Goodbyes

*~*~*

It was already over when Sirius arrived at Godric’s Hollow. The house was dark and radiated with used magic. The spells still tingled in the night breeze. The magic was haunting, the spells’ caster seeming to lurk in the air, in just wisps and fragments, but the presence lingered just the same.

The door was open and the stench of things foreign and lost clung to the air like morbid perfume. Sirius stepped inside, already knowing all too well what he would find. The carpet padded under his feet in a way that for the first time seemed deceivingly comfortable. He tried to remain calm, keep his movements logical, keep telling himself that the news he’d heard was wrong – so wrong – that it wasn’t true. None of it was true. Sirius was good at lying to other people. He could put on that suave grin and smooth talking voice and could easily convince anyone of just about anything.

But he was never very good at lying to himself.

He started to climb the stairs, willing himself to take deep breaths. He’d never been good at restraining his emotions and right now half of him wanted to pound the nearest wall in. He supposed it was natural. Yes, he told himself with more confidence. The anger was completely natural. But some how his hands refused to ball themselves into fists. His voice would rather choke with sobs than shout obscenities. He felt torn in two. Part of him wanted to leave right now, couldn’t bear to see the lifeless specter that had invaded his best friend’s body.

On the fifth step, he heard Harry begin to cry. It wasn’t a loud sound; in fact, most people would think it was laughter, a thirsty gurgle, anything but tears. Sirius knew better. He recognized that sound because it was the same sound that was pulsing through his blood. Some people would argue that babies couldn’t understand loss, that whatever they felt would be fleeting. But that cry didn’t sound like anything so simple or trivial, and Sirius had a sudden urge to run to the child, kiss him, hold him, carry him away from all of this.

But his legs were locked in place, and for several seconds, Sirius could do nothing but listen to the sound of those helpless cries echoing off the dull wallpaper in the upstairs hallway.

Seconds passed like hours and finally Sirius found his feet were able to move again. And as he continued this arduous walk up the steps to the bedroom, he felt his breath slacken, realization dawning with each step so that by the time he had reached the balcony, he’d convinced himself that he knew what to expect. It was just James. He’d seen James sleeping a thousand times. No, he’d watched James sleeping a thousand times. A thousand times that James would never know about. James wouldn’t have to know about this time either. Sirius would just watch. Just one last time. He was already beginning to forget the shape of the frames of James’ glasses, and the pattern that the strands of inky hair made as they tapered over his smooth forehead. Sirius just wanted to bruise that image into his mind. That was all.

But when he saw James, any plan he might have had was discarded in a single shuddering breath. His best friend lay on his back on the peach carpet, eyes open and wand still draped loosely between his thumb and forefinger. He had tried to defend himself. Tried, Sirius thought, but failed. Sirius couldn’t look at him without noticing just how still he was. That wasn’t James. Not anymore. Sirius could hardly recognize that man.

He stepped closer, through the doorway, surprised a second later that Harry had stopped crying and was looking at him with interest through the bars of his crib. Sirius glanced over and feigned a weak smile, before turning back to James. Harry giggled. The laugh sounded shrill and out of place.

Lily had fallen in the corner of the room, her lifeless body curled into itself, arms splayed over legs over carpet. Sirius didn’t remember her skin being so pale, her red hair now in stark contrast with her flesh. No, not her flesh, Sirius reminded himself. That wasn’t James’ wife anymore.

Sirius thought that since it wasn’t really Lily, it was all right when he bent down next to James and leaned over him, locking eyes with those lifeless irises, half-hoping that they would blink back at him. But those weren’t James’ eyes anymore. They were dull, lacking any of the familiar mischief. Those eyes weren’t the ones he’d awoken from in early mornings, feeling sweaty and sticky and pulsing.

He ran his calloused fingertips over James’ forehead, and slowly down to close his eyelids. Those eyes were foreign. He didn’t want those eyes watching him do things that were meant only for James.

Now they were alone. Harry had stopped crying and was breathing softly now and Sirius assumed he was asleep. Lily (who was not Lily) was facing the wall and, to a casual observer, seemed to be meticulously studying the crown moulding that circled around the room. Sirius and James were alone.

Sirius let his eyes trace over James’ skin, the shell of his best friend. It was strange that now he noticed so much more, how his collarbone protruded just slightly, making him look frail and malnourished, how his fingers were long like a pianist’s with hardened knuckles. There were so many details he must have missed in life, too preoccupied with those eyes, and that smile. He wouldn’t have to worry about those distractions now.

When he bent and kissed James for the first time, it was reverently. He hadn’t thought that he would do it more than once. But there was something painful and necessary about the feeling of those smooth, cold lips against his own. Sirius felt himself breaking; any pretense of ceremony and propriety was lost. James did not kiss him back, and it took Sirius a moment to realize that this was because James was dead. James’ skin was cold. He had no pulse. How could Sirius have been so foolish as to think he might kiss back? Because people who wanted something badly enough can make it real.

And so Sirius kissed James again, deeper this time, pushing his tongue between those lifeless lips and into that dark cavern of mouth and teeth and tongue. He was probing, pushing, trying desperately to brush over some part of James that would make him alive again. And it felt like the most painful feeling in the world. James’ mouth had gone dry and tasted stale and sour. Sirius was surprised that he wasn’t repulsed. The memory of James still lingered somewhere in the space between those teeth, if only he could find it.

He moved to straddle James’ body, pressing over him, searching in desperation for a heartbeat. His hands shivered up under those robes, pulling them off, wanting to see his best friend’s body one last time. James’ skin was so white, his nipples had hardened; Sirius wondered if that happened with all dead bodies, hoping secretly that it was a reaction to him, that some part of James was still there and could still feel. But when Sirius slipped his hands under the waistband of James’ trousers, all hope of that was lost. Sirius felt James’ cock limp and cool to the touch. There was no hint of that former passion there. Sirius stroked it experimentally, but found the feeling of it against his palm unnerving and unnatural, like James was suddenly a nonconsensual partner.

His hands trailed instead to his own cock, freeing it from his trousers and finding, with surprise, that somehow touching this lifeless body had aroused him. It felt obscene and wrong but there was nothing to be done about it now. Besides, he was alone. Even James had left him.

Sirius stroked himself hard and fast, never taking his eyes off of James. Some morbid part of him wanted to slide his cock into James, to fuck his best friend one last time before some insensitive git from the Ministry showed up and stuffed him into a wooden box. He wondered if anyone would notice.

As he slid James’ trousers down his bare legs, he felt a nauseous sort of feeling rising in his throat. It was so wrong for James to be here like this, cold, lifeless. Sirius knew he was being foolish when the thought crossed his mind that maybe if he was in James, filling James, fucking James, that he could bring his friend back. No one fucked the dead, he thought. Sirius would never do something like that. But if James was alive, then it would be all right.

He is, Sirius told himself, cock poised at James’ entrance.

It was stupid because Sirius knew from the second he’d thrust in that it was a lie. James was dead and felt limp and dark around him. There was no burning heat, no moan in his ear, no legs clenching around him, drawing him closer. There was only the still of the room and the sound of his own moaning sobs.

Just as Sirius came, flooding James’ body with hot sticky life, Harry began to cry again. It was a cry of relief and defeat intermingled into a sound children should not be capable of making. And when Sirius concentrated hard enough, he swore he heard a wisp of James in that cry.

*~*~*