Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Contemplations of a Moonbound Soul
By: ChoCedric
November 1981
I am numb. I simply cannot believe the news that I have just been told. It cannot be possible. Sirius couldn't have done that! He couldn't have betrayed James and Lily to their deaths and killed Peter and a street full of Muggles. It's just impossible.
But a niggling part of my mind says: Believe it, Remus. There was the prank in sixth year, wasn't there? Sirius callously told Snape in a fit of anger what your condition was, so why couldn't he turn against you now? But Sirius hates the Dark Arts! another part of my mind argues. He ran from his family to get away from them!
But the evidence is insurmountable. Sirius Black, a man who I thought was one of my dearest friends, has ruined us all, torn us apart. It has not even begun to sink in yet, that I am all alone. All my friends are gone. In less than 24 hours I have lost everyone that is important to me. My friends, my pack, the ones who made my life worth living, the ones who made my transformations worth surviving, are gone, never to return again. Sadness sweeps over me like I have never known it before. How could this have happened? How could everything have been taken away from me in one fell swoop?
I remember everything from our school days, all the times we ever shared. The Sirius I saw splashed on the front of the newspaper, laughing in the street after his horrendous crimes, is not the same Sirius who calmly accepted my lycanthropy like it was nothing and held me while I cried. Even though I suspected him for some time of being the one who was handing information over to Voldemort, I cursed myself for thinking that. The prank in sixth year was the main reason for this belief, but there's still part of it that doesn't make sense. Why would Sirius go through the whole thing of disowning his family, only to turn around and follow in their footsteps? The whole thing just doesn't add up.
And Peter, oh, little Peter. Why did he go after Sirius like that? Peter's always been a bit clumsy, and James and Sirius liked to tease him a lot. I have a feeling Peter always wanted to be the hero, to have people look up to him. Well, he finally got what he always wanted, going out in a blaze of glory. Order of Merlin, First Class. But it's just not fair! Peter didn't deserve to die. James and Lily didn't deserve to die. Harry doesn't deserve to be an orphan. That shocks me as well, that little Harry survived and that Voldemort disappeared. Dumbledore already explained his theory to me, about how he survived because of his mother's love, but it still baffles me that a one-year-old child could survive the most unforgivable of curses.
Tears pour down my face as I remember how loving all my friends were, how they turned into Animagi for me, how they accepted me unconditionally. Well, a part of me says, you should've known it wouldn't last. Who was I to think that a monster like me even deserved any friends? I should've realized that they would all go away in the end. I am alone now, and I will be for the rest of my life. Why can't I transform now? I think bitterly. At least it will take this heartwrenching grief and transfer it to an animal form of the emotion. I long to howl at the moon, to rip at myself, bite myself, claw at myself.
I will never be the same again. I am friendless and alone, now and forevermore.
June 1994
My heart is filled with mixed emotions. There is joy, sadness, anger, and guilt gnawing inside of me. There are millions of could haves and should haves flitting around in my mind, but I know there is nothing I can do about them now.
I am currently in the Shrieking Shack, hugging Sirius. Yes, my best friend, Sirius. It wasn't him who betrayed the Potters after all. It was Peter, harmless little Peter who wanted a role of his own. I'd thought him a foolish hero for these many years, but now I know he's nothing but a cowardly traitor. He turned against us to ally himself with the biggest bully on the playground. He hasn't shown himself yet, but I know the time will come soon enough.
Oh, Sirius. The guilt I feel as I hug his gaunt, thin frame is unimaginable. I let him rot in that hell for twelve years without doing a thing to try to help him. I was his best friend but still turned against him. I should've seen the signs that Peter was betraying us! I should've remembered how completely sorry Sirius was for the prank in sixth year, that he was utterly downcast after the whole affair. I should've remembered his loving looks that he always gave to the Potter family, and his fury always directed at Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Oh, my friend doesn't look like himself at all. His eyes are haunted, filled with the ghosts of Azkaban. He's forever tainted now with the reek of the dementors, I can't even imagine the memories they must have evoked in him.
And Harry. Oh, Harry. James and Lily's son has grown up to be a tremendous young man. He's got the mischievousness and recklessness of his father but the loving and kind heart of his mother. Right now he's furious with me because he thinks I've allied myself with a mass murderer, but once Sirius and I explain the entire tale and Peter shows himself, all will be worked out, I know it. If that rat doesn't show himself, we'll make him. And then we'll seek justice together. I don't know what's going to happen with Sirius now; I just hope to Merlin that he can be freed and regain his standing in wizarding society. He deserves all that and more. I can see that he's going to need a lot of care and understanding over these next months, and I will try my best to provide that for him. I'm so very sorry I betrayed him, because that's what I think of it as: a betrayal. I didn't see that it wasn't him who committed those atrocities, and I didn't do a thing to try to ease his suffering. But I will do my absolute best to make up for my error in judgment, and try to help my best friend get his life back.
June 1996
Oh God. I should've known it would come to this.
My best friend, the only friend I had left, is dead. Now there is no doubt in my mind that I am completely alone.
And it's all my fault. Sirius made me promise him that I'd let him go to fight for Harry. He begged me, said that he had to do this for Lily and James, he pleaded with me to let him so that he didn't fail them again. I tried my best to reason with him, to explain that Lily and James wouldn't want him caught or killed, but he didn't listen, and there was absolutely nothing I could do. I should've known something like this would happen. As he fell through the veil, his haunted gray eyes looked right at me, and he tried to convey to me not to blame myself, but how can I not? I didn't try to keep him away from the fight. Why did he always have to be so darn reckless?
I feel awful, because I don't reckon I did enough for him while he was still alive. I feel terribly guilty for transforming at the last moment, allowing Peter to escape and Sirius to have to go on the run again. Life must have been unbelievably miserable that year he was eating rats and hiding out in caves. Then Dumbledore confined him to Grimmauld of all places, a house he hated with every fiber of his being. I had to be out much of the time doing duties for the Order, and I could sense how lonely Sirius was. But I had to fulfill what I was meant to, and couldn't be there for him the whole time, but now, especially because he's gone, I feel the guilt spiral over me.
I just hope that wherever Sirius is now, he's at peace. The last fifteen years of his life were unfair in the worst way possible, and even though he made mistakes in the past, he didn't deserve the hell that was Azkaban. It wasn't right that he had to be on the run or in this lonely, desolate house. I am sitting in his room now, staring at all his things and crying because I know that this time, he's not coming back; there is no breaking out of death. I am the last true Marauder, for there is no way I am counting Peter as one of us anymore.
Even though I am broken right now, I will strengthen my resolve and do all I can to help Harry. I do not blame him for Sirius's death; how could he have known that Voldemort was setting a trap for him? It would be illogical of me to pin blame upon his shoulders. I know he's already blaming himself enough as it is. He doesn't need his father's last true living friend to condemn him.
So rest well, Sirius, and please forgive me for not helping you more, for all the wrong I've ever done to you. I hope you, Lily, and James are happy, and I hope to see you again beyond the veil. Knowing you, you will be far from resting, you'll be pulling a prank every other minute. As I imagine this, a small smile tugs at the corners of my mouth.
I know I am alone now, but I will always have my friends' memories to keep me going, and it's all I, Remus Lupin, can ever ask for.