"Got nowhere to run,
The night goes on as I'm fading away.
I'm sick of this life,
I just want to scream…
How could this happen to me?"
'Untitled', Simple Plan
He storms up the staircase of his dingy London flat, slamming the door shut violently behind him. He throws himself onto a dilapidated old couch on the wall nearest the door. The couch sighs pathetically and sags, mirroring his feelings. Remembering that he and James bough this at a Muggle yard sale does nothing to ease the pain. If anything, it only intensifies it. Sitting up straight now, he places his left hand over his eyes, hot tears burning behind his closing eyelids.
He doesn't know if it is 5 minutes or 30 minutes later when a knock on his door startles him. "Go away," he whispers, but he knows that the other can hear him. The door creaks open anyway, and Remus sticks his head into the room. Catching sight of the state of his friend, he quietly shuts the door and crosses the room, leaning up against the wall across from the couch. He simply waits, eyes on the distraught figure before him. All is silent for a few moments, until,
"I'm his best friend, Moony. I'm his best friend, and he picks Wormtail?" his voice cracks on the last word and he shuts his eyes tight against the pain. Remus makes a soft, wordless noise of sympathy and crosses the room once more to sit next to his friend on the couch.
"It is too much to say that I think you're jealous?" Remus answers softly after a pause. His friend's eyes snap open, fierce with anger now.
"I am not jealous, Moony, and you know it," he snaps, glaring at Remus. Remus is silent again for a few moments.
"Then why are you so devastated? You know Prongs wouldn't pick Wormtail without a reason. Think for a second." The other boy turns away from Remus to disguise how true those words are ringing.
"I don't trust him."
"You don't trust Prongs? But-"
"No, I didn't mean Prongs. I meant Wormtail. I don't trust him, and you shouldn't either," he replies with a note of finality in his voice, as if that's the end of that debate. Remus sighs softly to himself. He knows where this is going, and he worries about what will happen.
"Look, I'm not here to throw a pity party. I'm just asking you to think. Think. Please-"
"Go away, Remus." The other boy's voice is so sharp it stings Remus like it cut him with a knife.
"But-"
"Just go. I don't need you or James. He can have that little rat for his Secret-Keeper. Fine, then. It's his life on the line, and I don't care."
"Listen-"
"Remus, go away! I don't want you here!" he yells suddenly, turning on Remus in a fit of rage. His wand is out now, pointing at Remus's chest as his eyes gleam with frenzied anger. Remus remains still, his eyes showing hurt and sadness.
"I thought I knew you better than this. But if that's the way you want it," he stands up and is to the door in a flash of his eerie werewolf speed, pulling it open, "that's the way it will be." And he is gone, leaving nothing but his words hanging in the air. The remaining boy stands up and stalks off, filled with desperation to the small side chamber where his mattress is lying in the corner. He attempts to straighten up the room but gives up, collapsing on to his worn mattress with a sound not unlike a strangled sob. His head still rings with Remus's parting words.
That's the way it will be…
He doesn't know how many days have passed. He paces his flat in fits of anxiety then collapses for hours on end, unaware of everything around him. By this time he has acquired the talent of lapsing into unconsciousness on command, which he does between his spurts of burning energy that fill his veins. He locks his door early on to keep Remus away-to keep himself under control-and eats very little, driven by his anger-worry for James and Lily-only as he paces like a caged animal.
He is lying half on his mattress, half on the floor, unconscious, when something shoots through his entire being like a jolt of pain. He jerks awake, all his nerves sharp and buzzing with some unknown sensation. Something prods him to go turn on his radio-something he hasn't done in ages. But this something worries at the fringes of his mind until he pulls himself off the floor and out of his bedroom.
There it is, the old model lying on its side in a corner, disturbed by one of his bursts of energy-madness. He knows that it's madness. He walks over, passing a window that tells him night has fallen, and switches it on, wincing slightly at the burst of static. His stiff fingers adjust the dial to the main news station; for some reason he's incredibly edgy-he knows what's coming. A soft, droning male voice fills the room.
"The followers of You-Know-Who have murdered the inhabitants of five dwellings today. Michael and Allie Baker, Milly Jenkins, Walt Masters, Sam and Catherine Johnson, and James and Lily Potter of the Ministry-" The radio continues on, unknown to him, as he is gone the second the news of a murder reaches his ears.
He sprints down the dark streets now, ignoring the stares of people on the street. He halts in the center of the sidewalk, frozen to the spot as a whisper catches his ear.
"The Potters…"
He Apparates with a loud crack, never more deliberate, determined, or as fixed on his destination as he is now.
A snap announces his arrival and he continues his race against time, passing the swinging sign reading, "Godric's Hollow". As he draws closer, he lets out a desperate moan as the sight and smell of smoke filters through the trees. He picks up his pace now as anxiety-dread, he knows what has happened-gives speed to his weary feet. And then he is there, in the wreckage, the smoldering wreckage, the remains of their cottage…his brain isn't clueing in to the fact that there are clouds covering the moon, the stars; how can he see the horrible sight before him? The green glow on the shattered windows that greet him as he halts, gasping for breath, tell him what he doesn't need to look up to see.
"James? Lily? James! Oh, James, answer me!" he cries out into the dark forest, sounding all the world like a little child who has lost his mother.
Something gleaming in the grass catches his attention and he drifts towards it. He numbly picks it up, and, seeing what it is, he sways, nearly blacking out. Clutched tightly in his fist is a small silver locket with a picture of a lily-of-the-valley engraved on the front. He knows without opening it what the inside says.
To my lovely flower, from your loyal stag. A flash of memories behind his closed eyelids bring him back to the day when James had it engraved…
He waits outside the jeweler's shop with Remus, awaiting the emergence of James from its depths. Remus sits on a bench, reading his latest find, while his companion paces in impatience.
"What does he want to show us again?" he asks for the fifth time in twenty minutes. Remus answers without looking up from the pages of his book.
"He wouldn't say. All he said was that it is something he has wanted to do forever." The other boy groans, continuing to pace.
"Come on Prongs, hurry up!" he growls to himself. Remus sighs in exasperation. But the boys don't have to wait long, as James appears at the shop door, grasping something in his hand. The boys are at his side in a flash, Remus standing a little farther back while the other boy is right up in his face.
"Will you show us what you've been going on about?" he asks hotly, attempting to pry James's hands open. James smiles, a lovely smile that makes his hazel eyes glow. He opens his hand, showing the two boys. It is a small silver locket with a lily engraved on the front. Remus grins while the other boy stiffens.
"You're going to ask her to marry you?" he chokes out, eyes wide. James nods, his expression blissful…
Anger floods through his veins and he lurches forward a step, eyes wild and burning. Wormtail-he's to blame. He will make him pay…dearly, at that.
But the power of his loss grips him in an iron hold and he loses the anger, instead lost in a sea of grief. He loses control totally, falling to his knees, blind through a screen of tears. His outline flickers like a bad television image as his shape shifts to the animal within. He shifts back to human, forward again, back, forth, back…and stays forth. The forbidding clouds above open up, releasing an icy torrent that chills him to the bone. But he doesn't feel it. He feels nothing but the terrible loss that he is suffering.
A lone black dog stands, drenched, in the middle of the smoking ruins of a small cottage, howling a high, beautiful, keening note in a lament to the heavens; howling a promise to the storm…
Remus picks his way through the mess of his friend's apartment the day after he gets the news of James and Lily. Glass lays shattered all across the floor, mixed with feathers from the torn mattress and wood from the splintered chairs. His eyes are red and swollen from weeping as he stops, staring at a shredded picture on the ground.
Not much is distinguishable in the remains of the picture but two men and a woman at a wedding, laughing, with their arms around each other.
Remus knows what will happen next, and isn't surprised when, that night, he hears of the murder of Peter Pettigrew and the arrest of a "dangerous criminal".
"That's the way it will be…" he whispers softly, a dying phrase in the black night.
Far, far away, a black dog huddles in a damp cell, whining softly, mournfully, as grief shoots through him.