Happy New Year! I hope you all had a good time celebrating, whatever you did. I don't do New Year's resolutions but I am aware of the half finished drabbles building up and I want to get on with finishing up Fix so I've made a vow to myself to try and post everything quickly before the week is out, so just get ready for a huge explosion. Pray for me!
Remus turned around before he got to the hall, his frayed satchel clutched in one shaky hand. He looked around the living room and found himself unable to believe that he would never return to this place again. It had only been their - his and Sirius's - home for a little over two years, but they had left their mark everywhere. Now it was destroyed. The Ministry had ripped the place apart, searching for any evidence they could find, tearing and smashing and blitzing anything in sight.
Their home was ruined. Their lives were ruined. And it was all Sirius's fault. And although his head throbbed and his hands were trembling and he wanted nothing more than to disappear so that he could forget the nights events with the aid of half a bottle of Firewhiskey, Remus couldn't resist looking around just one more time.
He retreated back in to the living room. The walls were still painted the pale maroon colour that Sirius had chosen when they first moved in. They had spent a whole afternoon slathering it on to the walls in companionable silence whilst the wireless Peter had gave them played tinny tunes. It wasn't until now that Remus realised that Sirius choosing the maroon had probably had something to do with Hogwarts. Maybe copying the common room they had spent so many happy hours in had brought him comfort, some form of safety. There had only been one sofa. It had been cracked brown leather and the seats had always sagged lower than they should have, but that was just fine with them. Remus remembered the nights the two of them had spent sat on it, just talking for hours as they passed back and forth a cheap bottle of wine and a packet of cigarettes, perhaps even occasionally a spliff. He couldn't even remember what they had talked about, but those lost conversations hardly mattered now. The pine bookshelf that had once held seemingly hundreds of Remus's battered old books now lay in splintered fragments on the ground, but this didn't particularly sadden Remus because it had never been big enough. There had still always been many more books simply piled up in precariously teetering towers on the floor. They had drove Sirius crazy because he was forever tripping over them or stubbing his tone on their sharp corners.
Remus turned around on the spot to face the kitchen that was joined on in the same room. This feature had always irritated him because whenever they cooked something smelly, like onions, the scent would linger around the flat for days, along with the faint smell of dog that they could for some reason never shift. There was a large dent in the wall where Sirius had hurled the largest cooking pan at Remus in an argument, and another lighter dent in the wall opposite where Remus had thrown it back. The memory wasn't really as violent as it seemed; they had both been roaring drunk, and had immediately fled to the bedroom to make up with furious sex afterwards. And on the other wall was the long tea stain where Peter had accidently tripped and splashed a whole cup of tea up the wall. Every time he looked at it Sirius would promise that tomorrow would be the day he'd paint over it, but tomorrow never seemed to come with Sirius. And Remus now realised that it never would. That stain would always remain there, dark and ugly against the pale cream wall. The kitchen cupboard on the left was the one where they had kept the wine and the whiskey and whatever else people liked to drink, because Remus and Sirius were always entertaining. James was always game for a messy drinking session, but now he'd never been around for another one again.
The next room to enter was the main bedroom. At first Remus didn't think he could bear setting foot through the door, which swung creakily off its hinges, but with the mustering courage that gathered in a deep breath he managed to step inside. This was, naturally, the first room in the flat that they had christened. What had seemed like such a special moment at the time now sickened Remus. The thought that he had allowed such a monster to be that close made him want to vomit all over the faded blue carpet. There hadn't been much furniture inside, just more of Remus's books and the wardrobe that had contained mostly Sirius's clothes, his velvet jackets and his silk waist coats. Then there was the large comfy bed that on numerous occasions both had been thrown out of. Remus looked at the torn sheets strewn across it and almost had the urge to crawl under them, sobbing in to the pillows because he knew that he would never sleep in this bed again, with Sirius or otherwise alone. On the floor were the photograph albums that used to be stowed under the bed. Their bindings were squashed and some of the photographs had escaped after being shaken roughly all over the floor. Remus didn't even both picking them up to see which ones they were, because he knew that doing so would be the thing that finally sent him over the edge.
The next room was the spare bedroom, which was quite empty. They had always meant to sit down and discuss decorating the room together, but they had never found the time, although back then they had had all the time in the world. This was where Sirius had shoved the piano he had inherited from a deceased auntie until they managed to find space in the living room for it there. Sirius knew how to play, and so did Remus, but not as well. Sirius promised that he would some day teach him. Remus could remember the smile on Sirius's face as he animatedly told him how the piano would be the talking point of all of their parties, how everybody was going to gather around and listen as he played, singing and laughing together. This had happened once, and everybody had quickly disappeared from the room as Sirius's off key, drunken playing became more than they could bear. Remus trailed his hands over the keys, which stuck out at odd angles, some snapped off completely all together. He pressed his finger down on one of the keys. A small, tinkling tune hung eerily in the air.
Next he lingered in the bathroom doorway. This was where, bizarrely, Harry had taken his first steps. He had crawled off whilst the Marauders and his mother had been chatting, and Sirius had gone off in a panicked search to find his Godson tottering ever so slowly and carefully from the sink over to the bath tub, on the other side of the room. They had all been so amazed by the achievement that they had crouched together in the doorway, watching for ten whole minutes as Harry gradually quickened his speed, giggling away to himself at his newly discovered trick. After that moment sex in the bathroom was strictly off limits, because both Remus and Sirius had agreed that doing so now made them feel uncomfortable. Remus glanced over the slightly cracked bathtub and sighed. Sometimes they took baths together there, but not very often because Remus had always saw bath time as a time to have to himself, and Sirius could only persuade Remus when he was in a particularly good mood, or if it was one of their Birthdays or something pointless like that. And there was the mirror above the sink which Remus had never been a fan of himself, seeing his peaky and scarred reflection only depressed him, but Sirius used to spend ages stood in front of that mirror, agonising over imaginary spots and trying to get his gorgeous black hair to fall just right, rituals which were now pointless because Remus never wanted to set eyes on him again.
He tried to push the image of Sirius from his mind as he quickly turned and went back to the hall. A single tear slid silently down his cheek. He wished so badly that things could return to the way they were, that somehow the flat would return itself to its former lovingly tarnished glory and that he'd look to see Sirius walking through the door, an attractive, mischievous smile playing on his lips. But Remus's lover was gone, his friends too, though in a different way entirely. All of the people that mattered in the world had been taken from him, and it hurt like hell.
He had come full circle. Stood alone in the hall, Remus took his house keys out of his pocket and dropped them carelessly on to the floor. He wrapped his fingers tightly around his satchel, cleared his throat, and walked on. There was no point in dwelling on the past, none of it mattered now.