Growing up Pureblooded

We're Not Playing Anymore

     "I've got it!" Abraxas exclaimed in triumph as the door to the Tower finally flew open. Remus and Cassiopeia hardly had a moment to react as Sirius jumped on his broomstick and flew up into the stairwell. It took him only a few minutes to reach the top, where he found a strange pool, shimmering with golden light, but no Aries. Acting on pure reckless instinct, as he tended to do under stressful circumstances, he plunged eagerly into the Pool of Possibilities, focusing all his will and energy on the desire to find his missing godson.

     He found himself in the Forbidden Forest. Harry was in front of him, looking a bit older than he ought to do – and painfully like James. Beside them, looking oddly translucent, were James, Lily and Remus. Sirius looked instinctively down at his own hands. He could almost see through them. "What the bloody hell is going on?" he demanded, and four pairs of eyes – well, six, really, if one counted James and Harry's glasses – turned to stare at him. "Why can I see through my hands?" "Because you're dead," Harry said glumly. "I saw it happen. Bellatrix Lestrange did it." He snarled. "Don't worry, though. She got what was coming to her." His face wore a deadly expression that Sirius was unaccustomed to seeing on James's face. It was purely Black, and Sirius knew at once that this was his Aries, no matter what he looked like.

     Remus looked at Harry strangely. "What did you do to her?" Harry's face went blank. "Oh, nothing," he said unconvincingly. "I must have got confused." "Anyway," Lily broke in, "we want you to know that we're very proud of what you're doing." Sirius was confused. "Why? What's he doing?" There was no response. Sirius stepped forward and looked directly into Harry's eyes.

     "Aries Sirius Black," he snapped, "you tell me what you're up to this instant, or, I swear to Merlin..." A light flashed in Harry's eyes, and he looked up to Sirius with a sudden grin. "Or you'll Cruciate me to within an inch of my life?" he finished. "Dad, is it really you?" Sirius nodded. "Are you all right?" he asked.

     Aries laughed madly. "All right? I just found out that I am one of Riddle's bloody Horcruxes! That's why I can talk to snakes, and that's why I have a special connection with his mind. Until I die, Riddle can't. So I'm going to let him kill me." "WHAT?" Sirius shouted, then twirled around and glared at his three friends. "And you lot approve of this? Are you all out of your effing minds?"

     "It's all right, Sirius," Aries said. "I've died in most of these dreams. This is the way it has to be. It's my destiny." Sirius grabbed his godson, and was momentarily surprised that he was even able to make contact. "No," he said firmly. "I'm your dad and I utterly forbid it." There were sputtering noises from the other three ghosts, but Sirius ignored them. "I don't know who this lot think they are," he continued, "but your real mum and dad gave their lives so that you could live yours, not so you could throw it away on some damn fool suicide mission."

     "But Dumbledore...," Aries began. "Now I know you've gone barmy from spending all this time in here, if you give a flying flip what Dumbledore has to say," Sirius retorted. "Look, this is a nightmare. It's only a possible reality. We don't know that anything you see here is even remotely true. Frankly, I find the idea that I could get killed by my...er...sister-in-law to be absolutely ludicrous, not even worthy of consideration." "But I saw...," Aries began again.

     "It's only a nightmare, Aries," Sirius repeated. "Dreams pass. The real world's something else. We're going to wake up, and we'll check to see whether you might actually be a Horcrux. God knows that would explain a lot of really strange shit. But if you are, we'll find a way to get it out of you, a way that doesn't involve surrendering to Tom effing Riddle." He grabbed Aries by the hand. "We don't have to accept this, Aries. We didn't choose any of this. And we don't have to play along to the tune of some stupid prophecy."

     "My parents died to save me," Aries said. "Do you think they were stupid?" "Not once," Sirius replied instantly. "And I would die in a heartbeat to save you, and I know that you would die in a heartbeat to save me and Draco." "Have done," Aries muttered. "Loads of times since I came here."

     "And I can't begin to tell you how proud I am that you're willing to do it," Sirius said. "There's nothing greater or more beautiful than dying to save one's friends. But there's a hell of a difference between dying to save someone and just dying. Just dying is a defeat, but dying to give life to someone else – that's a victory." He ruffled Aries's hair and pulled him closer. "And you've always been a winner."

Aries smiled up at his godfather. "I love you, Dad," he said. "And...er...I'm sorry about the thing with the Horcruxes. After some of the things I've seen, I'm beginning to think you might have been right." Sirius laughed aloud. "You'll find that I often am," he said. "Are you ready to leave?"

"How do you figure we do that?" Aries asked. "It cannot be done," Lily's ghost intoned, but her voice was not her own. "You must continue to play out the illusion. Only once you have fulfilled the plan perfectly will you be able to return to your own reality." James's ghost smirked. "Of course," he said in a similarly unearthly voice, "that hardly ever happens." Sirius grasped Aries's hand firmly and turned around to face his friends' doppelgangers.

     "And if we refuse?" he asked. "Then you will continue to play out scenario after scenario, until you accept the ultimate truth and walk along your determined path," Remus's ghost said. "We won't," Sirius replied. Beside him, Aries took a deep breath. "And you can't make us." "No one has ever successfully defied us," not-Lily stated. "How did Slytherin manage, then?" Aries demanded.

     Not-Remus raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think he did? He is still trapped here, futilely searching throughout all eternity for a way to manipulate destiny to his own purposes." "And if you defy us," Not-James added, "the same will be true for you." "Perhaps," Sirius said with a cocky grin, sitting down on a stone. Aries joined him. "But we're not playing anymore." Not-Lily hissed angrily, and the world went black. When Sirius and Aries regained consciousness, they were both lying on the rocky banks of the silvery pond.