Remus Lupin put down the Daily Prophet with a sigh and let his head fall into his hands.
"TRAITOR SIRIUS BLACK MURDERS PETER PETTIGREW, 10 MUGGLES DEAD," the headline read. The war was over, but it was still talking lives.
He had tried reading the accompanying article, but he hadn't even been able to get past the first sentence.
What had gone wrong? He remembered the old days, when they were all students at Hogwarts. The manically laughing face that illustrated the article was a distortion of one so familiar that just glancing at it sent an uneasy chill down his spine. He had folded the page so he wouldn't have to look at it, but he knew the damning photograph was still there. He remembered Sirius' easy grin and barking laugh. He could barely believe that they were the same man. But they were.
Why? Why them?
James and Peter had died within a few years of one another, and even worse, it seemed Sirius was to blame. What had happened between them? Why would Sirius betray them all? He wanted to hate his former friend for all that he had done, but somehow he couldn't, not even now. He, of all people, understood that fear, that desire to give in to something so much stronger than himself.
But this was Sirius, he had never been a coward like Remus. He had to have a good reason! But there was no good reason.
But he would never turn on his friends like that, not to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. It was everything Sirius hated about his family. Remus remembered the rants about just how terrible the Blacks were. He would never willingly become like them. But he had.
These days, no one was who or what they seemed to be - the werewolf was one to talk.
And now Peter and James were dead. And so was Sirius, for all anyone cared. He was rotting away in Azkaban - worse than dead, and he deserved it for betraying them all. But did he really? Did Remus really believe that Sirius Black deserved that?
The obvious answer was yes. But it wasn't so easy, was it?
They had all been such close friends… Sirius and James had been inseparable and Remus and Peter had never been too far behind.
Sirius and James and Peter had risked so much to become Animagi just so that he wouldn't be alone on the full moon. He remembered those nights they all spent together wandering the grounds. They had been idiots back then, but still he couldn't help but smile as the memories of those moonlit nights came rushing back. For the first and only time in his life, he wasn't as afraid of the full moon.
But James and Peter were dead, and Sirius killed them. Sirius, servant of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. It didn't have much of a ring to it, but that was just Remus' opinion.
"Why Sirius? Why?" Remus demanded beneath his breath, "Why would you do that?"
He didn't expect an answer and his expectations were soundly met.
Still, the question echoed between his ears. Why? Why would Sirius…?
It didn't matter now. They were all gone, dead and buried for all intents and purposes, with only Remus left to mourn them.
Note: This story was edited in July 2018 for cross-posting on Archive of Our Own.