If In The Past

Chapter Eight: Pain and Renewal

Dear Remus,

Three years ago, Evan Rosier tried to escape. He was caught and died in the struggle. It was decided by the Ministry that the prisoners should be even more restricted, and all parchment, newspapers, and quills were taken away. Since Fudge became Minister, quills and parchment have been returned to us, although newspapers are still forbidden.

We're twenty-five, but I feel like an old warrior who has grown hardened and scarred from too many battles. My hair has become long and matted and my body is reduced to skin and bones. The past three years I have felt like a living dead man, but now I hope that this ink and parchment will help me feel alive again.

They let me keep the letters I wrote to you before, and I have read them so many times that I have them memorized. Reading them has been one of two things that has kept me sane, the other being my innocence.

I wonder what your life is like now. I know that as of two years ago you were an Auror, because Uris Dachner, who has Evan Rosier's old cell, keeps raving about how you captured him. His vocal cords are in constant use and he snores louder than Peter ever did. Thanks a lot, Moony.

Odd as it may sound, I hope you have a lover. You deserve that joy in your life. I hope he's kind and gentle and washes your wounds after the full moon and brushes back the tendrils of your hair and kisses your eyelids. I hope he's compassionate towards you, the way Lyrio was to me...twice.

The day after Lily and James left for their honeymoon, I set off towards your house, full of determination. Three days before, James had asked to speak with me as he was getting ready for the ceremony.

"Sirius," he said, as he was adjusting his dress robes, "I want you to promise me something before Lily and I leave."

"What's that?" I asked.

"Promise me that you'll tell Remus how you feel again before Lily and I get back."

I sighed. "James, it's not going to do any good. There's so much between us now -"

"Sirius, don't give me that crap. You're just making excuses. You still love him, you know you do, and I'm sick of watching you suffer. Just tell him. I'm not asking that you duel a Death Eater or fight a dragon. This isn't that hard."

I sighed. "All right, I will."

So, three days later, I was hurrying down the streets of Hogsmeade towards your flat. It was getting cool out, and the leaves were beginning to turn colors. I reached your doorstep and leaned in to press the doorbell. Then, suddenly, I stopped cold. A high and cursedly female voice was coming from inside.

"Remus...yes...oh God, yes...don't stop..."

My volatile temper reached its full capacity of rage. But I was no longer a boy who would throw something. I was a man new to adulthood who knew of nothing at that moment but my anger and sense of betrayal.

It was as if someone else had taken over my body, someone who allowed my heart to keep beating and my lungs to keep taking in oxygen even if I no longer cared. This person Apparted to Diagon Alley and went from there into Muggle London. This person ordered several pints at a pub and got quite intoxicated. This other person went into a different pub with a pink triangle in the window and met a man there. The man and this strange inhabitor of my body went back to his flat. As the two of them lay there kissing, some survival instinct took over and I was myself again.

"No, wait, stop," I said to this strange Muggle man who was laying on top of me.

"What?"

"I change my mind."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I change my mind. I'll go now."

"You're damn right you will," said the stranger, and ejected first me and then my shirt into the corridor.

I stumbled, still somewhat drunk, out into the street. It was then that it hit me: I was a man whose one true love was sleeping with a woman he cared nothing about. I was drunk, I was tired, I looked like hell, and the one person who might have helped me was out of town basking in newly wedded bliss. I collapsed on the sidewalk and sobbed for at least five minutes without stopping. And then I heard, as if in a dream, a voice.

"Sirius?"

I looked up. The face was older, less languid and youthful, but it still retained a gentle grace. The eyelashes were still long and the eyes were still like melted chocolate. "L-L-Lyrio?"

He nodded and sat down next to me, right there on the sidewalk.

"I guess I look pretty awful, don't I," I said.

"Come on," he said, resting one hand on my shoulder. "Come walk with me. This isn't a good neighborhood to be in at this time of the night alone. I live a few blocks away. I'll take you back to my place. Come on."

He helped me up and continued to hold my hand as we walked down the sidewalk. I clung to him for dear life until we reached his apartment.

The apartment was sparse, with a few photographs taped to the walls and a bookshelf made of crates.

"Where's your wife?" was the first thing out of my mouth.

"We're divorced."

"Sorry."

"Never mind that, it's in the past. What happened to you?"

I began to sob again, feeling like the very personification of despair. He sat down next to me and put his arms around me.

I told him the complete story of my life since the last time we had met, stopping to wail at some parts. When I got to the part about the night in the Shrieking Shack, he held me even closer.

"Lie down," he said, when I had finished. "Lie down."

I lay down on his bed and he lay down next to me. He began to wipe away my tears with a handkerchief and stroked my hair.
He stayed with me all throughout the night, comforting me when I had nightmares and whispering reassuring words into my ear. In the morning, he brought me toast and orange juice, and I looked up at him hesitantly.

"Lyrio, I...I don't think I know how to thank you."

"Don't mention it."

"No, really, I don't know what might have happened to me if you hadn't come along."

"Sirius, I want you to remember something," he said. "Everything that happens to us in this live happens to us for a reason. There is some meaning behind all this pain. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about." He looked away. "Now, I'll bring you back home."

Love, Sirius