Resurrection

"H... Harry?" the man asked, barely understandable. "Harry?"

Harry looked into the face of this man again, and his mouth dropped open as he recognised the figure.

"SIRIUS?!" Harry found his voice. He couldn't believe it, but it was staring him in the face. Sirius Black had returned.

~*~*~

Sirius Black was seated at the kitchen table. Harry was mechanically preparing some tea for his godfather while lost in his thoughts. They were thoughts of how and why and when. His godfather was ravenously devouring a plate of biscuits that Harry had gotten for him, and it was clear that he hadn't eaten in some time. He'd already polished off three slices of toast and some leftover bacon. Finally the tea was ready and Harry returned to the table, serving the tea in two mugs, which steamed when they were filled. Harry sat and Sirius finished the biscuits, and looked at Harry. There was silence for a good few minutes. It was clear that neither knew quite what to say, until Harry spoke up.

"What's the name of your best friend in the world?" Harry demanded softly, with a cold edge. Sirius looked stunned at the sudden questioning.

"Harry... What?!" Sirius asked, confused.

"Who is your best friend? Surely if you're Sirius, you'll know," Harry whispered back, his suspicion evident and his tone cruel.

"Remus Lupin!" Sirius replied.

"Why did Snape hate my father?" Harry caressed the words, coating them in sweet venom.

"Is this necessary?" asked Sirius.

"Answer the questions," Harry ordered, his voice going cold.

"The slimy git hated your father because he thought James was in on my joke, which almost got him killed," Sirius responded. "You knew me as Snuffles for a good period of time, my favourite uncle was Uncle Alphard, and my favourite flavour of jam is blackberry. Happy?"

There was silence again. Harry looked at Sirius, suddenly overwhelmed with sadness.

"You died. You died at the Ministry of Magic. What happened?" Harry pleaded. Sirius took a deep breath. The minute he started to talk, Harry knew he was a changed man. His voice, which had always seemed to be on the verge of telling a joke, was now filled with a low undertone of terror. Death had clearly changed him, and not for the better.

"I don't know. My memories are shaky...I remember the Ministry of Magic, fighting my cousin... And then there was black...I was floating above a motionless grey sea. Above me was an unending blackness. I was sinking, closer and closer towards that terrible grey ocean. I don't know how much time passed. But I knew I did not want to fall into that ocean. I fought. Fought with tooth and nail, with all the willpower I could summon. I clawed my way through darkness." Sirius's eyes were haunted, and he seemed terrified to continue talking. But he did.

"The ocean struggled too. It wanted me badly. I admit that I came very close to giving up, and I knew that so much as a toe in the water would have meant the end of me. But I remembered you. I remembered you and Lupin and Dumbledore and the rest of the gang. And I knew I couldn't let that fathomless grey win." Here, Sirius's eyes filled with triumph.

"I finally managed to wrench myself out of its grasp, although it took all my willpower to do it. It was like breaking an elastic band you know. Once its grip snapped, I shot higher and higher through a ring of golden light. When I opened my eyes next, I was naked, cold, and hungry. I didn't know where I was, or when. I couldn't even remember my name at the time." Sirius rubbed his face, and yawned. Clearly he hadn't gotten much sleep either.

"I wandered for a long time. I don't know how long. I didn't know anything at the time, so I lived off what I stole from people. This trench coat is the first article of clothing I stole. Sometimes a memory would come back, disjointed and meaningless to me. One night I remembered Azkaban, and I haven't slept since then. It was funny though, because I felt drawn this way, drawn to you, like a moth to a flame. When I remembered I was a wizard, I made sure to steal a wand from somebody, just in case. I still didn't know who you were, but names were starting to return to me. James. Lupin. Tonks. Minerva."

"One of my friends had his wand stolen when he was down in the country for a vacation two months ago. The thief was described as filthy and ill-fed. A Cherry Wood, with a Unicorn hair core, at..."

"Eleven inches long," Sirius finished for Harry, who nodded. "I remember. You can give it back if you see him."

"I'm sorry to interrupt. Please, go on with the story," Harry urged. Sirius grimaced.

"There's not much to really tell after that. Eventually when I ended up in your alley, I was just going to rob you for some money, but when I saw it was you..." Sirius smiled, but it was a haunted smile. "It all came back. Everything."

Sirius paused for a second. He drew his courage.

"So... Voldemort must be gone? I notice you're not in a concentration camp or dead..." Sirius said.

"Not gone; dead. For good this time. And he took good people down with him." Harry spat angrily.

Sirius fell silent. He seemed to be thinking very hard.

"I know... I think I felt it while I was fighting... Occasionally the force on my body slackened, and something else was accepted into the grey... And some of it felt familiar..." Sirius trailed off.

"I bet it did. Flitwick died, Mad Eye Moody, Dedalus Diggle, Molly Weasley. More of the Order. And those are just the people you knew. I lost a lot of the DA to Death Eaters and Voldemort." Harry sighed, his mind clearly lost to the war for a few seconds. "But we did get him. During the last fight. Snape stood by his master to the end, naturally. Damned greasy bastard turned his back on Dumbledore after you died. Killed Dumbledore himself, as a matter of fact."

"NO!" Sirius shouted, shocked. "He couldn't have!"

"He did. He was cold, ruthless and evil to the end. He slipped away during the assault on Voldemort's fortress, and died not long after Voldemort." Harry's eyes betrayed a glimmer of cruel satisfaction. "It was quite a battle. In the end, there were six Death Eaters left, not including Snape. By now there are four. Strangely enough, Snape killing Dumbledore turned Draco against his father and Voldemort. He was there, and he almost got killed for his effort. He's been a target ever since."

"I see." Sirius nodded. It was a lot to take in. "The war must have been hard. I'm sorry I wasn't there to help fight it."

Before anything else could be said, somebody upstairs made clear that there was a problem to be attended to immediately. From the sounds of it, it was Morgan. Sirius's eyes opened wide in shock.

"You've got a child?!" Sirius blurted out in amazement. "Who's the mother?!"

Harry smiled fondly.

"Ginny Weasley," Harry told Sirius. Sirius's face split into a huge beaming grin, the first smile Harry had seen from him all day, and it was definitely worth the effort.

"Always knew you two were a perfect couple. Molly must have been pretty stunned though." Sirius shook Harry's hand. The happy moment was broken up by another wail from upstairs, from a child that refused to be denied any longer. Sirius followed Harry up the stairs and into the twins' bedroom. His eyes widened again when he saw the room.

"TWO children?!" Sirius asked in shock. Harry grinned wickedly.

"Twins. This little girl..." Harry referred to the creature in his arms that was clearly unhappy. "...is called Morgan, Morgan Lily Potter." Harry sniffed the air and made a face. "Of course!"

Harry set to work on Morgan, stripping her of her one piece and removing her nappy. Sirius watched in awe as this young man, who'd been only a boy when last they'd met, handled such a responsibility.

With a dash of talcum powder and a new nappy done up, Harry lifted the girl into his arms again. Morgan seemed to be much happier for her change. She stared at Sirius Black with her dark green eyes, as though she already knew who he was. Then she giggled and turned away, lunging for Harry's glasses.

"Oi!" Harry exclaimed. He put Morgan into a playpen, whereupon she took a toy hammer and put it in her mouth. Harry then looked into the young Sirius's crib, to find him awake but calm. Harry picked him up, and after confirming a lack of excrement, he sat the young child on his lap, as he and Sirius took up a seat in the room.

"Would you like to hold him?" Harry asked Sirius. Terror flashed through Sirius's eyes briefly at the thought, but it passed.

"Yeah, I think I would," Sirius responded. Harry put the young Sirius into the older Sirius's arms, and the young one craned his neck to look at his older namesake. But after his curiosity was satisfied, the baby seemed quite comfortable, as did the adult.

"So..." Sirius began, rocking the baby gently. "What's the boy's name?" They both seemed to be enjoying it, and Harry took great pleasure in answering.

"His name is Sirius."

Sirius's eyes shot open, stunned. He looked from Harry, then to his namesake, and his eyes shone with proud tears. And Harry knew that this was one more nightmare he had seen the back of.