Finally, Orpheus wins.

by Shamenka

On Asphodel's plane two friends met for the first time in fourteen years. They just stood there, looking with eyes hungry for what once was everything to them; each other. Thoughts and ideas flittered across two minds, neither one able to find just the right thing to say to pick up where their previous time together had ended.

"So, you died then?" Inane words, stating the painfully obvious, a face that would suffuse in a ruby hued blush, if it had living blood to rise to its surface.

"Seems that way!" Good cheer responded, grinning in its joy to be there, with the most beloved friend anyone ever possessed. Silence fell again, each friend looking for something else to say. Some few words that would fill the void each had left in the other's soul.

*****

In the basement of the Department of Mysteries a very small group of wizards gathered together, hidden from the man in the centre of the room by invisibility cloaks, spells and potions, watching his last minute preparations. Each one of them had found out what their subject of observation had been intending to do quite by accident. One of them, the oldest, had read the title of a book on the busy man's coffee table, the only one of the audience allowed into the man's very private space. One of them had found out when he overheard a vocalised practice for the spells the man had planned on using and had intuitively guessed at what he had intended. The third, and youngest, found out from the second, and he came to see the impossible done. The only wizard in their world that thought of a way to put right what the third watcher had put wrong; or so the youngest watcher thought.

Twenty eight days before, a man had fallen through the veil, living, yet frozen. A full moon had waxed and waned; each day driving the lone man into a deeper frenzy of research and cross referencing, of practising his spell until he was not just word perfect, he was nuance perfect too. Too focused on his forthcoming challenge to realise someone had found him out.

The irony was that he was, at the start of it all, the only one that knew of the existence of such a spell, his were the only eyes the book had allowed to read its secrets, or so he thought, the last of his family line: finally his father's dark hobbies were being put to a god use. Harry Potter would have his godfather back, and he would have an end to the accusation he forever saw in the idiot boy's eyes. It always seemed, to the lone man, that it was always his fault; if it rained, his fault; if a potion failed, his fault; if a minion of a dark lord got in a very luck shot, his fault; if a boy could not keep his nosy attitude to himself, his fault; if the same boy's family were intent on killing themselves, his fault. Always and forever, his fault.

And this was finally his turn to be the only one doing something right.

And if it failed, his fault.

No change there then. That thought made him chuckle quietly as he made the final preparations, carefully blanking his mind from those around him, he knew they were there, of course, but they were hidden so his target would not be distracted by the living; except for him.

"Inflamus Vita!" The candles around the room danced into life with a blood red glow and the man contented himself with the drama of his first step. Setting the stage for the hardest task he would had ever faced. "Locatus amicus usque ad aras!" He tried with all his might to keep the image of Sirius Black in mind, alas, Lily Evans kept interposing between his mind and his visualisations. He would much rather have remembered his dead friend than the technically still living moron she entrusted with her only child, but Black was the only one rescuable from the void. Once more he focused his thoughts where they had to be. He threw a silver cord into the void beyond the veil just as the mental image changed yet again.

******

Eternity had passed and the two friends had settled don on the grey earth, side by side, watching the grey souls wandering without direction or purpose, endlessly searching for someone.

"So, where's Lily? Isn't she with you then?" The newcomer asked. "You do know she died the same time you did, don't you?" Worry that he had rather bluntly told his friend such grave news did make him blush, showing the basic difference. He still lived, in the land of the grey ghosts, he still lived.

"Oh, I know full well, she went into Elysium, somehow the daft bitch was judged to have suffered a martyrs death and was permitted through. I was judged to be a bit too evil for Elysium and, luckily, far too good for Tartarus, so I've been stuck here ever since." He sighed, at least made the sound he knew a sigh made.

"I take it you've not seen her since?"

"Oh, I've seen her, she come here every so often to talk to me, to remind me who I was. A shade will pretty quickly dissipate here if they forget their form and being. We meet up so I can avow that I remember that I was James Potter, that I remember our lives together and so on. As soon as I forget it'll be straight into the void for me, and the Gods don't tell us what happens to those totally lost souls!" James Potter looked up into the colourless sky, covering his colourless world and sighed yet again.

"I guess I skipped the induction course then, me not being actually dead when I came here."

"So, are you going to tell me how the great Sirius Black ended up in Asphodel, still alive no less?" James asked, finally having something to smile over, he had at least waited till he was dead before encroaching Hades' domain.

"Saving that idiot son of yours' life. Gods, are you sure he's yours? He's so.. just not a Potter in so many disturbing ways. Not that I mean to offend you, but, he's so not a bit like you, that sometimes I wonder. He's definitely Lily's kid in his killjoy tendencies, but I see less and less of you in him as he grows older. Hell, the kid wont even actively bully the stinking Slytherins! Reminds me more of Snivellus than you, which is a scary thought. Old Snivellus didn't snivel around Lily before she got herself pregnant did he?" Sirius Black felt the temperature around him drop, he looked rather taken aback as James Potter scrambled away from him and on to his feet, looking at the grey earth once more. "What's wrong now?" Sirius squinted up to try and catch his best friend's eyes.

"Sirius Black, as you live and breath! Still a bloody minded waste of space, and just as vile as always too." Lily Potter looked down on him from her standing position and sneered, a look worthy of her best friend's best efforts. "Still suffering from uterus envy I see? I understand that you are still alive and have yet to even try and reach someone outside to get rescued; I take it Harry's safety means little to you, seeing as how normal he is? Utterly un-James-like with some luck!"

"Lily." The tone used could have frozen magma. "Fancy seeing you here, come out of your paradise place to see how the mighty have fallen?"

"Oh, now, that would be interesting, are there any fallen mighties around then? No? Can't see anyone I know of but you two." Lily reached out her right hand and a silver cord fell onto her upturned palm. "Here, hold this." Sliding her hand up the cord, away from the end she pressed the very tip of the cord into Sirius' hands and gestured with her free hand for James to touch it too. "This might be interesting, someone's decided to rescue you from here and return you to the land of the living."

"What do you mean? I thought no one could be brought back through the veils?" Sirius forgot to be sarcastic in his momentary confusion. "Anyway, who would, James is here after all, beside me!"

"What of Remus, or Albus, or even, Gods forbid, Harry might value enough to trade himself with Tom Riddle for your worthless soul, and body, of course." Lily glared at the unrepentant man squatting on the grey soil beside her former husband's side, one hand resting on the dead James Potter's leg.

Somehow, after years of putting up with her former husband calling out Sirius' name in their bed, when alive, she started to get her hopes up that he would not want to go back. That he would be willing to make a switch.

"Did you bring your wand through with you?" She asked suddenly, all but glaring at the man in the growing fear he'd say he dropped it.

"Still got it, I was hit with a stupefying spell on the way through and finally woke up here just a little while ago. Still got my wand, why?" Sirius recognised the gleam in Lily's eyes, it was one she had learned from Snivellus, the joy of perfect recall of a spell or a potion.

"Well, I'm sure you want to spend eternity with your beloved James, and he would much prefer to spend eternity with you, and as the brood mare brought in because you two were too scared to carry your own child, well, I don't want to be around either of you for eternity - if I can help it!" Lily looked off towards the white light that was the veil side of the archway, as if looking for those beyond it. "If you were to transpose our souls then you could stay here and I could go home in your place, with your body. You two can spend all the time remaining until your dissolution being together as you always dreamed of being." She knelt down beside them both, looking at Sirius, rather than James, as he was the only one amongst them that could work magic in Asphodel. "Do you remember the soul charge spells? There were the marriage orientated ones, the tracking movement ones, and the being each other ones."

"You thinking, maybe, that I might perform something like the Chasuble Charm?" Sirius wanted to know why he should oblige her wild dream. "And if I don't do as you ask?"

"You're either thrown out entirely, thrown into Tartarus at its deepest level, or thrown through the void, immediate dissolution. Right now, you are an abomination in Asphodel, a living soul where none belong. If you don't go back, then you and your living body will be disposed of. My way, I get to go back, and you get James, just like you always wanted." She looked at the utter disbelief in Sirius' face and played her trump card in this debate. "Ask James, he knows all the rules of Asphodel, and all the punishments for infringing them."

"Is she telling the truth?" Sirius didn't even try to hide the level of disdain he held Lily in. She was the enemy, the one he lost James too - just because he could impregnate the woman!

"And the rest, Siri, they are very strong on rules around here. Dissolution is the lightest punishment going." James met Sirius' eyes and just enjoyed the sight of his Siri, his real love, then he swung his eyes to Lily, and saw her need to escape death, to escape Asphodel, if only for the rest of Sirius' natural lifetime. He had condemned her to a stilted, almost loveless marriage since neither Sirius nor him had the guts to have a child. If she went back, then she would at least have Harry in her life. Despite the lads apparent lack of Potterish qualities, he knew full well that he was indeed his son. "Lily, if he does this, will you promise to not defame either of us to Harry?"

"I never told the lad that you were, either of you, anything less than truly in love, and wonderful people. Unfortunately he saw some of Sniv's memories and now thinks James and me mindless bullies!" Sirius tried to plead innocence, but failed, and failed in James' eyes no less.

"But, Siri, we were mindless bullies, and, in a way, Lily and I paid for it. Oh, I don't think Severus had anything directly to do with our deaths, but, we bullied so many other Slytherin kids that none of the Death Eaters had any desire to see us alive."

"It was Peter. He didn't give up after torture, he handed you to Voldemort on a platter! It was Snape that warned Albus someone had told the Dark Lord where to find you. He thought it was me that had sold you out."

"Well, maybe you two shouldn't have called Peter 'Pettingzoo' all the time." Lily's voice was deceptively calm, so much so that her outburst came as a bit of a shock to her two companions. "I can't believe I died for one of your fucking petty jokes!" Lily jumped to her feet as if she intended to flee them both, the cord in her hand held her next to the other two as the kept their own hands on the cord, holding her near them.

"Do it, Sirius, let Lily go free? For me? Please?" James stood and moved to be beside his former wife and lightly touched her back in a gesture of comfort. "She shouldn't be tied to me here."

"She's your wife, Jamie, you wife, she should be happy to be where ever you are!" Sirius also stood up, right in front of James' face.

"Bull shite, Sirius, have you never listened to the vows? Till death do you part. Lily didn't have to hold me to Asphodel like she did, but, now you're here, I can't help but be bloody glad she did." James shrugged, unable to find the great lyrical words to express himself and hoped the look in his eyes would be enough. "For us, let Lily go back."

"For us is a bloody selfish argument." Sirius smiled, a lopsided effort of genuine fondness. "For herself is reason enough, Jamie. We've put her thought enough for several lifetimes, eh?" He reached beyond James to lightly brush Lily's shoulder. "So, what spell, and what words do we need?"

"Soullas transferus ad perpetuam remanentiam - volens." Lily whispered back, and showed the gesture he should do along with the words.

Sirius spoke, moved his hands and let the magic flow one last time.

Eternity shimmered around him and he found himself facing himself, with all three of them still holding the cord. He hadn't realised, in truth, how tired his body and soul both looked, now he could see the man he used to be, only filled with Lily's energy.

"Good luck, Lily. Be happy." He whispered and let go of the cord.

"Go, live your life to the full, Lils. You're finally free." James said, touching the face that had once been Sirius' and was now his wife's. "What are you going to do? Other than look after Harry?"

"Get what I always wanted, of course." Lily laughed and raised the hand still holding the silver cord. "Only, now I can get him, in Sirius' body." She grinned, a look filled with devilment and delight. "And have him... in Sirius' body no less!" It was worth repeating, especially when Sirius realised just what she was proposing.

"Who? Who is it you're going after?" He saw the feral gleam in her eyes, his eyes, and feared the very worst.

Lily tugged the cord that faded into the whiteness a few feet before them. As she felt the cord respond she looked directly into Sirius' eyes.

"I'm going to go home and court my best friend. Severus will never know what, or who, hit him!" Laughing at Sirius' look of horror, she felt herself being drawn into the white and fading to nothingness.

******

Lily felt her soul finally bond with Sirius' body and merge both sets of memories into one being. It was a confusing mish mash of memories that would take time to sot out, but she knew she would sort it out.

On stumbling through the veil, Lily, that now tried to think of herself a the new and improved Sirius Black fell into Severus Snape's arms and just stayed there. Right where she... he belonged.

"Thanks for the rescue, Severus. Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Sirius' arms closed around Severus' neck for what he hoped was the first of many, many times. "I kind of thought it could only be you that could pull off a stunt like this!"

"You're welcome, I'm sure, Black." Severus finally spoke as he disengaged Black's arms from around his neck. "I'm even more sure that those fools who think they're hiding from me will want to welcome you back properly, and not leave you to my tender mercies." Severus faced their invisible audience. "When will you realise I can hear you thinking about being invisible?" He turned back to Black. "Now that I have achieved the impossible, I shall return to Hogwarts and face the intolerable! Good day, gentlemen!" He swept out of the basement with speed and grace, not even waiting to be thanked by anyone else.

"God, he cant even take a thank you like a real person!" Harry said somewhat disparagingly.

"Severus might have saved Sirius, Harry, but he still doesn't like him, or me for that matter. Remember that what you saw in the penseive was just a tiny little fragment of the tortures we put him through. I guess he'll never forgive either of us." Remus was saddened at his own words, realising the truth behind them himself. "Maybe we should be grateful that such a powerful wizard is firmly on the side of the light! And, maybe, we should make things a little easier for him to remain on our side, eh?"

"And yet, that unforgiving, powerful man has brought about a miracle for us, he has returned Sirius to us!" Albus clasped Sirius' shoulder and pulled the younger man in for a hug. He held them close together as he looked into the returned man's eyes, the windows of the soul. "And does my dear Severus even know what kind of a miracle he has performed?" Albus whispered his question as Remus and Harry danced and hugged each other in their joy at Sirius' miraculous return.

"No, all he knows is all anyone will probably ever know. Severus Snape brought the living body of his greatest living rival safely through the veil."

"As you wish, my dear, as you wish!" Albus smiled, a deeply satisfied smile. "Come, I have someone you will be desperate to greet." He led the returned hero to the two celebrants. "Harry Potter, Remus Lupin, kindly come and welcome Sirius home properly! Then we must go and rightly praise Severus' skill and strength of heart"