For Arsenic, who never wanted to lose him, because without her I would be lost.

One:

Sirius had never been patient before, but all of a sudden there was nothing to do but wait. Nothing to do but float, because he couldn't feel anything (though to be fair, that might have been the curse, whatever it was, that Bella had hit him with), and mentally twiddle his thumbs (again, because he couldn't feel them) and wonder when someone was going to find him.

He suspected it might take awhile.

Before, when he had been stuck in Azkaban and the only thing he could remember (besides the screaming and hitting and his mother and his father and his brother and James' face and Lily's eyes, cold and empty, and Harry crying and betrayal, all his fault) was Peter killed them; I am innocent, back then, he'd hated being stuck.

It was different now.

It was peaceful, for one thing. Peace, he'd found, was easy to attain, at least when there were no dementors or shrieking portraits or memories of humiliation and hatred and there weren't here, wherever here might be. He tried not to think on that, because he had a sinking suspicion here was not someplace that living people went to, and that meant he might be floating for a long, long time to come.

Still, it was peaceful, and he was relatively happy, as such things went. He knew that once, he had been very happy, when he and James were JamesandSirius, and even after, when they were JamesandLily and Sirius, even then when people were dying and Voldemort was picking them off one by one and Moony was not to be trusted, he had been happy. He'd had JamesandLily and Harry and before that he'd had JamesandLily and Moony and before that he'd had James, and Moony, and Peter was around (he didn't think about that now, except sometimes when he remembered Peter as he used to be, chubby little Peter who clapped his hands and grinned and always made Sirius feel superior and Peter whom he had trusted and been able to trust -- not some strange and alien grubby old thing, but Peter) and before that he hadn't known to be unhappy with his mother and his father and Regulus had loved him, way back when he could hardly remember. He'd been happy, then, in a way that made happy now seem insufficient, but he found he didn't really care, because he didn't care about a lot of things. Everything was far away, and Sirius was at peace, and somebody would come for him someday, be it Remus or Harry or James.

He could wait.

* * *

Two:

There's a boy in the attic who doesn't belong. He's not sure how he knows this, how he even knows it's the attic (didn't everything use to be turned around somehow? There's his school trunk, only the initials are backwords. Mother'll have a fit if she sees it like that...) but he knows the boy doesn't belong in the house. He's off, somehow.

"You there." The boy looks up, and his features are wrong, again, everything's switched up. "What's going on?"

"Oh, God." The boy stumbles backwards, away from him, out the door, and Sirius rushes forward to grab him and shake out an answer and he hits a wall.

And then he knows.

"Mother? Mother, where are you? Why am I in the attic? MUM!" He turns, rushes into the blankness behind him, and there's no going that way either, but there must be some way, because the paintings all visit each other, don't they, and there has to be a way *out*. He's panicking, and he knows it, but he can't stand being caged, never could, and he doesn't know what to do, the walls are moving in he can feel it and--

"Sirius?"

"Regulus?"

His brother slides into existence, first a right hand, then arm, then torso. His brother is taller than he is, and older than Sirius remembers him, adult even, which makes no sense. Logically, of course, all their portraits get redone when they reach majority, but if Sirius is--if Sirius is still 11, and he must be because that's his Hogwarts letter on the floor, if Sirius is here, he couldn't have had his portrait repainted, could he? But Regulus is clearly 17, so why--how could he be here, when he's older than Sirius, and.

"I've been waiting for you to wake up."

"You're *old*."

Regulus laughs. It sounds hollow, the way Uncle Alphie does when he talks about friends from Grindewald's rise. "Come on," he says, "you're wanted downstairs."

"Is Mum there?"

"What do you care?"

Sirius pushes his brother, hard. He may be smaller, but he's still strong, and his brother windmills out of Sirius' view. "Serves you right," he laughs.

His Hogwarts letter is on the floor by his feet, and he has vague memories of holding it proudly while he was being painted.

Dear Mr. Black,

Only, did he get to Hogwarts? He hopes so--he's going to be the best thing to ever happen to that school. Or, was. Or--Regulus hasn't come back yet.

"I better not be a Hufflepuff," he mutters, then he rolls up his sleeves and pushes at the wall to his left. Someone grabs his hand and yanks him through. He's still in the attic, he knows that somehow, but it's dark and all he can see are vague shadows where there was light a moment ago, and there's a. A corridor, with figures in tilted doorways and stairs leading down, and he cranes his neck but before he can see more, Regulus shakes him.

"You stupid *idiot*, don't you know someone could get *lost* that way?"

"Ow." He rubs his arm and glares at his brother. "Just you wait," he says. "Mum'll hide you but good."

"I'm 17," Regulus tells him loftily. "She won't lay a hand on me. *You*, however, are clearly in need of discipline. Not that I shouldn't expect it, from a Gryffindor."

"You take that back!"

"You are." Regulus smile nastily. "A filthy little traitorous Gryffindor, you are, friends with James *Potter*, of all people, and the reason you're still 11 is that you ran away from home and the reason you're in the attic is that Mother threw your portrait up here where she wouldn't have to look at it, and--" Sirius hits him. He hurls himself at Regulus and kicks and bites and hits and Regulus won't stop *laughing*, the slimy git, he should beat him to a bloody *pulp*, he should tear him into tiny pieces and grind him into the carpet, he should--Regulus shoves him. He lands on the floor, scraping his hand, and everything stings, and it isn't *fair*.

"I hate this family."

"Shut up," Regulus says.

They go down three flights, down to the first floor, and there's a small doorway with a profile he recognizes, even though she's even older than Regulus is older, even though she looks ancient and wizened and gray, and he rushes to her side and hugs her tightly.

"Regulus *hit* me," he says, "and he called me a *Gryffindor*, Mum, make him leave me *alone* and--Mum?"

His mother grabs him, pulls him close, and he realizes somewhere that she's crying, she's crying and rocking him and "My boy, my sweet precious boy, my baby" he made his mother *cry*.

And then someone coughs, and he looks into the entrance hall and there are people there. Strangers with the odd backwards faces, but people, and he's hugging his mother and being cried over like a baby.

"Get off," he tells her. "Mum, there's company."

Her face clouds over. "TRAITORS, MUDBLOOD SCUM, FILTHY, VILE--"

"SIRIUS!" Someone taps his shoulder and nods towards the hallway, and he backs away from him screaming mother just as her view goes dim and a curtain shakes. Something in his stomach twists at that, at the fluttering, but before he can wonder about it his great-great-grandfather tells him, "Don't just stand there, boy. Into the parlor, they're waiting for you."

"I'm not a Gryffindor," he says. It's important that that be made clear. "Right?"

"No one bloody cares what you were, boy, you're dead. Now go!"

"I don't--" he stops, and thinks. The parlor, that's where Uncle Rigel's picture is. He walks the back hallway, and sure enough, there's a door with Uncle Rigel's profile, though Uncle Rigel himself doesn't seem to be there, as Sirius steps right through his profile and into the room.

The people are there, all of them, piled in, and he doesn't recognize any of them. It doesn't help that they look like mirror-people, of course, but there should be a family member somewhere, right? A lot of the people have red hair, though, maybe one of them's a Weasley. He's related to the Weasley's distantly, through some second cousin or something. He doesn't see any Blacks, though, not even Andromeda, who liked him. Unless Andromeda's also...

"Sirius?"

It's the boy, the one from the attic who he thinks should look familiar but doesn't.

"Yeah, what?"

The boy gulps, and a man squeezes his shoulder.

"Grandfather said I was dead."

The man and boy glance at an older man, one with long white hair and a beard.

"Yes," he says, "I'm afraid you are."

"That's stupid, though. I'm going to Hogwarts, see, I've got my letter and everything. I'm gonna rule Slytherin, and have lots of adventures, and--what?"

A man with dark, lanky hair leans forward. "You are *not* a Slytherin." Sirius scowls at him.

"Git," he says. He turns back to the old guy and the nice-looking man and boy. "I can't be dead," he tells them. "I haven't gotten to do *anything* yet."

The boy and the man by his side pale.

"Would you like to do things?" The old man looks at him with piercing blue eyes.

"I'd like to get out of this house," Sirius tells him. "It's bloody boring here."

"You're excited about Hogwarts, then?"

Sirius grins. "Hogwarts," he says, "is going to be *wizard*."

The old man nods at the greasy man, who scowls and leaves the room.

"He doesn't know what he's saying." The other man is deathly white by now. "He's too young, he doesn't--"

"Please," the boy says, "please, Professor, we can do it. It'll be better this time, you'll see, I'll, I'll watch him, please--"

"Harry, it won't be him. That's why people don't *do* this, it isn't, it isn't Sirius--"

"I don't *care*, he's--we can't just LEAVE him, not HERE, Remus *please*."

The man--Remus--runs a hand over his face. He looks tired, Sirius decides. Exhausted, and sad. Maybe he knew him?

Something tugs at his gut, like a portkey, like he's being moved. "What's going on?"

Phineas Nigellus brushes dirt off Sirius' shirt. "You're being dissolved," he says. "See you live better this time."

"What?"

"They're remaking you, boy. You're the last of the Blacks, after all. Can't have the family die out."

"I'm the last--you mean, it's all mine? The house and the money and *everything*?"

"A guardian will be appointed for you," the old man says--Sirius had forgotten he was there. Somehow, Phineas seems more real than these people he doesn't know--they are flat, over-colored. Or perhaps it's just that the colors around him are blending at the edges.

He looks down, and notes, "My hands are melting."

"Your portrait is being Unmade." The old man again.

Sirius watches his arms disappear, and his feet. "Can I live with Andy? She's pretty cool."

"The Ministry will want to assume custody for you at first," the old man says. "To determine you really are Sirius Black, and to reverse your sentence."

"My what?"

"You're a fugitive," Remus says, "from Azkaban."

His legs are dripping away from him. "Are they going to send me back?"

"NO." The boy--Harry--presses a hand to his chest; Sirius can almost feel it through the wall. "No," he says again. "I promise."

Then the world dissolves into canvas and blankness and Sirius falls asleep.

* * *

Three:

Padfoot likes to run through the tall grasses, nose low to the ground, eyes slit tight against the wind and reeds. There is a pair of rabbits ahead of him, slipping in and out of smelling range, teasing him, and he is going to catch them, if Prongs doesn't call him away.

Prongs is fun to chase too, though sometimes if Padfoot nips at his heels Prongs will turn around and butt him, and sometimes when Prongs butts him it hurts. Sometimes Pronglet will nudge him too, from behind, now that he is getting big enough to have antlers, but usually Pronglet stays with the Lady, who feeds Prongs and Pronglet and Padfoot, when he's around, except when she is a swan, which isn't often. The older Pronglet gets, the more she likes to swim, but mostly she is a Lady and watches her fawn.

Padfoot likes the Lady when he thinks about her, which isn't often except when he is hungry. He feels sorry for her, in a way he can't analyze because he is Padfoot and Padfoot doesn't think of such things, because she is a Lady and not a dog or a deer or even a rabbit, with a scent that tantalizes his nose and makes him drool and oh, rabbit will be a lovely supper.

There are other non-animals around, though Padfoot doesn't really care about most of them. He has Prongs and Pronglet and the Lady, and that is enough. The Lady speaks of others, sometimes, wistfully, and sometimes Prongs will not be Prongs at all, but a Man, which makes Padfoot paw his head and slink outside, lest it be catching. Padfoot doesn't want to be a Man.

Padfoot wants to run and run and run and chase the breeze and leaves and rabbits and never twist or change or go near the dark place where animals leave and don't come back for ages and ages and ages. Padfoot went there once, he thinks, though he doesn't really remember these things, or anything, much, besides rabbit, except that there was a Man there calling him, and he smelled like dogs so Padfoot went to him and was trapped for ages and ages and rarely ever let out. The dark place smells like the Sad Robes, and Padfoot shivers and turns around, leaving the twin rabbits for the Lady and a pat on the head and "Good dog."

The Lady gives him some chicken for dinner, and lets him climb up next to her, and the Man is there and Padfoot drops his head in the Man's lap and gets his ears scratched and forgets the Sad Robes and the dark place and the rabbits that he didn't eat.

"Why do you think he won't change?" The Lady's voice floats over Padfoot, soft and cool and homey, and he doesn't ever want to move except that the Man is scratching and his tail flops gently on the Lady's legs.

"I think he's scared." The Man strokes Padfoot's ears, and ohhhhh, that's even nicer than before. He licks at the Man's fingers in graditude, and gets a smile. He likes smiles.

"He still won't go near the Veil."

"I know."

"James, you don't think--"

"No," the Man says, sharply, and Padfoot whines until he gets another pat. He doesn't like sharp voices, they remind him of... of something. Something twists in his belly and it isn't chicken and this is supposed to be home. "Remus wouldn't," the Man says.

The Lady glances at the corner, where Pronglet is curled up so small, even though when he stands his legs are long and he is taller even than Padfoot, and nearly as tall as Prongs.

"No," the Man says again.

"He might," the Lady says. "He mightn't know any better."

"Remus--"

"Petunia," the Lady says. She and the Man both grimace. Padfoot jumps off the couch, leaving the Man and the Lady to sit by Pronglet. He growls until the Man says "Padfoot!" and then he settles for baring his teeth and keeping Pronglet safe behind him. Pronglet may have the Lady and Prongs and sometimes the Man, but he is Padfoot's.

Pronglet nuzzles his side sleepily, and Padfoot settles down and vows to watch the darkness in case the Sad Robes come from beyond the dark place, or a man tries to call his Pronglet away. The Lady bends over and kisses his head, and the Man gives him a pat before following her upstairs. Stairs are fun to play on, but Padfoot has no truck with them tonight, not when his mind is on Pronglet and darkness and whatever bad thing the Lady spoke of that made his hackles rise. Padfoot rests his head upon his paws, and waits.

The badness crawls across his fur at midnight, when everyone is sleeping except Padfoot. It crawls across his back, and his head, and tries to slip in his nose and he whimpers and covers his eyes.

Someone is calling him.

Padfoot barks loudly, because he's scared and barks keep the darkness at bay. He wants to howl something fierce, but there isn't a moon indoors. It doesn't matter, anyway, since the Man and the Lady come tumbling downstairs and they'll keep him safe from the badness.

"Shh, boy, it's okay," the Man says. Padfoot presses against his legs, and when the Man drops on one knee to hug him he burrows so close the Man falls over. "Pad--Lily, do you--calm down, boy, shh, shhhh..."

The house shakes, and Padfoot barks again, barks and barks and rabbits are so far away, he doesn't even think of them, just the shaking and Pronglet and traps and a voice in his head pleading, Sirius.

"They're doing it," the Lady says over Padfoot. "They're actually--"

"I know," the Man says. He sounds sad, and his arms tighten around Padfoot's neck.

Sirius, please.

The house shakes and somehow the dark place feels closer. He can't let it get to Pronglet, or the Lady and the Man, he just can't.

The badness snakes around him, covers him, and there's something inside that tugs, something inside him that isn't Padfoot at all. It's reaching for him and pushing at him and he knows somehow that if he goes Pronglet will be safe and Prongs, and the Man and the Lady belong here, and Pronglet needs them.

"Shh," the Man says, but all he hears is Sirius, and he closes his eyes and leaps, and fabric swishes behind him.

He is trapped.

* * *

Four:

"If you don't have a coin," Charon said, "you're not passing."

"For the tenth time," Sirius said, ignoring the cold and the moaning people and the groans from those lucky enough to already be on the ferry, "I don't want to go to Hades."

"Then what're you bothering me for? I have a schedule to keep, boy, and no time for wasting. I'll see you in a hundred years, give or take a couple, when the coin's had time to grow beneath your tongue." Charon pushed off with his pole, but Sirius lunged for the bottom. He grasped the pole with both hands, ignoring the cold that seeped up his feet. The ferryman peered down at him unhappily from empty sockets.

"I want to go back."

"Well," Charon said, "let me think. No."

"Hercules--"

"You, lad, are no Hercules. You're not even Aeneas. No golden coin. No golden bough. No guide. No passage."

Sirius exploded. "I don't want to enter bloody Hades! I don't want Tartarus, I don't want the Elysian fields, I don't want Heaven or Hell or Purgatory or Nirvana or Valhalla or the Afterbloodylife! I. want. passage. back."

"Shove off," one of the spirits on the ferry said.

"Most improper," spoke up another.

Sirius bared his teeth at them. "Look," he told Charon, "I'll pay you."

"With what?" The ferryman hooked a skeletal finger around his robe and grimaced. "You can't even go the right way, you expect to go upstream for free?"

"I'm rich. In the other world, I'm rich, I'll pay you my weight in gold, whatever you want, just take me home."

"The other world." Charon snorted. "And what, pray tell, will make you keep your promise?"

"I'm a Black," Sirius said, then paused. "Well, so that's not much for honesty, but I'm a wizard and an Englishman and--"

"The words of the living."

"I'll give you anything."

Charon hauled Sirius onto the ferry and held a bony hand to his forehead. His sockets bore into Sirius' eyes, looking deep inside. He squirmed, just a little, and when the ferryman nodded he let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Open your mouth."

"Excuse me?"

"Everything worth taking is under the tongue. Don't they teach you anything these days?" Charon reached into his mouth and tugged, and something silvery flew from Sirius into the boat, leaving him gasping and slightly hollow inside.

"Everybody off!" A silver-black dog he hadn't noticed began barking, herding the souls from the ferry back to the banks of the river. "Come on then," Charon said, drawing a second pole from his cloak and handing it over. "Put your back into it."

Together, they punted up the Styx, and Sirius tried to think only of Harry, of Remus, and not of Padfoot or gold or the rest that could have been his, with a hundred years gone by.

* * *

Five:

The wand was made of dogwood. 12 3/4 inches, bendy, good for Transfigurations. Mr. Ollivander stroked it once, a long swipe of cloth to clean off any remaining dust from carving the handle. "There now," he said, "nice and smooth. No rough edges anywhere, though you tried your best. Won't do for the children, I'm afraid, and I think I know who you'll want."

The wand jerked a little.

"No use sulking, lad. I've been making wands since before you were born--" Mr. Ollivander paused to laugh a little at his joke-- "I'll just fit you in by this nice white beech. I think you knew him, once."

It was dark, in the box, but the wand didn't really see anyway, not the way wizards did. Everywhere around the wand was a web of magic, reaching out from his dragonstring core and connecting him to all the other wands, to Mr. Ollivander, to the kettle whistling merrily on the Everhot Stove, through the front of the shop and all along Diagon Alley. There were other wands there, thin strings that were just out of reach, but in the box right next to the dogwood, the beech was a brilliant light, and their dragonstrings knotted together in brotherhood.

"Yes," Mr. Ollivander said, "I thought that might do. I've been saving your core for a long time now, waiting." The wizard shook his head, and his light dimmed just a little. "Always waiting," he said.

The wands in the store strained to reach him, to send comforting sparks his way. Even the dogwood, who was still upset at being sanded down, couldn't help but shoot a bit of red and gold. Mr. Ollivander smiled, and then the doorbell rang and everyone stilled, waiting to see who would enter, and wondering who would leave.

The dogwood wand liked his box, his shelf, his brother wand. He lay untouched for a long time, though he didn't really measure time the way he used to, before he was a wand. He sat by his brother, sometimes sending feelers along the web of magic that bound him to the world, but mostly he was peaceful, quiet.

Then one day the beech wand chose a wizard, and left the dogwood behind.

After that, the dogwood started wondering what he'd like, if he should go with someone. Mr. Ollivander had said he knew, but Mr. Ollivander was a wand himself, and his son hadn't been there when the dogwood was made.

The doorbell rang.

The doorbell rang a lot, all at once, and witches and wizards streamed through the store, eager for wands and Hogwarts.

The dogwood didn't like any of them. A few of them were almost right, but there was always something off--this one was too tall, that one too short. One really needed a swishier wand, one a stiffer wand. One of them looked perfect until the wand reached deeper, into the witch's core, and realized she excelled at Potions work.

The dogwood hated Potions.

The dogwood had just begun to despair of ever leaving his box when he heard Mr. Ollivander say, "Aeneas Lupin. I've been wondering when I'd see you in my shop."

"Hello, Mr. Ollivander," Aeneas said. He stepped a little closer to his father, not quite knowing what to make of the odd little man at the counter.

Mr. Ollivander whipped out his tape measure. "Don't worry. I'm sure we'll find you a wand in no time." He smiled. "Well, I say that. It's the wand that chooses the wizard, of course."

In the back of the room, the dogwood brightened.