Merlin does it feel so surreal to be so close to finishing this again...

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Despite the eight of them landing as unceremoniously as ever, only the soft tinkling of a small bit of glass was the worst of the damage, for once.

It had cracked down over Sirius's head, but the small shards only scattered around and reflected his eye roll in a million tiny facets as he carefully got himself back to his feet to look around with the others.

They all stood in a loose circle in an unfamiliar room, a sitting room with a durable carpet and a small fireplace. The only decoration of note was the single large oil painting of a blonde girl who gazed out at them with a kind of a vacant sweetness, the golden book resting beside the large frame.

There was a table of food with cheese and wine nobody was going to be touching until it was checked over. The fire was lit and reflecting the glittering bits of shards oddly throughout the room, and a cat yowled somewhere downstairs. It didn't feel like an inherently awful place ready to kill them, but still, nobody relaxed their guard until Peter looked out the window, and said, "we're back in Hogsmeade. Hog's Head, maybe, from the angle of the building."

"The fact that you just, know that," Frank said in honest admiration for how well the Marauders knew this place.

"Spent more time out here than in the castle practically," James said casually.

They were back in the Hog's Head, Alice confirmed as she gently twisted the door handle and they found themselves on a landing with one way down to a dusty bar below.

Frank excused himself to the bathroom while Lily, Peter, and Regulus all promised to go check out the kitchen for death traps and food. The fact that they weren't kidding about either being equally likely was the sad part. Alice had picked up the book but was hesitating opening it as she studied the girl, her eyes an oddly familiar blue color.

James was watching Sirius though, who was watching Remus with an odd look on his face. Moony was at the window, checking the sky anxiously as if Peter or any of them could have missed the obvious signs by now it was a full moon.

"You alright Pads?" He asked softly. Had that dragon messed him up even more than the first time? Sirius was usually so quick to bounce back from anything, but he'd never again just dismiss Sirius going quiet.

His best friend didn't immediately answer, and whether it was his impulsive brashness weaning out with age or something more to be concerned with James wasn't so sure when he simply answered, "adjusting."

Prongs swallowed, but Sirius looked back over at him with an easy enough smile and assured, "all's good, no more meltdowns, promise."

Alice finally tore her eyes away from the portrait, who hadn't said a word this whole time but simply kept smiling at them, when they heard a toilet flush in the distance. She walked past the boys flipping through pages for their newest chapter.

"Let's go hear about my godson ridding the world of evil!" Sirius said with sincere enthusiasm.

James nodded and let himself be dismissed with one lingering, hopeful look at Remus as he left. The little cup was still in his hand the entire time. It felt cool to the touch, never warming to his grasp. He didn't feel any different, not hateful or murderous towards anyone, but he also couldn't get rid of the nagging thought they still hadn't seen the worst yet, somehow! He really hoped it was just a touch of pessimism even as he tightened his hand.

The bar below still smelt faintly of something in a barn and dust. Alice shivered as she began Harry's return trip into Hogsmeade by seeing their school in the distance, but immediately being accosted by Death Eater's, and then worse, dementors. They all shivered and glanced at the door to make sure those demons weren't going to be getting in here now, even as Harry was rescued by whom must be the barman once his patronus had scared them off and they needed a place to bolt.

Even Rita Skeeter had somehow been unable to unearth the knowledge of what happened next. Albus and Aberforth Dumbledore had a more complicated history than Regulus and his brother! They all listened in a quiet horror to a story long since told of where their headmaster had once stood and where he ended up now.

Respect, Regulus realized as he looked at James who was biting his lip and glancing at the stairs and then all around this bar before making faces at the book and repeating it all on a loop. Sirius respected this goofball he was sitting across from as his equal, his brother. He was finally figuring out for himself how James Potter had earned that and yearned to know how to get to that place, he would not let himself ever grow so distant from him like the Dumbledore family had slowly dwindled away. He'd seen it in Gringotts when Frank had shut down Sirius's mad attempt to go back and realized it as Sirius lingered behind to talk to Remus and James on the lakeshore, that his brother didn't back down from fights from people to show some kind of inferiority to them, but acknowledgment of them.

He didn't know how to get there with Sirius, but not picking a fight with someone didn't make you a coward anymore than charging into every confrontation with a wand drawn didn't make you a hero. There was a balance, one Albus Dumbledore had found in his last years of life as headmaster and Regulus greatly admired even amongst his flawed upbringing and ignorant youth. He smiled to himself and sipped at the wine as Harry informed Aberforth even after all that there would always be someone willing to stand up.

Prongs had nodded and gone after Alice, but Padfoot was still hesitating when Remus looked back over. Sirius tried to smile and then leave like that hadn't happened, but Remus gently took his hand and hoped that maybe, for once, he could get Padfoot to spit out what James hadn't. The Missing Mirror? He muttered in confusion what that could be about for a moment, then swallowed nervously and stalled, "I have a question."

Sirius rubbed gently against Moony's face, smiling sadly to feel that tension in his jaw was, lesser, almost entirely gone now. Most likely, it had been since he found out about Teddy. "I have an answer," he promised.

"What did you see, in the Mirror of Erised?" Not that he didn't believe Sirius, but he'd always wondered if he was somehow, downplaying, the long ago statement he'd really seen just them. Mirror's, the future, everything dancing in his own mind's eye now.

Sirius chuckled without humor as an idea came to him, and he dug around in his bag.

"You've really kept this, all this time?" Remus asked in amusement as he tipped the mud this way and that in the poor lighting.

"I really want to know what color it would turn," Sirius said, looking at him far too intensely for the light tone he was going for.

Remus' hand stilled, but he kept his voice even. "Haven't told me yours."

"Scarlet," he shrugged, but his expression remained. Remus held his breath as Sirius said what the real point of bringing this up again was. "Yours will be a bit interesting, don't you think? The potion that's supposed to change you into another person wouldn't work for you, get you stuck as neither the man nor the beast, but both together."

"Mindless," Remus agreed, softly but firmly on pure instinct, as casually as Sirius managed to speak of his worst fear. "Something that won't ever change back, that should be put out of its misery."

Sirius reached out, holding his hand over the flask, the warmth still there as their fingers overlapped, but Remus' pulse started to quicken for another reason when the sorrow overwhelmed his face at last. "I can't live like that Remus. I don't see you like that." He squeezed his hand, and dropped it. Remus meant to correct him, that he wasn't that far gone yet... the argument hovered before his eyes, was it murder to release something like that from its captive life? Teddy had proved to him what Sirius had been saying all along, he wasn't truly a beast, but he couldn't quite forget he wasn't fully a person. Unburdened, Sirius had called it. A balance, accepting it was possible he was just, both?

"I saw us Moony." Padfoot still held his gaze as level as ever. "I saw the four of us running around our forest, laughing, changing back and forth between our animals. All of us," he emphasized again.

"Sirius, I'm not-" but he stopped himself. He wasn't so sure anymore. 'I'm not what you need...' but maybe he was. He would never have admitted his own want to himself of children if Sirius hadn't shoved him in front of that mirror. Padfoot always gave him what he needed before he even knew to ask for it. Sirius had always been clear about what he wanted, who was he to tell him otherwise?

"So I'm -"

"Sirius, please," he said quickly, heart thudding maddeningly in his chest now as he watched Sirius' face tighten, and it hit him what Sirius was about to do, what he thought he needed. "Please-" what was he supposed to do, beg him to stay to watch him die? The image of Teddy flashed across his eyes, of an innocent baby he'd seemed so thrilled for, possibilities he only wistfully considered now... "I'm trying," he whispered.

"I know," Sirius smiled now, at least watching him carefully again, maybe a little hope there himself. "So here's the deal. You put your hair in that, right now, we get to see the color," his voice was light and casual again, but Remus could still feel his heart beat with every word he spoke as the but came along. "But you keep it Moony, for as long as it means that to you." He still couldn't say it aloud apparently, like he really couldn't imagine him any other way. "We're still friends, we always have been and always will be, no harm no foul." He reached out though to touch his neck, it was the clearest thing in the world before his voice even cracked on the last word he didn't want that.

"And if I give it back?" Remus whispered, doing a terrible job of the same, he knew how pitiful he sounded.

"Then I tell James to back the hell off and don't ever say shit about my boyfriend again," Sirius' voice was firm, it was the most threatening tone he'd ever used in his life about Prongs. "You drop this, this-" he stopped and took a calming breath, he'd been starting to shout and only just caught himself. "You've got to start having confidence in yourself somehow Remus. If it takes a kid that I can't give you then so be it and I hope the best for you." There was no self-pity in his voice. His nails pressed into his throat for only a moment, before it fell away to go back to his side as he watched.

He held the glass vial so hard he feared cracking it, the mess of his life spilling all over him as usual. The Mirror of Erised mocked him back now. He would never be able to stand in the full moonlight and kiss Sirius with a matching pair of wedding bands, their own little kids playing around them chasing their Uncles, he'd never believe it was possible- confidence.

If he could just do one day at a time, maybe he'd stop having to remind himself someday. Maybe it could be that simple. He was willing to try.

"It's not a choice between you and kids Sirius," he held his eyes as he reached up and pulled a few hairs loose, smiling forlornly for the gray and brown strands mixed together near his temple. "I want both, someday, however the hell that works out." He dropped them in slowly and they watched.

It looked poisonous, upon first glance, like liquid mercury that would seep through his every organ and change him once more into something even worse than he was now. He clenched his fist and fought the urge to throw it across the room in disgust, how he could never escape such a reflection on the worst part of his life, but he couldn't do it. For he looked up and around, seeking comfort in him, and saw Sirius' lopsided smile, the shining gray of his eyes that he'd never be able to hate. The shimmering vile was suddenly the most beautiful color in the world.

"I'm not going to use you or anyone else as a crutch anymore," he solemnly swore. "I'm really trying not to think like that again, I promise," and he offered it back.

Sirius took it like he would his first born, with such a tender look of wonderment as he gently twisted it this way and that in the light to catch every shimmering angle. He hadn't even let himself hope Moony would even do this part, as much as he seemed to hate every aspect of himself, let alone- and threw his arm over his shoulders, letting his hand rest on his pulse for several moments before dragging his eyes away and kissing his temple firmly.

"You know, it occurs to me what an idiot I am," Remus told him softly.

Sirius hummed and laughed, "always nice to hear you admit when you're wrong."

Remus elbowed him but elaborated, "if I'd never been bitten, you might never have given me the time of day."

Sirius contemplated that for a moment before asking with a smirk, "am I supposed to deny that?"

Remus snickered at his arsehole. "Yes! You're supposed to be the dramatic one who declares us soulmates and our undying love would prevail!"

Sirius smiled, just watching him like he'd really been thinking exactly that. Instead, what he said was, "Moony, I dare say you're finally taking this seriously."

Remus hid a laugh by lunging for the sparkling contents Sirius was suddenly trying to hide behind his back. "I take it back! I'm not living like this, I'll kill us both!"

Sirius just laughed harder than ever and held him close as he whispered, "no take backs," and somehow found themselves at a perfect angle to kiss.

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And that basically concludes the Wolfstar segment. Just got the others to wrap up. I'm not freaking out, you're freaking out!