"Lily I'm so happy for you!"

"James told you already, didn't he? I told him- you can tell Sirius, I get Remus!" Remus had the good grace to look embarrassed.

"Well, yeah he did but…"

"Oh Remus I don't care, I'm just so happy! I can't believe I get to spend the rest of my life with him- that he wants to spend is with me." Lily's eyes were wide in awe and glistening with unshed tears of joy; they looked all the more spectacular for it.

"Who wouldn't want to spend the rest of their life trying to make you smile? And laugh, who could help but love Lily Evans?" He whispered.

"Lily Potter." She corrected with a laugh as she through her arms around his neck. He closed her eyes as he savoured her unique smell and the way that she felt wrapped in his welcoming arms.

"I love him so much Remus! I didn't think it was possible to love someone this much, I think my heart might actually burst with it.

"I think my heart might break with it." He muttered unheard, clamping his eyes shut behind her back to hold back the impending tears.

A "pop" sounded but he didn't look up, he simply reached for the bottle once again. He served himself a generous glass and quickly downed it before trying again to drown his woe. Unable to decide which of the two tumblers was real he abandoned his attempt and instead lifted what little was left of the whisky to his dry lips and took slug from the bottle.

"You heard then?" A familiar voice asked. The beaten man paused a moment before taking another swig, it was the only acknowledgement she would receive.

"I've seen you looking at her. You can never have her, you know that don't you?" He squeezed shut his gritty eyes, took a ragged breath then another swig.

"It kills you doesn't it? It's like a razor blade to your soul when she smiles and it's for him. When she has that flush to her cheeks and it's because he's just kissed her. When she has that glow and the glint in her eye and it's because he made love to her last night."

"Shut up."

"And you'd rather be deaf than hear her tell you once more that she loves him, but then you wouldn't get to hear her sweet voice. When she hugs you, you die a little more inside because it's no longer her you feel but him; it's no longer her scent you smell but his aftershave."

"Shut up."

"And when she sighs his name and cries because he's not there…"

"Stop it!"

"…you hate yourself because when she sobs in your arms you never want her to stop, and you feel sick because he's your best friend and a little piece of you wishes this time he won't survive, he won't come back and she won't run to his embrace."

"STOP IT."

"It tears you up, it shreds your soul because you can't have her and there is no one else in the world quite like your Lily, but she's not your Lily is she? She is his. And every smile is tainted and when she tells you that she loves you your heart breaks just as she mends it because it's not the way you want her to."

He placed shaking hands over his ears as he fell to his knees on the floor shaking his head.

"Shut up. Shut up! SHUT UP!"

She walked towards him and took his hands in her own. He looked up to meet her eye, his face streaked from his weeping. He looked so lost, so confused.

"How many pieces is your heart in? How many more can it break into before it can never be repaired?"

She met his steady gaze from where he knelt at her feet.

"How dead are you inside? How much darker can you get before there is no light that can reach you?"

"How-" he croaked, "How do you know?"

"Look at me- can you not see your reflection in my eyes? I know the fear of being discovered. The hate you feel for yourself and despite yourself him. The love that eats you from the inside because it can never be let out. Can never be shared. The aching guilt that never subsides; only grows because you cannot help but feel all of it- and the numbness of feeling it all for too long and too deeply."

She knelt before him and took his face in her hands so delicately, with such tenderness that he almost collapsed under the one more feeling.

"I…"

"Kiss me." She ordered there was no alternative he could see to her soft command. He pressed his lips to hers and moved roughly against them. When she opened her mouth to him, he didn't hesitate to plunge his tongue inside. Before he understood that they had stood, they were in his bedroom and she was deftly removing both his and her own clothing. All he could do was tangle his fingers in her hair and cling to her lips- if he lost contact he didn't know what would happen only that it would be terrible. Suddenly she broke the kiss leaving him panting. She steeped back and reached behind her, she undid the clasp and let her lavender bra fall to the floor.

He shook his head. "I…no…I"

"Shh…" she said placing her finger on his lips before stepping out of her knickers and lying on his bed. "Make love to me."

"But I… I don't love you." He said bluntly.

"I love you enough for the both of us. Make love to me…Remus." He blinked and the brown hair became a glorious auburn- only one person called him by his first name, to everyone else he was Moony or Lupin. He knelt on the bed and swept uncertain hands down the milky whit skin spread before him. He shook as he lay beside her and looked into deep pools of emerald. He moved a tendril of red hair from her face and stroked one thumb down her cheek, so tenderly, so lovingly before kissing her reverently as he pushed inside her. He moved his open mouth against hers and moaned as her eyes closed and she began to move with him. He gasped as she arched her back and he kissed the valley between two perfect breasts. He looked up to see a single tear escape and wind its way down her face.

"Don't stop." She said. He moved again.

"Why are you crying? Don't cry."

"I love you so much."

"I love you too." He cried out as she clenched around him at his words. "Lily!"

"Yes." She whispered as he collapsed on top of her. She enfolded him, touching every bruised and battered inch of him to her rapidly cooling skin. "Yes Remus." She was sure he was asleep before she let herself cry. She stroked his soft hair as he lay on her chest.

"Every smile tainted, every piece broken into just one more."