A/N: I've been reading in the HP fandom for a while now, but this is the first story I've written. I have many more on my computer, but this one is nearly complete with just those pesky end paragraphs to wrap up. It also has a sequel which is well underway. Please note, although this story is about Remus and Sirius, it is about their friendship and is not slash. Nothing against it…just not the story I'm telling. Harry will be joining this story as well, as the Sirius and Harry relationship was my favourite part of the HP saga and the part I mourned the most. The title of this story comes from Sia's "I'm In Here." I do not own the song, the lyrics, or Harry Potter.

Prologue

Remus Lupin gazed out the window at the rolling black hills behind his house, unable to stop a flood of bittersweet memories from washing over him. They always came to him this time of year, and though the ache was always there, it was particularly acute on this, the anniversary of the day it happened. Five years ago, he'd been standing in this very house going about his normal business, quietly preparing himself for bed and trying not to think about the ever-growing threat just beyond his safe little cottage in the woods. Dumbledore was concerned, concerned about werewolves and other Dark Creatures being recruited to Voldemort's side, and Remus knew a time was coming that he would be forced to reckon with his true nature, to abandon the simple life he had known and risk it all for this cause. He was spared from that fate when the war came to a sudden, abrupt end, and end that cost him nearly everone he ever held dear. He wondered now if it was normal for one to miss his friends this much, five years after the loss. Many people had lost loved ones in the War, but most of them carried on with their lives. They grieved and mourned and never forgot, but they didn't spend hour after hour looking out the window and imagining moonlit nights of running about with their best friends.

Then again, perhaps it was the unnecessarily brutal way it all ended that made it so hard to move on. He hadn't just lost his friends that night; he lost them to each other. They had been there for him at a time when no one else was, and he still dreamed at night of James and Sirius coming to him to demonstrate their newfound ability. He'd been horrified but strangely touched, and he knew it was a bad idea, but it was incredible to have friends who cared so much they would risk Azkaban to be with him even knowing what he was. He was something most people feared, but not James and Sirius, and eventually, Peter had come along, too. Hogwarts was the happiest time of his life because of those three. Then one day they were gone, along with Lily, who had come to be equally important to him. James and Lily were betrayed by their best friend, Peter was murdered, and only he was left. He couldn't understand why Sirius hadn't come for him as well, but perhaps Sirius knew that leaving him here alone was a fate worse than death. He was left with the memories, the knowledge of his own failure in this. If he had only told James of his suspicions, if only he hadn't been a werewolf so that they could have trusted him to be their Secret Keeper and Harry's guardian. The boy was lost now, sent to live with muggle relatives, so Remus could never see the little boy who had once been the light and hope of all their lives.

He couldn't explain why tonight, the fifth anniversary of James and Lily's murder, was worse than all the others. He couldn't explain why he missed James tonight more than ever. And, more than he cared to admit, he missed Sirius, too. He missed Sirius as he had been – vibrant, alive, loyal, and brave. James and Sirius had been better than brothers to him, and perhaps he could have handled losing one of them, but losing both…it was unbearable. He wondered if James and Lily had known of the betrayal before their death, if Voldemort had told them, just to torture them in their last moments. The Sirius he had known, the Sirius he had thought he'd known, would have died before he let harm come to the Potter family, and so the result would have been devastating to James and Lily. Did James think of his betrayer as he died? Did Lily look at her baby boy and wonder how they had been so mistaken as to place their fate, and Harry's, in the hands of their murderer?

For the last few nights, Remus had been struggling with the why of it all. For years he put it from his mind, accepting that Sirius, like so many, had been won over by the Dark. Considering his family lineage, perhaps it shouldn't have been so shocking. But then again, it was his family background that made it even more shocking as well. Sirius had run away from his family and never looked back. He was disowned by the Blacks, and he was proud of it. To run back to them, to desert those who had cared for him and looked after him…it was senseless. Perhaps he should try once more to put it from his mind, but he couldn't get past the betrayal he felt tonight, and he needed to know how Sirius could have done it to all of them. He still remembered the first time they'd all seen Harry, and perhaps Sirius was just that good an actor, perhaps he hadn't gone to the Dark yet, but dammit, he had looked overjoyed. When they named him godfather, he beamed with pride and threatened to spoil the boy silly. There was genuine love in his eyes every time he saw the first child of a Marauder. How then, could he betray that boy, steal his parents away from him, try to kill him? In the lonely weeks and months that followed that bloody Halloween, many tried to tell him he simply couldn't understand a madman, couldn't understand the evil that lurked just beneath the surface. But Remus had never been able to convince himself that Sirius had been Dark all along. There were too many times his friend had saved him, too many times he had seen the real warmth and friendship in his eyes. It made the betrayal that much harder to bear, but he could never believe that the friendship hadn't been real. Once upon a time, they had been best friends, and now Sirius Black had left him alone in the world.

You're a sentimental fool, Moony, he scolded himself as he wearily trudged up the stairs to his room. Tomorrow would be better, when the anniversary passed and he no longer had to remember all he had lost. There would no newfound joy in the morning, no new friends to fill the emptiness, but another year without them had passed, and now he would carry on as he must, as he always would. He eased himself into his bed and stared up at the ceiling, finding his thoughts drifting away to Harry. He had so longed to take the boy, but the closeness between James and Sirius was not the only reason they chose Sirius over Remus himself. Once a month he would think nothing of ripping the little boy to shreds, and despite the fact that James and Lily had never once cared about his Lycanthropy, they knew they had to care for Harry's sake. The Ministry would never allow him to become the legal guardian anyway, but now that he had been given away to muggles, Remus was never even allowed to see the child. Sirius had been the one constantly buying toys and bragging about the Quidditch player his godson would become, but Remus had loved the boy, too. For a time, that boy represented their hope, and now, he was the only proof that James and Lily ever existed. How could you, Sirius?

He was just beginning to drift off to sleep when he heard a voice. He couldn't, Moony. You know that he couldn't.

Remus sat bolt upright at the ghostly voice of a friend long-dead. "James?" he whispered into the darkness. He didn't hear the voice again, but he suddenly felt cold with dread. Climbing out of bed once more, he found himself drawn to the desk sitting in the corner of the room. He opened the top drawer and extracted a stack of photographs. He rifled quickly through them, not pausing to linger at the smiles on the Marauder's faces in each photograph. There was one in particular that he had to find.

"Aha!" he said aloud as he located the one he was thinking of. The photographs had been Lily's, found among her belongings after her death. She was assembling a scrapbook for the Marauders, a visual history of their friendship along with the beginning of their legacy – Harry. In this photograph, Sirius was holding baby Harry, tossing him carefully up in the air and bringing him back down. The little boy was grinning, Sirius was beaming, and he, James, and Lily were watching with amusement. There was something strange about the photograph, something he felt he should notice, but all he could place was the look of pride and happiness on Sirius's face. Remus watched the moving picture a bit longer, watching as Sirius tossed the boy and then cradled him close, tenderness obvious in the way he held him.

Knowing he would never go back to sleep tonight, Remus donned proper robes again and stepped into the fireplace with a handful of Floo powder. "Dumbledore's office," he called, then disappeared into the flames.