Chapter Text
There's no living in my life anymore
The seas have gone dry
And the rain stopped falling
There was a haunted house waiting for Sirius Black.
This house was unlike any house he’d ever seen. It was grand, sure, with two floors of neatly rowed windows and very clean whitewashed walls indeed. Yet it didn’t make anxiety and resentment bubble up in his throat the way good old Grimmauld Place did. It wasn’t as cozy and familiar-feeling as James' house either, but there was certainly something welcoming about it.
It was the most important part: the house radiated around the dark garden with warmth. It was a long, long time since Sirius had felt warmth inside his hollow bones.
And so, he didn’t feel scared even if he should have. He had just died, after all. It had been a strange sensation, unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Not like falling asleep, no, he wouldn’t say that, but there was no other word for it either. Except for, well, dying , but it sure did ring hollow to anyone who had not experienced it themselves. Sirius himself had thought he knew at least partly what dying felt like - he’d fallen many times, got hit even more and there was the Cruciatus curse. That… and the long, excruciating years he’d spent in Azkaban.
But none of that was like dying. In Azkaban he’d felt his life was being sucked out of him very slowly and carefully, but as he looked around the shadowy garden he was currently standing in, he realised that death was not the absence of life. It was its own thing entirely. What exactly it was then, he was about to find out.
Sirius braced himself, shoving all of his thoughts aside and stepping deeper into the garden. It was very bushy and full of dim colours that the moon shone on. The moon, he realised, was there to watch his journey even after death. He felt the side of his body ache where Remus Lupin should’ve been. Then he had to put that thought away as well. Remus would be fine, he was strong enough to go on living even after Sirius himself was gone.
As he looked around the garden, he realised it was full of plants he’d never even seen. There were trees so huge he was barely able to see their tops, grassy plants that looked familiar, but not quite, and all kinds of creations that looked absolutely peculiar in every way. Fragrant smells hung around the garden like thick fog.
It was a fine garden with a fine mansion. The house stood tall and proud, with windows so clean and welcoming Sirius could almost burst into tears. The air was clean and the night was quiet. All signs of the fight he’d been in had disappeared entirely.
The silence broke; Sirius heard a sound. Someone was calling his name. And not just anyone. It was a voice he hadn’t heard in fourteen years. But it couldn’t, surely it couldn’t have been-
“Padfoot? Pads? Is that really you?”
It made him weak in the knees, almost made his heart beat more rapidly until he remembered he didn’t have a beating heart anymore. Sirius didn’t even have a body anymore, really, this was just an earthly mirage he was wearing.
But regardless, on the entry to the house stood a figure so painfully familiar. He hadn’t changed one bit, he hadn’t had a chance to change. Not like Sirius, who had rotten to the core so that he couldn’t even recognise his own voice - let alone his picture in the mirror. But he would always recognise this man - well, this boy, really - anywhere he went. Always.
Sirius didn’t even notice the steps he’d taken to get to the door, maybe he hadn’t taken them at all. There he was all the same, standing before James Potter who was even taller than before. Sirius blinked his eyes in surprise before he understood.
James hadn’t gotten any taller in the afterlife. It was he, Sirius, who had shrunk as a consequence from all those years curled up to himself. In Azkaban.
The guilt washed up over him, a tornado shredding his cells apart and filling his lungs with salty water.
“It really is you, isn’t it?” James asked, but his voice was wrong. He didn’t sound angry at all, not even bitter in the slightest way.
Sirius fell to his knees, not daring to look at his best friend’s boyish face. He looked so much like Harry, the brave boy who now had to soldier on in the world without his parents, without his godfather.
“Padfoot, what is this?”
“James, I-”
“Stand up you old fool”, James said from above. Suddenly his hand was on Sirius’ shoulder and he was yanking Sirius up. “Don’t pretend you haven’t gotten so old you can’t walk anymore.”
It was all so wrong, wrong, wrong.
And yet there Sirius was, looking James Potter in the eye. Even after he had betrayed his friend, convincing him to switch Peter to secret keeper and by doing that, selling him to Voldemort. Even after all that James looked at him the exact same way he had when they were both still alive and young and naive. And still alive. And still alive.
“Please, you should never forgive me”, Sirius tried to say, but his voice cracked up and the words came out as barely a whisper.
James’ lips went up to a smile, although one not as happy as he’d worn a mere moment ago. He placed his hand on Sirius’ shoulder again and held his gaze. “I won’t pretend I quite understand what you’re rambling about, but please stop, okay? I know, you’ve changed a lot, but- stop, alright?”
Sirius could see his own expression from the eyes of James. “You don’t… you don’t remember it? How you, well, got here?”
James nudged his head. “I do. That wasn’t your fault. I don’t know what’s happened to you since, but that wasn’t your fault. You know it. I know it. Lily knows it.”
“L-lily?”
“We’ve been waiting for you”, James said in a casual way, as if that was a normal thing. Then again, Sirius had no idea what happened after death, so perhaps it was useless to be surprised about anything.
“For me?”
“And Remus. And Mary.”
“What?”
“Yes, well, we thought we’d have to wait a bit longer for you all”, James said, eyeing Sirius' appearance. “You don’t look a hundred years old.”
Sirius almost laughed, remembering the way they had promised each other to live to a hundred and play Quidditch and still look better than Snivellus ever had. Then the chuckle turned to a half-sob in his throat. James was so incredibly young .
“Thirty-six”, he said. “I’m thirty-six. Was.”
James' face turned sadder than Sirius had ever seen it. That was a horrible sight. “That’s a long way to a hundred.”
Sirius shook his head, not being able to bring himself to joke with James as they’d done when they were younger. Sirius wasn’t that person anymore, if he was a person at all. “I’d have hated it anyway.”
“Well, in that case”, James said way too cheerily. Then his expression became more serious and he placed a hand on Sirius’ shoulder again. “How’s Harry?”
Sirius stared at him, all words dying in the back of his throat. James looked at him so expectantly, he knew nothing of the harsh life his son had had to live. That was… there were no words for that.
“He’s the wisest fifteen year-old boy I’ve ever met”, Sirius crowed. “You ought to be proud.”
James’ face fell. “Fifteen?”
“Yes. He’s much smarter than we were at his age, but… I should’ve stayed for him. I would have if I could.”
“I’m not blaming you for dying”, James said, but Sirius couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that.
“Is he safe? Harry?”
Sirius nodded. “He has many friends that take care of him. And Remus. And- others.”
James believed him instantly, which broke Sirius’ heart even more. James’ own son wasn’t much younger than him, but James was so much more naive.
“That’s it, then. You’re here with us.” James’ eyes had a hint of gold and his body was entirely at ease again. Sirius tried to swallow the pieces of his broken heart.
After a short, silent moment James stepped back into the house and looked at Sirius expectantly.
“Step inside. You will be washed of your human feelings”, he said. Now James looked like an angel. If angels had broken glasses and mischievous twinklings in the corners of their eyes.
Oddly enough, Sirius didn’t resent the order at all. He felt a wave of relief washing over him now, or perhaps it was a rain of relief. It didn’t suffocate him, instead it made him clean. Ready to step inside the house.
His hand was old, much older than James’ was. It was dirty and no good, and still he accepted to take James’ hand in his own hand, when they stepped over the doorstep.