To Sleep, To Dream

AKA: The Crow: Dogs and Demons

Dimi: Nope, still not with the ownership. Maybe next time.

Authors: Dimitri Aidan, Aloysha, and Rochelle B

Rating: T/PG-13 at first, M/R or NC-17 eventually. Depends on where you encounter it.

Pairings: Remus/Sirius, Snape/Narcissa, Harry/Bill, Ron/Hermione, Draco/Ginny, Charlie/Tonks, and some other things that are still being worked out.

Warnings: Disturbing imagery, Blood, Violence, homicidal Sirius, and all around creepy Remus behavior. I'm pretty sure that therapy Sirius was thinking about would be helpful.

Notes: My mind is, at times, a scary place. I'm not usually much for 'action' scenes so I'm not sure how this turned out, what with Sirius being all homicidal and all. I'm more of a psychological writer; I like to pick brains apart, not bodies.

Oh, by that way, this is truly the chapter from hell. Cower before it.

Inspirational Lyrics: "Someone take these dreams away, that point me to another day " Nine Inch Nails, Dead Souls

"Speech"

'Thoughts/inner voices'

'Written things '

XX Scene Change XX

00 Passage of Time 00

Summary: Sometimes a person dies and not even coming back as a ghost can satisfy the soul. Sometimes a spirit is allowed another chance to make things right. Sometimes death is just the beginning.

00000000000000

Chapter Five

Another Day

00000000000000

Fudge twitched again, his throat still constricted by Sirius' arm. Remus wondered if he was about to pass out, but then there was a flash of yellow light. Sirius went flying back from the force of whatever spell Fudge had cast and slammed into the wall, hard. Remus heard the wood crack and saw Sirius double over, clutching his stomach. Fudge's wand was trained on him and, while rubbing his neck with his free hand, he smirked again.

"I'll take out two on one mission; the public will have no choice but to acknowledge that I am thoroughly in control. You should have stayed hidden where you were, Black."

Figured. War was being waged, people were dying all over the place everyday, and Fudge was still only concerned with his public image.

"Nah. Being dead is boring." Sirius looked up, hair brushed aside to expose eyes blacker than any shade that could possibly exist in nature, but also glowing brightly. Fudge made a noise like a gasp and backed away, wand shaking in his grip. The ameba had finally drawn their wands but they were shaking so badly they'd probably hit everything except Sirius at this rate. Sirius didn't look overly concerned as he moved into an easy crouch, hands flat on the floor.

"Dead?" Fudge looked like he wanted to sneer but couldn't work up the nerve. "What're you talking about?"

"You don't know? I fell through the veil, got bored, and decided to come back and give the life thing another go." Remus would have thought Sirius was discussing the weather or Quidditch, his tone was so unconcerned.

"People don't come back from the veil." Fudge did sneer this time, grip steadying. Apparently the fact that Sirius was crazy made him easier to attack. There was some kind of irony to that but Remus wasn't inclined to get too deeply into it.

"Okay." Sirius said agreeably and Fudge's calm demeanor visibly slipped. Luminous black eyes flickered over to Remus. "You're bleeding."

The werewolf looked down and saw that he had indeed bled through the washcloth. He shrugged, letting the piece of ruined cloth fall to the floor, catching on the wound and making it bleed anew.

"I am."

"Have I mentioned that you look terrible? Your house looks terrible as well and smells worse. I'm disappointed; I die for a few years and you-" Sirius was forced to fall silent as Fudge's wandtip erupted in a pale blue light. He moved to the side, missing the spell, and in the same fluid motion tackled Fudge. There was a soft clatter as the wand fell and rolled just out of arms' reach. Not that Fudge had a chance to reach for it with Sirius straddling him, one hand wrapped around his throat, and smiling crookedly.

His other hand came up to the side of Fudge's neck and his smile went from slightly amused to pure mirth. Sirius' muscles bunched then relaxed as he moved Fudge's neck sharply to the side, the faint sound of bone grinding over bone, then snapping, audible only to Remus' sensitive ears.

He looked away, not liking the sight of Fudge's neck twisted at an odd angle or the way his eyes were already beginning to glaze. The smell of death tickled his nose mockingly.

He found his eyes on the group of Ministry workers, all but one of whom had shrunken back against the wall and looked like they would have given their lives to be anywhere but where they currently were. The odd man out looked about twenty, maybe a touch younger, and had an air of arrogance to him.

Remus saw the words forming on his lips before he spoke them and was moving before he fully realized he could move. The wand was in his hand, wood crushing even as white hot magic crackled and burned his flesh. He wrenched the wand away, glaring and ignoring the stab of pain in his hand before thoroughly crushing it. He knew the imprint of the wand would be left on his palm, as one never touched the wand of a wizard mid-spell for fear of backlash.

Of course Remus had no such fears. Dark Magic protected it's own after all. Usually anyway…Remus had to admit he was not exactly in top condition at the moment.

Still, he'd be damned if he let some stupid kid kill Sirius…again…more…

He snarled and backhanded the kid who all but flew back into his colleagues, who jumped away from him instantly. No honor among murderers it seemed. He heard the movement behind him and could almost feel Sirius' presence at his back.

A low growl from Remus was all it took for them to flee out of the door and into the night, half-dragging their less sensible companion after them. Fudge clearly hadn't chosen that lot for their training or courage; probably no more than mere paper pushers eager to witness the first act of the law they had helped to pen.

He had thought Remus would be easy to take down and that he wouldn't need anything more than one trembling boy who happened to very good with a wand, in a practical sense anyway, to get it done. Clearly having his neck snapped by a convict hadn't been something he had expected. Plus the Aurors respected Remus, if for no other reason than that he'd fought along side of those currently in charge of that department, and wouldn't have aided on a mission like this.

Mad-Eye Moody would snort right about now and bark about 'CONSTANT VIGILANCE'.

Remus turned, Fudge dismissed from his mind, and stared at Sirius. Long black hair, longer than before, glowing black eyes, dressed completely in black, and paler than even Remus had managed as of yet. But still Sirius, as he remembered. He felt the world jump up and grow hazy. Arms wrapped around him and Remus sighed, offering no resistance to the embrace.

"Back to bed with you Moony. Then a shower; you smell terrible." He cracked an eye, having no idea when he'd closed them, and met the old blue-gray. Sirius smiled and Remus closed his eyes again.

The wolf howled, confused but pleased, and Remus was very much inclined to agree.

He didn't think they'd ever really agreed on anything before but…it was proving to be a strange day regardless, so why not?

00000000000

Sirius had, after some time, grown a little tired of watching Remus sleep. His breathing was even, if not a little shallow, and it didn't seem like he'd be waking up for a while. As much as he had missed his friend, in a general 'dead' kind of way, he didn't really want to sit around watching him sleep. It seemed really…unhealthy.

Sirius stood up, cracking his neck and trying to relive some of the tension that had gathered in his body as he sat. It didn't really help any and he sighed, reaching up to rub at his shoulders. He looked around the room, nose wrinkling again at the sight. It wasn't that Sirius was some kind of neat-freak, far from it really, but this went far beyond even his tolerance level. It should have been driving Remus crazy, heightened senses and all. He reached for the bottle nearest to him and moved it to the corner, kicking a few empty ones as he went.

Ten minutes later he'd managed to collect all of the bottles and stack them up, after emptying out the ones that were still half full. That done, he rocked back on his heels and scratched his head. What could he do now?

He was bored. It seemed really strange, after having realized he was dead, passing up an eternity with two of his best friends to climb back through the veil through that spirit-infested water only to find his only remaining friend in some kind of drunken stupor…but it was the truth. He was damn bored. He tilted his head off to the side, looking over at Remus as if the werewolf would offer some suggestion as to how to combat this new problem.

A strand of damp grimy hair slid in front of his eyes. He frowned and reached up again, realizing for the first time that his hair was slightly wet and felt…slimy to the touch. A glance down at himself found that, though he wasn't wet, he had seen better days. Clothes were dirty and his skin was much the same, as if…well, as if he'd taken a swim in a very dirty river. Long angry scratches and welts lined what skin he could see and he was a touch dismayed to see there were some tears in his shirt.

He'd really liked this one, too.

He turned and headed downstairs, stopping in the room next to Remus' to open up a few windows. The chill night air wafted in, caressing his skin and he shivered at the feeling. He stayed for another moment, watching the star-studded sky.

He could have never seen this again and probably would have never realized what he was missing. He'd never really been much for wide open meadows and blue skies anyway; that had always been Lily and James' thing. He preferred tangled forest and purple-black night and Remus had never been more at home than in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Sirius' lips quirked at that thought. More than once at Hogwarts he'd ventured out onto the Quidditch Pitch during terrible storms to find the brunette sitting on the stands, face tilted towards the sky as the rain came roaring down.

Blue skies weren't meant for people like them.

Sirius had always had a place in Remus' home. The house itself wasn't big or fancy, a simple two level with a basement that locked from the inside in the middle of the woods, but he'd made room for him whenever he asked. On the first floor, through the living room and down the tiny hallway was a bedroom and a bathroom.

When he'd come here after Harry's fourth year at Dumbledore's insistence he'd found his old room almost exactly as he'd left it. When he'd asked why Remus had never thrown out all of his things, which was what he'd have done if he thought Remus had betrayed Lily and James, the werewolf had shrugged and said he'd just locked the room up and tried to forget it was there. As much as he'd wanted to, getting rid of Sirius had never really been an option.

The best he could do was treat it like a reminder of the mistakes they'd all made.

It seemed old habits died hard. He turned the lock and pushed the door open to be confronted with an even deeper mustiness than upstairs. Dust covered everything from the dresser to the bed linens. The parchment and quill he'd been using before the move to his family's home was still sitting on top of the desk, undisturbed.

Sirius doubted he'd seen many things more wonderful in his lifetime.

A glance in the wardrobe revealed what clothing he hadn't taken when they'd left, along with an old pair of boots. He grabbed a t-shirt and jeans, always having been more for Muggle fashions than most wizards and finding them more interesting than robes.

It wasn't that hard really. Sirius had found that as long as it was all black he couldn't look too odd and since he was rather fond of the color to begin with… He'd even heard more than one Muggle-born witch commenting on how nice he dressed; not bad for someone who was raised to shun those not of pure blood, in his less than humble opinion.

He pushed open the door of the bathroom, dropping the clothes on the back of the toilet. The lights came up and the water began to run in the shower in accordance with old magical cues. He glanced back at his bedroom once more then shut the door to allow the forming steam to fill the small room. It billowed out along the floor and slowly began to creep its way upwards, twisting around him as he stripped off his clothes. He passed through the curtain and couldn't contain a soft sigh as hot water rained down on him, stinging the scratches in a not totally unpleasant way.

He rubbed at his shoulders again, trying to force himself to loosen up. Alone with only the sound of the shower breaking the silence, he tried to think.

There was something very…odd going on.

Of course Sirius was all about the odd and what have you. After all, his best friend had fathered a child mentioned in one of two valid prophecies a certified kook had made, had taken out the most psycotic Wizard to live in a few centuries and, after said psycho returned from the dead, managed to avoid being killed at least once every school year. He himself had been raised to hate Muggleborns but the woman who'd made the biggest difference in his life was just that. He'd survived twelve years in Azkaban and came out none the worse for wear (that he was talking about anyway) where as others were driven shit-raving mad in half the time. Hell, he'd managed to escape the inescapable prison…unless you're last name was Black apparently, in which case escape wasn't that hard.

His other best friend was a werewolf, he himself was an animagi and his inner creature was, of all things, a Grim. And, along that vein of thought, he'd never noticed that he willingly trusted a guy whose inner creature was a rat.

Sirius was well acquainted with all that was weird, he'd like to think. But this…this whole coming back to life thing was just a bit much for him. Not that he was complaining or thinking of trading in this little miracle he'd managed to get himself, he was just saying…it was weird.

Coming back from the veil. Merlin…It was just…he wanted to say it was unheard of, impossible but so was escaping Azkaban.

Sirius had this uncanny ability to do the impossible. But escaping…that made sense. It was plausible, he knew how he'd managed it. He had no idea how he'd managed this little feat…well, he knew how he'd done it, of course but he didn't…understand how he'd done it.

He couldn't be the only person in the world who wanted to come back and he probably didn't have the best reason for returning out of the millions of souls that wanted to. There had to be thousands of souls in Styx, just flowing along and hoping to be a ghost at some point, so why was he here…like this.

Solid. Alive…

Or at least he assumed he was alive. He hadn't really thought to feel for a pulse or anything and now that the idea occurred to him he found he didn't really want to do it. Just in case. He didn't want to break or jinx whatever was going on.

It was doubtful he was going to figure it out in the shower, though he felt a little less tense as he stepped out and changed. He'd just have to ask Dumbledore when he got a chance. The man knew a great many things about magic, even so called 'Dark Magic' and would know better than most what exactly it took to bring a person back through the veil.

He opened the door, steam wafting out of the bathroom ahead of him, intent on going back upstairs to wait for Remus to awaken and then suggest they go to Hogwarts. They could be somewhere safe, away from Voldemort…assuming Voldemort was still around anyway. At the least they could be away from the Ministry, his 'vision' from earlier lurked at the corners of his mind, and make an attempt at trying to sort this mess out.

And he could see Harry. He hoped the boy hadn't taken his 'death' too badly.

His thoughts were dangerously derailed as his eyes fell upon a rather…unusual sight on his bed. A man…no, a boy, with long brownish-gold hair threaded with silver thread and what looked like glass beads. Amber eyes stared from beneath the fringe of his hair, almost shyly, as pale lips quirked into a soft smile. Dressed in all white he had a delicate, ethereal quality to him.

Then again, it could have been the fact he was sporting large white wings. Though they were currently folded the tips brushed the floor and he imagined that fully spread they would go from one wall to the other easily.

"Hi." His voice matched his form, light and gentle. He unfolded his legs and stood up, the beads in his hair casting rainbows on the walls. "It's quite the honor to meet you Mr. Black."

Sirius blinked at that. Not the first time, but still strange to hear someone refer to him as 'Mister'. To be brutally honest he'd just never seen himself getting old enough to be called that. It was weird, like an ill-fitting uniform or dress robe.

And he doubted anyone had ever been honored to meet him.

"As I'm sure you've become aware, you have recently returned to the world of the living, thus defying all of the laws of life and death as they currently stand. I, as a representative of the House of Life, am here with my partner to address this…anomaly." His voice lost it's gentle lilt and instead took on a very business-like tone.

"err." Sirius stared, trying to find something in that statement that made sense to him so he could latch onto it. "Partner."

The angel faltered, eyes darting around, then sighed. "Yes well…the House of Death runs on a very different schedule than that of the mortal plane and…he isn't here."

"Ah."

The angel shrugged lightly. "I don't really need his assistance anyway. I mean…he's Fallen. They're all a bit crazy; it's a House of Death Thing."

Sirius nodded even though he was pretty sure he didn't actually understand a single thing that had just been said. Well, he had an idea of course. House of Life, House of Death, opposites and probably opposed to one another. And if this was what angels actually looked like he could only imagine what demons, and he assumed that's what the House of Death would breed, must have looked like.

"Anyway. On the one hand, managing to come back to full life is really impressive and has never been done before. Ghosts, zombies, the walking dead sure but you…solid, not rotting, and not drinking blood." A wry smile quirked the angel's lips. "And all of that, giving up paradise and taking a dip in Hell to come back to a war."

"Hell?"

"Styx. It's the first level of hell. Most of those spirits were offered eternity in the Fields but choose to dive off of the bridge and will spend eternity crammed into that river, forever flowing and never managing to come back. The longer they are there the more their souls break down until eventually they just become part of Styx." He frowned briefly. "They're so close, if they could just grab the light and crawl to the shore they could come back in spirit form but most don't have the will to do it. They give in and all the other souls to pull them down."

Sirius shivered, wrapping his arms around himself as he recalled being in there, swallowed by the inky waters. And really, it hadn't been so much water now that he thought about it clearly, but a mass of…spirits he supposed. They were the river, moving over one another, packed in so tightly that if they hadn't already been dead they would have suffocated. No wonder they had been so furious with him and tried to keep him there.

He'd be a little bitter in their position as well.

"Even those who make it come back as ghosts but you…you kept your physical form in death by falling directly through the veil. You aren't the first of course but most are shunted off straight to the lower levels and their bodies fade over time." Amber eyes gleamed up at him, reminding him faintly of Remus only less…harsh. Warm. He smiled again. "You are truly an anomaly. You kept your body, had the will to return to life without so much as beginning to fade and you somehow took IT inside of you on the way."

"You're drooling." A voice commented and Sirius was reminded of Lucius Malfoy, oily slick silk over the sweetest honey, somehow contained in a voice. "Sage, hero worship isn't attractive."

"Ha. Ha. Whore." The angel muttered. "Mr. Black, this is my partner…what name are we going by today? Demos? Loki? Lucifer?"

A figure seemed to melt from the shadows to stand next to the angel. Tall and pale with reddish-blond hair, pulled into a high ponytail, and cool violet eyes behind a pair of black framed glasses. He was dressed all in black and had large gray and silver wings coming from his back, folded in a way that they seemed to be a cloak…somehow not what Sirius would have expected from someone from the House of Death.

Not that he knew what to expect or anything…

"Ohh…Lucifer. That's always fun." Clawed hands danced over the angels shoulder. "I think the usual will do for today. I'm not in the mood for big productions."

"I did notice the lack of smoke and fire." The angel brushed the hand off and rocked back on his heels. "Did you want something Blair?"

"I want you to get to the damn point and stop acting like a groupie."

"I'll groupie you…wait. What does that mean?"

The redhead, Blair it seemed, smirked indulgently. "Heaven if I know. Sounds fun though."

Judging by the angel's face he wasn't amused. There was a definite tension between them but maybe that was to be expected. Good and Evil…kind of. Death wasn't really evil was it? Still, they were opposites and it seemed they were hyper-aware of it.

"Whatever."

"Are you here to take me back?" Seeing an Angel of Life hadn't been so worrisome, but Sirius doubted someone in charge of Death could have anything good planned for him. He swallowed, fingers twitching somewhat. God he wished he had his wand. He had no intentions of going without a fight, that much was for sure.

He was alive and he planned to stay that way until things were back in order and he was sure Harry and Remus would be okay.

The redhead blinked then shrugged. "We don't really care that you're back. In fact we think it will work out for the better in the long term. That guy…um, Voldemort? He's going to wipe out the Wizarding race with his fanaticism not to mention see thousands of souls never born. He's going to throw off the very balance of life and death if your godson doesn't succeed in killing him. If it takes one soul getting free to make sure it happens without us then who the hell gives, right?"

The angel snorted lowly. "Which is why a certain Fallen may have distracted a certain three headed dog when you were climbing out of Styx."

"Yeah, about that. Way to leave me with my arm getting gnawed off by Cerberus there Sage, greatly appreciated."

"It grew back." As if to prove that fact the angel poked his companion in the arm only to have a set of sharp looking teeth snapped mere centimeters from his finger.

"Why are you here? If it's not a problem." Sirius felt a flash of irritation. It figured he'd get the easily distracted Angel and Fallen (whatever the hell that was) to explain what the hell was going on. If they would just stay focused for three seconds.

They exchanged very loaded looks then Blair shrugged lightly. "Bored. Oh. Before I forget, there are some guys from the Ministry in the front hall. If you don't hurry up I'll be carrying off the werewolf's soul in the next ten minutes."

Sirius knew he was being lied to and distracted but, mind flashing back to that…whatever it was from when he'd been in the Department of Mysteries, he knew he couldn't stand here and demand answers. Besides, he wasn't even sure if he was awake or…if this was real.

It all seemed very surreal and somehow Angels were just the icing on the cake.

He turned and hurried back down the hall, figuring that if he hadn't completely lost his mind it wasn't like these angels couldn't just track him down later on. Remus was what was important now; anything else would just have to wait.

000000000

Kitty: Oh yeah, Hangover to end all hangovers this is. Though, about that lover thing…not yet. And yeah, WTF is pretty much Moony's thought process. It doesn't make sense at all.

TNBD: This was actually written pre-HBP so I'm content in it's AU-ness. Sirius is still thought to be guilty, foul injustice though that is. Sirius did a little more than kick Fudge's ass, he went full on psycho vengeance and…yeah.

Mechante: Other fluids…you know you want to know. :P And we'll get into that whole 'Kids' thing later, though now we're engaged in a serious debate about Percy's parental potential. I, personally, weep for any children he may have (though I suppose if he was with Oliver it couldn't be all bad) but Chelle and 'Losha think the idea has potential. Ah…and Dean. Yeah. I have not a clue.

Next Chapter: We get back to Harry and Co for a bit and then we do the beginning of this chapter from Sirius' point of view and find out what made Padfoot snap.