Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted – Jesus Christ
"Should you be doing that?" A voice rings out, raspy and hoarse.
Remus turns around to see Harry standing there, looking lost and tired. Remus can sympathise – it is pretty much his constant state of being.
"Doing what, Harry?" He softly asks.
Harry shrugs and gestures around weakly. It reminds Remus so much of James after his parent's deaths he wants to weep.
"You know – going through his stuff, looking at old photos, being here-" his voice cracks, and he lowers his arm and head.
"It's-it's not good to torture yourself like this," Harry finishes quietly, so hypocritical and wise that Remus has to remember that Harry is something less like a thirteen year old boy he taught and something more like a man.
"Pain is not something to be afraid of, Harry," he tells him; truthful, but not exactly helpful.
"It's still not something I'm used to," Harry admits, bland, without anger.
Remus nods, "I've had hundreds of full moons to become accustomed to it. Pain, I can handle. Besides, I'd rather feel pain than be numb."
"I wish I thought like that," Harry says, small and empty and so unnatural for a fifteen year old.
"You will. One day. When the pain stops for a little while."
"So no time soon, then?" Harry wryly jokes.
"No. But don't fight the pain," Harry looks up questioningly, "He never did. It made him stronger. Yes, he died," he answers in response to Harry's furious look, "And no it didn't save him, but he was strong. Was always…strong."
Hesitancy silences Harry a moment before he shamefully confesses, "I can't say his name yet. I can't even think about him because then I think of him dying and I can't-" he gives a dry sob; hands rising up to remove his glasses and cover his eyes.
Remus stays where he is, not asking whether or not Harry was alright. Of course he wasn't. And if he attempted to comfort the lad, he had a feeling he would be pushed away in favour of suffering alone. A little like Lily.
"-When I think of him dying I think of always wearing black, and removing the little colour left in the world so that everyone knows he's gone. But then I remember the how black is the colour of his family and he hated his family and then I just stand there because I don't know what, what to do and-" A tremor wracks through the boy's think frame, and it is rendered impossible to continue.
Remus wants to hold the young man, rub his back and tell him it was going to be okay, even if that's a blatant lie. Yet he knows that this man-child is desperately trying to isolate himself away from everyone else so that he doesn't have to cry over people who could leave, get hurt, die at anytime again.
"Harry," he says gently, once the shivers have subsided, "Harry, you don't have to be guilty. He wouldn't-"
"Wouldn't want me to hurt, I know," Harry interrupts snappily, turning around in irritation.
"Yes," Remus remains patient, "But he'd want you to mourn."
Harry turns back around sharply, quickly sliding his glasses up his nose. He sniffs, "What?"
"Not for him, but for you. Mourning is a healing process, you know."
Confusion is stained on Harry's face.
"You don't have to be guilty for mourning. You don't have to prove anything, or be strong for anyone. Cry, scream, hate him for leaving you, forgive him for leaving you, forgive yourself. But don't hate yourself or the pain won't stop. And Sirius would never have wanted that for you." Sirius' name brings a sorrowful croak to the adolescent's throat, but he tries his best to nod.
"Okay. I'll, I'll try. It may not get anywhere, but…I'll try."
"That's all I can ask," Remus says with a small smile.
Harry's lips quiver in an effort to smile, and he looks away to cough and wipe his nose on his sleeve.
"Hum. Huh, so, uh, what are you doing?" Harry asks sniffing in his valiant stab at conversion. He moves closer to Remus to see the moving photograph clutched fondly in Remus' hand.
"Here, have a look," Remus passes it over, and Harry looks at it, still glassy-eyed, eager.
The boy is entranced by the picture side, but from where Remus stands he can see the elegant scrawl on the back: Remember this?
Harry is laughing gruffly, tears of all emotions splayed across his cold-pink cheeks. "You're-you're riding the Giant Squid!" he splutters, amused and indignant.
"Yeah, I am," Remus says, a melancholy humour painting his expression, "Yeah, we are."
"Do you use this memory to produce a Patronus?" The question is enquired with such curiosity and need that the professor in Remus cannot help but answer.
"It's a perfect, happy memory to get rid of Dementors, yes. But Dementors aren't just guarding Azkaban, Harry," Remus taps the boy's temples, "There in here, too."
The teenager stares at the picture, blinking rapidly as if snapping his own mental photos of someone else's memory.
"He-he looks…happier than he did, at the end."
"Happier? Perhaps. A more innocent, pure happiness, certainly. But happier? I don't know."
The silence is filled with the memories of a dead man who is missed.
"Were you happy?" Harry whispers.
"I was."
A pause.
"Are you happy now?"
Remus looks into the eyes this boy/man/hero with glare-reflecting glasses whose soul was constantly being crooked, manhandled and beaten down by others. This child whose face is tear-stained, whose heart is grieving and whose hands are cold. This man who just may understand what Remus has gone through.
"I'm okay. Mostly."
While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil – John Taylor