Submitted for the March 2008 ficathon at rtchallenge. The prompt appears below the story.

Remus is well acquainted with grief. During the long downward spiral that followed the betrayal of James and Lily his mother gave him a Muggle book, On Death and Dying. Over the years he has mentally mapped most of the seminal events of his life on to the book's main thesis: "The grieving process can be broken down into five discrete stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance."

Denial - Sirius falls through the veil, his expression a mixture of laughter and shock. It's a prank, he thinks, one of Padfoot's notorious pranks, and any minute he will come charging around that dais looking to give Bellatrix back some of her own.

Anger - He rages for days that November. If Sirius were not already in Ministry custody he is quite sure he would kill the bastard with his own hands. In the end, Moody has to stun him to keep him from harming himself.

Bargaining - Not this, anything but this. Let it be he, not Dumbledore. Let Greyback come and forcibly return him to the ferals, if it means Dumbledore will live. How can they survive without Dumbledore?

Depression - The cause is a hopeless one, he knows that now. It is something he has suspected for months, but the murder of the Montgomery child confirms it. They are monsters, all of them. He was foolish to have believed—to have let himself hope. There can be no future for one such as him.

Acceptance - Resigned, he watches his father fade away after his mother's death. It is as if the older man has nothing left for which to live, and if a part of Remus wants to weep at the unfairness of it all—that he alone is not enough to keep his father tied to this mortal coil—he keeps his despair well hidden. He quietly nurses the his father until one day he drifts off to sleep and simply never wakes up.

.

And yet, in spite of his considerable experience, he finds himself at a complete loss when the news comes of Ted's death. Dora holds herself together long enough to administer a sleeping draught to Andromeda, then collapses, weeping, into his arms. He carries her to their bed and wraps his body carefully around hers, one hand resting protectively over the swell of her belly. He tucks her hair behind one ear and whispers gentle platitudes, desperate to comfort her. "Shhh, I'm here; it will be all right; I'm so sorry, love, so sorry; he was a good man; those we love never really leave us; Ted is in a better place, now ... "

Hell, at one point he finds himself quoting a line from his Mum's favorite Muggle poet, anything to still her wracking sobs. It's all bollocks, and he wouldn't blame her if she hexes him into next week. But eventually the tears slow to a few sniffles and she turns to face him.

"Thank you."

He shrugs and brushes away the tears on her cheek with his thumb. "I wish there were something more I could do."

"You're here." The simple words mean more, between them, than any declarations of undying love.

"We are for each other," he quotes, and urges her to lean back into his arms. "Try to get some sleep, now." She complies, but the child is stirring now and she moves restlessly against him.

"Remus?"

"Mmm?"

"What the hell does 'death is no parenthesis' mean, anyway?"

Original Prompt:

--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other:then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis"

from e.e. cummings' "since feeling is first"