Note (2013): So this is a one shot I wanted to do for a written fic by Ryane-Foxx for the story Happenings of Love in chapter ten of her story, the things in italics is her original writing and then the rest is my own. I wanted to do a tragedy, different from what had happened after the tenth chapter. Obviously it's a one shot and not too detailed and somewhat rushed. **sweatdrop** But I still enjoyed writing it. A bit AU considering Sirius is alive and that Harry had done something that hadn't been done in canon concerning Grimmauld Place Number 12.

*re-edited 4/1/2017

He recalled it all in the same way one recalled a bitter sweet or the ripples of a faraway memory.

It came, unobstructed and unhindered, no matter how much he wished to forget.

"I am leaving," Everything in the room seemed to freeze and all of Harry's happy emotions fell off the radar and into despair mixed with confusion.

"You're…you're leaving? What…why?"

"It's something I've been thinking about for some time now. I think it would be better for me to be with the Pack so I am going to stay with them."

"...Of course Remy, whatever makes you happy."

It came in the minutes he didn't wish to hear it. It came in the hours when he was all alone.

A bitter sort of memory that almost seemed like a horrible nightmare. Of demons that snickered in the background, twisting his mind and his heart, until there was nothing but the hollow hole in his chest.

Yet, it was very real, the sort of demons that cling and never let go.

The demons that eat and tear and make sure you never forget.

He wishes to though - to forget. It would be so much more simpler then. If he could, he would erase it from his memory, every little thing that connected itself to that man. Then it wouldn't hurt anymore. Then he wouldn't lock up and recall it with such vivid detail (as if it were happening again) and he'd be so free.

(If he could, he would.)

He would draw his wand and tear those memories straight out, as easy as popping a balloon.

(He can.)

He can't.

He want's to though, oh does he want. He wants to forget the face that spoke to him, never looking, always too far away. He wants to forget the words, the finality of them, even as he struggles to breathe and believe that such a warm voice couldn't be so cruel.

(It is.)

It's taken its toll, he knows. He knows it the same way one knows the sky is blue.

It hurts and he wants to forget.

He wants to forget the wide green eyes rounded by dark, sleepless lines. He wants to forget the jagged, unmapped scars of his body, the ones that burned even now, and popped out in white painful turns.

He wants to forget how his heart beats so steadily and then so fast, burning and then chocking, as if wanting to burst outwards from his body and watch him fall dead. He wants to forget the whispers, the biting words, everything that made him Harry Potter.

(The boy who loved too much.)

"Don't be an idiot. Something like you doesn't deserve a single thing like that."

Were they right?

(It's sinking further.)

Were they right to say such things? Nothing has told him they are wrong. That is his relatives were ridiculous to say one single human being doesn't deserve an ounce of happiness.

(It's eating away again.)

Are they right? He knows he hasn't been the best sort of person. He certainly had made things difficult. Yet surely even something like him isn't so dirty to not be gifted with something so, so precious. Something so warm and forgiving, lighting up his world (in the same way it burned and caved away) when Remus was there. Surely -

"Something like you -"

He wants to forget.

(Harry is tearing away at his skin, cleaning and scrubbing till his flesh bled, and his vision became nothing more than a hazy, single minded need.)

He really wants to forget it all.

(He can.)

He cant.

(He is crying now. Fingers clawing at the tears circling down his face in hot droplets.)

"Is there something wrong with me?"

He wanted to forget all these horrible feelings, all the things he had pushed away for so long through trials and fire. He wanted to forget the hurt and the hot boiling emotions scarring at his heart, he wanted to forget because dammit - Harry had done too much to want to fall so hard.

(The boy who gave too much.)

Harry knew he loved too much. That his heart, as broken and as furiously beating it was, trying to burst from his chest, that he loved too much. He gave too much (and sometimes he wondered if it were enough). He gave because he loved, it didn't matter how much it hurt, leaving himself open like that, allowing others to turn everything into dust. He loved too much so much that he'd go through all seven levels of hell (if it meant for just one more chance).

Harry really doesn't understand why this has happened. Why was he running? Why was Remus leaving? He never explained, never said, just turned his gaze and walked out the door. It broke his heart to know that the man Harry loved with his entire being had run away because of him; was he so unwanted, unloved?

(He didn't want to believe them.)

Harry just wanted to understand.

(It was so hard to not believe them.)

But he ran.

Remus had run and left him with nothing more but the quiet, stifling silence of his departure. Harry couldn't understand why - why someone would choose to deny what the universe gave, the happiness available for the two of them where everything else was denied.

Harry wondered if it were simply too disgusting, too unfathomable to comprehend - being his dead friends son - is this the reason Remus had gone? Questions unanswered spun through his mind and Harry wondered, pitifully, if he were seeing what he had just wanted to see until the very end. Had he been disillusioned in believing that Remus would ever give him the time of day? Had he mistaken and given too much hope that Remus would consider? Had he not considered Remus' own feelings?

"Why?! I just…!"

Harry felt his world crumble so easily, his strength and courage breaking into nothing but ruins. Despair washed over him, eating away at his soul as he recounted and played the past few days behind closed eye lids. It didn't help, it wouldn't help because all he saw and heard was the cruel reality of someone he cared for leaving, of abandoning him when he believed everything would be okay now. (The war is over, the shadows can never fade, but even just a little bit of light can be okay, can't it?) The elation he had felt before, it was going now, it is gone now, it's dissipated into a puff of smoke.

There must be something wrong with him.

There is something wrong with him.

(Harry curled tightly into his covers, knuckles turning white as he pressed his face down as if in prayer. He cried. There was nothing to do but cry as the room became just a little too compact and his breathing became ragged. He cried and wondered if there was anything to just make it stop. Just for a moment.)

Just for a moment he wanted it to stop.

Without thought he slipped off the bed, staggering towards the dresser where his wand lay, innocent and unassuming.

(Just for a moment, the light at the tip glowed and seemed to whisper this.)

There wasn't anyway to do that though.

(Of course there is.)

Wouldn't so many others have told?

(They have.)

The light of his wand erupted like an inferno and Harry made no sound as he toppled over with no warning.

There was not a movement, not a sound, the house just seemed to still as if in awareness of what occurred.

(The wrong that had become of him.)

("Some friends don't understand this. They don't understand how desperate I am to have someone say, 'I love you and I support you just the way you are because you're wonderful just the way you are.' They don't understand that I can't remember anyone ever saying that to me.")

In a clean and orderly white room there lay but a single color. Black. It was the color of his hair, curled and plastered around pale skin. This boy slept peacefully, his dreams uninterrupted by the sadness and tension that hung to the person sitting beside him with their head hung low and eyes tired with nightmares.

Harry Potter is alive but he will never live.

He resides in his dreams now, where anything is possible.

Remus Lupin does not have that luxury. Instead he must sit beside the one thing he had mistaken: his mate.