Title: Starlight
Author: Kait
Rating: PG
Summary: What comes after.
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Notes: Post-War. OotP spoilers. Fluffy but sad.


Starlight

When the fire had stopped raining down and the noise had tapered off into nothing, Sirius opened his eyes.

They had been hiding under rubble for two days. After Dumbledore had disappeared things had gone downhill quickly. Fifty two hours ago, even Sirius had conceded that it was down to Voldemort and Harry. That was it. Everyone who was alive had sought refuge at that point, and any stragglers around Hogsmeade had disappeared completely about 12 hours ago, running and shrieking to get out of the brimstone and flame raining down on earth. He and Remus had gotten as far as Hogwarts before the flames had burned through their clothing. They found shelter under the fallen debris. And they waited.

"Is it over?" he asked Remus. His voice was hoarse, tired, frightened... He watched as his companion peered out from the rubble. His eyes were filled with tears. Sirius, too, looked out from their safe house. There was a noticeable green tint to the sky in the direction of the old Astronomy Tower.

Sirius made a small sound and pulled Remus to him just seconds before they both started to weep. It was over. For better or worse, it was over.

***

There was no time in the next few hours. None at all. No time for kisses or gentle whispers, let alone for making love, which was all either of them wanted to do with all of their hearts. Hold each other. Cry with each other. Mourn their losses and celebrate their victory. But no. Because people needed to be interrogated. Memories needed to be changed. Muggles needed to be relocated and powerful magic needed to be cast in order to fix the damages brought about by the end of the second great war. They barely had time to breathe, never time to see each other. When they did it was so brief they got flustered, confused. They didn't say everything they wanted to.

They felt guilty. So many had died. So many were injured. They should be thinking of ways to see their godson in St. Mungo's rather than ways to get off alone together for a bit. While Harry was going to be okay, in the long run, the force used to project the final Avada Kedavra into Voldemort had weakened him temporarily.

When Dumbledore came to him and told him they were free to go, Sirius thought he might cry.

***

"Would you explain again, love, where exactly we're going?" Remus didn't reply, tightening his grip on Sirius' hand and quickening his pace. Sirius accepted the silence. He always accepted the silence these days. It was more meaningful than the flustered, halting sentences that came out of their over-tired mouths. And then there was the fact that Sirius was becoming slightly angry with Remus. He was embarrassed and ashamed of this, but a back part of his mind felt justified. All he had wanted to do since the war ended was hold the other man. Touch him. Kiss him. Have a real conversation with him. It had been thirty-six hours since they pulled Harry from the rubble of the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch. This was the first time the two of them had been alone and instead of doing any of the things Sirius was longing for, Remus was leading him through the woods in a park outside of London.

They reached a hill and had to duck through low hanging branches and scratchy brush as they started to scale it.

"Almost there." Sirius glanced up as Remus murmured the words, squinting to make out his lover's outline in the dark. It was good that Remus was still clutching his hand, because as he tried to see through the blackness he suddenly remembered the last time it had been this dark.

The veil.

He squeezed Remus' hand tightly as they stumbled to the summit.

"Here!" Remus exclaimed suddenly. He stopped abruptly and Sirius crashed into his back. His arms automatically clutched Remus' waist, almost toppling them both to the ground.

"Where's here?" he asked. His voice still sounded coarse to his ears. Remus started to sit, pulling Sirius down with him. He didn't see much of anything. Blackness below and behind them, the moon and the stars above...

"I used to come here sometimes when you were in Azkaban. Again when you were Gone." They almost never talked about that time. He could feel Remus shudder in his arms. "You could see all of London from here. All lit up and sparkling into the night. Some days it would block the star Sirius from view. But tonight... now... Oh, Padfoot, look at the stars." They were brighter than Sirius could remember seeing them in a long time. The city lights normally blinded them from view. The scuffle in the Ministry two days beforehand had knocked out the lights in all of London and the surrounding areas.

It was really quite breath taking.

He pulled Remus closer, crossing his arms over the other man's too-thin chest. He winced as his hand settled on the lump of scar tissue on Remus' shoulder, the only remainder of their last fight with Peter Pettigrew. The most skilled Healers had worked to remove most of the damaged, scarred flesh, but one lump roughly in the shape of a hand still remained, ironically enough, over the scar that rendered Peter's silver hand a deadly weapon in the face of Remus Lupin. With a sigh Sirius pressed a kiss to the fabric that covered it.

"What are we going to do now, Padfoot?" Remus asked softly, leaning his head back against Sirius' shoulder. "Another war is over. And we'll have Harry now, if he wants us. But...the doors are open to everything else. We're still young. Barely forty. And yet I can't help but feel like I've lived a million years."

"Does it really matter if we've lived a million years as long as we're still living?"

"You shouldn't feel like that at forty. We haven't even reached middle aged, Siri."

"But we're still living. We may feel like we're hundreds of years old, but we are still living. The amount of times that I thought I'd lost you..." Sirius trailed over and tightened his embrace. "Moony, watching Peter--Wormtail--that bastard leaning over you... hearing you scream... I wanted to kill myself. I was willing to sacrifice it if it could save you. But... you survived it. And I--" He stopped abruptly. Remus stared at him, waiting for him to continue. He took a deep breath.

"I never told you this before. I wouldn't let anyone tell you. But I was so frightened. I stayed for two weeks off of the front lines and at St. Mungo's with you. Just sat with you. And you were so... you were never conscious for long enough to even notice I was there. But I watched them put you back together. It was... Remus, it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life. Including sending Harry out there to deal with that madman. They kept telling me you weren't going to make it. Or you'd be brutally scarred. But they were able to fix you. They did. And I promised myself that I would take care of you after that. I kept thinking that if I... well, it wasn't... it's not important what I was thinking." There was an awkward pause before Sirius picked up again.

"We spent so much time apart. I mean, even after everything. After I got out of Azkaban we had barely ten months worth of weekends together. And then when I was... when I came back again... we were always busy. Always out protecting Harry and the rest of the world from the Death Eaters. We never saw each other. And after that I just... I knew that we couldn't live like that anymore. We can't."

"I know," Remus murmured, his eyes focusing on the stars and nothing else. "We don’t have to anymore. The war is over. We've served and survived and... I think it's high time that we took a bit of a break."

"But there's so much--" Remus pulled away and turned, placing a finger over Sirius' lips.

"Sssh. I know, love. But we can think about that later. For now...can't we just concentrate on the stars?"

Sirius moved his eyes slowly from Remus' face up to the sky. They were beautiful. Unchanged, despite all of the commotion down on Earth. Though they were his namesake, they reminded him more of Remus. Remus who, despite his earlier confession of feeling old, was the least changed of any of them. Remus who had always been wary and cautious, always with the wit he had now and the concern for those around him. Always meticulous in his planning. Always this devoted to the things he cared for. Remus was steadfast like the stars, although their beauty was nothing compared to his.

"Okay," he murmured after a moment, pulling Remus back to him and burying his head in tawny head of hair in front of him.

They didn't move for a long time.

-end-