A/N: OoP Spoilers. If you haven't read the book, don't read this fic. This is a resurrection fic inspired by Phineas Nigellus.

Disclaimer: All characters were created by JK Rowling. I'm merely using them to create a universe that is much more satisfactory to me.

Part I

Through the Veil

He fell forever. At least, it seemed to take a long time, long enough for him to start wondering how many bones would break when he hit the ground. But, there was no sensation of speed, a realization both curious and disturbing. He knew he was falling. Shouldn't the force of gravity be acting on the mass of his body to speed things up a bit? Was this a good time to think about physics?

Someone yelled his name.

And then he was at rest, lying on cold, hard stone. This felt all too wrenchingly familiar. His cell in Azkaban felt like this. He scrambled to his feet. It was pitch dark. His wand was gone. He crouched to look for it, cautiously running his fingertips over the unforgiving stone.

Suddenly, he heard whispering voices ahead of him in the blackness. He froze, the hair on the back of his neck rising. He strained to understand the words. Behind him, someone still yelled. Screamed. Harry! That was Harry's voice, screaming his name as if his life depended on it. Sirius spun around and saw dim light seeping through a veil hanging across an archway. The veil was vaguely familiar. He leapt towards it, responding instinctually to Harry's cries.

"No!" A voice ordered sharply. He stopped short, surprising himself. This was not a command that often had an effect on him. A figure glimmered before him, appearing out of nowhere, tall, willowy, draped in swathes of gossamer cloth that glowed silver in the dim light. With a start, he realized he could still see the veiled doorway through this person's body.

"No!" It said again, its voice neither male nor female. "You cannot go back."

"I have to! Harry needs me-"

"No. You have passed through. You cannot go back." The translucent person regarded him, waiting patiently for the question, the inevitable question they all asked, those people who were not expecting or praying to be allowed to pass through veil.

The foggy feeling in his head dissipated. The Department of Mysteries. Bellatrix. A stunning spell. Falling through the veil into.into.He looked hard into the ghostly face.

"Am I dead?" Asked Sirius Black.

"Yes."

The misty spirit, for surely it must be some denizen of the afterlife, moved past Sirius towards the whispering voices. Sirius turned back towards the veil. He couldn't hear anyone. What had happened to Harry? Too often he hadn't been able to help his godson. Well, not again. Not now. He was going back. Back to Harry and Remus.

Once more he ran towards the veil.

"No!" The spirit's voice again stopped him in his tracks. Why? He had to go back, even if it was only to say "Goodbye." Was that too much to ask for, at the end of his life? To say goodbye to Harry and Remus? Beautiful, wretched Remus, alone once more. He had left him again. Why? Why? Why?

The agony his lover must now feel cracked his own dead heart. "Remus! Oh, God, Remus!" The cry broke from his throat. Couldn't death at least free him from pain? Sirius approached no closer to the veil. He stood still, holding his breath, listening intently, hoping to hear Remus once more before eternity took him. But all was quiet.

The spirit waited, silent and impassive.

His expression pleading, Sirius asked, "Isn't there some way that they can hear me?"

"No. Some of them have the power to hear other voices. But, not yours. Not yet."

Sirius' vision blurred. Evidently the dead could still weep.

The smooth mask of the spirit's face altered slightly, making it seem somewhat more human. Faint warmth infused its voice. "Many wish to return."

Sirius sank to his knees on the cold stone. He was so tired, so very tired of struggling to free himself from the past, of fighting to vanquish the damage he had suffered in his life so that he could be the lover and godfather that Remus and Harry deserved. But, he hadn't been strong enough, and now it was too late.

An eerie sound reached him. A moan, low and deep, of a shattered creature, a sound beyond pain. It came from his own lungs. He had felt despair like this for twelve long years. Now, he'd carry it into eternity. He'd left them behind to mourn him. Once again, he'd torn up their lives. "I owe them," he wept. "I took so much from them. I never meant to hurt them, but I did. I did. I hurt them both so much. Please let me go back. Please let me try to make it up to them."

"Who?"

"Harry and Remus."

"Humans still surprise me," the spirit replied, not unkindly. "Most wish to return to life for what it can still bring to *them*, not for what *they* can still bring to others. You are unusual."

The spirit turned away from the veil and headed into the dark. "Come."

Beyond speech, Sirius could only shake his head. He turned toward the veil, but all he saw was black. The archway was gone.

A sense of inevitability descended on him. Wearily, Sirius rose to his feet to follow. What other choice did he have? It was useless to fight. The powers here were beyond his strength. He could change nothing of himself or of his life now. His time had ended. His soul was marked with his sins and his grace. He only hoped the balance worked in his favor. He followed the glimmering form.

With no warning at all, they stood in a large, gray room. A vast multitude of figures sat on benches or leaned against the walls, talking among themselves. Some wore wizard robes and others looked distinctly Mugglish. Sirius got the odd impression that they were all waiting to board trains.

At one end of the room, two more of the genderless spirits were seated at a raised desk, each with a large tome opened in front of them. They spoke together quietly and occasionally wrote notes in one or both of the books. As Sirius watched, one of the seated spirits raised a hand and a small spirit appeared. This youngster smiled at a woman who was standing in front of the desk and escorted her off to the side. They disappeared through a doorway on the right.

"Next," said one of the seated spirits, and an elderly man rose from his seat and walked forward.

"What is this place?" Sirius asked his guide.

"It is the first stop on your journey. The Stewards decide what path you must follow. And then you go."

"Go where? You mean to Heaven or Hell? Where? And how do they decide? Are they God?"

For the second time, an expression flitted across the spirit's face. Sirius could have sworn he saw a slightly exasperated eye roll. "You will understand in due course."

The spirit's hand swept out indicating the place Sirius should take on a bench. He started to move forward and then halted. "Wait! Who are you? Are you a ghost? An angel? Do you have a name?"

"I am a Guardian of the Veil." The spirit's gaze swept across the room, alighting briefly on several other people. "It's always the same when people cross suddenly," the Guardian muttered. The fathomless eyes fixed once more on Sirius' face. "You were not prepared. You bring too much of the living world with you. This is no longer that world."

Again the spirit gestured towards the bench. Not knowing what else to do, Sirius sat. The spirit slowly dissipated. "I wish you the proper journey, Sirius Black."

Sirius watched it go, uncomfortably aware that it hadn't wished him a happy journey. Then he noticed that several other people, or souls, he supposed, had turned to stare at him. Wizards and witches, judging by their clothing, who, no doubt, had recognized his name. Sirius noticed that their bodies seemed insubstantial and hazy around the edges. His own looked solid, and he realized he could feel the hard bench and the floor beneath his feet. He wondered if that was normal. His sense of unreality grew.

"You're *the* Sirius Black?" The wizard next to him asked.

"Well, I used to be. I'm not sure just who or what I am anymore."

The man nodded, not at all perturbed to be seated next to an infamous mass murderer. "You get used to it. Just keep reminding yourself that you're dead."

They sat in silence for a while. Another person was called up to the Stewards.

"My name's Bode. Broderick Bode." Sirius' neighbor said. "I was murdered."

"Oh.er.Nice to meet you," Sirius said, extending his hand. Bode shook it, and Sirius couldn't feel a thing. "Sorry. About being murdered, I mean."

"Strangled, I was. At least it was quick for the people you snuffed."

"I never killed anyone. I was framed."

Bode's basset hound face registered no surprise. He nodded at the Stewards. "Well, whether you did or you didn't, they'll know."

"Umm.Broderick? Can you.can you feel anything? Like the bench or the floor?"

"No. We can't feel anything. I think they just set these rooms up to look familiar to us. To ease us into whatever comes next."

"Then why can I feel them?"

Bode gave him a look of disbelief. "Well, it's obvious, isn't it? You brought your body with you. Came right through the veil, we hear. Almost no one does that."

They fell silent. And then Bode said, "Of course, no one escapes from Azkaban, either. How did you manage to pull that off?"

The other witches and wizards in the near vicinity, who had been trying surreptitiously to eavesdrop on their previous conversation, now made no pretense of not listening in.

Sirius sighed. Well, why not tell the tale? He had nothing better to do while he sat on the bench in God's waiting room. "I'm an Animagus. I mean, I was an Animagus," he began.

The Noble and Most Ancient Family of Black

"Am I to understand," said Phineas Nigellus slowly, "that my great-great- grandson - the last of the Blacks - is dead?"

"Yes, Phineas," said Dumbledore.

"I don't believe it," said Phineas brusquely.

Harry turned his head in time to see Phineas marching out of his portrait.

In no time Phineas appeared in his frame at 12 Grimmauld Place. There was no one in the bedroom, although it looked like it had been recently occupied. It was hard to keep track of all the comings and going in this house. One of those Weasleys had probably been here. Maybe that reprobate with the long hair. Phineas sniffed disapprovingly.

He went to a frame in a small bedroom even higher in the house.

"Sirius?" Phineas called loudly. He had to be loud. His worthless great- great-grandson had removed the pictures that had hung in his own room across the hall, the room he shared with the other one. Remus Lupin. Lupin's family was pure blood, although that no longer counted in Phineas' eyes, as Lupin himself was tainted. A werewolf. Phineas tried not to think about it. It was bad enough that Dumbledore had allowed the creature admittance as a student at Hogwarts. Permitting it to teach, however; calling it Professor was shocking. But even that was not nearly as reprehensible as Sirius knowingly bringing a monster into his parents' house in those days before his twisted views finally made him renounce his family and swear he'd never again set foot in Grimmauld Place.

Apparently nothing lasts forever, Phineas mused, since the prodigal last son of the Blacks had returned, stalking the old hallways and snarling at the loathsome house elf, Kreacher. Prison had done nothing to sweeten the boy's temperament. Only Lupin's presence seemed to lighten his foul moods. Sometimes the two of them actually smiled when they emerged from that bedroom in the morning. Phineas couldn't decide whether they got up to something improper in there. No, surely even Sirius wouldn't consort with a monster. Sirius' mother, Lucretia, occasionally screamed about werewolves, but even she hadn't accused her son of bestiality. At least, Phineas didn't think so. He tried to ignore her as much as possible. Mad, old harpy.

"Sirius!" He called sharply. He heard the cackling laughter of Kreacher as the snout-nosed elf sidled into the room. Kreacher chortled again. "Gone! He's gone!"

With a horrible sense of the inevitable, Phineas Nigellus knew. Dumbledore had spoken the truth. Sirius wasn't home because he was dead. Phineas knew what he must now do.

Descending through the house, he began rousing other portraits, other members of the family of Black, the ones that still hung in their frames, waiting for Sirius to get around to tossing them out. He shepherded them to the first floor.

Phineas squeezed into the frame of the portrait of Sirius' grandfather, Pollux Black. He liked Pollux. They understood each other, although Pollux was not a particularly talkative fellow, unless something deeply moved him. Even now he merely raised an eyebrow at Phineas questioningly.

Phineas waited until the all the long-dead Blacks arranged themselves, settling into spaces in the already occupied frames on the first floor. Phineas let the babble die down before trying to make himself heard. When he at last had everyone's attention, he paused. The momentousness of the occasion loomed before him. He had awakened the Blacks to tell them their family line had ended. It saddened him deeply. Clearing his throat, Phineas said dolefully, "The last son, the last Black, the sole remaining scion of the blood, is dead."

Silence greeted this announcement. Pollux stared hard at Phineas for a long moment. The quiet was shattered by a gleeful crowing from the front of the hallway as Lucretia Black threw back her head, her rheumy eyes rolling, spittle oozing from the corners of her mouth. "That traitorous viper is dead! What a glorious day! Someone has finally ground his face into the dirt! May he choke on it for all eternity! Worthless filth! His flesh will rot off his bones and feed the worms! And I'll laugh and-"

"Lucretia! Silence!" Pollux thundered. The other portraits, which had started to buzz with the news, also fell quiet.

Pollux' pale blue eyes swept up and down the rows of faces. "Whatever we may think of him, Sirius was the last of the blood, the last of a long, illustrious line. It ends now with his death unless we, his ancestors, choose to petition the powers of the afterworld to invoke the pact of Cognatus Putus."

No one spoke. A patter of running feet came down the stairs and Kreacher ran to Lucretia Black, a twisted joy on his face. "Sweet mistress, have you heard? You will be so pleased! So pleased with your Kreacher! The putrid scum that was your betrayer son is dead!"

A cacophony rose from the portraits. Some cheered the news. Others, however, thought beyond the death of one man, and saw the long years of generations to come in which the stars of Black would not shine proudly above lesser mortals. And why should that be, when they had another alternative? At the very least, they should all convene and decide whether to ask for the pact to be invoked on behalf of their family, their last son. These more measured opinions carried the day.

And, so the shades of the ancestors of Sirius Black left their portraits and their graves, roused their spirits from eternal rest and traveled the celestial way to the land beyond the veil, to pass judgment on the last of their line.

His Name was Sirius

He had no recollection of getting back to 12 Grimmauld Place. But, the door appeared in front of him, he tapped the knob with his wand, and entered. He felt numb and utterly spent. God only knows what sort of answers he gave to the Ministry officials who had come bustling after them. Maybe Moody had done most of the explaining. Or Dumbledore. Remus couldn't really remember. Time had stopped for him when he struggled with Harry and watched the star of his heart arc through the veil.

He knew what it meant. Sirius was gone. Remus would relive that slow, graceful fall every time he closed his eyes. Harry's voice still rang in his ears, screaming Sirius' name.

Without realizing it, his feet carried him past the portraits and down the stairs into the kitchen. He stopped abruptly, seeing Kingsley Shacklebolt and Arthur and Molly Weasley sitting there looking shell-shocked. Remus turned on his heel and headed back upstairs. He didn't want to deal with people right now. Someone called his name. He kept walking.

Up, past the motionless portraits. Curious. Many figures had moved. Faces from frames on other floors were here, crammed in with the usual denizens of this floor. The curtains across Mrs. Black's portrait were open, but she, too, was absolutely still, and blessedly silent. He gave them no more thought and continued his climb to the upper floor of the house.

All too soon he stood outside their bedroom door. He hesitated, but then entered, realizing he had nowhere else to go. Remus shut the door behind him and nearly fell to his knees at the strength of Sirius' presence in the room. His scent lingered. A faint, echo of his voice hung in the air. Remus looked at the beds, one neatly made and one with the covers still rumpled from where they had thrown them off this morning. No, yesterday morning. And they had had no inkling that their time together had almost run out. Remus sank onto the unused bed and stared across at its mate.

They had been careful to keep up the fiction that they were no more than friends. Dumbledore and Moody knew, but none of the others did. Remus had not cared, but Sirius had been adamant.

"My sainted mother never knew about us, and I really don't relish the thought of her learning about us now. I'm already stuck here listening to her daily denunciations about my inadequacies. I don't need to hear her screeching about my sexual perversions to everyone in the Order. It would only give Snape more reasons to taunt me and Molly more ammunition about how unfit I am to be Harry's godfather."

"Oh, Paddy, you've *got* to ignore Snape. You're responding to his jibes much too easily. I know you're strong enough to shrug him off. As for Molly, she doesn't mean half of what she says. She's very protective and very fond of Harry, that's all. I'm sure she wouldn't care a bit to learn that we're lovers."

Sirius had merely smiled the grim smile that was now too much a part of him. Remus had acquiesced to his wishes. They kept it hidden.

Remus felt a lancing wound pierce his heart as he looked at the bed. They hadn't even made love on their last night together. Sirius had been on edge, pacing the room with a frantic, jerky motion, his usual fluid grace nowhere to be seen. How he chafed against his confinement.

"'m just so bloody useless! Stuck here in this house! This bloody, fucking tomb! It wants nothing more than to chew me to pieces and spit me out in the gutter! Can't you feel it, Remus? Can't you feel how malevolent this house is? I swear it'll kill me!"

Remus had ached to see Sirius haunted once again by the demons of his past. And, again as he had so often over the past months, Remus attempted to soothe his lover and give him hope and encouragement and a different perspective on things. Sirius' mood had spun from anger to despair in a matter of seconds, his shadowed eyes silvery in the firelight.

"Why do you put up with me, Re? You try so hard. You're so good to me, and all I can give you is my anger. I can't help the Order. I can't help Harry. I hate who I am. And I take it out on you. I'm so unfair to you. I'm sorry. I don't want to be like this."

"Stop kicking yourself!" Remus had crossed the room to him, had slid his arms around the slender form, still too thin in spite of regular meals. He felt muscles strung taut under his hands. "Sirius, I love you. Nothing will ever change that. And we'll get through this. We *will* find Peter and your name *will* be cleared. Then you'll be able to go out and fight, and I'll get more gray hair worrying about you."

It was a rather weak joke and Sirius hadn't so much as smiled in response.

They had eventually gone to bed, entwined around each other. They kissed for a long time, not fired by lust, but moved by need and compassion. The last words he had heard before falling asleep had been Sirius' low, whispered, "I love you, too, Remus."

Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, blurring his sight of the pillow that still held the imprint of his lover's head.

Remus suddenly jumped to his feet and turned away from the bed. He stood looking into the unlit fireplace dusty with ashes and crumbled logs. What an appropriate metaphor for someone's wasted life. Blazing, bright promise damped down and smothered until the last smoldering ember died. Sirius had fought so hard to put himself back together, to overcome what Azkaban had done to him. And his reward was to be imprisoned in grave of his youth. Was Dumbledore senile? How had he so misread Sirius' state of mind? Why hadn't he given any credence to Remus' worries about Sirius' emotional fragility?

Remus growled wordlessly. Dumbledore hadn't shown one iota of concern when Sirius had been thrown into Azkaban, had he? Had he done anything? Had he cared? Had he even thought about getting Sirius' side of the story? No! And, evidently, because Sirius had survived one hellish prison, Dumbledore saw nothing wrong with caging him again! What the fuck had he been thinking?

A tentative knock on the door caught his attention.

He wanted to ignore it, but it had interrupted the flow of his anger. Silently fuming, he waited for his visitor to go away or barge in. Well, he had no intention of obeying the social niceties if anyone dared enter. He kept his back to the door.

It opened quietly. A few soft footsteps came into the room, followed by Molly's voice. "Remus, are you alright? Can I do anything for you?"

Slowly he turned and his hard eyes pinned her like a predator sighting its prey. "You can leave me alone."

She ignored him and came closer, her hand reaching out to touch his arm. "It's a terrible thing, what happened to him. But, you're not alone-"

His bitter laughter was like a slap. "Oh, but I am. I am very much alone."

She drew back slightly, torn between her desire to comfort and her wariness at his mood. "We - the people here - I know we're not as close to you as he was, but we care about you and we want to help you any way we can."

Remus' lip curled in a dismissive sneer. "You'd have to know a lot more about Sirius in order to help me. And you were never really interested in learning, were you?"

She looked puzzled at his words. "I know his passing is very painful to-"

"Death! His death! Just come out and say it!" He challenged her, his voice tight with barely controlled anger.

Doggedly, she tried again. "Alright. His death. I'm sorry you and Harry had to be there, to see him go-"

"Are you afraid to say his name?"

"Remus, please-"

His voice rose to a shout. "Is it just as hard as saying 'Voldemort'? His name was Sirius!"

He barely saw her anymore; so eager was he to be swept along in the bitter joy of his anger.

"How dare you come in here dripping with sympathy! You didn't give a damn about Sirius!" Hoarse with fury, his voice frightened her. "You hated everything about him, even though you saw only what you wanted to see, not who he was. You saw a rough, angry man; someone ready to take risks, to gamble with other people's feelings. Someone more comfortable with misfits like Mundungus than with nice, upstanding Ministry minions and their wives. Someone who still had the stench of prison about him, who wasn't good enough to play a major role in Harry's life. Well, you must be happy now, Molly. You don't have any more competition. No one will stand between you and your surrogate son, now that the inconvenient godfather is very conveniently dead!"

Her jaw dropping, Molly fell back a few paces. Stunned, she could only murmur, "No, Remus, that' not true. That's not-"

The last vestiges of his patience snapped. "Get out!" He roared.

She turned and fled.

The room rang with silence, and silently, a slow trickle of tears slipped from his eyes.

He whispered to any spirit that might be listening, "His name was Sirius."

TBC