P.,

It was quite cold today, and overcast. London weather as usual, I suppose. My umbrella blew away from me in the rain again this morning, and I remembered when that happened on Platform 9 3/4 the day we graduated Hogwarts. You, James, Peter and Lily stood and laughed at me as I ran frantically after my tattered old umbrella, only to see it fly onto the tracks and lose its battle with the wind to an oncoming train. You bought me a new umbrella the next day.

I got to the library for about an hour after work and I found that muggle book that you used to quote incessantly, Robin Hood. You dressed as Robin for Halloween every year, until 5th year when you went as Professor McGonagall. You always did look dashing in that jauntily tilted green hat, running about with a sword and nicking knuts from Slytherins to give to first year Gryffindors. I read a few pages and nearly started blubbering there in the stacks. (I'm not a girl, so stop with the obnoxious grinning. I know you're doing it and I demand that you cease immediately.) I didn't check out the book. I did, however, pet a large black dog on my way home, and call it Padfoot. Obviously it didn't respond, nor did it turn into a gangly man with black hair and eyes that (if you'll pardon the romance) I used to fall into so easily.

It's been nearly 4 years now, and I still can't...

I love you.

-M.

Remus writes him a letter almost every day. There are over 1,400 of them lying in shoe boxes underneath his bed. None of them are terribly exciting. Mostly he just recounts the events of his day, as he would, were Sirius sitting at the dining room table when he came home from work. Sometimes he begins what could be The Letter, the one that would say everything that Remus beat into the wall in the weeks following Sirius' death, but he never finishes, instead choosing to end most of his letters with a cryptic half-sentence, into which he packs more tears than he's ever cried in his life.

Remus worries that he's the only one who's not moved on. He worries that he's hiding and dwelling on the past, but he can't seem to leave his flat for much more than work, and an occasional trip to the library, or to visit Harry or the Weasleys. He worries that he's become a hermit, but reasons that he's too old, too jaded, too gay to start again with something (someone?) new. He's sure that no one will want an aging werewolf with more emotional baggage than most soap opera characters. So instead of moving on, he writes his letters.

He writes his letters to Sirius, who will never answer them, and waits for time to take its toll. It's not as if he has anything left. The only thing waiting for him, the only thing he has ever wanted, is just behind that veil...