Outside the Room

He couldn't let himself go until they got back to the house. Being forced to hold in the emotion was almost as great a pain as that which was causing the emotions.

He knew the others were watching him as they flew back. He knew they were watching him as they entered the house. None of them would talk to him; none of them knew what to say.

Silently he walked up the stairs. He made his way to their room and let his hand rest on the doorknob, not ready to open it yet. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the door. The cool temperature of the dark wood was soothing. For a moment, he was able to lose himself in it. Then he pushed the door open.

Everything was just as it had been that morning. He was able to remember it the way one remembers a dream, soft and blurred at the edges and too surreal to be believable. The covers were thrown back, half on the floor, the way Sirius always left them. He remembered how last year they would awaken and hold each other for an hour before getting out of bed, but Sirius had been too tightly wound for that as of late. The chipped blue mug on the nightstand still held a few drinks of water, water that Sirius had been drinking just ten hours ago.

He stood in the doorway, unwilling to walk in yet. Sirius' clothes were in a pile on the floor, as always. Even from here, his keen senses could pick up the scent of what Sirius had worn yesterday. His own clothes had been folded neatly on the bureau, but they had been pushed aside earlier in the day as an excited Sirius had explained to him his plans for them in the future, after the need for the Order was gone. He could see even from here the scattered papers covered with hastily sketched plans of a house, a business, and who knew what else. And to think that at the time he had scolded Sirius for wrinkling his clothes. But that had all been this morning, and it had all just been part of some dream. Now a great chasm bigger than time could ever be yawned between that point and this.

It would be so easy to blame Harry. Of course, he also knew that Severus had been responsible for ending the Occlumency lessons, and had refused to tell why. But he couldn't blame anyone right now. There was no point. Blame wouldn't make him come back. Nothing would make him come back. Blame would only make things hurt more for everyone involved. And Harry was hurting now, too. He knew that. He had had to stop the boy himself from going after Sirius. He was glad, really, that Harry was there. If he hadn't been, he didn't know if anyone would have been there to stop he himself from going after Sirius.

It wasn't fair, any of it. It wasn't fair that his only love had been taken away for so long. He remembered many nights during those long twelve years, sitting awake, trying to put the image of James' would-be murderer together with the picture of his beloved Sirius. He had tried to set himself apart from it. He had tried to find someone else. But it all came back to Sirius. And then, to see him again that night, and to find out the truth...and then to know that they would again be together forever...why did forever have to be so short?

He heard a noise from behind him. He turned to see Tonks standing at the top of the stairs, looking at him with a sad, strained smile. He didn't know what to say. It was like she had caught him in the bath, he felt so oddly exposed.

"Go on," she said, motioning towards the open door. "Go on. You need it." She turned and walked away.

He looked at the room again for a moment. It was, right now, a shrine to how wonderful things had been on the other side of that great divide. But he knew that it couldn't stay that way forever.

He walked in alone and closed the door behind him.