogue hadn't changed much over the years. The pure-blooded Black family had certainly not taken well to the news that their son had been discovered in the arms of another boy- and a werewolf no less. He had moved to James' house the next night.

He closed his eyes for a moment. So much since that time had come to pass. They had been robbed, all of them had. The past was often too bleak to consider, and the future showed little more promise. Even if they won this impossible war, the entire wizarding world was convinced he was a mass murderer. There was little left for him in this life, as if he had burned up all its pleasure while at Hogwarts and it had nothing more to offer him. To Sirius Black, life had become a matter of moments: long hours that stretched on without end, with only rare instances of clarity and warmth. Remus still stopped by when he was able, Remus still cared for him. They were together for the first time in an age, and had to make the most out of things while they still could.

The fire gave up its feeble struggle and extinguished itself in a strand of reddish smoke. Sirius wrapped himself around his friend, feeling the warmth of his body and the softness of the bed linens, and hardly daring to believe that any of them were real. Any moment he would wake-up and find himself in the hellish cell, magically chained in his own mind. Any time now he would become aware of the screaming, the witches and wizards who had given in to their tormentors and wished now only for painless death. They had taken him away once before, dragged him off to Azkaban for a crime he didn't commit. They had made him leave Remus behind, to deal with wars and death and transformations over which he had no control. It hadn't been fair, but there seemed little anyone could do now to fix it. Sirius touched his forehead to Lupin's in the dark.

I'm so sorry, Remus... I promise I won't ever leave you again.