Though Hell Should Bar the Way

The glen lay like an open palm between the two mountains, velvety and cold in the darkness. A man lay on the grass, his scarf and jacket inadequate protection from the autumn air, his gaze on the dark, star-scattered sky. There was no moon. Close by, a young boy was collecting faeries. They bobbed around him, evading the wild swipes of his net.

Occasionally the man craned his neck to look at the boy, but the boy had eyes only for his quarry. The man was aware of someone watching him, though for a long time he appeared to be alone.

When the other one finally came to him, he came out of the night like a fish broaching the surface of a lake. Air, the scent of the pines, and what faint light there was seemed to move around him as though unsure what to make of him. He shimmered, but the light of him did not brighten the night or dim the stars.

Seeing the apparition out of the corner of his eye, Remus said quietly, "I thought you'd come to me by moonlight. That's what you used to sing to me. That was the line in the poem." He felt pleasantly heady, and a little sad, as though he'd drunk too much wine, or sat too long by the fire.

And Sirius answered in a voice that sounded slightly off, as though he or Remus or both of them had forgotten how it was supposed to sound, "When, my love, have you known me to be predictable?"

"Never," admitted Remus, after a slight pause. "But I knew you were coming. I've felt you near me for weeks, now. Almost months. But you won't stay." Neither a question nor a command, but the simple statement of a fact. "You're not really a ghost."

He turned his head on the grass and looked at Sirius. Starlight shone through him, but he was solid enough for Remus to see that he looked as he had during the last year of his life: thin and troubled, floundering in a world that had changed around him without warning and no longer seemed to need him.

But beneath that face glimmered another: that of a handsome, cock-sure young man with a smile like a drawn bow, and eyes that gleamed like pirates' treasure. It was the young man with whom Remus had first fallen in love, and beneath that face was another: that of an eleven-year-old boy eager to fight, ready to rebel, but woefully unprepared for the consequences. It was the boy Remus had met that first fearful, overwhelming night at Hogwarts. The one who'd first found the chink in the walls young Remus had built around his heart, the one who'd made it his business to take down those walls stone by stone, if possible, and reduce them to rubble if necessary.

There were other faces of Sirius, less clear, and they all coalesced and came apart again, settling over one another in distinct layers, then swimming together dizzyingly. Remus found he could not focus his gaze on Sirius, but had to turn to the dark rim of the mountain, whilst watching Sirius out of the corner of his eye.

"I am a ghost," said Sirius, at length. "Not a proper one, though. So, no, I can't stay. I didn't leave an imprint of myself before I died. I didn't think to. The thought of death never frightened me. Not my own death, anyway. I didn't welcome it, but I didn't try that hard to avoid it in the end. I was just so tired. But then I found I wanted to come back. There was a reason I had to come back, just for a few minutes. But it's taken me all this while to remember enough of myself to come back this much, for this small amount of time. I don't know how long it will last." He sounded regretful. "Maybe until you say something and I don't know how to respond. Maybe until someone sees me who doesn't know me, and I don't know how I'm supposed to be in their eyes."

"Seven years," Remus murmured, his gaze still on the mountaintop. "It's been seven years since you died. That's how long it took you to come back to me. It's all right," he said, though he felt as though stones were being piled upon his heart. "I was prepared to wait forever just for a glimpse. I'd've walked over every inch of the world just for one sign that you'd passed that way before me. I did that - or nearly - the summer after you died. I went to all the places we'd been together: New York, Switzerland, Queensland... I needed some permanent sign of us. I found the moons and stars you carved into those rocks on Rainbow Beach. D'you remember doing that? It made me feel better for a little while, knowing we were carved in stone somewhere, but the feeling didn't last."

He turned to look at Sirius, though he had to squint and concentrate on only one of his shifting faces.

"I missed you," Remus said, and the words seemed to cut his throat from the inside. "I got back to London, and it hit me that no matter what you left behind, you were gone and I would never see you again as long as I was alive. And I realized I was beginning to forget you.

"I couldn't remember the exact shade of your eyes, or the way your breath tasted. It used to happen in the past, when we were together. I'd go out and spend some time away from you, then I'd come back and be surprised by how beautiful you were. I could never keep it in my head, for some reason. I'd fantasize while I was away, but you were always more beautiful than I remembered. I realized when I got back to London that you weren't there waiting for me, that there was nowhere in the world where you were waiting for me, so when I forgot it would be forever. That's when I wanted to die, too."

Sirius seemed to shiver. His image, already delicate as sea foam tossed against the shore of night, rippled slightly and Remus' heart nearly broke under its load because he thought Sirius was leaving him already. But he settled, and after a moment Remus began to breathe again, and Sirius' ghost said quietly, "I knew. I was aware of you. Not with any of the senses I had when I was alive. I couldn't see you, couldn't hear you or touch you... But I knew you. I knew what you were thinking. And I was so scared. That's the wrong word, I know. The dead can't fear. But..." He shook his head, and the stones on Remus' heart rattled while he wondered if the ghost really needed to shake his head to clear it, or if he only did so because Remus remembered the gesture. "I can't describe how I felt," Sirius said. "It wasn't even feeling, really. I just knew...it wasn't right. Wasn't your time."

"I had a plan," said Remus. "I thought I was being so practical, so selfless. I was going to fight to the end. I was going to be there for Harry, whatever he needed, and then after it was over, if I lived, I was going to go to the Veil and follow you." He said it as calmly as he'd ever thought about it. I'll go, he'd used to promise himself when living scraped his soul raw. When this is over, in a year, in a few months, a few weeks, I'll just go.

It had been a goal. He'd needed a goal, as somehow, defeating Voldemort had lost some of its necessity after Sirius' death.

"But then," Sirius prompted gently.

"But then," Remus continued slowly, "but then suddenly, before I was to go, everything changed." He looked away from Sirius, to the young boy who was still collecting faeries, oblivious to the fact that his father was conversing with a ghost.

"Everything changed," he murmured again, and was surprised when a smile touched his lips. "It wasn't supposed to happen. I was going to follow you. I'd been planning it for two years. Then...one night shortly before the last battle...I was drunk, and Dora was drunk, and we were both in mourning, I for you, and she for Charlie Weasley. It wasn't supposed to happen and I can't honestly tell you why it did. We both expected to die. I think we both wanted to. Maybe we thought that in betraying the ones we loved we were condemning ourselves, ensuring our deaths. I don't know. It wasn't about the two of us, really. I saw your face, and I'm sure she saw Charlie's. It was a very crowded bed that night. We never talked about it. It wasn't supposed to happen, but it did. We weren't supposed to survive the battle, but somehow we did. Afterward, I went to her to say goodbye, and that was when she told me. And...I couldn't go, then. There were enough children left without parents. I didn't want there to be one more because of me. So, I stayed. It was hardly a decision, just something that happened... And nine months later, there was Cyon."

The boy had caught a faerie. As Remus watched, he sank to his knees on the cool grass and carefully removed the tiny creature from his net. His small hands cupped around the glow, he looked as though he were holding a star.

Unseen beside him, Sirius said, "Cyon. You named him after me."

Remus nodded. "We didn't want to call him Sirius or Charles. So, we gave him your middle names. Cyon Edward Lupin-Tonks. And there you have it. The last of the Blacks the son of a werewolf and a Metamorphmagus."

"Lupin-Tonks," Sirius repeated, sounding uncertain. "But you never married..."

"No, we didn't. We discussed it, and in the end we decided against it. We weren't in love, we weren't going to fall in love, and I thought it would be cruel to tie her to me. She was quite young...is still quite young."

"So are you," said Sirius quickly.

Remus looked at him again. "I'm forty-three," he said. "That's not young to a werewolf. And anyway, there was never anyone for me but you, and there never will be. I learned that ten years ago. It's all right, love," he insisted because Sirius - young, old, and ageless simultaneously - was watching him sadly. "It's all right. It used to bother me, but it doesn't anymore." He smiled again reassuringly. "I've been more in love than most people ever get to be."

"And in more pain," said Sirius.

"Well," Remus said reflectively, "yes. There was that. There still is that, because I'm never going to stop missing you and it doesn't help much having you here now, and knowing I can't keep you with me. But for someone who built so many walls before he was even eleven, who tried so hard not to feel anything...it's all right."

"Is it?" Sirius pressed.

"No," Remus said at once. "It isn't. I just have to keep telling myself that it is, or I might start to wish - the way I used to - that I'd never met you. And I never want to wish that again. So I tell myself that it's all right, that the little time we had together is worth all we paid. I can believe it when Cyon's with me, or when I see Harry. He's doing well, Harry," he said quickly, grateful for the tangent. "We saw him three weeks ago, in fact. He's teaching at Hogwarts. Did you know?"

"I didn't," Sirius replied. "I...know he's alive. But the only one I'm really...aware of...as an individual...is you. And...Cyon. 'We'?"

"Cyon and me. He was staying at my house. He spends a lot of time at my house, since Dora's still an Auror and is at the Ministry most of the day. She sees him whenever she can, of course. He's always with her for the full moon. He can get to and from our houses easily by Floo. I'm home most of the time. I write. My first book was your biography. Then people wanted me to write more. Wanted to pay me to write more. Fancy that."

"I always loved it when you said 'we'," Sirius said, his dreamy tone cutting through Remus' babbling. "When we lived together in York. After school. I remember now. I'd forgotten. 'We're going out tonight', or 'We have a lot of work to do', you used to say. I loved it. I loved being part of your 'we'. Maybe that's why I was always aware of Cyon, even though I'd never met him. Because he's yours, of course, but maybe also because he's supplanted me."

"He hasn't supplanted you," Remus said. "No one ever could. What I feel for him is completely different from what I feel for you. If you're worried about being forgotten, don't. I may have forgotten the exact angle of your cheek..." He lifted one hand as though to touch Sirius, but drew it back when no warmth radiated from the shimmering figure beside him. "I could never forget you completely. You're part of me. Part of him. He is part Black, you know. And there are times when I see something of you in him. I think he has your forehead and eyebrows. They're not like mine or Dora's, anyway. I never understood genetics. He laughs like you, too. I don't know how got your laugh, but he did."

Sirius turned his head for the first time and looked at Cyon, though he had to have been too far away to see the smooth slope of his forehead and the way his eyebrows were just a little too close together over the bridge of his nose.

"Tell me about him," Sirius said, still looking at the boy, and Remus wondered if perhaps he could see him clearly, even at that distance and in the dark. "I've been aware of his existence, like I said, but that's all. I couldn't really see him, I don't know what he's like except that he makes you happy and worries you a lot sometimes. I don't even know what color his eyes are."

"They're brown," Remus said, watching Sirius. "Like mine." He'd stopped regretting living the day his son's eyes had begun to darken. He wondered if Sirius had been aware of that.

"Tell me more," Sirius pleaded. "I won't remember any of it after I go, but while I'm here I want to know everything about him. Please."

Remus opened his mouth, but found to his surprise that the words would not come. He could not articulate his love for Cyon any better than he'd ever been able to articulate his love for Sirius. And Cyon would not be alive if Sirius had not died. Connected as they were, they belonged to entirely separate parts of Remus' life, and though he tried he could not make them come together even in this small amount of time.

The effort made him sleepy, or perhaps it was the cold and the lateness of the hour, or the strain of understanding that Sirius could be here and gone forever at the same time.

He reached out again with his hand, and let it rest close to Sirius'. The other man's hand was cold with the absence of life. He wanted to touch him, to thread his fingers with Sirius' and memorize the way they felt because he had not taken the time to do so seven years ago. When he inched his hand closer, Sirius turned to him again, and smiled.

Remus whispered, "I won't see you again after this, will I? Not while I'm alive, at least."

"No, you won't," Sirius answered. "And you won't after you die. At least, not the way you're thinking. It's nothing like this, being dead. I can't tell you what a soul looks like, or what it does, but it's not like this. But we'll be together."

"I love you," Remus said. "I don't know how much time we have left, but I wanted to say that. While I'm rational. I think I may go a bit mad after you leave me and I've had time to think about what's happened. But before that happens, I love you. As much as one human being can love another. That's how I know I'm completely human. Because I can love this much. Did you know? Do you know? How much I love you?"

Sirius opened his mouth and looked as though he meant to answer, but just then Cyon's excited cry of "Papa! Papa!" cut through the night. Remus heard the running feet like his own heartbeat and turned to see the boy.

Cyon flopped onto the grass beside Remus with the boneless grace of the very young. His brown hair flopped over his brow, hiding his dark eyes, but his smile was visible in the dim faerie-light. He still held the tiny creature in one hand.

"Where's the jar, Papa?"

"Why not let it go, love? They don't live long, anyway. You can catch more tomorrow, if it doesn't rain." Remus brushed his son's fine hair away from his eyes, but it swept back down as the boy shook his head.

"Do I have to?"

"I think you should," said Remus gently. He looked over his shoulder at Sirius, but the ghost had gone. Whether the night had closed around him like a curtain or a veil, or whether he'd dissolved like sea foam, Remus would never know. The pieces of his heart, held together over the years by necessity and a newfound love, trembled in his chest. But then Cyon was tapping his shoulder with his small hand and recalling him to the present. So he blinked back his tears, and turned once more to his son.

"Make a wish, Papa."

"Don't hold it so tightly; you'll hurt it. Gently, now. You make a wish for me. Then let it go. It's cold, and it's late. Let's go home. I'll make hot chocolate."

"With marshmallows?" asked the boy.

"If you so choose," said Remus.

"The little ones?"

"If we have any, and I think we do."

Though clearly delighted by the prospect of hot chocolate with little marshmallows, it was with obvious reluctance that Cyon uncurled his fingers. The faerie in his palm was no bigger than a walnut, and pale blue in color. As two pairs of brown eyes watched, it turned slowly, with seeming uncertainty, before beginning to rise skyward.

For a moment Remus wondered if Sirius' soul lingered in the glen, or if he'd gone completely, to wherever souls go to wait for the living. Then Cyon gasped softly, and Remus stopped thinking about Sirius.

The faerie had leaped higher, well out of reach should Cyon change his mind. As they watched it continued upward until it looked like a star against the night sky, one star among a very great many. A moment later it was no longer distinguishable from the real stars. Then it was gone.

Remus rose to his feet, and Cyon rose with him. Around them, the glen was silent and still, except for the slight tremor of the breeze through tree branches and dry leaves, and the constellations turning overhead. Remus lifted his son in his arms, Cyon wrapped his arms around his father's neck and rested his cheek against his shoulder, and they left the glen together.

09/20/04