This short is for the Slytherin House, prompt being Remus Lupin -1,387 words

Remus' life is filled with moments that allow him to label portions of his life as Before and After that moment.

The first and arguably most life changing had been, of course, Greyback's attack. He was very small – four or five, Remus couldn't (and wouldn't want to) recall with any clarity – so he didn't really remember the Before.

The After, though, he still lived in; that fact dogged him relentlessly and taunted him whenever he looked up into the clear night's sky. Eventually he stopped doing so, not being able to watch the constant changes of the moon which signalized his descent into animal madness then ascendance into normality over and over and over again.

The second moment was Headmaster Dumbledore showing up on his family's doorstep, personally handing him his Hogwarts acceptance letter and telling him there were ways to keep him in the school and deal with his condition. Remus had been eleven and still recalls with crystal clarity his father Lyall's tears of joy, his mother Hope's shaky figure as they processed the offer and his own stuttered replies and fiery hope of finally being somewhat normal.

The Before of that moment had been bleak; Remus had resigned himself to life far away from any human, let alone magical contact and planned accordingly to leave his parents as soon as he could to lessen their burden. The After had been, even with all the unnecessary hoops he had to jump through, rude comments and rampant prejudice he could completely understand (he was a monster, after all), so comforting and satisfying in a way muggle world or isolation could never be. Out there, he'd be only surviving; in here, he was living.

The third moment was a direct result of the second: he had met James Potter, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew on the Hogwarts Express. He didn't know it then, but the mismatched group of boys would become his saving grace and the invaluable company during his hours of madness spent in the form of werewolf.

This memory wasn't as crisp as the one of Headmaster, blending in with every other one of Marauders in the school, but there was no way he could forget the mischievous brown eyes and round glasses, watery blue eyes and blonde hair or those fascinating (enchanting) grey eyes and snarky (beautiful) mouth as their owners barreled into his compartment and sat down without as much as by your leave.

The Before was not precisely monochromatic, but it certainly lacked vibrancy of someone living life without any big worries. After was almost too vibrant in its chaos and adrenaline, but Remus could not get enough of it at the time, trying to make up for everything he missed and enjoying every moment as if it would be his last.

The Halloween night of 1981 and All Saints Day that followed, though, was two-blended-in-one moments he wished he could nearly forget like he did with Greyback. James and Lily dead, Harry alive but hidden, Sirius killing Peter… Remus could not join the festivities in the wake of Voldemort's fall for that simple reason. He could not rejoice when his entire family (pack) had either died or betrayed him so thoroughly.

He consciously avoided thinking about it, trying to force it to fade like Greyback's attack did, but after a particularly vivid nightmare starring James and Lily's glassy eyes and broken bodies he would, like a masochist Siri – Black once accused him of being, contemplate the safety and security of Before and loneliness and uncertainty of After. The war may have been won through sheer miracle, but Remus always thought it more of a horrifying repayment from the Fate for Lily and James' brutal death.

Unlike before, he had to wait quite a bit – nearly thirteen years, to be more precise – until the next moment. He wasn't proud of some of things he did in the meantime, but he felt they were better option than swallowing deadly poison. He wasn't proud enough to deny that the only reason he stayed alive was the faded memory of the sweet child he had only seen handful of times before – the cherubic face of Harry James Potter. It was just Remus' luck the child, teenager now really, would be indirect cause of the most shocking moment of his life; Sirius never betrayed them – never betrayed him.

The relief he had felt in those scant hours before the wolf took over could not be described in any spoken language. Sirius, the one most similar and most different from him, had stayed loyal, just like his Animagus form. The Before, cold (apathetic) as it was, faded in his mind as the warmth (love) of the After took over him, and even the wolf had been less stressed and more cooperative than Remus remembered it being since his school days.

That relief and warmth (love) is now sharp in his mind as his eyes refuse to let out of the focus the most horrifying scene he desperately prayed to all higher powers not to happen so soon. Sirius' surprised look as he fell slowly through the Veil of Death, spine arched in a way Remus knew his friend (lover) had not been able to do since they were teenagers. As he ran to stop Harry from following his godfather (father, brother, confidant) and breaking his own heart (he would not be able to survive losing the entirety of his pack again, he doesn't want to face the After of that moment), Remus pushed his own emotions in the back of his mind, in the place labeled 'to be dealt with later'.

That 'later' came sooner than Remus would've wanted. He finally cracked in Sirius' room at Grimmauld place, falling on his knees next to the four-poster bed they spent so many nights in.

"You moron! You absolute bloody git!" Remus screamed, not caring if anyone heard him. "Why, why did you leave me? Leave Harry? You were supposed to stay in the bloody house! But no! Sirius I-am-immortal-nothing-can-hurt-me Black had to come and get himself killed by falling through Veil of Death!" He punched the floor next to him, where an assortment of unlabeled bottles laid in an unremarkable box. "Why?!" The pain was unlike anything Remus had experienced before, and before he knew it he was staring at the innocuous, unlabeled bottle filled with golden potion.

Maybe, if he ended this swiftly, he would rejoin Sirius before either of them starts missing each other (because of course there's afterlife, and Sirius and Remus would always be together, no matter what). Harry would forgive him; he had never been that close to James' son. Albus would probably be slightly disappointed, but he would respect his decisions...

"Remus?"

Remus was yanked out of the trance by Nymphadora call-me-Tonks. The bottle was still dangling in front of his eyes, tempting him.

"Remus, what are you doing?" the young Auror asked, suspicion heavy in her question.

Remus sighed and returned the bottle into the box. I'm a coward. "Nothing."

"Really, and you were just going to drink a bottle of a potion even I don't recognise?"

Remus flinched. "I-I wasn't going to -"

"You weren't going to kill yourself," Nymphadora's voice was so clinical it hurt. "Tell that story to someone else, Remus. Sirius wouldn't have wanted you to do this."

"Well Sirius is dead," Remus snarled, "so I don't know what he would've wanted!" He instantly regretted the harsh choice of words as he watched hurt flash over Auror's face. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean -"

"You said exactly what you meant," Nymphadora sighed and turned around.

"Look, I'm sorry!" Remus half-rose to grab at her sleeve. "I just -"

"I know," she smiled warmly (brokenly) at him. "You and Cousin Siri had something special. It actually made me want to have something like that before I die." With those words she left him alone with his thoughts.

Siri. Sirius. Padfoot.

Nymphadora was right, Sirius would have hexed him silly for even contemplating ending it by himself. He would've wanted him to go on.

With that in mind, Remus carefully labeled the image of Sirius's fall as important, and sorted his life into the Before and After.

Before: Sirius is here.

After: Sirius is gone.