Eulogy
DISCLAIMER: I am not JK Rowling. If I was, this text would be way better.
*A/N* This came to my mind when I stumbled across the Order of the Phoenix on the telly a couple of days ago. Should you find anything that's not canon, I would be deeply ashamed (the twelve times I read the entire series would not have been enough to memorise it...), so please point it out.
Should you find weird grammar, please tell me, English is not my first language and I would like my texts to be grammatically correct.
Remus Lupin was composing a eulogy.
Again, he would like to add.
The only thing he had written so far was the name of his best friend. (The only of his three best friends who had not died or joined Lord Voldemort - until the day before yesterday, when Sirius had been killed by his deranged cousin. Remus's track record should have been a warning). And now the ink refused to form any more words.
Sirius Black
Yes, right, Sirius Black what?
Sirius Black was dead. And his best friend felt a bloody lot left behind, a bit betrayed and devastatingly empty.
Sirius Black had not been a mass murderer. Okay, he had killed a handful of Death Eaters, but he hadn't killed Peter Pettigrew. He had been locked up in Azkaban for a crime he didn't commit and had been forced to live through the moment he had found the dead bodies of his best friend and his best friend's wife and the crying bundle that was his godson for twelve years.
Sirius Black was a good man.
Who would write this sort of thing in a eulogy? It sounded like he had grabbed the next-best cliché phrases and jumbled them together without a second thought.
The werewolf's eyes were burning with tears, tears he couldn't allow himself to shed. Because Harry Potter, his other best friend's son and arguably the most important person in the entire wizarding world, had lost the closest thing to a family he had. Again.
Because the woman he loved - too much, and without any right to do so - had lost the only one of her cousins that was not completely crazy.
Remus Lupin had lost his best friend - but that didn't matter, did it?
The Order had to go on, the fight had to go on, so he had to go on, too.
Sighing, he stared down at his parchment, remembering the last text of that sort he'd read out fourteen years ago, his voice hoarse and thick with tears.
.
James Potter was one of the three best friends I've ever had. He stole my pudding at dinner, he copied off me more times than I could count, I hung around the Hogwarts corridors for hours to make sure he could have a good snog with his future wife without any teacher interrupting them.
But he also stood by me when he found out what I was, and he was only thirteen at that time. James, Peter and Sirius even became animagi so I wouldn't be lonely or a danger to myself.
He protected me, he taught me spells I thought I'd never get the hang of, he paid for my drinks knowing I'd be too proud to tell them I couldn't afford it. I can remember how drunk we got the night he got engaged, and his wedding seems just a couple of days ago.
He was a wonderful friend and as far as I can tell he also was a wonderful father. He loved his wife and little Harry to bits and pieces.
James was there for the biggest and best part of my life and I can't believe that he shouldn't be there for the rest of it. I'll miss him until the day I die, I guess, and I know for sure that James Potter deserved that.
.
No, stop it, Remus. You'll never get this done.
His hand was shaking slightly and with every second he was staring at it, seeing Sirius's name hurt a little more.
His throat felt tight, so tight he thought he couldn't breathe.
The gaping hole his friends had left behind once more threatening to suffocate him.
Sirius Black is gone, and I hate the bloody idiot.
When I came to Hogwarts, I was scared to no end. I thought I was in for the most dreadful seven years of my life. I thought being a werewolf, I couldn't possibly make a single friend, I would probably have little to no talent anyways and I would fall asleep every night wishing I could go home.
Then I met two boys on the train, rich kids on the popular side of things. One of them quite spoiled, one of them a light-headed rebel. And, for reasons I still can't really fathom because I must have been the shiest and most difficult person on the entire train, they liked me. We were later sorted into the same house, along with a boy called Peter, who was a lot like me back then - introvert, plain and with shabby robes.
And, contrary to what I had thought it would be like, I was the happiest I'd ever been during those seven years. They were my friends even when they discovered my secret.
Then came the war and James and Lily were betrayed and murdered, supposedly because of Sirius. Sirius was captured and brought to Azkaban, for the murder of a dozen muggles and our friend Peter Pettigrew. I had lost all of my friends within a few days and lost my faith in the world entirely.
Which makes it all the more astonishing how I sat at a desk at Hogwarts twelve years later, waiting for Sirius Black to come and find me because for some reason I believed if he had killed James and Peter, he would want to kill me too, and Harry Potter gave me an impossible bit of information. He told me he had seen Peter's name on the Marauders' Map. I spent all night pondering what that could possibly mean, but even though I came up with the wildest of theories, reality was even more unbelievable. Suddenly, I was standing right in front of my old friend, escaped mass murderer, and he was telling me everybody had got it the wrong way around, in words so jumbled and so desperately wanting me to believe him that I could barely understand what he was saying. And, even though it meant I had been grieving for a traitor who on top of everything hadn't even been dead this entire time, I was so relieved. Because it meant that I had one of my friends back, no matter how much trouble he brought on me.
Sirius wasn't one for hiding, he was proud and reckless and a little vain, and aside from the twisted shrew who killed him and her beloved master, that was what took him from us in the end.
But he was also loyal, he was incredibly smart, an outstanding wizard and he was one of the bravest people I've ever known. He would have died for all of us without a second of hesitation, and no matter how broken he was, he loved his godson like a father and he could forgive me for believing he had betrayed James the moment we met again.
And now I'm the only one left of the Marauders. And I hate him for that. And I hate him for the fact he left me to fight in the war that's coming when he would have done so much better, I hate him for leaving me in charge of things that he could have handled with ease.
I hate him for the fact I got to write his eulogy. I hate my life for the fact I'm getting better at writing eulogies.
The world would have probably been better off had I died in his stead. (Remus took up his quill once more and crossed out the last line again.)
I hate Sirius for leaving me behind.
And I miss him so much already.
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