Many thanks to lj user ="daiseechain" for the beta work. Written for the Teddy Fest on live journal. Many thanks to lj user ="confluents" for the prompt.

Warnings: dub con, anal penetration, angst, references to canon deaths.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling. Written entirely for fun without making any profit. No copyright infringement is intended.

The curse hit him and he fell back, aware of the first snatches of sound which would become screams. Time and motion slowed as he crossed the threshold. He was aware of weightlessness and then for a long time of nothing else. Any amount of time might have passed before his next flash of consciousness. The air there was thicker than water. Occasional words were whispered into it: remembered words from the realm of mortality. The number of souls in this strange purgatory was uncountable. They slipped between and through each other, some struggling to return to life and some seeking complete oblivion.

Sirius tumbled undisturbed within this space for almost two decades; sometimes it felt like Millennia, and sometimes like seconds. He muttered the names of his lost friends, sporadically caught between his desire for an afterlife with James, and mortality with Remus. He did not know why he reached out through the thick atmosphere to catch the glinting object, but when he did he recognised it with a strange warmth.

"James," he whispered, knowing that was not quite right.

His word joined the other words and some leaked in an indecipherable mass out into the room in which the Veil was housed. The sum of the half-formed thoughts of the condemned souls became a noise like the sea or a breeze through grass. The rainbow eddies of timelessness snatched him back beyond awareness.

Some time later, or no time perhaps, he looked into the glass in his grip. He knew now that this was his glass and he knew whose face ought to be looking back at him through it.

"Harry," he whispered into the wet mass of sound.

He stared into blackness; he waited. After all, he had all the time in the world.

Teddy was already rather overwhelmed and a little drunk, when his Godfather pressed a bag of coins and a tissue-wrapped parcel on him. He didn't know who had thought up this 'Surprise Party' idea, nor whether he wanted to thank or throttle them.

He had spent enough time at The Burrow and Godric's Hollow to be able to cope with rough-and-tumble, but most of his upbringing had occurred in an old lady's peaceful cottage. He sought out the familiar face of his grandmother, fearing that she might have left already. She would find this music far too intrusive; it was too loud for him and he was only seventeen.

He was of age since this morning. This meant he had to have a drink, apparently, and that he had to kiss every female in the room, and have another drink, be given money, kiss his Uncle Charlie (who wasn't really an uncle at all), drink again, and get strange, significant presents which made the givers a little weepy, and of which he did not understand the significance.

Like this glass. He had no idea why Harry had felt the need to wrap up a few broken pieces of an old mirror and give them to him. He shoved them into the sack with all the other odd gifts. He finished his glass of mead. He couldn't decide which he preferred: that or the firewhiskey. He pushed off into the crowd, looking for firewhiskey, so he could make another comparison. He kept his eyes open for Victoire and Charlie, too because he couldn't decide which of them he'd preferred kissing, either.

Sunlight streamed out of the looking glass and roused Sirius. He lifted it. For the first time, another face looked back at him. It wasn't Harry's face.

Emotion thickened his throat as he whispered, "Remus." He knew, though, that was not quite right.

Teddy dedicated the day after the party to recovery. It was on the next day that he had his first proper look through his gift sack.

He wrote a careful list, intending to write polite 'Thank you' letters that afternoon.

The money got put into a pile and counted; he was very pleased with the total. The bottles of alcohol were placed against his wall. The cakes and candy went down to the kitchen to be shared with Grandma. Then he carefully placed all the funny ones on his mantelpiece and stared at them, hoping for some inspiration to hit him as to their significance. People would probably explain at some point.

He pulled open the curtains; it was a sunny day, that was nice. He went back to check his reflection in the broken mirror: and somebody else's face looked back at him. He screamed.

"He was my Godfather, you see. And I'm yours, so it seemed -" Harry looked distracted, his eyes shining. He wasn't explaining things very well. "I didn't get a chance at the party to say." He sat down heavily and ran his hands through his thinning, but unruly, hair. "Tell me again what the face looked like."

There had been a strange intensity about the eyes which Teddy hadn't liked. That clearly wasn't what Harry wanted to hear, though. As Teddy described the grey eyes and the dark stubble, Harry looked at Andromeda. His look was full of the kind of hope which does not trust itself.

Teddy's grandmother shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "It might be."

"Do you want the mirror back?" Teddy asked his Godfather.

To his disappointment Harry replied, "No. He never appeared while I had it. This must be meant to happen to you." He looked envious. Teddy envied Harry's escape from that unsettling gaze. "Can I have a look, though?"

"Of course. I'll bring it down."

"No! Don't move it. Don't change a thing. It might jinx the magic."

Teddy sighed. Whoever this Sirius had been, the rest of them were welcome to him. "He's not there most of the time," he explained as they climbed the stairs.

And he wasn't there now. Harry made Teddy promise to tell him as soon as the face reappeared.

Behind the veil, the souls were outside time. They were every age and none; they were dead and alive and something in between. On some nights or days or years, Sirius longed for Regulus and their carefree childhood; at the same time which was earlier and later and none of those, he dreamed of the first Order, his schooldays, or the Azkaban years. More than anything, more than anyone else, Sirius missed Remus.

The boy in the looking glass had been nearly him, but not quite him: his nose was a little too sharp, his eyes mixed silver with Remus' amber flecks, the hair was too long. Something about him was more wrong than that and gradually (or suddenly or something in between) Sirius realised that he had never known the werewolf unscarred. The man in the mirror had been in his teens; he had looked as Remus had looked when he was a Prefect but without the lines of silver and red which had decorated Remus' skin.

The souls which whispered in the spinning void were every age and none. When Sirius thought of his late teens, his Marauder days, when they had come of age but were still protected by residence of Hogwarts Castle, he became that age again.

He raised the glass to his eye-line in hard-won, jerky movements. He stopped breathing. Naked and golden and beautiful, Remus' body stood unblemished and divine before his gaze. This was another world, a different reality in which Greyback had never attacked. Sirius' desire and love pulled him to the mirror. He was sucked out of the formlessness, towards a precious impossibility.

For two years, nearly, the freaky bits of glass had sat above the fireplace of Teddy's bedroom at home. This was still his base, but he was rarely here. His research into the social acceptance of Metamorphmagi took him all over the world. It was nice to come home to Grandma's pampering between trips. She was getting older, now, though, and he worried; he was all the family she had. Harry still asked, occasionally, whether that face had appeared in the glass again; Teddy pretended to be disappointed, too, when he said that it hadn't. He wasn't even relieved any more. He'd forgotten about it all.

Arriving back late from Albania one night, he'd let his Grandma keep sleeping and had a quiet bath, then crept into his old bed to sink into the comfort of soft, clean sheets. He lay soaking up all the old noises with which he had grown up: the creaking of the branches in the garden, the gurgles of the ancient Muggle plumbing installed by Ted Tonks and maintained by magic, the clock on the landing. Spasmodically, as he drifted into sleep, a new sound would intrude. It was a light crackle at first; it got louder. Finally, a crash woke him and he cast lumos just in time to see a body materialise feet-first in the air above the fireplace, then fall heavily to the ground.

He was too stunned to even scream this time. The dark-haired young man lay still for a moment, breathing heavily. Then he sat up and looked at Teddy and his eyes were the eyes which Teddy had seen in the magic looking glass but this time less disturbing.

"Remus?" the youth asked.

Teddy had seen pictures of his father and he knew the small adjustments he was going to need to make. The longing in his tone was so strong that Teddy felt compelled to become what he wanted. It was such a small thing to Teddy, how could deny that happiness? He even added scarring to his bare chest. The strange young man smiled.

"Remus! I was waiting for you," he said. He climbed up onto the bed.

He stared intently, affectionately, at Teddy; even though he knew it was false, knew that passion was intended for another, Teddy had never felt so loved. There was desire in the man's eyes, too, accumulated over timeless decades spent without human touch. He stroked his finger down Teddy's cheek and watched its progress on his skin.

"I want you," he said, "I want to ..."

Teddy nodded slowly. It was intoxicating to be needed this much. The man cupped his cheek and held his jaw firm as he kissed him. Fire swam through Teddy's veins and he was soon lost to lust. He found himself pushing off the tattered rags the visitor wore. Soon they were both naked, rolling together on the bed with the blankets kicked to the floor.

Teddy had never done this with another man before. He had slept with women but this felt different. He had been wondering how different it would be ever since that birthday kiss from 'Uncle' Charlie.

The skin under his roaming hands was soft and young. He thought he knew who he was caressing, but it made no sense. The sensuous mouth licked at the scars which weren't really his. The movements were knowing and skilled, too experienced for the schoolboy body tangling with his.

Sirius didn't know how old he was. He pulled Remus tight to him, knowing every inch of his body, finding all the sensitive places on it. He rolled over and pulled Remus on top of him and wrapped his legs around his lover's waist. He remembered all the movements needed for them to make love. He couldn't judge what age this body of his was; he didn't know if it had experienced penetration. He slid his fingers to his own hole, hoping that they wouldn't have to go slow, not after all this time. Remus seemed uncertain, though, which wasn't like him. Maybe it had been long ago. His thick, hard cock jerked against Sirius' belly as though it didn't know where to go.

"Lube," Sirius grunted.

Remus looked back at him blankly.

"Where's the lube?" Sirius repeated.

"Oh, I don't know."

Sirius had been spinning beyond life for decades. Was Remus really expecting him to turn up with a tube of KY in his pocket? But, of course, he wasn't expecting him to be here at all.

Teddy tore himself away from the willing flesh beneath him and leant over the bed to reach his rucksack. Blindly, he shoved his hand through it, hoping to find something which would do. He grabbed a pot of moisturiser and returned, thrusting it at the man who might have been, might go on to be, Harry's godfather: the man whose desire for him was overwhelming.

Sirius unscrewed the unfamiliar jar and sank his hand into it. He hoped he wasn't a virgin. As his fingers prodded wetly at his tight hole, though, he realised how careful he needed to be. He couldn't understand what Remus was doing though, just kneeling on the bed, gazing at him.

"Give me a hand!" he growled, grabbing the other man's wrist.

Teddy felt the hot flesh gripping round his finger which was pushed into the waiting body beneath him. He could imagine that velvet round his cock and it filled him with a desire which energised him and pushed him out of his uncertainty and reverence. He fucked Sirius with his finger as he brought their mouths sloppily together and they kissed deep and long.

This was better, more like Remus. Sirius stopped wondering and let their bodies re-enact the movements he had been missing for so long as their hips ground each other.

"Another finger!" he demanded as he felt himself opening up.

The burn of extra stretch was almost immediate, and followed a few writhing minutes later by the blunt pressure of Remus' cock. They both held their breath as Remus slid inside. It hurt - not like the first time, but like the early days. The memories surged through him, submerging the pain until all that was left was the pleasure.

Teddy closed his eyes and held still, concentrating on his cock, on how good it felt. It was different to how it was with women, but he was too overwhelmed to pick out the exact sensations which made it different. After a moment, he allowed his hips to move and he was rewarded with a deep, satisfied groan from Sirius.

"Oh, yes, Remus, I love you!"

Teddy's body kept moving, but his mind went into freefall. He was stealing this, pretending to be someone else: his own father. His guts iced over as he comprehended fully for the first time what this meant. His own father had been this man's lover, had done this with him. He had been taught a lot about his father while he had been growing up, but this had never been mentioned. He ought to have been sickened, and perhaps if he had known the man then he would have been, horrified at the idea of his Dad having sex. He looked down at the ecstatic face inches from his, though, and at the love which shone there. If his father had been worthy of that adoration he admired the dead man more for that than he ever had done for all of the tales of his heroism and bravery.

Teddy ran his hands over the body beneath his, pecking kisses onto its face when he could. Being loved like this was the sexiest thing he had ever known. His thrusts sped up and the two of them moved together sweaty and breathless building to almost simultaneous climaxes. Teddy was barely aware of the hot come shooting over his scarred torso.

Exhausted, they lay still and quiet until Sirius said, "I waited so long to feel that again, Remus."

Teddy left the words hanging in the silence. He hoped that the other man would have fallen asleep by the time he had decided whether to tell him the truth or not. Instead, after a couple of minutes, the tall youth asked, "What's the matter, Remus?"

And Teddy found himself answering, "I'm not Remus."

In the passion and then the weariness, most of his physical alterations had already fallen away. He let his own features emerge fully. Sirius stared at him in the moonlight which fell through the gap between the curtains. He said nothing.

Eventually, Teddy asked, "Are you Sirius Black?"

"Yes."

"Thought so. But weren't you, like, forty or something when you fell through the veil?"

"Not quite. Nearly, yes." Sirius took a deep breath. "Who are you? Why do you look like him?"

"I'm his son," Teddy admitted.

Sirius sprang out of the bed. "Merlin!" he gasped. "I just screwed Remus' son!He's going to kill me!"

Teddy's throat thickened. He hadn't cried for his parents in years.

"Where is he?" Sirius demanded.

Teddy shook his head and swallowed. "He's dead," he croaked out. He couldn't look at the devastation sweeping over Sirius' features.

"But I was waiting for him. How long ago?"

"Couple of years after you. Please come back to bed." Teddy's shoulders were shaking slightly and he was sucking back the tears which threatened. "I'm sorry," he said, "that I let you think I was him. But you wanted it so much. I thought I'd make you happy."

Sirius sat back down heavily on the bed, sighed and put his arms round the young man. He let him press his face into his shoulder before asking, "How long ago was that? How old are you?"

"Eighteen. Eighteen years ago. They died when I was a baby, I never knew them."

"Both of them?" Sirius asked. Of course there would have been a mother. "Who was she?" The woman who had replaced him.

"Nymphadora Tonks," Teddy choked out, before sobs immobilised him.

Sirius held the solid body, which was almost right, but not quite, and tried to remember Tonks. It didn't make sense that Remus had had a child with her. It made sense of the boy's shape-shifting, though. He really was a boy, so young, yet older than Sirius now was, it seemed. How young am I? He was so tired, he couldn't think through these things. In the void, he had been remembering his schooldays, the last two years when he and Remus had been first together. Could he really be that young?

"What are we going to do?" he asked out loud.

"Sleep now," Teddy replied.

He lay back, pulling Sirius down with him. They relaxed against each other's bodies.

"What's your name?" Sirius asked belatedly.

"Teddy Lupin," came the tired reply.

Teddy had a nice body, a good body to hold onto and go to sleep with, which felt appropriate. There was no point in waiting for Remus any more, Sirius thought. When he really missed him, though, his son could almost become him, which dulled the pain a little. It would be nice to make love to Teddy's own, real body some time, too. Teddy was a comfortable person to be with.

"Tomorrow we'll have to go and see Harry," Teddy said suddenly. "He'll be so pleased you're back."

They snuggled together and let consciousness drift away. Just before the blackness had him again, Sirius muttered "Goodnight Remus," into a bare shoulder.

"I'm not Remus."

"I know."

~(THE END)~