A/N: Written for the "Tales of Sin and Virtue" Challenge at Red and the Wolf over on LiveJournal. The prompts were: Wrath, First Visit Home and Lyrics from "Lion's Mane" by Iron and Wine ("Love is the scene I render/ When you catch me wide awake/ And love's the dream you enter/ Though I shake and shake and shake you awake")
Wrath
They looked stunning together. Lily wore emerald green dress robes that brought out the color of her eyes. Tendrils of red hair covered her shoulders like a rich tapestry. James wore his favourite blue set. For the first time ever, his hair was as neatly arranged as Lily's. Golden wedding bands sparkled on their fingers.
They looked so peaceful as they laid side by side together, the polished caskets gleaming in the setting sun over Godric's Hollow. In fact, everything seemed peaceful, as though the entire war had stopped for one day to honor its fallen soldiers. A subtle breeze barely rustled attendant's garments. Even the birds had ceased their high pitched twitters as the crowd of witches and wizards gathered.
There were no mourning relatives seated before the deceased. James' parents had passed on a few years ago, and Lily's Muggle relatives had been asked not to attend for their own safety. Remus was the closest person the couple had to family, but he didn't trust himself to cry for fear of what he might do if those emotions were released.
He sat back in his magically conjured folding chair and watched the sun set, allowing Dumbledore's low tones to wash over him. He didn't dare listen to what the Headmaster was saying because it would be too personal, too emotional. After the five hellish days he'd just survived, all Remus wanted was an escape from the emotions that ravaged his heart. He wasn't even sure he had a heart anymore. Now there was just a void, sucking at the rest of his being like a black hole.
He didn't want to think about the passed week. He tried not to, but the images were seared too permanently into his mind for them to recede quietly into memory.
Monday, October 31st
It was fairly certain that no one had ever told Albus Dumbledore that he was wrong to his face – until Remus did that night. His former Headmaster and Mad-Eye Moody arrived at his flat gone midnight and told him the most outlandish lie he'd ever heard: Lily and James were dead because Sirius had betrayed them. They'd gone round the twist and Remus told them so.
He and Sirius had visited Lily and James in their home before they entered into the Fidelius Charm. They'd had a lovely dinner, and then talked and laughed for hours in the living room. "Uncle Sirius" and James had held a monopoly over little Harry, but Remus and Lily were content to watch them from the settee.
"What do you see, Remus?" she asked him.
"Love." Her giggle made him turn, his own laugh close to the surface. "Stop it! I know it's sappy, but it's what I see."
"It's a very sweet thing to say. I'm glad you came tonight. I've missed seeing you."
"I've missed you both too."
She had looked the way he felt: happy, proud, loved. Remus had known he would always be welcome and wanted in the Potters' home. It wasn't something a werewolf was used to, especially after several months of unsuccessful job hunting. But wherever he arrived at a place he was wanted, Remus knew he had come home. In a flash of green light, that home was lost forever.
Disbelief was his instinctive reaction. Having seen the way Sirius glowed when he held his best friend's son, Remus couldn't believe Dumbledore. Sirius was fighting just as hard as Lily and James were to give Harry the future they all wanted for him. Accusing Padfoot of murder went against everything Remus knew to be true.
By the next evening Dumbledore was proven right after all.
The Prophet's headlines literally spelt the end of Remus' world. He could deny something as intangible as the spoken word, but the bold text of front page news could not be dismissed so easily. With the blast that destroyed Wormtail, Sirius had denied everything, not just Lily and James (though that would have been bad enough), but Peter, and himself too – everything they had fought and sacrificed for.
Thursday, November 3rd
Remus found himself sitting in a Ministry auditorium. He watched a sobbing Mrs. Pettigrew accept her son's Order of Merlin, First Class. He listened to the Minister of Magic himself expounded Peter's honorable traits: loyalty, bravery, knowledge of right. When Mrs. Pettigrew clung to his second hand dress robes asking why her son died, he had no answer.
It should have been him, Remus, not because he wanted the gold badge (they probably wouldn't give it to a werewolf) or because Peter was no match for Sirius (Remus would have gladly died too), but because it was right. He wasted time convincing himself of Sirius' innocence and he hadn't been ready to act. If it weren't for him, the grief stricken mother would have had a son, he would have had a friend.
Friday, November 4th
He had the same answer when first confronted with the lifeless forms of Lily and James mere hours ago. Why hadn't he seen Sirius' intentions? Why hadn't he protected them? Why hadn't he believed Dumbledore, who they had trusted with their own lives, to tell him the truth? Why had he let Peter die at the hands of the same murderer? He didn't know.
The thought that struck him hardest as the caskets burst into magical flames was that he was alone. The four people that had trusted and loved him the most were either dead or incarcerated. Lily and James were together in death, he was sure of it. Peter would find them, wherever they were. James would look out for him in a way Remus hadn't. Sirius deserved the worst that Azkaban had to offer.
But what was he, Remus, to do? Where could he turn for a friendly smile? Where could he find acceptance despite his curse? Who would laugh with him about his "furry little problem?" He knew these answers: no where, no one. Sirius had deprived his friends of life and in so doing robbed him of his own.
He hated Sirius Black.
Wrath, red as the setting sun, boiled up in the void left by his heart. It roiled in the pit of his stomach and filled his limbs with violent energy. Fists clenched around the folding chair. Remus knew now why Peter confronted his betrayer. Now he wanted to kill Sirius himself, and by which ever means, magical or Muggle, proved the slowest and most painful. But Sirius was already beyond his reach in Azkaban.
Remus closed his eyes, collecting the burning emotion that rampaged through his body. He pressed it into a tight ball and held it where his heart had been. Long after the funeral had ended, it glowed within him needing to be released, but he would have to wait. Now that he was finally ready, the moment had passed.
But Voldemort was not vanquished. He would rise again and call his followers to him. Remus silently promised the Dark Lord that when he did return, Remus, and his rage, would be waiting for him.
When Dumbledore came again to his flat twelve years later, Remus was still ready.