But grief,
grief makes us all precisions, analyzing each other
to death: You failed me, and this is exactly how.

-Susan Glickman

October 31st, 1981

Sirius Black speeds towards a dead house. He knows it is a dead house, but he hopes he is wrong. Hopes with every nerve ending and every bone in his body, that his friends have not crumbled into ash, or drifted into stardust or whatever the fuck happens to you when your body is no longer yours and the life has seeped out of your fingertips.

It is Halloween - James' favourite holiday - and Sirius had bought Harry a stag costume that he will never get to wear. He had gone to see if Pete wanted to come with him to the Potter's. Pete was missing, and it didn't seem like there had been a struggle. Sirius' heart had sunk into his stomach as he hopped onto his bike, heat zinging through his body as he struggled to breathe.

He throws up when he sees the house. Ruined. Cracked into pieces. He makes his way towards the door, knowing he has to, but wanting to run away from it, run right back through time to when they were young and hopeful and his best friend was bursting with life.

The door is open a crack. Sirius slips through, walking into the living room, facing the stairs.

James.

James is there. Lifeless, an imprint of who he once was. His glasses are crooked, his eyes blank. James. James. James, James JaMES, JAMES JAMES JAMES.

Sirius yells at the top of his lungs. Shaking what is left of his brother, tears rolling down his cheeks. But it is not enough. Love has never been enough.

Death churns in his stomach and rises up his throat. He sits next to the corpse of his best friend, holding his cold hand. Sirius closes his eyes, trying to wish them all back into yesterday, to fix this, to bring them back so he can tell them all he loves them. He can't remember the last time he said it.

Then he hears a cry. A sound he would recognize anywhere, the source of weeks of dark circles under the eyes, and small smiles on lips.

Harry.

There's no way. but he hears it again. And then he's rushing up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Because that is his godson, and Sirius is all he has left. He is all Sirius has left.

Lily lies by the entrance to the room. Sirius chokes down a sob. She is just as lifeless as James, no longer the Lily he knew, but still part of her. Her eyes are flat. It is something he never thought he would see. He resists the urge to try to shake her awake, to do the same things he did downstairs, because Harry is there and he is alive, and he is the most beautiful thing Sirius has ever seen.

Sirius picks him up, tries to tell him it's okay. It doesn't work. Harry has alway been smart enough to tell when someone's lying.

They make there way downstairs. Tears on both of their faces. They pass James again, and Harry cries out.

It's alright, Sirius whispers. The words are fake and cracked, coated in pain.

They make it outside, walking far down the street, away from the dead house full of dead people and dead memories. Harry stops crying, and he looks up at Sirius with a confused look on his face, as if to ask him to explain. Sirius wishes he could.

Some time later, Hagrid shows up, taking a shaking breath when he sees what once was the Potter's home. He tells Sirius that Dumbledore asked him to collect Harry, that he was going to Lily's sister, Petunia. Sirius argues. He's Harry's godfather, he is the one Lily and James wanted to take care of Harry, not god-awful Petunia of all people. Harry is all he has left.

But somehow, maybe it's the grief or the growing rage in his stomach, he concedes. Harry can brave the Dursleys for a few days, he thinks, while he takes care of Peter. Then he'll go get Harry, and they'll figure it out together. Find a way to move on.

He kisses Harry's forehead as he hands him to Hagrid, whispering words to him that mean nothing.

You'll be alright. We'll be alright. Good luck. I love you.

And then they're gone and Sirius is shaking again and he squeezes his hands into fists, strengthening his resolve. He has been broken open and flipped inside out, his head a jumble of meaningless things and the names of his dead friends in the house across the street. But he knows this: you don't betray your brothers, and if you do, there has to be a price.

October 31st, 1981

Lily Potter hears her husband's body thump to the ground.

Her heart stops but her feet don't, barricading the door even as she sobs out a breath and her head is whirling with all the things she never got to say.

She knows she will be next. There is not a world in which Lily can go on without James. It is scientifically impossible. She tells Harry she loves him, that James loves him, that he will be okay. One word rings in her head.

DEAD. DEAd. Dead. dead dead deaddeaddead.

James is dead and she is going to join him, but she will do everything she can to make sure Harry is safe. Maybe it'll be be enough, maybe it won't, but this is her son, and just because he light is about to flick out doesn't mean his will too.

He tells her to stand aside when he comes sweeping in, and she spits in his face.

She goes down with defiance in her eyes and pleading words on her lips. She goes down thinking of her family, thinking of everything she has lost and everything he has gained.

She goes down with love in her heart and hope in her finger tips, another addition to the long list of the dead. A sacrifice. Maybe that's all she was ever going to be.

November 1st, 1981

Remus finds out in the dark meeting room with the rest of the order, and his heart nearly stops. His friends are dead, betrayed by one of their own. By the boy who made dirty jokes, and smiled in the face of danger, who they had thought was different than the rest of his family, who he had trusted with his life.

Remus Lupin will never see his friends again. He will never hear Lily's laugh or see James ruffle his hair. He will never see Peter's eyes light up with a new idea.

Remus feels empty. He feels like he could punch through a wall, but he doesn't have the energy. He feels hollow and dry, like he is seven again and his parents are ushering him outside, telling him it will be okay, but he has no idea what they're talking about. He feels the fear in his stomach and the startling knowledge that nothing is ever going to be okay again.

When he asks Dumbledore about Harry, his throat closing up as he thinks of the boy he never knew, the boy that is all that is left of his friends, Dumbledore tells him that Harry has gone to live with Lily's sister. Remus protests, arguing that she is the worst person he has ever met, that there is no way she can be trusted to raise Harry. Dumbledore tells him they have no other option, that Harry will be safest there. Remus tells him that is the stupidest load of shit he has heard in a long time.

He gets their address.

When he apparates into Little Whinging the next day, the air is crisp, and the sun shining. He can feel the wind whistling through his bones, carrying with it the words of broken promises and shaking hands, of late night laughter and the feeling of family.

He paces for an hour before he finally works up the courage to knock on the door, because this is Harry and Harry needs someone who can actually take care of him, and because Remus can't bear the thought of never meeting him at all.

When he knocks, a round man with a red face and a spectacularly awful mustache opens the door.

This must be Vernon. He had heard Lily talk about him after she had had too many drinks, a cynical tone in her voice as she told them horror stories about the family she maybe still wished she had.

He tries to close the door immediately, knowing just by looking at Remus that he is one of them. But Remus stops him. Please, he says, his voice strained and tears rising in the back of his throat. I just want to see him. I was their friend.

The door is slammed in his face.

Remus crumples to the ground, and finally lets himself cry. He is wracked with sobs right there on the stoop of this house. He cries for his friends who are gone and shouldn't be, for the little boy in there who will not know his own parents, for the friendship he let himself believe was real, for the idiotic hope in his chest that maybe this is all a misunderstanding.

He scratches at his arms until he sees blood, but the pain does nothing. He has nothing. And when you have nothing, is there a point in trying to live at all?

Remus doesn't know if there is. But he doesn't know what else to do.

He returns the next day, and the day after that, until Vernon calls the police and Dumbledore makes him swear not to go back. Those words burn down his throat, lighting a fire in his stomach, a fire that feels a lot like giving up. It burns and burns and burns, threatening to take him over, to turn him into ash. It singes his hair, and makes his clothes smell like smoke. The fire burns until it is the only thing Remus has left.

November 2nd, 1981

Petunia finds out about her sister's death through a bloody letter. A letter and a baby with a scar on his forehead that are sitting on her front porch, without a single person in sight to explain what the fuck is going on.

She knows as soon as she sees the boy. The baby has a shock of messy dark hair, and eyes the exact shade as her sister's. There is a sinking in her stomach that is part grief, part confusion, and part rage because how dare Lily die like this and then just expect her to pick up the pieces. How dare she die without Petunia ever getting to tell her that somewhere in the back of her heart she never wanted Lily to leave in the first place.

Vernon reads the letter after her. He says they had it coming. Petunia numbly nods her head, not sure whether she should scream or cry or not do anything at all. Vernon says they should give the boy to the orphanage in town, that they cannot take in someone of his kind. Petunia tells him it wouldn't be safe, what if someone found out about him and traced him back to them? A part of her is stuck on what the letter says, that he won't be safe anywhere else, and she can't bear the thought of the last little bit of the sister she hated, the sister she wanted to get rid of for so many years, being left to the dust.

So they will take him in, but he was still one of them, and Vernon was adamant that the child know he was not as good as the rest of the Dursleys, that he was not their own. Part of Petunia agreed.

Later in the day, a man comes by, a hollow look in his eyes and desperation written all over his face. He wants to see Harry, he says he was Lily and James friend. Vernon slams the door before he can say anything else. They hear him crying outside the door, and Vernon almost tells him to fuck off, but Petunia stops him, telling him to let the man be, that Vernon shouldn't have to associate with them anyways.

She starts planning the funeral that day. She doesn't know what to do, not with this baby who wants his parents, who she has to tell that his parents aren't coming to save him. They are never coming back again.

She plans a nice funeral for them, despite knowing she doesn't have to. She does it for eight-year-old Lily whom she loved with all her heart, who would skip through the trees with her and play dress up. She does it for the sister she wishes she had.

That night, when the rest of the house is asleep, Petunia finally lets herself cry. Not a lot, but enough so that she feels she can move on in the morning.

November 1st, 1981

Peter Pettigrew finds out about the Potter's death from a seething Sirius Black, rage in his eyes and in his heart, his wand pointed at Peter's face, But Peter knew this would be coming, and he has a plan.

Peter has been scared since the beginning of this war. All of his actions have been fuelled by this crippling fear, by the realization that he was on the losing side. He never wanted it to come to this, never wanted to betray his friends, but what was he supposed to do? He was under the control of the dark lord, when he asked for something, it was either deliver or face his wand yourself.

He tells himself he had no other option, he tells himself that he had to save himself, that that was the most important thing. (It isn't, oh he knows it isn't, but part of him wishes it was).

You're a coward! Sirius shouts at him. A coward who killed your best friends! How could you do that? How could you betray them like that? Did you ever care about us at all?

Of course he did, of course he did. They were the most important thing in his life until they weren't. Until they were fighting a losing fight, until death was in their mouths and on their shoes, taking them one at a time. Peter knew he would be next. He knew it and so he did something to stop it.

A coward, Sirius had shouted. And he was, but it was all he knew how to be.

September 15th, 1984

Harry Potter finds out about his parents death after his first day at preschool. At four-years-old, Harry knew his parents were dead, - his Aunt and Uncle had told him hundreds of times that they were, when he would wake up from a nightmare filled with green light screaming for his mom, his eyes wet with tears, or when he didn't get any bedtime stories and he missed his dad's funny voices. He knew they were dead, but he didn't know what that meant.

But then he came home from school and his teacher had asked about their parents, and every kid had a story, every kid except Harry.

Aunt Petunia froze when she asked him, his voice quiet, not wanting to make her more upset than he did usually, what happened to my parents?

They died, She replied curtly, turning away from him. They died in a car crash, you know that.

He keeps asking, in that way that four-year-olds do. But what does that mean?

It means their gone. They're gone and they're not coming back.

And then he cries. Cries because he remembers red hair and glasses and laughter in the morning. And his stomach is sinking and he thinks this feeling is love but he doesn't really know, and all he can hear is gone, gone, gone, gone.