AN: Yes, I have another story I should be working on, but sometimes the muse works better with more pressure? I have no muse. *Sobs*

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Harry Potter.

Chapter 1

Past the Veil

He was falling.

"Sirius, no!"

He glimpsed the widened eyes of his godson - horror and disbelief evident in the vibrant green. The feathery wisps of the veil brushed across his body, enveloping him in an inky darkness that pervaded his senses - blinding him, drowning him. Sirius instinctively flailed his arms in an attempt to grasp at anything that could stop his descent. It was useless. The darkness pulled him in with its tendrils.

The deranged laughter of Bellatrix Lestrange, his assailant, followed him down, echoing around him. A tremendous pressure assaulted Sirius' body, and he felt he would be ripped to shreds.

He was going to die.

The blood in his veins turned to ice. His descent slowed, and the pressure lessened. The laughter around him was muffled to the extent that it sound as if his dear cousin Bellatrix were cackling into a pillow. He was falling through water. Thick sludge, more like. Despair washed over him, aching his heart. A body engulfed him, caressing him the way the wisps of the veil had. The tighter the body clutched Sirius, the colder, more despaired he felt. Despite his odd free-fall, Sirius sobbed. The body spun him around.

A dementor.

He could not see through the blackness, but he knew. Sirius was facing a dementor.

He screamed, scrambling in a mess of limbs to free himself from the clutches of the vile creature. The dementor held him fast in its bindings. Sirius was unable to turn away. More dementors surrounded him and the one who held him bound. They hovered close, circling like giant vultures over prey. The air around them hung heavily - rank with decay and maliciousness. Sirius struggled for breath.

The dementors stopped their unnerving dance. A bell seemed to have gone off somewhere for them. They clustered. As one dark unit, the dementors inhaled.

Sirius screamed.

Pain filled his head as memories were sifted through and ripped from his mind at breakneck speed. Flashes of scattered memories passed behind his eyes. He felt the loss of every memory as any good feeling was drained from him. His body shook in agony.

"Let's go play now, Siri. Mother is gone for the afternoon." The blue-eyed boy grinned. "You promised you'd catch a gnome."

"Hello. My name's James. James Potter."

"Sirius Black."

"Black? You one of that horrible lot?"

"Yeah. But only in name."

Remus laughed. "Animagus? I should be mad. I really should, but I'm floored - gobsmacked. And teary - very teary."

"Go out into the world. It may be big. It may be mean. Most of the time it is unfair. However, remember never to give up. Do not measure yourself by your shortcomings. You are worth more. And make lots of friends Eat lots of sweets. You can never have too many of either." Dumbledore smiled. "Congratulations, Class of 1978."

"I did it. I asked Lily."

"And?"

"She said yes!"

"Can there really be more than one best man?"

"Why not?"

The baby was pink and wrinkly. "This a baby or a prune?"

"Shut it, Padfoot." The bespectacled man grinned. "He's Harry. Harry James Potter."

"You're the godfather. If you want t-"

"Of course! I'll teach him all the tricks..."

Lily shifted the babe in her arms. "You would have regardless."

"I'm Harry. Harry Potter."

Blood pounded in Sirius' ears. His limbs were heavy. Every breath he took was laboured and his chest ached from the effort. The despair washing over him was crushing. Guilt and sorrow reached up from his stomach and constricted his throat. The breaths he took were becoming increasingly harder to take.

"Oh, Harry," he cried, weakly.

Tears leaked from his eyes. He could not stop the choked sobs. The dementor restraining him leaned closer. Sirius was sure he could see its face, yet he could not. The dark creature drew an icy hand down the side of Sirius' face. The action was almost like a show of tenderness despite the clumsiness.

Sirius's eyes clouded over.

The dementor leaned in for the kiss.

He awoke with a start. He thrashed, trying to free himself from the dementor's hold. Gasping for breath, Sirius tumbled out of bed in a tangle of bedsheets.

"'s the matter, Padfoot?" said a voice, thick with sleep.

Sirius remained motionless on the floor. His heart thumping hard in his chest. The white glow of a silently cast lumos blinded Sirius for a minute. A bleary-eyed Harry Potter hung over the edge of a bed, wand loosely pointed in Sirius's direction.

"Huh?" Sirius look confusedly from the yawning boy to the offending bedclothes with which he had been wrestling. He cast the sheets aside and scooted backwards until his back hit the bed he had fallen out of.

"Padfoot?"

Sirius did not know where to begin. He looked at his hands, twisting the bedsheets.

"I - uh. Dementors. Falling," he rambled. His eyes were wide and dilated, and his breaths came out in ragged huffs. He looked up to Harry. The boy started slightly at the tortured look in his friend's eyes.

Harry slid off the bed and clambered over to Sirius. He wrapped an arm around Sirius' shoulders.

"It's alright," he began, his voice low and gravelly. "Everyone dreams about falling and - "

"I was dead," Sirius said, his voice flat. Small tremors shook his frame.

"Oh - "

"I'm supposed to be dead."

Harry's shock registered on his face for a second before he shook his shaggy-haired head - Wasn't it shorter? - adamantly in dissent.

"NO. You're not," he hissed, harshly. "That barmy Slytherin couldn't keep you down for a day much less kill you."

Had Bellatrix not succeeded in her attempt to rid the world of Sirius Black? His head hurt. Sirius opened his mouth to say something , but Harry continued on.

"You shouldn't have to feel guilty. It was a joke." Harry scratched his socked foot with his wand, making the glow from the tip flicker. "Should take the stick out of his arse, he should."

Sirius frowned.

"It's all fine now. Don't worry about Remus. He'll come around," Harry sighed. "Sooner or later."

Sirius' head pounded. It was impossible for him to wrap his mind around anything. Where was he? What did Harry mean about Remus? Bile rose in his throat. The wretchedness he had felt with the dementors washed over him like an icy shower. He shuddered and hunched over. He groaned pitifully as he resisted the urge to vomit.

"Padfoot?" Harry's concerned voice floated to him through the blackness that threatened to take over his consciousness. "Sirius, what's wrong?"

Sirius swayed where he sat. Forcing his eyes open, he tried to focus on the face of the one next to him without success. Everything was fuzzy.

"Harry?" he said, uncertainly.

The silence that followed was pronounced, and Sirius vaguely wondered what was amiss.

"Harry?" he tried, again.

"N-no. It's James. James Potter."

Oh. Sirius let his eyes fall shut.

"Remus! Wake up! There's something wrong with Sirius."