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Chapter 2:

Sirius breathed heavily. The smell was different. It didn't smell like Grimmauld Place ought to smell. It was cinnamon smelling as though someone where cooking. He shifted some. The sheets weren't stale feeling or cold. They were warm as though someone had just washed them.

The blanket was soft and comfortable. Sirius ventured to open his eyes. The room was different from his room in Grimmauld Place. It was cheery and bright with warm colors and fresh flowers. He looked down at his clothes. He was wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of boxers. Muggle clothing.

He moved the blankets and moved off of the bed. He looked at the room a bit more. It looked familiar, but Sirius couldn't pinpoint exactly what was familiar about it. He moved to the mirror. He gasped. He looked like... his old self.

Not pale or gaunt. His hair was short like it used to be and shiny like it used to be. His skin was a natural color and he looked healthy. His eyes were bright again filled with life and color. He looked like he should look for a thirty-five-year-old.

Sirius moved out of the room and looked at the hallway. There were pictures on almost every available wall surface. The walls were a soft peach color and the carpet was soft under his feet a natural beige.

Sirius began to move down the hallway and saw a door a small metal plaque with the name Maddy on it. There was a door next to that one with the same size plaque only it was brighter with flowers and hearts. It had the name Audrey on it. There were three doors across the way.

The same types of plaques were on them although they had little quaffles and snitches and bludgers on them. The names on these plaques were Daniel, Nathaniel and Michael.

He was tempted to knock on the doors to see who was behind them. It seemed like it was morning and Sirius didn't want to disturb the people who were behind those doors. They were more than likely sleeping. Sirius decided that more exploring was in order.

When he came to a flight of stairs he could hear music seeping through one direction. It was soft and instrumental. Sirius decided to follow it. The music led him to a kitchen. A very clean kitchen with lots of muggle appliances and gadgets some Sirius had never seen before.

There in the middle of the kitchen waving a wand around was a man with short sandy brown hair dressed in a robe. Sirius recognized him immediately.

"Remus?" He said his voice barely above a whisper.

Remus turned around. He looked younger as well or more like his age. His face was soft looking again not littered with any scars. His amber eyes were a light with passion again. He had a smile on his face.

"Oh, Sirius, you're up. It's still early. You usually sleep way passed this. Are you feeling alright?" Remus asked concern clearly clouding his face. Sirius couldn't talk. He couldn't move.

"What... where... what day is it?" Sirius said rubbing his forehead.

"It's the 30th of August." Remus said.

"What year?" Sirius asked.

"1995." Remus said.

"So, it's the same..."

"What's the same? Sirius, you're starting to scare me."

"This... this isn't... I don't know what's going on here."

"What are you talking about? Sirius you don't look so well. Maybe I should take you down to St. Mungo's." Remus said.

He placed a hand on Sirius's shoulder. For the first time in a long time touches didn't burn him. It felt warm, but not burning. Sirius took a few deep breaths. He knew Remus was trying to say something, but he couldn't hear him.

It took a few moments before he felt his vision failing him.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"He's waking up I think."

"Quit crowding him Danny, he won't be able to breathe."

"That's not true, Nate."

"Guys quit arguing. Do you want him to wake up to hear you guys arguing? He hates it when you argue."

"Is Paddy going to be okay?"

"Of course he's going to be okay. Listen guys why don't you get down and go look around. Auntie Lily and Uncle James should be outside." Sirius knew that was Remus's voice. He heard the somewhat hesitant replies and the scampering of feet. Sirius groaned.

"Sirius? Are you okay? Are you thirsty?" Remus asked he seemed so concerned and worried.

"I don't know what's going on." Sirius whispered.

"You had some sort of episode. A dizzy spell or something. They weren't really sure what it was, but you had something. I brought you to St. Mungo's." Remus said.

"Who... who were those other people?" Sirius asked.

"Sirius, those were our kids." This made Sirius sit up though his head became very dizzy.

"Kids?" Sirius said his eyes now wide open. Everything was so bright and cheerful.

"Yes, Sirius I don't know what's wrong with you. Maybe I should call in a Healer." Remus said. He made a move to leave, but Sirius grabbed his arm.

"No, don't... I'm okay. Just... my head hurts a bit." Sirius said.

"Still maybe I should got check..."

"No, it's better when you stay." Sirius said. Remus smiled at him.

"Are you sure?" Remus asked.

"Yeah. Are the kids okay?" Sirius asked. He wasn't sure what this life was, but it seemed better then his other life. He decided that he might as well play it out.

"Fine, Maddy refuses to get ready for school though." Remus said.

"School?"

"She's on her way to Hogwarts, remember Sirius. 1st of September. Anyway she refuses to get her things together until she knows you're okay." Remus said.

"Oh, no she should go to school. See all her professors..."

"Yes, it's important to show up your first year. She was so excited about being sorted. She wants to be a Gryffindor." Sirius smiled.

"She'll be in Gryffindor. We were in Gryffindor." Sirius said.

"Yes and with Harry and Ron and Hermione's help I'm sure she'll be just fine." Remus said.

"Harry, how is he?" Sirius asked.

"Mmm, he's very anxious to see that you're okay. As is everyone else."

"I didn't mean to scare anyone. I just..."

"You know Moody called this morning. Said you took a nasty curse, but refused to go see a Healer. I should have noticed what with the way you were acting when you got home. Just passed right out." Remus said.

"Oh." Sirius said.

He wasn't at all sure what he was supposed to say. He worked with Moody, but last time he checked Moody was retired. Had been for a very long time. Everything about this other life was a little confusing.

"I know I'm being a nag, but I really hate it. You know you're job. I hate that you're an Auror. I mean I know you love being an Auror, but you know I hate it." Remus said is voice low and somber.

"Oh, I know you do." Sirius said.

An Auror. He was an... Auror. Not exactly something he wanted to be. Sirius had been bouncing around when he was younger never really finding any place. He spent time doing Order work. He had enough money to just live for a little while. He could see that Remus didn't like it though.

Remus wasn't exactly one for violence even during the war. What little parts Remus had played before Sirius was shipped off to Azkaban had been talking and delegating.

It was because of how violent Remus could get during the full moons. Sirius knew this. He knew Remus was trying to be as passive as possible to make up for all the violent thoughts he had around the full moon.

"I just wish you could find something you liked doing that didn't put you in so much danger. We barely made it out of the war alive you know." Remus said.

Sirius nodded hoping Remus would go into further explanation. He didn't. Instead he just sort of sat there misty look in his eyes as though the memories were too hard to bare.

"Remus... I don't..."

"No, it's okay. I mean it's been awhile. And we're happy now." Remus said bright smile on his face, but his eyes seemed watery. He said it as though he were trying to convince himself.

"Of course we're happy." Sirius said though he knew he couldn't say that for a fact there was no way that people living in that house weren't happy.

"Right, I mean we've got everything we need." Remus said.

There was a moment of comfortable silence before there was a knock on the door insistent and loud making Sirius jump a bit.

"Who is it?" Remus asked.

"Dad, they're being pests." Remus smiled at the voice. It was a girl's voice.

"Oh, well then come back in." Remus said.

The door burst open and in came five children all pretty close in age. They bounded happily to Sirius. They all had happy glowing smiles on their faces except for the older girl. She was taller than the others, but not by much. Her long black hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She looked... well she looked a lot like Sirius.

Same hair color and eyes and face and mouth and nose. She looked like the pictures he'd seen of his grandmother on his father's side. She looked like a Black. She kind of had a striking resemblance to Bellatrix... before Azkaban had stripped her of her beauty much in the same way it had done to Sirius. He was always told that he and Bellatrix looked an awful lot a like.

"Are you okay?" one of the little boys asked.

He seemed older than the other two. He looked like Remus to a tee. Same hair color and eye color. The only difference was the small things like skin color. His was a little darker than Remus's pale tone. He seemed to have different mouth too.

"I'm fine. Just a little dizzy spell." Sirius said.

The boy nodded and went back to being quiet. Seemed that he picked up a bit of Remus's recluse personality. The other two boys were bouncing about happily. They were the same in height, but had different hair color. One had Sirius's dark hair and the other had Remus's hair color.

The darker haired boy had Remus's eyes and skin tone. The lighter haired boy had Sirius's eyes and skin tone. Both were a perfect mixture of Sirius and Remus. This made Sirius's head hurt even more.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah Daddy said you fainted."

"Harry fainted once."

"Yeah while he was playing Quidditch."

"He got hit with a Bludger."

"In the arm."

"And he flew off his broom."

"And came crashing down to Earth."

"And went *kaboom*." The two boys were talking a million words a minute and it was making Sirius's head spin.

"Guys... you're making him green around the gills." The older girl said. The boys stopped talking. The girl looked pleased with herself.

"I'm telling you that I'm fine. I just... I got a little sick." Sirius said deciding that it wasn't the best time to tell his 'kids' that he had just woken up here, wherever here was, and he had been living in a world where none of this was true. None of them were true.

"Daddy gets sick a lot. Every full moon." The boy with the dark hair said.

"Yeah, that's a little different from what happened to me. I got hit with a nasty spell, but I'm better now." Sirius said.

The little girl had been quiet throughout the whole exchange. She couldn't have been much older than six. She was small, barely stomach level with the two bouncy boys. Her hair was long.

Longer than her sisters and just as dark. Unlike her sister's it was down and shining in the light as though it where brushed a million times. Her eyes were like Remus's. In fact she looked like Remus except for the hair.

"Hey there." Sirius said. The girl smiled at him.

"You wanna sit up here with me, princess?" Sirius asked.

The girl nodded her head. Sirius picked her up. It was surprisingly easy.

"You know, I'd really like to go home now. There's no reason for me to be here. I feel fine." Sirius said looking at Remus with hopeful eyes. Remus looked doubtful.

"Oh, I don't know, Sirius. I mean maybe you should just stay for the night. As a precaution." Remus said.

"No, Remus, it's fine. Please call a Healer in here and have me discharged. I want to go home." Sirius said.

Remus was fighting a losing battle against Sirius's puppy dog eyes as well as five other puppy dog eyes.

"Okay, I'll go get a Healer. You're sure, though." Remus said.

"Dad, he said he was sure. Come on let's get out of here." Maddy said. Remus gave her a reprimanding look.

"Well you heard the girl. Go get a Healer... please?" Sirius said pleasant smile on his face. Remus shook his head and was off to get a Healer.

"Okay that was easy enough. So, what do you guys wanna do when I get home? Considering it's Maddy's last day with us before she goes to school." Sirius said.

He was liking this world more with each passing moment. He was greeted with a barrage of suggestion mostly from the two little boys. He didn't hear a peep come from the girl sitting on his lap. She was almost eerily quiet.

"What about you princess? What do you want to do?" Sirius asked. There was a long silence.

"Um... dad?" Sirius looked up at Maddy's voice.

"Yes, sweetie." Sirius said.

"You know... Audrey... she can't talk." Maddy said.

"Oh, right I knew that." Sirius said hoping that it didn't seem like he didn't know that.

"Are you sure... cause you were asking her opinion. I mean not that you can't, but you sounded like you didn't know." The older boy asked.

"I did know that. Don't worry so much." Sirius said.

"But... if you can't remember things... maybe you're hurt worse then you thought." Maddy said.

"I'm fine." Sirius said his voice stronger sounding. There was no argument from the kids after that.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sirius had spent the day with 'his' children. They had done a lot of fun things like play Quidditch and Exploding Snap. They had gone to bed relatively early on orders from Remus. It was then that Sirius decided that it was time to do a little exploring on his new life.

He had gone upstairs to the attic where Remus said they kept all of their important things. He sifted through some boxes before he found what he was looking for. Photo albums of everything. Remus liked to take pictures of everything.

Sirius flipped through the pages seeing moving pictures of himself and Remus. At first Sirius could see that it had just been friendly, but as the pictures went on he could see that their relationship changed.

He didn't know how they had gotten from that one night after Regulus death to living together with five children. He couldn't even understand how the five children had come about. There were pictures before Maddy and then all of a sudden there were pictures with Maddy as a little baby. He saw here birth certificate.

She had been born February 14 1984 to Sirius and Remus Lupin-Black. His brain was in a huge tizzy after seeing that. Since when had the Wizarding community allowed werewolves to have children?

Sirius had gone through more of the files. He had found Michael's birth certificate. His birthday had been twelve days ago, August 19th 1986, making him nine. He then stumbled upon the twins birth certificates and found they had been born in December of 1987. The last was little Audrey's. She was born on Halloween of 1989.

Sirius had so many questions, but getting answers was going to be a little tricky. He couldn't outright ask people around him because they would think he was crazy. They would think he was even crazy if he told them about the world where Voldemort was still alive and the war was still very much alive as well.

"That was taken the day we brought her home from the hospital. Had to go to France because the Ministry here was so... strict. That's why she was your daughter. I would have donated my sperm... in fact you were so adamant about it, but then the doctor told us that there might be... complications. I don't think either one of us wanted to risk it." Sirius looked up to see Remus standing in the doorway.

"Really, well I guess that makes sense." Sirius said.

"You don't remember... any of it do you. I could tell when the kids said they thought that you didn't know that Audrey couldn't talk. I had a feeling, but... the Healers said they didn't find anything wrong with you. They said you had bumped your head." Remus said.

"It's just a little... fuzzy is all." Sirius said.

"I think it's more than a little fuzzy. I can see it in your eyes, Sirius. You don't remember anything about our lives... I don't think you even remember anything before our lives."

"I do. I remember school and being friends with James and everything we did together... it's when we start that gets... hazy." Sirius said.

He was going out on a limb thinking that everything had been perfectly fine and the same before he and Remus started their... relationship.

"Well it was after your brother died I guess." Remus said.

He looked at Sirius to see if that rang any bells. Sirius looked up hopefully.

"I'm guessing you remember that. Anyway I thought it was just a comfort thing. The way you blew it off the next day... I just never thought anything more of it."

"So how did we end up here?"

"Well, it was the end of the war..."

"Yeah, but how did the war end."

"Voldemort went after Harry."

"But you said James and Lily were alive." Sirius said. Remus gave him a weird look.

"They are... Sirius are you sure you're alright. Maybe there... maybe I should take you back to St. Mungo's..."

"I'm fine... just tell me what happened."

"I don't have the details... Harry says he doesn't remember much... which I guess is fair considering he was so young. You were watching him one night and Voldemort attacked the both of you. It looked like you weren't going to make it for a very long time. When the Aurors got to our apartment they found you lying on the ground unconscious and Harry in his crib with Voldemort's body next to him." Remus said.

"So what happened after that?" Sirius said.

Remus bit his lip as though he were still thinking about taking Sirius back to St Mungo's. He decided against it apparently and sat down next to Sirius on the attic floor.

"Well, you woke up a few weeks later. No one thought you were going to recover, but you proved them wrong as usual. I guess you decided something while you were... well I don't know everything about what you were thinking but the first thing you did was apologize for being such a jerk that morning and then you asked me out to dinner." Remus said with a smile on his face.

"Why Maddy?" Sirius said looking at the photo album of his little girl.

"That was something we had discussed for a long time. It was about... four years after the war had ended and we were living peacefully with only a few annoyances from the Ministry. We knew it was impossible for us to have children so we decided to hire a surrogate type. She was perfectly fine with the situation." Remus said.

"And Michael... he's not mine. He's definitely yours."

"You're right. He is mine. And there's nothing wrong with him whatsoever. He's a normal kid not at all hurt by my werewolf status. The Ministry had to change that law after the research that I and a few others did so I was allowed to have Michael."

"And the other three? They look so much like the both of us, Remus. You can't tell me we got surrogates that looked exactly like us. And that can't be because Nate and Danny... they're twins and they look exactly like a mixture of the two of us." Sirius said.

"I know... it was an experiment that was going on. Mixing DNA magically. It... well the price for it was high, but you had insisted we give it a try. It worked perfectly fine with the boys, but as research and studies and investigations happened more... side effects were popping up." Remus said.

"Audrey's inability to talk." Sirius said somberly.

"We were lucky. Most families had children that had worse side effects. Deformities and mental disabilities. The... the researchers had said Audrey was lucky to have parents that had high magical signatures. For once my lycanthropy helped something. After that we just... decided not to have anymore children." Remus said.

"And us... were not married?" Sirius said.

Gay marriages hadn't been something that was allowed in his reality, but he figured things were so different as it was that that might be different.

"Nope. We can have kids according to the laws, but we can't get married. We just change our names. I guess it's alright though. The werewolf laws have become less strict so it's not like our lives are horrible. Like I said... it's a great life." Remus said.

"Yeah it is." Sirius said. They sat in silence for a few moments before Remus stood up.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong. I know you're keeping something from me." Remus said.

Sirius looked up at Remus's face. This was what he wanted. He wanted Remus and there he was standing right in front of him. They were together. They were happy. They had an actual family. Why would he want to ruin this?

"Nothing. I must have hit my head a little harder then I thought. I guess I'll have to go back in tomorrow... after Maddy leaves. I don't want to scare her." Sirius said.

Remus smiled. Sirius like making Remus smile and he couldn't help, but smile in return. Remus leant down and placed a small kiss on Sirius's lips.

"What was that for?" Sirius asked when Remus pulled away.

"Oh, I just love seeing you smile. Come on let's go to bed. We've got a long day ahead of us." Remus said grabbing a hold of Sirius's arm as he pulled him up. Sirius allowed himself to be dragged.

They were at the doorway when Sirius heard it. A faint voice that sounded awfully familiar and scared. It was yelling for him, pleading for him calling out his name. It was coming from the direction somewhere in the attic. Sirius disengaged himself from Remus's grasp and walked back inside the attic looking around. He heard Remus calling for him, but he kept walking.

Then he felt it. A sharp pain in both his wrists. Sirius looked down to see blood trickling down his wrist two perfectly neat slash across them. He didn't do anything, he couldn't scream. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind of all the thoughts buzzing around in his head.

"Sirius?" Sirius looked over at Remus who looked extremely worried.

He looked back at his wrists. They were fine not slashes at all.

"Sorry about that... let's go to bed." Sirius said ushering Remus out of the attic as fast as he could.

He closed the door tightly and locked it.

Chapter 3

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