There was no rationale to returning to this house. Not now. What little life it had possessed for the past couple of years had gone.
Sirius had gone.
There was no 'hiya Moony', when I entered this time.
There was no 'can we play fetch?' or 'won't you stay longer, this time?'
There was no Sirius.
I made my way upstairs, to the bedroom I had been in with Sirius and the hippogriff not three hours earlier.
Sirius' coffee sat on the floor, half drunk.
"Now isn't the time to be putting bloody pots away", he had said.
I'd rolled my eyes and lectured him about the fact that the hippogriff could knock it over.
Such a waste of time.
I could have told him I would take it.
I could have told him it didn't matter, because we were together again and what was a trivial mug of spilt coffee after everything else.
It was nothing.
I left the room, then.
I left the cup there.
I think I hoped he might come back to it. That I might come back and find him lounging there with his feet up on the hippogriff, like I had found him when I had arrived this morning.
When he was still with me.
"Hey Moony," he had said, "Look! We've got a furry problem here."
"They're feathers, Sirius," I had chided.
Why did I criticise him? It was our last day together.
I should have just laughed, rolled my eyes.
Reminded him how happy I was to have him back.
I hadn't done that for months. I hadn't told him how much I had missed him. How much my life depends upon his.
Depended.
No, there was nothing to do in this room.
So, the hippogriff might knock it over.
I didn't care.
It didn't matter anymore.
Nothing mattered.
He had gone.
This was it, now.
There was no chance of a reunion this time.
He would never criticise me and Molly for being overbearing.
He wouldn't attempt to blast a hole through the wall to remove his mother's portrait.
He wouldn't complain about this house.
His prison out of prison.
Oh hindsight, how wretched you are.
If only I had known what was to come. I'd have supported him in leaving the house, instead of enforcing the imprisonment.
I'd have given him everything.
I'd still give him everything.
Everything to have him back.
I left the room, then, and passed a few doors on my way back to the stairs.
His door was still open.
I hadn't noticed before.
I think he enjoys seeing people pass by.
He enjoys realising that he isn't alone anymore.
Enjoyed.
I noted that his socks were still on the floor.
'It's a waste of time putting them away,' he told me, 'I'm only going to put them back on again.'
What had I said?
I'd asked him if he had anything better to do.
He didn't speak to me then, for five minutes.
Five wasted minutes.
Five minutes in which we could have shared stories of old.
Told one another how fond we were of one another, and of how much we looked forward to a future.
But there would be none now.
There would be nothing.
He is nothing.
He is gone.
There was a sound downstairs then.
It broke me from my reverie.
I rushed down.
'Sirius', I cried.
It wasn't Sirius.
Of course it wasn't Sirius.
It would never be Sirius.
Sirius was no more.
It was Kingsley.
He looked at me the way I used to look at Sirius.
Pity.
Concern.
It was too late to be concerned about Sirius now.
There was no Sirius.
I don't even think there is a me.
I am alone.
Again.
'Cause all of the stars
Are fading away
Just try not to worry
You'll see them some day.
Stop crying your heart out.
