Entry tags:
FIC: A Sort of Fairytale, Part 1
Ack! The deadline for the Trading Places challenge was yesterday, and I haven't finished my second piece yet, so I'll post the first two chapters, and I'll get the rest up as soon as possible. I blame it all on Sirius, who insisted on hogging the spotlight and made the story longer than I had planned! ;-)
Title: A Sort of Fairytale, Part 1
Author:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
geri_chan
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Snape/Lupin
Word count: 6250
Disclaimer: No money is being made off this story; consider it a little wish fulfillment on my part. Characters belong to J.K. Rowling, except for Death, who belongs to Neil Gaiman.
Author's notes: Canon compliant up to HBP, more or less, but I made up my own ending to the series, although I borrowed a few crucial elements from DH. I borrowed the character Death from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series; she also appears in my story The Revenant (which can be found on Moonshadow or my website). You don't need to be familiar with the Sandman comics/graphic novels in order to follow this story, although I've thrown in a few little in-jokes for Gaiman fans.
Summary: Written for the Trading Places challenge on![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
lupin_snape, based on karasu_hime's lovely artwork. Sirius falls through the Veil, is greeted by Death, and is told that he has unfinished business to complete.
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"Come on, Bellatrix, you can do better than that!" Sirius taunted.
He should have known better than to open his big mouth, because a moment later, his crazy bitch cousin hit him squarely in the chest with a spell that would probably have killed him even if he hadn't fallen through the Veil. But even if it had only been "Expelliarmus," it wouldn't have mattered. Sirius didn't know much about the Veil, but he knew that anyone who went through it never came back.
Damn, Moony was going to kill him for being such a reckless idiot! Well, if he hadn't already been dead, that is.
Sirius didn't feel very dead, though, as he was swallowed up by darkness and fell screaming for what seemed like an eternity until he hit the ground with a painful thud.
I didn't think that being dead was supposed to hurt, Sirius thought, somewhat disgruntledly. Dying maybe, not actually being dead. Even Nearly Headless Nick didn't seem to suffer any pain from his nearly severed head, although he complained bitterly about the psychological trauma of being excluded from the Headless Hunt.
Sirius got to his feet and looked around, discovering that he was lying in a hallway lined with portraits, not unlike the one in his family home at Grimmauld Place. He braced himself, waiting for the portraits to start screaming at him, but they remained silent. Cautiously, he took a closer look at them: one was of a man in a hooded robe holding a large book; another showed an androgynously beautiful person of indeterminate gender; a third showed what looked like an extremely depressed sumo wrestler; and yet another portrayed an equally gloomy-looking but much more thin and fashionable young man clad in black, who looked like he ought to be hanging out a Muggle goth music club--or maybe at a Weird Sisters concert. There were a couple of other portraits on the wall, but before Sirius could get a good look at them, he was distracted by the sudden appearance of a young woman.
She was several inches shorter than him, with white skin and shoulder-length black hair, and looked to be somewhere in her late teens or early twenties. She was wearing a black tank top and jeans, and a silver ankh around her neck. Her eyes were heavily outlined with kohl, with a curling black spiral extending below her right eye. Sirius frowned, trying to recall why that should look familiar, then realized that it was the Eye of Horus, an Egyptian magical symbol of protection, with her own eye incorporated into the design. He had heard stories about wizards and witches who tattooed or painted magical runes on their bodies, but had never seen such a thing in person before.
"Who are you?" Sirius asked, wondering if she was another unfortunate soul who had fallen through the Veil on a previous occasion.
The girl cocked her head to one side and a faint smile of amusement curved her lips. "That's a rather odd and somewhat rude question to ask, considering that you're the one who dropped uninvited into my home. But then, I suppose that I shouldn't expect politeness from you, Sirius Black."
"How do you know my--?" Sirius demanded, then gazed directly into her dark eyes and cut off the rest of his sentence with a strangled gasp. Although her face was youthful, her eyes seemed to contain infinite wisdom and sorrow and compassion. They were not the eyes of a teenage girl, but the eyes of an ancient being--not merely someone old and wise like Dumbledore, but a goddess or immortal spirit.
"Well, it's not exactly every day that people leap into my realm," Death--for that was surely who the girl was--said with a mischievous grin. "In fact, most of them are downright reluctant to enter it."
"I didn't leap, I was pushed," Sirius said defensively. "I'm not suicidal, I'll have you know."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Death retorted. "With the way you tend to rush headlong into danger without thinking, it's something of a miracle that I haven't seen you before this, Sirius."
"So...you know who I am?" Sirius asked hesitantly, wondering whether he should be flattered or terrified that he had come to the notice of Death herself.
"I see all and know all," Death intoned dramatically, then ruined the effect by giggling like the teenage girl she appeared to be. "Actually, that's more the realm of my older brother, but yes, I know who you are, Sirius."
She smirked at him again, and Sirius began to feel a little annoyed in spite of his fear. The way she had lectured him about his recklessness reminded him of Molly Weasley--and did he have to get scolded even after he was dead, for Merlin's sake? And anyway, it just didn't seem right that Death should turn out to be a perky little goth girl.
"You're not exactly what I was expecting," Sirius said sullenly. "I thought you'd be...you know, a guy in black robes carrying a scythe, maybe riding a Thestral..."
"That's what everyone says," Death complained, rolling her eyes. "It's so sexist! Why doesn't it ever occur to anyone that Death might be a woman?"
"Maybe because women are associated with life," Sirius suggested, finding it rather surreal that he was having a philosophical debate with Death. "Because they give birth and all that."
"Ah, but life and death are flip sides of the same coin," Death replied. "There can be no life without death, and vice versa."
"Yeah, fine," Sirius said, beginning to lose interest in the debate. He had never been much for philosophy, and he was much more interested in what was going to happen to him now that he was dead. "I apologize for jumping to a sexist conclusion. So what happens next? Do you take me up to Heaven where I sit on a cloud and strum on a harp, or will the guys with the pointy horns and pitchforks come to take me away?"
He laughed nervously, wondering if his second guess was closer to the mark than he would have liked. He hadn't exactly been an angel in life, but surely he hadn't done anything bad enough to warrant going to Hell...had he? Okay, he'd nearly gotten Snivellus killed, but that had been an accident. He hadn't meant to hurt the greasy git; he'd only wanted to scare him. But he kept seeing Snape's angry and frightened eyes in his mind, along with the look of hurt and betrayal on Moony's face. And then he remembered how he had gotten James and Lily killed by convincing them to make Peter their secret keeper. He hadn't meant to hurt them, either, but they were dead all the same. If they met in the afterlife, would they embrace him as an old friend, or would they stare at him accusingly and demand, "Why did you kill us, Sirius? Why did you take us away from Harry?"
"Well, actually, we have a bit of a problem here," Death said, frowning.
"What do you mean?" Sirius asked.
"What I mean is that you died before your time," Death replied. "You weren't supposed to fall through the Veil."
"Does that mean I can go back?" Sirius asked eagerly, but that brief flare of hope died when Death shook her head sadly.
"No, dead is dead, I'm afraid," she said with a sigh. "Once you cross the Veil--even in such an unconventional manner--you cannot be restored to life."
"Then what happens now?" Sirius asked anxiously.
"The real problem isn't so much that you died before your time," Death answered, frowning again. "It's that you died leaving behind unfinished business."
"You mean Harry?" Sirius asked, his fear returning twofold at the thought of his godson. "Will something happen to him if I'm not there to protect him?"
"No, Harry must confront Voldemort alone in the end," Death replied. "Neither you nor Dumbledore nor anyone else can protect him from that. I'm talking about Remus."
"What about Remus?" Sirius asked, puzzled. He knew that his old friend would miss him, but he'd stay strong for Harry's sake. And his death would even benefit Moony, in a way--he'd left Grimmauld Place to Harry in his will, but he'd also left a sizable bequest of gold to Remus. His friend had always been reluctant to accept what he regarded as charity, but he would have to honor Sirius's last wishes, and he would no longer have to live in poverty. Sirius felt some satisfaction about that, even if he didn't want to be dead.
"More specifically, Remus and Severus," Death clarified.
"What about Snivellus?" Sirius asked harshly, because he had a suspicion about where she was going with this.
"Remus and Severus are lifemates," Death said, pointedly stressing Snape's given name. "However, you split them apart with your stupid prank, subjecting them both to a considerable amount of pain and suffering."
"So Moony had a crush on Snivellus when he was a kid," Sirius shot back, not really caring that he was arguing with Death. After all, he was already dead; what more could she do to him? "Big deal; he's better off without the greasy git, anyway."
"And has he had any lovers since then, any girlfriends or boyfriends?" Death demanded. "Or even any one-night-stands?"
"Not right now," Sirius admitted reluctantly. "Though I don't know what he did while I was in Azkaban."
"Well, let me inform you now: he hasn't," Death said sternly. "And neither has Severus."
"Well, Remus has always been paranoid about his furry condition," Sirius said sullenly. "Ever since that incident with Snape, he's refused to get involved with anyone without telling them the truth about himself first, but he's afraid to tell anyone because he's convinced that no one would ever love a werewolf. As for Snape, I'm not surprised to hear that he's celibate." Sirius sneered. "Who would ever want to touch a greasy bastard like that, anyway?"
"Remus would," Death pointed out in a cold voice, and Sirius scowled at her. "This isn't about a childhood crush, Sirius! The two of them are lifemates--that's something completely different from two normal people who fall in love and may or may not stay together." He stared at her uncomprehendingly, and she spoke loudly and slowly, as if speaking to a very dimwitted child. "It means that they share a spiritual connection. It's very rare, but sometimes two people are born who are simply meant for each other. The Japanese have a legend that explains it best: they say that two people who are destined to be lovers are bound together by a red cord. There is a sort of invisible cord binding Remus's and Severus's souls together, but it has been torn and frayed by your meddling. Being apart from one's lifemate causes intense psychological and spiritual suffering, which both of them have endured for the better part of two decades."
"I thought things like that only existed in fairy tales!" Sirius protested.
"Oh?" Death asked archly, raising an eyebrow. "And I suppose that you know better than I, Death of the Endless, who has existed for countless millennia, since the first living creature came into being? Of course if the great Sirius Black has never heard of something, it cannot possibly exist."
Sirius glared at her. She sounded just as sarcastic as greasy old Snivellus himself; no wonder she was taking his side! "Fine," he conceded sulkily. "I concede that you probably know--"
"'Probably'?" Death interrupted indignantly.
"Fine!" Sirius repeated, in a more exasperated tone this time. "No doubt you know more than I, a mere mortal. But how do I know that you're telling the truth about this lifemates thing? I've read mythology; I know that even the gods can lie sometimes."
"You'll just have to trust me," Death said sweetly.
"I don't trust you," Sirius said bluntly. "But just for the sake of argument, let's say that I believe you. Can't this bond thing be broken to free Moony from the greasy git?"
"No!" Death exclaimed, looking horrified. "I keep telling you, a bond like that cannot be broken! And even if such a thing could be managed, it would most certainly kill them!"
Sirius shuddered at the thought of Remus dying. "So you're saying that he's stuck with Snape?" he asked plaintively.
"There are only two options open to him and Severus," Death replied in a firm voice. "To live together in blissful harmony, or to live apart in mutual misery. Neither of them can ever love another. It is possible for them to have sex with someone else, but they will never derive any satisfaction or pleasure out of it. Think of them as a single soul divided into two--they will never be complete without each other."
"And what do you expect me to do about it?" Sirius wanted to know. "Even if I wanted to help the two of them get together, which I don't, I can't do anything about it while I'm dead!"
"That's not necessarily true," Death purred, a satisfied smile spreading across her face like a cat eyeing a plump canary; Sirius felt uncomfortably like the canary. "I can allow you to go back to Earth as a sort of spirit."
"I don't want to be a ghost!" Sirius protested in horror. He had spoken to some of the Hogwarts ghosts while he was in school, and he knew that becoming a ghost bound one to a permanent half-life, neither fully alive nor fully dead.
"You won't have to become a ghost," Death said placatingly. "It will only be a temporary measure. Once you complete your mission, I will conduct you into the appropriate afterlife."
"And let me get this straight," Sirius said incredulously. "My mission is to get Remus and Snape back together, and make them into a happy couple?"
"Exactly," Death said pleasantly. "I'm so glad that we understand each other."
"No, we don't!" Sirius shouted. "I refuse to do it! I won't help Snivellus, of all people, hook up with my best friend!"
"Even if it means condemning Remus to a life of suffering?" Death demanded.
"I'm still not convinced that you're telling the truth about them being lifemates!" Sirius retorted. "And even if it were true, Moony would be better off alone than with Snape!"
"So you refuse to cooperate?" Death asked coldly.
"I do," Sirius said stubbornly.
Death crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at him, her dark eyes glowing with a cold, deadly anger, and a chill ran down Sirius's spine as he was suddenly reminded that he was arguing with a being who was essentially a goddess of death, and that maybe there were punishments she could inflict on him even though he was dead. Dumbledore had always said that there were worse things than death, after all, and maybe Sirius was about to find out whether that was true or not.
For a moment, his resolve faltered, but even with that ominous threat hanging over him, he still could not bring himself to play matchmaker for Snape and Remus--the very idea was ridiculous, for Merlin's sake! And he loathed that slimy Slytherin bastard; he wouldn't condescend to piss on Snape even if he was on fire, and he certainly wasn't going to hand over his sole remaining childhood friend to a former Death Eater with questionable hygiene and even more questionable loyalty.
"I won't help you," Sirius said quietly, in a less defiant manner. "So you might as well send me on to the afterlife, be it Heaven or Hell."
"Oh, you're not getting off that easy, my friend," Death said. A doorway suddenly opened up in the hallway, though none had been there before, and Death grabbed Sirius by the arm and pulled him through it.
He experienced another falling sensation, similar to that of falling through the Veil, but Death's grip on him provided a comforting anchor that kept him from panicking too much, even though he knew that rationally, he ought to find her more terrifying than comforting. But even so, it was better than being hurled into emptiness all alone.
And then the falling stopped, and Sirius found himself standing in a small room. There was a slightly shabby couch against one wall, and a coffee table in front of it, scattered with Muggle and wizarding magazines that ranged from several months to several years out of date. There was also a remote control on the coffee table, presumably for the television resting on a small stand on the opposite side of the room. It reminded him of the time he had accompanied James and Lily to her Muggle doctor's office when she had found out she was pregnant. Actually, it wasn't all that different from waiting rooms in the wizarding world, too, except for the television.
"What is this place?" Sirius demanded.
"It's exactly what it looks like," Death said smugly. "A waiting room."
"So Hell is waiting around in a doctor's office for eternity?" Sirius asked skeptically.
"This is Limbo, not Hell, you moron," Death snapped. "This is a place where souls stuck in transition between the world of the living and the world of the dead wait until they are ready to move on to the afterlife."
"I told you that I'm ready!" Sirius said crossly.
"And I told you that I won't take you to the afterlife until you complete your mission!" Death retorted. "So you can just sit here and cool your heels until you're ready to listen to reason!" And then she abruptly vanished, leaving Sirius alone in the waiting room.
Sirius sighed and sank down onto the couch; at least it was reasonably comfortable. Considering Death's attitude, he'd half expected it to be hard or lumpy or have springs poking out of it. He flipped through a few magazines, but he wasn't interested in reading out of date gossip in Witch Weekly. He had always taken a rebellious pleasure in reading Muggle magazines because it had annoyed his mother to no end, but to his disappointment, there were no magazines about automobiles or motorcycles or girls in bikinis, only boring magazines talking about Muggle politics or entertainment gossip or cooking and housecleaning tips.
Maybe the television would prove more interesting. Ever since Lily had introduced to him to what she called "the telly," he had been fascinated by it. The closest thing that the wizarding world had to it was moving photographs, but those displayed only short scenes with no sound. He had always thought that someday he'd like to invent a magical version of the telly, but first the war, and then Azkaban, had interfered with his plans.
He picked up the remote and turned the television on, and to his surprise, he saw Remus sitting at the kitchen table in the house at Grimmauld Place, head bowed and face lined with grief. Snape stood behind him regarding him with...surely that couldn't be a look of concern on his face! Snape hesitantly reached out, his hand hovering a few inches above Remus's shoulder, as if he was trying to work himself up to offering a comforting touch to his childhood enemy and alleged lifemate. Remus, with his back turned to Snape, didn't seem to notice.
But then the sound of voices and footsteps broke the silence, and Snape quickly jerked his hand back and retreated to a far corner of the room as Tonks and the Weasleys rushed in, offering Remus their sympathies. Snape quietly slipped out of the room as Molly and Tonks in particular fussed over Remus, who politely thanked them for their concern, but looked rather pained; he always hated people fussing over him like that. He glanced around distractedly as they told him how sorry they were, and his gaze turned wistful and then despairing when he did not find what--or who--he was looking for. Had he been looking for Snape?
"You're supposed to be mourning me, not looking around for that greasy bastard!" Sirius exclaimed indignantly, and shut the television off.
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Sirius had no idea how much time had passed in the waiting room. There were no windows, so he could not see if it was day or night outside--assuming that there was an outside to be seen, since Death had said this place was Limbo, not the real world. There was no clock on the wall to measure the passage of time, and he felt no need to eat or drink or even sleep, presumably because he was dead. He paced the room restlessly, and carefully searched each inch of the walls and floor for a hidden passage or door, but found none. Death had implied that there were other souls stuck in Limbo, too, so Sirius tried to communicate with them, shouting and pounding on the walls, but he never received any response.
Finally, he grew bored enough to turn the television back on. It kept showing him scenes of Remus and/or Snape, no matter what channel he switched to. So he saw his old friend infiltrating Greyback's pack, trying without much success to win the other werewolves over to the Order's side, growing ever more weary and gray and despairing. Meanwhile, Snape, the bloody bastard, made an Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa to help the Malfoy brat kill Dumbledore!
"I told you all along that he was a traitor!" Sirius shouted, half angrily, half triumphantly. Everyone had always brushed off his suspicions with platitudes like, "Well, Albus trusts him," even Moony. Especially Moony. He had always stuck up for the greasy git, even when they were in school, if only with a mumbled, "He's not really that bad," or "You shouldn't pick on him so much." More recently, ever since Sirius had returned from Azkaban, Remus had defended Snivellus more firmly, lecturing Sirius about how much Snape was doing for the Order, all the risks he was taking, and how grateful Remus was to him for continuing to brew the Wolfsbane Potion. For Merlin's sake, Remus had talked to him like he was still a teacher and Sirius was some ignorant, snot-nosed little first-year! And he had resented Snape all the more, for driving a wedge between himself and his sole remaining friend. Moony was supposed to stick up for him, dammit, not Snivellus! They were the Marauders, it was supposed to be one for all and all for one!
Except that Peter had betrayed them, and Sirius had unintentionally betrayed Lily and James by putting too much trust in Peter. And he had betrayed Remus by thinking that Remus was the traitor. He had known that his friend had never really gotten over the breakup with Snape, and he had thought that Remus might have gone over to Voldemort's side in an attempt to win him back.
He should have known better. Remus had always been much too self-sacrificing to ever put his own happiness ahead of someone else's well-being. Even now, Sirius's young cousin Tonks was showing a definite romantic interest in Remus, but he gently tried to deflect her flirtations, saying that he was flattered, but he was much too old and poor to be worthy of her.
"Don't be so stubborn, Moony," Sirius scolded his friend, although of course Remus could not hear him. He rather liked the idea of Moony getting together with Tonks; she and her mother Andromeda were the only relatives he had left that he could stand. And if Moony married Tonks, it would be like keeping him in the family, and Sirius could still sort of have a connection to him even though he was gone.
And of course, it would keep him out of the greasy git's clutches. Death simply had to be wrong about this lifemates thing! Remus would be happy with Tonks, if only he would give her a chance.
Death suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking his view of the television screen. "Well?" she asked expectantly. "Have you decided to be reasonable yet?"
"You're the one who's being unreasonable," Sirius argued. "Look--he and Tonks seem to be getting along pretty well. I think you're wrong about Snape being the only one for him."
Death turned to look at the television. "He seems to be turning down her advances," she pointed out dryly. "I'd hardly call that the beginning of a great romance."
"He's just being noble!" Sirius insisted. "He's worried that she'll be shunned for dating a werewolf, or that she'll regret being tied to a poor, older man someday."
Death snorted loudly, in a very derisive and unladylike manner. "He's not being noble; he's just too polite to tell her that she's been flinging herself at a gay man. Or maybe he just doesn't want all his friends and colleagues to know that he's gay."
"He's not gay!" Sirius protested.
"Come on!" Death said impatiently. "I know that you know he had a thing going with Severus back in school, even if you don't want to admit it. That's why you played your prank on Severus, right? You wanted to scare him away from Remus."
"It was for Moony's own good!" Sirius snapped. "That bastard would only have ended up hurting him--that's what I was trying to prove! Snape dumped him as soon as he found out he was a werewolf, right?"
"I think it was more because he thought Remus was in on your little prank," Death disagreed.
Sirius chose to ignore her. "And anyway, that doesn't make Remus gay! He was just...confused."
Death rolled her eyes in a most annoying fashion. "That's what people say when they're in denial. If it was just a bit of schoolboy experimentation, do you think that he'd still be pining over Severus twenty years later?"
Sirius said defensively, "Well, he used to talk about pretty girls with us back in school, so he can't be completely gay! Maybe he's, you know, bisexual--like Lucius Malfoy. He'd screw anything with two legs and a hole, placement optional. Uh...not that Remus is a disgusting pervert like Malfoy, of course."
"I think you're the disgusting one, Sirius," Death said in a--well, disgusted tone of voice. "Maybe Remus only pretended to notice pretty girls in order to fit in with the three of you--the way he pretended not to notice when you were bullying Severus."
"We were not bullies!" Sirius shouted. "'Bullying' implies that you're picking on someone helpless, and believe me, Snape was anything but helpless! He gave as good as he got--he knew more hexes as a first-year than most of the seventh-years!"
"I would consider three kids ganging up against one to be bullying," Death retorted. "Unless, of course, it took three of you to equal one of him?" As Sirius spluttered indignantly, Death smirked and added, "Well, I guess I'll give you some time to cool off and come to your senses. I hope you're enjoying those magazines." And then she vanished, leaving Sirius to shout and swear impotently at the empty room.
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With nothing better to do, Sirius returned to watching the television, but it became an increasingly frustrating experience. There was nothing he could do to affect the events being played out on the screen; no matter how much or how loudly he shouted, the people in the television never reacted to him or gave any sign that they were aware of his presence, not even when he pounded his fists on the screen.
He had thought he could at least use the television to watch over Harry, but it would only show him what Remus and Snape were doing, so he could only see Harry if he happened to be in their presence. Harry had very little contact with Remus, of course, since that bastard Snape had forced him to quit his job at Hogwarts.
Sirius ignored the faint prickling of his conscience that reminded him that it was partly his fault as well, since Remus would not have gone chasing after him and Wormtail, and would therefore not have forgotten to take his potion if he had gone straight to Dumbledore to plead his innocence and explain about spotting Wormtail-disguised-as-Scabbers in that photo in the Daily Prophet. That little voice in his head sounded a little too much like Death for comfort, and besides, what if Dumbledore hadn't believed him? Then he would have been sent back to Azkaban, maybe even given over to be Kissed by the Dementors, and Wormtail would have been free to carry out Voldemort's orders with no one at Hogwarts being the wiser. Sirius virtuously assured his conscience that he'd done what he had to do, and had protected Harry by exposing Wormtail. His conscience still seemed a little doubtful, but Sirius ignored it, and eventually it lapsed back into silence.
Harry did have regular classes with Snape, but it drove Sirius into a rage to see the greasy git insulting and bullying his godson--resulting in one of the incidents where he ended up pounding his fists on the television screen. He was afraid that he might break the machine, and he would be left with only the magazines to keep him occupied, so he tended to change the channel or turn off the television when Snape's DADA classes with Harry came on.
An odd thing happened one day when he changed the channel; it began showing him scenes from the past rather than the present--scenes from their schoolboy days at Hogwarts. In hindsight, he could see that Snape's main focus, as he followed them around obsessively, had never been on himself or James or Peter, but on Remus. It was Remus that Snape's eyes followed hungrily, and from this outside perspective, Sirius could see that Snape's face would contort with jealousy every time that Remus laughed at one of their jokes, or cheered for James as he competed on the Quidditch Pitch.
It was also obvious that Snape's obsession had not been entirely one-sided; he and Remus cast furtive, longing glances in each other's direction whenever they thought no one was looking, and Remus's guilt and discomfort when the other Marauders played their pranks on Snape was now much more obvious. The television screen seemed to zoom in for a close-up on his face during the pantsing incident by the lake, as if it were deliberately making a point for Sirius's benefit--and knowing Death, it probably was.
He also saw incidents he had never seen before, brief encounters where Remus and Snape happened to chance upon each other when neither the Marauders nor Snape's Slytherin crowd were around. In one scene, they both reached for the same book on the library shelf, and they both blushed and jumped back as their fingers brushed against each other. Then, since there was only one copy of the book, and they both needed it to study for a History of Magic exam, Remus diffidently suggested that they share it. Snape sneered, but gave in without an argument, and they sat together at a table in a secluded corner of the library, heads bent over the book, nearly close enough to touch. Remus smiled at Snape, and Snape automatically scowled, but when Remus kept smiling at him, eventually the scowl faded away, and Snape smiled hesitantly back at Remus.
After that, they continued to meet at the library to study, much more frequently than Sirius had ever realized, and one day, while they were leaning together over a book, Remus leaned over a little further and kissed Snape. The look of shock on Snape's face might have been amusing, if it had not been Sirius's best friend who had just kissed him.
"If this is some sort of joke that your idiot friends put you up to, I'll hex you right through the wall, Lupin," Snape said suspiciously.
Remus just smiled at him and said quietly, "It's no joke, Severus," and then he kissed Snape again.
This time, Snape kissed him back.
The two of them continued to meet in the library, or in empty classrooms, or behind the greenhouses, and Sirius would turn off the television whenever it looked like things might progress beyond snogging. He had no idea how far Remus had actually gone with the greasy git, and to be honest, he didn't really want to know, and he definitely didn't want to watch it.
Eventually it got to the point where Sirius-in-the-past began to notice that Remus was spending an awful lot of time around Snivellus and vice versa, and decided that he'd better do something about it before the greasy git did something to hurt Remus, whether by breaking his heart or some more nefarious plan he had in mind--what exactly, Sirius hadn't been sure, but someone so steeped in the Dark Arts and involved with Lucius Malfoy's toadies must certainly be up to no good.
"I only meant to scare him," Sirius said defensively to the television set and to Moony's look of betrayal when he confronted Sirius the day after the prank. "I wasn't trying to kill him. I thought he'd get a glimpse of the werewolf and then run. I thought he'd be too scared to ever come near us again." And through the television, Sirius had to listen once more to Dumbledore's blistering lecture, about how Snape could've been seriously injured or even killed, and how the Ministry would have punished Remus for that, even though it wasn't his fault. Sirius did feel guilty about the latter; he hadn't thought that far ahead at the time, hadn't considered what might happen to a werewolf who had killed or even just bitten a human.
Remus had refused to even speak to him for two whole weeks after that, no matter how much Sirius had tried to apologize, until James and Peter finally talked Remus into forgiving him. But Remus hadn't really forgiven him; he had remained skittish, always watching Sirius with hurt and wary eyes, like a dog who has been kicked and is waiting for the next blow to land. And eventually, Sirius had started to resent Remus for being unable to forgive him for one admittedly stupid mistake, and their mutual suspicion had eventually escalated--subtly helped along by Peter, Sirius now realized--until they both believed that the other had betrayed James and Lily.
This was a part of the past that Sirius did not want to relive, and he was about to turn the television off when Snape caught his eye on the screen, and he suddenly became aware of something he had not noticed before. When Snape was alone, with no one to observe him watching Lupin from a distance, the cold, arrogant mask on his face slipped, and was replaced with a look of hurt and betrayal, almost identical to the one that young-Remus regarded young-Sirius with. "I was a fool," Snape whispered bitterly and despairingly, in a nearly inaudible voice; Sirius had to crank the volume on the television up all the way to hear it. "I was a fool to think that someone like you could ever love someone like me."
Sirius hastily switched off the television. It almost seemed like Snape really had loved Remus, but that couldn't possibly be true...could it? Surely an evil, sneaky bastard like Snivellus wasn't capable of loving anyone, but somehow Sirius couldn't get the hurt look on Snape's face out of his mind. There had been no reason for him to feign such an expression with no one there to see it; Sirius would not have been able to see it without the aid of Death's magical (he assumed) telly.
It didn't really matter, Sirius told himself, trying to regain the moral upper ground. Even if Snape had loved Remus, he had falsely assumed that Remus was in on the prank, and had refused to believe him when he had protested that he hadn't known anything about it. Therefore, he wasn't worthy of Remus. Because if you really cared about someone, you'd have faith in them and stand by them no matter what.
The way that you stood by Moony when you told James and Lily not to make him their secret-keeper? Sirius's conscience whispered, and he squirmed with guilt, then flung the remote control across the room to vent his irritation. Okay, so he'd made a mistake back then, but surely he'd paid for that with his twelve year imprisonment in Azkaban. And he and Moony had finally been able to make up after Sirius had escaped from prison. They had apologized and forgiven each other, as good friends should. Snape still hadn't forgiven Remus even after all these years--and there was nothing to forgive, anyway, since Remus hadn't done anything wrong, except to have really bad taste in boyfriends. Sirius grudgingly acknowledged that perhaps Snape had a reason to be angry at him, but it was unfair to blame Remus for something Sirius had done, which only proved his point about Snape being unworthy of Remus.
He felt very virtuous and self-righteous for a moment, until he realized that right or wrong, he was still stuck here until Death decided to let him out, and he sighed dispiritedly and slumped back on the couch.
Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
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Afterword: When I was thinking about what to write for this piece, I got the idea of a dead Sirius being forced to get Lupin and Snape back together, then realized that the plot sounded sort of familiar, and I remembered a wonderful story I read on the Master and Wolf archive, where Sirius's spirit enlists Luna's help to play matchmaker for Snape and Lupin. So it wasn't intentional, but in the interests of disclosure, I should say that I might have gotten the inspiration for the basic plot from Em Conway's Through Her Eyes. It is a great story, and you should check it out if you haven't already, but I think my story is different enough to stand on its own. I deliberately avoided readingarionrhod's entry for this artwork so I wouldn't be unduly influenced by it; I can't wait until my story is done so I can go back and read it! ^_^
Title: A Sort of Fairytale, Part 1
Author:
geri_chanRating: PG-13
Pairing: Snape/Lupin
Word count: 6250
Disclaimer: No money is being made off this story; consider it a little wish fulfillment on my part. Characters belong to J.K. Rowling, except for Death, who belongs to Neil Gaiman.
Author's notes: Canon compliant up to HBP, more or less, but I made up my own ending to the series, although I borrowed a few crucial elements from DH. I borrowed the character Death from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series; she also appears in my story The Revenant (which can be found on Moonshadow or my website). You don't need to be familiar with the Sandman comics/graphic novels in order to follow this story, although I've thrown in a few little in-jokes for Gaiman fans.
Summary: Written for the Trading Places challenge on
lupin_snape, based on karasu_hime's lovely artwork. Sirius falls through the Veil, is greeted by Death, and is told that he has unfinished business to complete. 
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"Come on, Bellatrix, you can do better than that!" Sirius taunted.
He should have known better than to open his big mouth, because a moment later, his crazy bitch cousin hit him squarely in the chest with a spell that would probably have killed him even if he hadn't fallen through the Veil. But even if it had only been "Expelliarmus," it wouldn't have mattered. Sirius didn't know much about the Veil, but he knew that anyone who went through it never came back.
Damn, Moony was going to kill him for being such a reckless idiot! Well, if he hadn't already been dead, that is.
Sirius didn't feel very dead, though, as he was swallowed up by darkness and fell screaming for what seemed like an eternity until he hit the ground with a painful thud.
I didn't think that being dead was supposed to hurt, Sirius thought, somewhat disgruntledly. Dying maybe, not actually being dead. Even Nearly Headless Nick didn't seem to suffer any pain from his nearly severed head, although he complained bitterly about the psychological trauma of being excluded from the Headless Hunt.
Sirius got to his feet and looked around, discovering that he was lying in a hallway lined with portraits, not unlike the one in his family home at Grimmauld Place. He braced himself, waiting for the portraits to start screaming at him, but they remained silent. Cautiously, he took a closer look at them: one was of a man in a hooded robe holding a large book; another showed an androgynously beautiful person of indeterminate gender; a third showed what looked like an extremely depressed sumo wrestler; and yet another portrayed an equally gloomy-looking but much more thin and fashionable young man clad in black, who looked like he ought to be hanging out a Muggle goth music club--or maybe at a Weird Sisters concert. There were a couple of other portraits on the wall, but before Sirius could get a good look at them, he was distracted by the sudden appearance of a young woman.
She was several inches shorter than him, with white skin and shoulder-length black hair, and looked to be somewhere in her late teens or early twenties. She was wearing a black tank top and jeans, and a silver ankh around her neck. Her eyes were heavily outlined with kohl, with a curling black spiral extending below her right eye. Sirius frowned, trying to recall why that should look familiar, then realized that it was the Eye of Horus, an Egyptian magical symbol of protection, with her own eye incorporated into the design. He had heard stories about wizards and witches who tattooed or painted magical runes on their bodies, but had never seen such a thing in person before.
"Who are you?" Sirius asked, wondering if she was another unfortunate soul who had fallen through the Veil on a previous occasion.
The girl cocked her head to one side and a faint smile of amusement curved her lips. "That's a rather odd and somewhat rude question to ask, considering that you're the one who dropped uninvited into my home. But then, I suppose that I shouldn't expect politeness from you, Sirius Black."
"How do you know my--?" Sirius demanded, then gazed directly into her dark eyes and cut off the rest of his sentence with a strangled gasp. Although her face was youthful, her eyes seemed to contain infinite wisdom and sorrow and compassion. They were not the eyes of a teenage girl, but the eyes of an ancient being--not merely someone old and wise like Dumbledore, but a goddess or immortal spirit.
"Well, it's not exactly every day that people leap into my realm," Death--for that was surely who the girl was--said with a mischievous grin. "In fact, most of them are downright reluctant to enter it."
"I didn't leap, I was pushed," Sirius said defensively. "I'm not suicidal, I'll have you know."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Death retorted. "With the way you tend to rush headlong into danger without thinking, it's something of a miracle that I haven't seen you before this, Sirius."
"So...you know who I am?" Sirius asked hesitantly, wondering whether he should be flattered or terrified that he had come to the notice of Death herself.
"I see all and know all," Death intoned dramatically, then ruined the effect by giggling like the teenage girl she appeared to be. "Actually, that's more the realm of my older brother, but yes, I know who you are, Sirius."
She smirked at him again, and Sirius began to feel a little annoyed in spite of his fear. The way she had lectured him about his recklessness reminded him of Molly Weasley--and did he have to get scolded even after he was dead, for Merlin's sake? And anyway, it just didn't seem right that Death should turn out to be a perky little goth girl.
"You're not exactly what I was expecting," Sirius said sullenly. "I thought you'd be...you know, a guy in black robes carrying a scythe, maybe riding a Thestral..."
"That's what everyone says," Death complained, rolling her eyes. "It's so sexist! Why doesn't it ever occur to anyone that Death might be a woman?"
"Maybe because women are associated with life," Sirius suggested, finding it rather surreal that he was having a philosophical debate with Death. "Because they give birth and all that."
"Ah, but life and death are flip sides of the same coin," Death replied. "There can be no life without death, and vice versa."
"Yeah, fine," Sirius said, beginning to lose interest in the debate. He had never been much for philosophy, and he was much more interested in what was going to happen to him now that he was dead. "I apologize for jumping to a sexist conclusion. So what happens next? Do you take me up to Heaven where I sit on a cloud and strum on a harp, or will the guys with the pointy horns and pitchforks come to take me away?"
He laughed nervously, wondering if his second guess was closer to the mark than he would have liked. He hadn't exactly been an angel in life, but surely he hadn't done anything bad enough to warrant going to Hell...had he? Okay, he'd nearly gotten Snivellus killed, but that had been an accident. He hadn't meant to hurt the greasy git; he'd only wanted to scare him. But he kept seeing Snape's angry and frightened eyes in his mind, along with the look of hurt and betrayal on Moony's face. And then he remembered how he had gotten James and Lily killed by convincing them to make Peter their secret keeper. He hadn't meant to hurt them, either, but they were dead all the same. If they met in the afterlife, would they embrace him as an old friend, or would they stare at him accusingly and demand, "Why did you kill us, Sirius? Why did you take us away from Harry?"
"Well, actually, we have a bit of a problem here," Death said, frowning.
"What do you mean?" Sirius asked.
"What I mean is that you died before your time," Death replied. "You weren't supposed to fall through the Veil."
"Does that mean I can go back?" Sirius asked eagerly, but that brief flare of hope died when Death shook her head sadly.
"No, dead is dead, I'm afraid," she said with a sigh. "Once you cross the Veil--even in such an unconventional manner--you cannot be restored to life."
"Then what happens now?" Sirius asked anxiously.
"The real problem isn't so much that you died before your time," Death answered, frowning again. "It's that you died leaving behind unfinished business."
"You mean Harry?" Sirius asked, his fear returning twofold at the thought of his godson. "Will something happen to him if I'm not there to protect him?"
"No, Harry must confront Voldemort alone in the end," Death replied. "Neither you nor Dumbledore nor anyone else can protect him from that. I'm talking about Remus."
"What about Remus?" Sirius asked, puzzled. He knew that his old friend would miss him, but he'd stay strong for Harry's sake. And his death would even benefit Moony, in a way--he'd left Grimmauld Place to Harry in his will, but he'd also left a sizable bequest of gold to Remus. His friend had always been reluctant to accept what he regarded as charity, but he would have to honor Sirius's last wishes, and he would no longer have to live in poverty. Sirius felt some satisfaction about that, even if he didn't want to be dead.
"More specifically, Remus and Severus," Death clarified.
"What about Snivellus?" Sirius asked harshly, because he had a suspicion about where she was going with this.
"Remus and Severus are lifemates," Death said, pointedly stressing Snape's given name. "However, you split them apart with your stupid prank, subjecting them both to a considerable amount of pain and suffering."
"So Moony had a crush on Snivellus when he was a kid," Sirius shot back, not really caring that he was arguing with Death. After all, he was already dead; what more could she do to him? "Big deal; he's better off without the greasy git, anyway."
"And has he had any lovers since then, any girlfriends or boyfriends?" Death demanded. "Or even any one-night-stands?"
"Not right now," Sirius admitted reluctantly. "Though I don't know what he did while I was in Azkaban."
"Well, let me inform you now: he hasn't," Death said sternly. "And neither has Severus."
"Well, Remus has always been paranoid about his furry condition," Sirius said sullenly. "Ever since that incident with Snape, he's refused to get involved with anyone without telling them the truth about himself first, but he's afraid to tell anyone because he's convinced that no one would ever love a werewolf. As for Snape, I'm not surprised to hear that he's celibate." Sirius sneered. "Who would ever want to touch a greasy bastard like that, anyway?"
"Remus would," Death pointed out in a cold voice, and Sirius scowled at her. "This isn't about a childhood crush, Sirius! The two of them are lifemates--that's something completely different from two normal people who fall in love and may or may not stay together." He stared at her uncomprehendingly, and she spoke loudly and slowly, as if speaking to a very dimwitted child. "It means that they share a spiritual connection. It's very rare, but sometimes two people are born who are simply meant for each other. The Japanese have a legend that explains it best: they say that two people who are destined to be lovers are bound together by a red cord. There is a sort of invisible cord binding Remus's and Severus's souls together, but it has been torn and frayed by your meddling. Being apart from one's lifemate causes intense psychological and spiritual suffering, which both of them have endured for the better part of two decades."
"I thought things like that only existed in fairy tales!" Sirius protested.
"Oh?" Death asked archly, raising an eyebrow. "And I suppose that you know better than I, Death of the Endless, who has existed for countless millennia, since the first living creature came into being? Of course if the great Sirius Black has never heard of something, it cannot possibly exist."
Sirius glared at her. She sounded just as sarcastic as greasy old Snivellus himself; no wonder she was taking his side! "Fine," he conceded sulkily. "I concede that you probably know--"
"'Probably'?" Death interrupted indignantly.
"Fine!" Sirius repeated, in a more exasperated tone this time. "No doubt you know more than I, a mere mortal. But how do I know that you're telling the truth about this lifemates thing? I've read mythology; I know that even the gods can lie sometimes."
"You'll just have to trust me," Death said sweetly.
"I don't trust you," Sirius said bluntly. "But just for the sake of argument, let's say that I believe you. Can't this bond thing be broken to free Moony from the greasy git?"
"No!" Death exclaimed, looking horrified. "I keep telling you, a bond like that cannot be broken! And even if such a thing could be managed, it would most certainly kill them!"
Sirius shuddered at the thought of Remus dying. "So you're saying that he's stuck with Snape?" he asked plaintively.
"There are only two options open to him and Severus," Death replied in a firm voice. "To live together in blissful harmony, or to live apart in mutual misery. Neither of them can ever love another. It is possible for them to have sex with someone else, but they will never derive any satisfaction or pleasure out of it. Think of them as a single soul divided into two--they will never be complete without each other."
"And what do you expect me to do about it?" Sirius wanted to know. "Even if I wanted to help the two of them get together, which I don't, I can't do anything about it while I'm dead!"
"That's not necessarily true," Death purred, a satisfied smile spreading across her face like a cat eyeing a plump canary; Sirius felt uncomfortably like the canary. "I can allow you to go back to Earth as a sort of spirit."
"I don't want to be a ghost!" Sirius protested in horror. He had spoken to some of the Hogwarts ghosts while he was in school, and he knew that becoming a ghost bound one to a permanent half-life, neither fully alive nor fully dead.
"You won't have to become a ghost," Death said placatingly. "It will only be a temporary measure. Once you complete your mission, I will conduct you into the appropriate afterlife."
"And let me get this straight," Sirius said incredulously. "My mission is to get Remus and Snape back together, and make them into a happy couple?"
"Exactly," Death said pleasantly. "I'm so glad that we understand each other."
"No, we don't!" Sirius shouted. "I refuse to do it! I won't help Snivellus, of all people, hook up with my best friend!"
"Even if it means condemning Remus to a life of suffering?" Death demanded.
"I'm still not convinced that you're telling the truth about them being lifemates!" Sirius retorted. "And even if it were true, Moony would be better off alone than with Snape!"
"So you refuse to cooperate?" Death asked coldly.
"I do," Sirius said stubbornly.
Death crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at him, her dark eyes glowing with a cold, deadly anger, and a chill ran down Sirius's spine as he was suddenly reminded that he was arguing with a being who was essentially a goddess of death, and that maybe there were punishments she could inflict on him even though he was dead. Dumbledore had always said that there were worse things than death, after all, and maybe Sirius was about to find out whether that was true or not.
For a moment, his resolve faltered, but even with that ominous threat hanging over him, he still could not bring himself to play matchmaker for Snape and Remus--the very idea was ridiculous, for Merlin's sake! And he loathed that slimy Slytherin bastard; he wouldn't condescend to piss on Snape even if he was on fire, and he certainly wasn't going to hand over his sole remaining childhood friend to a former Death Eater with questionable hygiene and even more questionable loyalty.
"I won't help you," Sirius said quietly, in a less defiant manner. "So you might as well send me on to the afterlife, be it Heaven or Hell."
"Oh, you're not getting off that easy, my friend," Death said. A doorway suddenly opened up in the hallway, though none had been there before, and Death grabbed Sirius by the arm and pulled him through it.
He experienced another falling sensation, similar to that of falling through the Veil, but Death's grip on him provided a comforting anchor that kept him from panicking too much, even though he knew that rationally, he ought to find her more terrifying than comforting. But even so, it was better than being hurled into emptiness all alone.
And then the falling stopped, and Sirius found himself standing in a small room. There was a slightly shabby couch against one wall, and a coffee table in front of it, scattered with Muggle and wizarding magazines that ranged from several months to several years out of date. There was also a remote control on the coffee table, presumably for the television resting on a small stand on the opposite side of the room. It reminded him of the time he had accompanied James and Lily to her Muggle doctor's office when she had found out she was pregnant. Actually, it wasn't all that different from waiting rooms in the wizarding world, too, except for the television.
"What is this place?" Sirius demanded.
"It's exactly what it looks like," Death said smugly. "A waiting room."
"So Hell is waiting around in a doctor's office for eternity?" Sirius asked skeptically.
"This is Limbo, not Hell, you moron," Death snapped. "This is a place where souls stuck in transition between the world of the living and the world of the dead wait until they are ready to move on to the afterlife."
"I told you that I'm ready!" Sirius said crossly.
"And I told you that I won't take you to the afterlife until you complete your mission!" Death retorted. "So you can just sit here and cool your heels until you're ready to listen to reason!" And then she abruptly vanished, leaving Sirius alone in the waiting room.
Sirius sighed and sank down onto the couch; at least it was reasonably comfortable. Considering Death's attitude, he'd half expected it to be hard or lumpy or have springs poking out of it. He flipped through a few magazines, but he wasn't interested in reading out of date gossip in Witch Weekly. He had always taken a rebellious pleasure in reading Muggle magazines because it had annoyed his mother to no end, but to his disappointment, there were no magazines about automobiles or motorcycles or girls in bikinis, only boring magazines talking about Muggle politics or entertainment gossip or cooking and housecleaning tips.
Maybe the television would prove more interesting. Ever since Lily had introduced to him to what she called "the telly," he had been fascinated by it. The closest thing that the wizarding world had to it was moving photographs, but those displayed only short scenes with no sound. He had always thought that someday he'd like to invent a magical version of the telly, but first the war, and then Azkaban, had interfered with his plans.
He picked up the remote and turned the television on, and to his surprise, he saw Remus sitting at the kitchen table in the house at Grimmauld Place, head bowed and face lined with grief. Snape stood behind him regarding him with...surely that couldn't be a look of concern on his face! Snape hesitantly reached out, his hand hovering a few inches above Remus's shoulder, as if he was trying to work himself up to offering a comforting touch to his childhood enemy and alleged lifemate. Remus, with his back turned to Snape, didn't seem to notice.
But then the sound of voices and footsteps broke the silence, and Snape quickly jerked his hand back and retreated to a far corner of the room as Tonks and the Weasleys rushed in, offering Remus their sympathies. Snape quietly slipped out of the room as Molly and Tonks in particular fussed over Remus, who politely thanked them for their concern, but looked rather pained; he always hated people fussing over him like that. He glanced around distractedly as they told him how sorry they were, and his gaze turned wistful and then despairing when he did not find what--or who--he was looking for. Had he been looking for Snape?
"You're supposed to be mourning me, not looking around for that greasy bastard!" Sirius exclaimed indignantly, and shut the television off.
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Sirius had no idea how much time had passed in the waiting room. There were no windows, so he could not see if it was day or night outside--assuming that there was an outside to be seen, since Death had said this place was Limbo, not the real world. There was no clock on the wall to measure the passage of time, and he felt no need to eat or drink or even sleep, presumably because he was dead. He paced the room restlessly, and carefully searched each inch of the walls and floor for a hidden passage or door, but found none. Death had implied that there were other souls stuck in Limbo, too, so Sirius tried to communicate with them, shouting and pounding on the walls, but he never received any response.
Finally, he grew bored enough to turn the television back on. It kept showing him scenes of Remus and/or Snape, no matter what channel he switched to. So he saw his old friend infiltrating Greyback's pack, trying without much success to win the other werewolves over to the Order's side, growing ever more weary and gray and despairing. Meanwhile, Snape, the bloody bastard, made an Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa to help the Malfoy brat kill Dumbledore!
"I told you all along that he was a traitor!" Sirius shouted, half angrily, half triumphantly. Everyone had always brushed off his suspicions with platitudes like, "Well, Albus trusts him," even Moony. Especially Moony. He had always stuck up for the greasy git, even when they were in school, if only with a mumbled, "He's not really that bad," or "You shouldn't pick on him so much." More recently, ever since Sirius had returned from Azkaban, Remus had defended Snivellus more firmly, lecturing Sirius about how much Snape was doing for the Order, all the risks he was taking, and how grateful Remus was to him for continuing to brew the Wolfsbane Potion. For Merlin's sake, Remus had talked to him like he was still a teacher and Sirius was some ignorant, snot-nosed little first-year! And he had resented Snape all the more, for driving a wedge between himself and his sole remaining friend. Moony was supposed to stick up for him, dammit, not Snivellus! They were the Marauders, it was supposed to be one for all and all for one!
Except that Peter had betrayed them, and Sirius had unintentionally betrayed Lily and James by putting too much trust in Peter. And he had betrayed Remus by thinking that Remus was the traitor. He had known that his friend had never really gotten over the breakup with Snape, and he had thought that Remus might have gone over to Voldemort's side in an attempt to win him back.
He should have known better. Remus had always been much too self-sacrificing to ever put his own happiness ahead of someone else's well-being. Even now, Sirius's young cousin Tonks was showing a definite romantic interest in Remus, but he gently tried to deflect her flirtations, saying that he was flattered, but he was much too old and poor to be worthy of her.
"Don't be so stubborn, Moony," Sirius scolded his friend, although of course Remus could not hear him. He rather liked the idea of Moony getting together with Tonks; she and her mother Andromeda were the only relatives he had left that he could stand. And if Moony married Tonks, it would be like keeping him in the family, and Sirius could still sort of have a connection to him even though he was gone.
And of course, it would keep him out of the greasy git's clutches. Death simply had to be wrong about this lifemates thing! Remus would be happy with Tonks, if only he would give her a chance.
Death suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking his view of the television screen. "Well?" she asked expectantly. "Have you decided to be reasonable yet?"
"You're the one who's being unreasonable," Sirius argued. "Look--he and Tonks seem to be getting along pretty well. I think you're wrong about Snape being the only one for him."
Death turned to look at the television. "He seems to be turning down her advances," she pointed out dryly. "I'd hardly call that the beginning of a great romance."
"He's just being noble!" Sirius insisted. "He's worried that she'll be shunned for dating a werewolf, or that she'll regret being tied to a poor, older man someday."
Death snorted loudly, in a very derisive and unladylike manner. "He's not being noble; he's just too polite to tell her that she's been flinging herself at a gay man. Or maybe he just doesn't want all his friends and colleagues to know that he's gay."
"He's not gay!" Sirius protested.
"Come on!" Death said impatiently. "I know that you know he had a thing going with Severus back in school, even if you don't want to admit it. That's why you played your prank on Severus, right? You wanted to scare him away from Remus."
"It was for Moony's own good!" Sirius snapped. "That bastard would only have ended up hurting him--that's what I was trying to prove! Snape dumped him as soon as he found out he was a werewolf, right?"
"I think it was more because he thought Remus was in on your little prank," Death disagreed.
Sirius chose to ignore her. "And anyway, that doesn't make Remus gay! He was just...confused."
Death rolled her eyes in a most annoying fashion. "That's what people say when they're in denial. If it was just a bit of schoolboy experimentation, do you think that he'd still be pining over Severus twenty years later?"
Sirius said defensively, "Well, he used to talk about pretty girls with us back in school, so he can't be completely gay! Maybe he's, you know, bisexual--like Lucius Malfoy. He'd screw anything with two legs and a hole, placement optional. Uh...not that Remus is a disgusting pervert like Malfoy, of course."
"I think you're the disgusting one, Sirius," Death said in a--well, disgusted tone of voice. "Maybe Remus only pretended to notice pretty girls in order to fit in with the three of you--the way he pretended not to notice when you were bullying Severus."
"We were not bullies!" Sirius shouted. "'Bullying' implies that you're picking on someone helpless, and believe me, Snape was anything but helpless! He gave as good as he got--he knew more hexes as a first-year than most of the seventh-years!"
"I would consider three kids ganging up against one to be bullying," Death retorted. "Unless, of course, it took three of you to equal one of him?" As Sirius spluttered indignantly, Death smirked and added, "Well, I guess I'll give you some time to cool off and come to your senses. I hope you're enjoying those magazines." And then she vanished, leaving Sirius to shout and swear impotently at the empty room.
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With nothing better to do, Sirius returned to watching the television, but it became an increasingly frustrating experience. There was nothing he could do to affect the events being played out on the screen; no matter how much or how loudly he shouted, the people in the television never reacted to him or gave any sign that they were aware of his presence, not even when he pounded his fists on the screen.
He had thought he could at least use the television to watch over Harry, but it would only show him what Remus and Snape were doing, so he could only see Harry if he happened to be in their presence. Harry had very little contact with Remus, of course, since that bastard Snape had forced him to quit his job at Hogwarts.
Sirius ignored the faint prickling of his conscience that reminded him that it was partly his fault as well, since Remus would not have gone chasing after him and Wormtail, and would therefore not have forgotten to take his potion if he had gone straight to Dumbledore to plead his innocence and explain about spotting Wormtail-disguised-as-Scabbers in that photo in the Daily Prophet. That little voice in his head sounded a little too much like Death for comfort, and besides, what if Dumbledore hadn't believed him? Then he would have been sent back to Azkaban, maybe even given over to be Kissed by the Dementors, and Wormtail would have been free to carry out Voldemort's orders with no one at Hogwarts being the wiser. Sirius virtuously assured his conscience that he'd done what he had to do, and had protected Harry by exposing Wormtail. His conscience still seemed a little doubtful, but Sirius ignored it, and eventually it lapsed back into silence.
Harry did have regular classes with Snape, but it drove Sirius into a rage to see the greasy git insulting and bullying his godson--resulting in one of the incidents where he ended up pounding his fists on the television screen. He was afraid that he might break the machine, and he would be left with only the magazines to keep him occupied, so he tended to change the channel or turn off the television when Snape's DADA classes with Harry came on.
An odd thing happened one day when he changed the channel; it began showing him scenes from the past rather than the present--scenes from their schoolboy days at Hogwarts. In hindsight, he could see that Snape's main focus, as he followed them around obsessively, had never been on himself or James or Peter, but on Remus. It was Remus that Snape's eyes followed hungrily, and from this outside perspective, Sirius could see that Snape's face would contort with jealousy every time that Remus laughed at one of their jokes, or cheered for James as he competed on the Quidditch Pitch.
It was also obvious that Snape's obsession had not been entirely one-sided; he and Remus cast furtive, longing glances in each other's direction whenever they thought no one was looking, and Remus's guilt and discomfort when the other Marauders played their pranks on Snape was now much more obvious. The television screen seemed to zoom in for a close-up on his face during the pantsing incident by the lake, as if it were deliberately making a point for Sirius's benefit--and knowing Death, it probably was.
He also saw incidents he had never seen before, brief encounters where Remus and Snape happened to chance upon each other when neither the Marauders nor Snape's Slytherin crowd were around. In one scene, they both reached for the same book on the library shelf, and they both blushed and jumped back as their fingers brushed against each other. Then, since there was only one copy of the book, and they both needed it to study for a History of Magic exam, Remus diffidently suggested that they share it. Snape sneered, but gave in without an argument, and they sat together at a table in a secluded corner of the library, heads bent over the book, nearly close enough to touch. Remus smiled at Snape, and Snape automatically scowled, but when Remus kept smiling at him, eventually the scowl faded away, and Snape smiled hesitantly back at Remus.
After that, they continued to meet at the library to study, much more frequently than Sirius had ever realized, and one day, while they were leaning together over a book, Remus leaned over a little further and kissed Snape. The look of shock on Snape's face might have been amusing, if it had not been Sirius's best friend who had just kissed him.
"If this is some sort of joke that your idiot friends put you up to, I'll hex you right through the wall, Lupin," Snape said suspiciously.
Remus just smiled at him and said quietly, "It's no joke, Severus," and then he kissed Snape again.
This time, Snape kissed him back.
The two of them continued to meet in the library, or in empty classrooms, or behind the greenhouses, and Sirius would turn off the television whenever it looked like things might progress beyond snogging. He had no idea how far Remus had actually gone with the greasy git, and to be honest, he didn't really want to know, and he definitely didn't want to watch it.
Eventually it got to the point where Sirius-in-the-past began to notice that Remus was spending an awful lot of time around Snivellus and vice versa, and decided that he'd better do something about it before the greasy git did something to hurt Remus, whether by breaking his heart or some more nefarious plan he had in mind--what exactly, Sirius hadn't been sure, but someone so steeped in the Dark Arts and involved with Lucius Malfoy's toadies must certainly be up to no good.
"I only meant to scare him," Sirius said defensively to the television set and to Moony's look of betrayal when he confronted Sirius the day after the prank. "I wasn't trying to kill him. I thought he'd get a glimpse of the werewolf and then run. I thought he'd be too scared to ever come near us again." And through the television, Sirius had to listen once more to Dumbledore's blistering lecture, about how Snape could've been seriously injured or even killed, and how the Ministry would have punished Remus for that, even though it wasn't his fault. Sirius did feel guilty about the latter; he hadn't thought that far ahead at the time, hadn't considered what might happen to a werewolf who had killed or even just bitten a human.
Remus had refused to even speak to him for two whole weeks after that, no matter how much Sirius had tried to apologize, until James and Peter finally talked Remus into forgiving him. But Remus hadn't really forgiven him; he had remained skittish, always watching Sirius with hurt and wary eyes, like a dog who has been kicked and is waiting for the next blow to land. And eventually, Sirius had started to resent Remus for being unable to forgive him for one admittedly stupid mistake, and their mutual suspicion had eventually escalated--subtly helped along by Peter, Sirius now realized--until they both believed that the other had betrayed James and Lily.
This was a part of the past that Sirius did not want to relive, and he was about to turn the television off when Snape caught his eye on the screen, and he suddenly became aware of something he had not noticed before. When Snape was alone, with no one to observe him watching Lupin from a distance, the cold, arrogant mask on his face slipped, and was replaced with a look of hurt and betrayal, almost identical to the one that young-Remus regarded young-Sirius with. "I was a fool," Snape whispered bitterly and despairingly, in a nearly inaudible voice; Sirius had to crank the volume on the television up all the way to hear it. "I was a fool to think that someone like you could ever love someone like me."
Sirius hastily switched off the television. It almost seemed like Snape really had loved Remus, but that couldn't possibly be true...could it? Surely an evil, sneaky bastard like Snivellus wasn't capable of loving anyone, but somehow Sirius couldn't get the hurt look on Snape's face out of his mind. There had been no reason for him to feign such an expression with no one there to see it; Sirius would not have been able to see it without the aid of Death's magical (he assumed) telly.
It didn't really matter, Sirius told himself, trying to regain the moral upper ground. Even if Snape had loved Remus, he had falsely assumed that Remus was in on the prank, and had refused to believe him when he had protested that he hadn't known anything about it. Therefore, he wasn't worthy of Remus. Because if you really cared about someone, you'd have faith in them and stand by them no matter what.
The way that you stood by Moony when you told James and Lily not to make him their secret-keeper? Sirius's conscience whispered, and he squirmed with guilt, then flung the remote control across the room to vent his irritation. Okay, so he'd made a mistake back then, but surely he'd paid for that with his twelve year imprisonment in Azkaban. And he and Moony had finally been able to make up after Sirius had escaped from prison. They had apologized and forgiven each other, as good friends should. Snape still hadn't forgiven Remus even after all these years--and there was nothing to forgive, anyway, since Remus hadn't done anything wrong, except to have really bad taste in boyfriends. Sirius grudgingly acknowledged that perhaps Snape had a reason to be angry at him, but it was unfair to blame Remus for something Sirius had done, which only proved his point about Snape being unworthy of Remus.
He felt very virtuous and self-righteous for a moment, until he realized that right or wrong, he was still stuck here until Death decided to let him out, and he sighed dispiritedly and slumped back on the couch.
Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
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Afterword: When I was thinking about what to write for this piece, I got the idea of a dead Sirius being forced to get Lupin and Snape back together, then realized that the plot sounded sort of familiar, and I remembered a wonderful story I read on the Master and Wolf archive, where Sirius's spirit enlists Luna's help to play matchmaker for Snape and Lupin. So it wasn't intentional, but in the interests of disclosure, I should say that I might have gotten the inspiration for the basic plot from Em Conway's Through Her Eyes. It is a great story, and you should check it out if you haven't already, but I think my story is different enough to stand on its own. I deliberately avoided reading
arionrhod's entry for this artwork so I wouldn't be unduly influenced by it; I can't wait until my story is done so I can go back and read it! ^_^