When The World Was Mine

When The World Was Mine

Song by Ronan Keating; Prose by Weaver; Harry Potter characters by J. K. Rowling

***

It never rained, the sun was always shining
Every traffic light was always green

The highway is deserted; soil blows across it in aimless little willy-willies, spiralling for a few brief seconds out of the muckheap only to land back where it came from. This is outback Australia, a place Voldemort has paid little or no attention to - yet. And it is quiet, and empty, and sleepy beneath the hot sunshine.

At least, until a noise enters just on the edge of hearing. The little sound quickly rockets up to a full-blown roar, and a cloud of dust appears in the distance, rising quickly.

It is a motorbike; big, shiny and black, with two people riding it. A lean, whip-thin boy of twenty-four and his girlfriend, a tiny thing with blue-black hair that seems to outweigh her fragile frame. They´re laughing, their heads tossed back in the wind that blasts them; she rests her head on his chest and cries defiance into the dust.

And as the bike screams past, the sound drilling everything else out of existence, their laughter - their pure joy in living - is the last thing to fade. They rocket off into the distance, and the day is just that little bit brighter where they have passed.

There was a time when every door was open
The universe was mine, or so it seemed

It´s the same couple, but night has fallen - a balmy night, a peaceful night, and the stars lie sprinkled across the sky like an ocean of gems. The ebb and flow of the tide and the gentle sound of waves pounding the sand echoes in their ears; they can feel the sand beneath them, still warm and smooth, working its way slowly into their skin. They don´t care.

Sirius points out his star, the Dog Star - here, it´s ridiculously bright, huge, sparkling among the other stars like a minor god. Fin giggles at this description, and flicks him on the cheek for arrogance.

The world spirals away around them, the happy couple lying on their backs pointing at the stars, and everything shrinks to nothing but them, this moment, the lives they hope to live and the delights they share in everything. The spread of glistening stars seems designed with them and only them in mind, beckoning, glowing, inviting them to share in wonders nobody has seen...

Together, they let the moment take them and sweep them up into infinity. After all, it all belongs to them...

Every roll was seven or eleven
That it would ever end never crossed my mind

Sirius´s luck is running like a river tonight; unstoppable, unbreakable, eternal. Fin, opposite him, feels the same; together they´re invulnerable. The other card players are shaking their heads, some casting the young couple suspicious glances, some preparing to throw in the towel. Fin and Sirius don´t notice - they´re young, they´re partying, the world is at their feet.

"Star! Look!" The DJ is setting up, and Fin tosses down her cards in a heap; Sirius leaps to take her hand. The other members of the game roll their eyes, but they do notice that Sirius has left his winnings behind. He has other things to enjoy, tonight.

Fin steps onto the dance floor, her white dress swishing around her ankles and her hair reflecting the rainbow colours produced by the DJ´s equipment; the glimmering streamers that fall from nothing and vanish before they hit the floor seem attracted to her, and wind themselves around her arms and hands. The music rolls out from the walls around them, and Sirius takes her hand. He barely hears the loud beat; he doesn´t see the other dancers leaping about wildly; he holds Fin close, and they sway and glide their way through the night together, in a harmony that the music can´t reproduce.

"I want to stay this way forever," she whispers into his chest.

"We will, Fin, we will," he tells her, and bends down to kiss her thoroughly.

I was flying higher than the heavens
Back when the world was mine

Another night: a cloudy one this time, the world sleeping under a cloak of warm fluffy white. Sirius and Fin, though, have risen above the clouds; his faithful motorbike coasts along between thick white puffs of mist, gilded silver by the waxing moon. They look almost like statues, gliding along so peacefully, the silver light coating them in an otherworldly veneer, holding each other close and sailing through an ocean of cloud.

"It´s like a dream," Fin says, staring around at the shining wonderland they´re sailing through. "It´s beautiful."

"So are you," he says honestly. "You´re beautiful. Fin - will you marry me?"

Her body tenses against his, and he´s frightened - he shouldn´t have said it, he´s messed everything up - and then she turns to him, her eyes glistening with something more than reflected moonlight, joy in every line of her face, and he knows her answer even before she can get it out of her bliss-choked throat.

Sometimes a man can´t see
When he has it all

"Fuck you, Sirius!"

"Yes, please."

"Don´t do that! You´re not listening. Can´t you take one fucking evening off from working on that bloody stupid bike?"

"That´s unfair, Fin. I don´t work on her every night."

"No, only every night I want to go out!"

"Fin, that´s not true."

"Fuck it´s not true! It´s always true!"

"Fin, I need to fix her so I can get to work tomorrow. Please - be reasonable? We can still go out later."

"Oh, yes, later!" Her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Like last week, when you promised we´d go visit Peter and Anne later? Like the week before that when we were going to go to dinner later? I´ve had it up to here with you and your later, Sirius!"

Alarmed now; the clunk of a spanner dropping. "Fin, calm down - it isn´t that big a deal!"

"Oh, that´s just like you, isn´t it? Forget it, I´m going out on my own. If you want to spend your evenings with her now, then you can have your fucking engagement ring back!" The metallic ting of a small object hitting the side of a motorbike.

"Fin!"

"Let me go, you big oaf!"

"Fin, I´m not letting you go. You´re hysterical."

"Fuck you. Fuck you, Sirius Black. I don´t need you."

"Fin - have you been drinking?"

"So what if I have? Maybe it helps me see the truth. You´re in love with your fucking motorbike, Sirius, you never loved me!"

He´s angry. "Don't say that, Fin, that´s stupid talk. You know I love you."

"So why won´t you come out with me?"

"Fin, I told you - if I don´t fix her I can´t get to work tomorrow."

"Excuses! Forget it. I´m going out on my own."

"Fine. I´ll see you in the morning."

...But she picked up her ring and slipped it back on her finger before she left.

Take a look at me,
Oh how the mighty fall!

And now, the same night - a different tune. Slow and heavy, oppressive, the darkness covers the earth. There are no gilded clouds tonight, no silver linings even - just the earth, damp and weighty under his feet, and the frantic pounding of his heart.

"Mr Black? This way..." the orderly says softly, when they enter the morgue. He´s a young one, crisp starchy uniform, eager freshness in his face, although tonight it´s suppressed by the desire to appear sympathetic. Sirius shakes off his arm as though it´s riddled with leprosy. He doesn´t want to be touched by anyone.

At his side, James walks, saying nothing, glancing occasionally towards him as if to check that his heart´s still beating. Sirius knows his heart´s beating. Every pound seems to reprimand him. She´s dead. You´re alive. She´s dead. You´re alive. You should have been there. Should have. Been there. Should have. Been there. He links the ceaseless hammering to his footsteps, pacing it along the corridor to where they want him to identify Fin´s body...

She´s there - it´s definitely her. His heart drops like a stone. There´s no possibility of a mistake - it´s her. She´s white, her skin almost translucent, her blue-black hair braided neatly around her skull, her eyes open and staring. Those beautiful gem-green eyes... Sirius reaches down to close them, but jerks back. Her skin is cold. Cold like nothing should be, colder than cold, cold as death.

He steps back, and James and the orderly back away from him instinctively. He doesn´t know what expression might be in his eyes, but he doesn´t particularly care either.

"Mr Black? ...Mr Black?" The orderly looks anxious, but Sirius ignores him. Should have. Been there. Should have. Been there. The pounding speeds up, and he turns away blindly and runs. The glass doors crash open ahead of him, and the slippery corridor floor vanishes behind him. He breaks out through the front doors of the building, like a breath being expelled from a body.

Should have. Been there. Should have. Been there.

The night air is cold, bleak, sawing at his face. He runs, ignoring James behind him calling, ignoring the bushes and branches that whip at his face, ignoring the cars sliding along the road beside him - ignoring everything but the pain that eats at his ribs.

Should have been there. She´s dead. Should have been there...

Once I ruled the earth, once upon a time
When I had your love, that´s when the world was mine

The funeral is a quiet affair. Sirius sits alone, huddled in on himself, and nobody disturbs his solitude. Fin had little family; a few otherworldly beings and wood-sprites attend, but only one other Sidhe. The faeries do not speak to the humans, but leave as soon as the ceremony is over to grieve in their own way.

James and Lily are there, and Peter and Anne - happy couples. Sirius can´t bear to look at them, can´t bear to speak to them - it´s too painful. Anne and Peter are planning their own wedding, and Lily and James glow with happiness together... Sirius doesn´t see that they suffer too, he only sees their togetherness, and he can´t stand it.

Dumbledore ends the ceremony, and Sirius stands up and walks out of the building. They let him pass in silence, each row of his friends and family, respecting his grief.

Oh the changes I´d make if I had the power
How could I have so much and be so blind?

If only...

If only rules his life now. If only he hadn´t argued ... if only he hadn´t wanted to fix the stupid motorbike... if only he´d gone with her.

The cemetery is quiet, almost deserted except for Sirius and James. They make dismal figures, Sirius in his filthy jeans and torn shirt, James in his black war robes, surrounded by bright sun and red soil, with birds singing in the trees and the sunburn starting on the back of their necks.

James stands silently several paces back, alert for danger. Sirius is on his knees in the dirt that covers her grave, throat choked with the words he wants to say, fire behind his eyes and in his heart. A single tear falls, making a patch of mud on the back of his hand.

He is a different man. No longer the cocky, laughing youngster from the pictures that adorn everyone´s walls, there is an aching emptiness in his eyes. His intensity seems faded, almost worn ... he sits alone and stares into the distance most of the time.

And the motorbike rusts away in his garage, untouched since the evening of that fateful argument.

But at least for a bright and shining moment
I had you and the world was mine.

And now - another time, another place. Surrounded by filth, by dirt and muck and slime and excrement, Sirius huddles in a corner of the tiny stone cell and scratches in the dirt by his feet... scratches pictures, of one he once loved, running, dancing, laughing, living.

When the shadowy evil comes too close, he stares at his vague scribbles, and tries to block out her screams that ring in his ears like fire through the bush. And when he can't stand it any longer, he smashes the dust apart with his fist, into little idle willy-willies that rise up, hover for a brief time, and die down with the ceasing of his movement.

Sometimes a man can´t see
When he has it all
Take a look at me
Oh how the mighty fall,
Once I ruled the earth
Once upon a time
When I had your love
That´s when the world was mine...

And she sleeps unhappily, in her cell - if she but knew it, only a few scant metres from the one she loves more than anything else in the world... and when she wakes, all she remembers is her grief, and her mistakes, and her pain.

That´s when the world was mine.

***