Arma Virumque Cano

Arma Virumque Cano

I've fallen in love once in my life, and when he betrayed me, I thought my world had ended. But that betrayal was an illusion, and after twelve years of hell, we had a second chance.

We had a year together, or slightly less. It wasn't what it might have been - he was imprisoned in his own despair and in a place he loathed; I was torn between my duty and the desire never to leave his side - but with his presence, and his love, I regained more of my past happiness than I'd ever dared hope.

But now he's gone. And I'm alone again.

I'm away a lot, these days. I can't face that wretched house, and the Order needs me. Since the Umbridge bitch brought in her reforms, I haven't been able to find a job, and as the only one not juggling competing commitments, I'm useful as a messenger. Or so I've been told. It doesn't really matter - it's probably better this way. At least I don't have to face the others so often. Moody's been spouting so much false bravado, I know he's hurting too and doesn't know what else to say. Tonks looks like she's about to cry whenever she sees me. Mundungus tells bad jokes and winces when I fail to laugh. Even Arabella's started sending me owls reminding me to eat.

Albus hasn't tried to talk to me since the funeral, such as it was. It's probably a good thing. If he got started again, I think I'd hex him into next week. All that rot about Sirius being devoted to the struggle and dying for what he believed - I couldn't bear to listen. The man I loved died in part because of Dumbledore's manipulations. He trapped him in 12 Grimmauld Place. He deliberately kept him out of the action. He gave the responsibility for teaching Harry enough to survive to *Snape*, of all people, and when Sirius finally snaps and actually does something, he blames my lover's demise on his behaviour towards a house elf? And is surprised that I am less than impressed by this reasoning?

Dumbledore may be a Machiavellian puppet master with the world on a string, but I am more fragile. I am a man more days than I am not, whatever the law might say, and I can't see beyond what I have lost. How can I care about the wider view when the other half of my soul, the person who truly understood me, as a man and as a wolf, has been torn away? To tell me, as Hagrid did, that it's "better this way" is akin to dipping me in silver and leaving me to burn.

The Weasleys are staying at Headquarters at the moment - their presence is a refined form of torture. Molly hasn't been able to look me in the eye since it happened; I don't know if it's because she's sorry for what went on or pleased that Harry's been spared such an 'undesirable influence'. If I knew for certain it was the latter I think I'd lose what little control I still have. How dare she mock Padfoot's memory, when in the end, he gave Harry almost all the spirit he had left! I never doubted his love for me as his mate, but I know Harry held the rest of his heart. And I don't begrudge him that...I can't. To have a second chance at love was a miracle beyond my wildest dreams, but in Harry's case...to be loved unconditionally for the first time and then have it torn away for no real purpose must be an injury past all remedy.

I've rarely asked for much from life, and I daresay I've had more than most people feel a creature like me deserves. But Sirius had even less. Considering his family, it's extraordinary that he became the man he was. Considering his years in Azkaban, it's almost unbelievable that he was a functioning person afterwards. Considering the prejudice from whence he sprung, it's simply amazing that he could befriend, and love, a werewolf. Whatever his faults, and god knows there were enough of them, you could never doubt his affection. And that's what cost him his life. He wouldn't leave Harry in danger, and he wouldn't let me go the Ministry without him, despite the risks. What hurts, more than almost anything, is how pointless it all was. His death was futile as far as that fight went. He couldn't save Harry from his destiny. And he went without having the chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the world. Though in my eyes he never needed redemption - I forgave him long ago.

---

The first years I spent without Sirius in my life are hazy round the edges. But I do remember something I once learnt about death and dying. On one of my aimless, penniless trips through Europe, I wound up helping with a Red Cap infestation near Weimar for a few spare galleons, and a conversation I had there will haunt me forever.

She was an English witch, seconded to the German ministry for her skills at displacing overwhelming soul pain, of the kind that could be found near sites where too many innocents had suffered.

The job had spread over several days, and we had to camp out. Once we had established that my young tent-mate's virtue was in no danger, and that I did have a rational explanation for my total lack of interest in an apparently irresistible female colleague on the project, we had one of those discussions that only seem to occur at three o'clock in the morning a long way from home. I talked about Sirius, without naming names; she talked about her work.

Her words were stark. "Most deaths are final; and the freed souls move on to their next destination. But occasionally, a spirit is left stranded, neither fully in this world nor the next."

She must have sensed my confusion.

"Dark souls are a different matter. But in general, people tend to spread their affections widely, with one life having an impact on many. Yet legend states that when a person has but a few ties holding them to life - when the full complement of their earthly love is bestowed upon only one or two, the wayward spirit knows not where it should go when the bonds are broken, because the pull of that love is stronger than the power of death. Sometimes the veil of the underworld can be breached and the soul brought home. Sometimes it cannot, and that person will eventually find a resting place beyond."

It was a view entirely alien to my own understanding of life, and I asked her how she knew so much.

"Much is myth, with the sources lost deep in the past. We know from Greek and Roman records that there have been wizards and witches who have travelled into the Realm of the Dead, and returned again, with lost companions restored to life. But those who did come back refused to speak of their journeys."

The witch suddenly looked very young.

"I can't imagine what they might have been through. It hurts enough to deal with places where the souls who once suffered there have long since found peace. Chasing a spirit without a destination must bring untold agony. And would the person in purgatory even want to face life a second time, if they could be caught?"

Luckily, the dark hid my tears.

---

Back then, it was a thought I toyed with and then abandoned. James and Lily had cared about too many people while they lived for it even to be a possibility, even if Lily had taken her final blow to spare her son.

Now it's far more likely. I say this without ego, but Sirius held two people in his heart when he died - Harry, and me. I don't want to tell myself that he could be a wandering spirit, and that he is not gone forever, since false hope of his return would *almost* be the death of me. *Almost*, because the damned werewolf in me is far too stubborn to die and rejoin his mate so simply. And I can't - won't - leave Harry without some vague connection to his parents and Padfoot, even if my affliction and the demands of prophecy make me worse than useless at providing a physical home. I care for him more than I've ever been allowed to show, and that will have to suffice.

Yet Harry and Luna did hear whispering beyond the curtain, and I don't know if I can stop myself from trying to drag Sirius back if there's any chance at all. I've had pain as an unwilling companion for enough of my life that I'm not afraid to meet it in a new guise, and the scars on my heart already hurt more than a thousand transformations.

Perhaps I'm just selfish, and he wouldn't want to return. It could be that he's been freed from years of anguish. But I spent twelve years without him, and what we had in the interim was not enough to erase the pain. I want Sirius to find his salvation at my side, and with Harry, not in some misty region where there is no Moony for Padfoot to chase.

We called ourselves Marauders once. It was our marauding that brought us down, at the last, with the remnants of our squabbles causing chaos in the next generation. On the other hand, it was with Sirius, and James, and Peter, that I felt accepted for the first time in my life. With Dumbledore casting my failure to intervene with Snape all those years ago at my feet as a partial explanation for my lover's death, I cannot bear to take the inactive route a second time.

"Wither thou goest, I will go..." I made a promise after we were reunited, and I intend to keep it now. I don't know if Sirius would have wanted me to follow him through the arch. And if it doesn't work, I'll lose both Harry in life and my mate in death, since I can't see the universe leaving a marked soul like mine adrift, or letting a dark creature like me into paradise.

Nonetheless, I think it's worth the risk. For I know this much is true: if I'm to have any chance at all of living without Sirius, I have to make sure I've tried every way that I can to live with him.

And to hell with the consequences.

If only I knew where to start.

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