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Sometimes he thinks it’s all a dream.
He has Azkaban to thank for that, he knows. He’d nearly gone mad there, losing happy memories like precious stones lost down a long, empty well. Left with his grief and his guilt. Long days and longer nights spent alone in his cell, listening to the rattling breaths of Dementors lurking nearby.
He knows he hallucinated things in there. His mind, in some last, desperate attempt before complete surrender, had conjured images about him. Always when he was dead tired and near tears in his want for respite, but sleep refused to take him – he’d see things. Sometimes he saw his mother and her spitting insults, right there in his cell, right in front of him, standing in all her cold disdain. Regulas and his sad, grey eyes. The full moon in the sky when he hadn't seen the sky or the moon in years, or it's reflection on the glimmering surface of the Great Lake, where he stood at the pebble-strewn edge until his cell re-materialized around him. He’d see his friends, sometimes quiet and brooding in the shadows, other times laughing, smiling, but always unaware of his presence, deaf to his pleas.
Expect for Remus. Remus would watch him, tired and hurting but accepting of everything Sirius had done - the distrust, the suspicion and isolation. And Sirius had sank into the corner of his cell, tearful, shaking, until the images dispersed.
It’s been years since his time in Azkaban and those distressing hallucinations. Years since the Second War. Harry defeated Voldemort, the world inched its way towards normalcy, and Sirius made it out alive.
But even now. Even now his mind murmurs. Maybe it’s all a dream.
Maybe, maybe Remus hadn’t been in just the right place that night in the Department of Mysteries. Maybe he hadn’t pulled Sirius to safety, jerking him an inch to the left at just the right moment – just as Bellatrix aimed a curse at his heart. Maybe Sirius hadn’t felt the heat of the dark magic as it blazed by inches from his ear, missing him and hitting the strange, whispering veil instead. Maybe Sirius hadn’t felt a chilled breeze fan out from the billowing material, coiling around his shoulders like gnarled hands reaching for something that should have been within their grasp. Maybe Harry hadn’t shot off a stunning spell right at Bellatrix’s chest, and maybe Sirius hadn’t collapsed against Remus, alive and laughing with triumph and hysterical relief, Remus’s arm holding him close.
Maybe Remus hadn't pulled him to safety and he'd fallen into the veil, cold and dead and gone, falling, falling.
Maybe, his mind murmurs. Maybe-
He shuts his eyes and lays back. There’s a soft grunt above him, and he blinks his eyes open to see Remus smiling down at him, an open book in hand. There are cushions at the end of the sofa, soft and the perfect size for a weary Marauder to lay on. But Remus’s lap has always been Sirius’s favorite spot to rest his head.
Remus goes back to reading his book, but his free hand strays to Sirius’s dark hair and smooths gently over it. Music plays from the old, charmed record player in the corner – Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. Twilight gleams through the open window, sun sinking into softly painted clouds over London rooftops, visible and obtainable in a way that hadn’t been possible until just recently. Until Voldemort’s defeat, and Sirius’s pardon, and the complete revamping of the old family residence.
Maybe, his mind whispers.
Sirius takes a breath. Beyond the sitting room of 12 Grimmauld Place, he can hear the laughter of Harry and Ron and Hermione, likely still in the kitchen and sharing the last of Molly’s baked goods that she’d sent over with Ron that morning. They’d had a long day of cleaning Grimmauld Place of the last vestiges of dark magic, throwing open windows and letting fresh air in – even the muggy London air was cleaner than the oppressive feel of the building.
Harry has his own room, now, far enough from Sirius’s and Remus’s room that he could have all the privacy he wanted, at least until he found a place of his own – though Sirius didn’t see why he had to move out, and Harry had only seemed to make that statement with the air of someone who didn’t really mean -or want- to follow through.
Why leave when his family was right here?
Sirius feels his mind waver. It all feels like a dream. Like something his mind would have conjured for him in his cold cell, something to keep him sane for a moment longer until the Dementors devoured it like decay on an old house. Maybe-
Remus takes his hand.
He’s still distracted by his book, but he’s running his thumb over the back of Sirius’s hand, slow and comforting and familiar. Warm and real and there.
“What would you say,” Sirius blurts out, the little voice in his mind wavering, “to a ride through the stars tonight? Head out and pick up, I dunno – pizza or something. For the kids.”
“Pizza would be good,” Remus says. He flicks his eyes down to see Sirius’s grin. “Bibimbap would be better.”
“Man after my own heart,” Sirius says, and takes Remus’s hand in his own. He raises it to his lips, presses a kiss against his wrist. Feels a steady, beating pulse under scarred skin.
Remus watches him, smiling, content and relaxed and solid. Real.
The kids’ laughter rings out. The smell of honeysuckle wafts in on cool air through the open window. The music plays on, and Sirius holds Remus’s hand tight, grounds himself in the moment.
There is no maybe. He is here. He is alive. And he’s happy.
And life - in its own wonderful, deliberate way - goes on.