Fandom: Harry Potter
Title: Irreplaceable
Genre: Romance + Angst
Pairing: Sirius x Remus ;; Remus x Tonks
Word Count: 577
Rating: G-PG
'You do know that she will never replace you, right, Padfoot?'
It isn't the first time you met your cousin, but it certainly has been 'a while' - the last time you were not on the run and she was only turning six. It's not his first time meeting her either, but both of you doubt that she remembers him.
You can't believe that she's grown up so much, now in her early twenties and on her way to become a great Auror, and flirting with him.
He smiles at you whilst listening to her chatter on something or other, most likely Order business outside this house- no, prison you're stuck in. Business you don't know about.
And you feel left out, ignored, despite the grin he sends your way as Harry and Ron bound into the kitchen, Hermione following at a slower pace, gazing at the redhead lovingly. You smile secretly to yourself, but when you're dragged out later into the library, you know you've been caught.
'What are you grinning about?' he asks you, half smirking at you.
'What are you smirking about?' you retort, because you don't want to seem sappy.
'Don't avoid the question.'
'What question?'
He sighs, and you smirk back at him.
'You know what I'm talking about. And I wouldn't think that you're sappy, you big dolt,' he adds, and grins, a gesture you return because you two have a special connection, both as the two remaining Marauders and as something more.
'I noticed Tonks was flirting with you,' you say after a moment of silence, you're face showing no emotion apart from a synthetic smile. His smile falters slightly and his cheeks tinge a faint pink.
'You do know that she will never replace you, right, Padfoot?' he asks you. And you know that that's true, you will forever hold a piece of his heart, no matter how big or how small. But you also know that his thoughts are no longer wholly concentrated on you.
As you sneak out of the dormitory with James and Peter in your second year at Hogwarts, your thoughts are not about being caught but rather, on finding Remus.
As you slowly but surely manage to transform into the black dog that will forever be your Animagus form in your third year, your thoughts are not on the joy of being able to change shape, but rather, that you're finally able to join Remus.
As you fall through the veil and join James and Lily and a multitude of others in the afterlife a few months after your thirty-fifth birthday, your thoughts are not on the fact that you're dying, but rather, that you're leaving Remus.
You're thoughts have always been centred around Remus, and you know that his, at least until your untimely death, has been around you.
But you also watch, from a separate world, as you are slowly taken over, replaced by your cousin in Remus' thoughts; you watch as they finally get together, and you watch as they marry, and you watch as they have a beautiful baby boy, you watch as they're shot down by Death Eaters. And then they join you and James and Lily and the multitude of those departed from the world; they join you together, because they died together, and she was there for him, and him her, and you weren't.
Because even though your relationship with Remus is different from the brotherly friendship you share with James, you are still just Sirius Black, and he is now Remus and Tonks Lupin.