A is for Abyss
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"My heart is as empty as the widest, darkest abyss without you here. Without your smiling face and not-so-funny jokes, there is nothing here for me…even as others say otherwise. I cannot simply move on, eat and sleep as if none of this was real…as much as I sometimes wish I could. I do not believe I can go on without you, but I will try…for Harry's sake."
The words were spoken slowly, each sentence ground out as if from a very deep, carefully protected well. As the last word was spoken, the man reached up with a shaky hand and wiped his eyes slowly and the grave began to reform in front of him, emerging into his blurred vision a simple, black slab of stone with even more simple words engraved into it.
Sirius
Black
1959-1996
A long time friend, a lover, and a beloved
Godfather.
Free at last.
Smiling slightly despite himself, the man whispered "Free at last…just as you always should have been my love…" He wiped a last tear from his soft amber eye and turned away, walking the silent trek back to the house the two men once shared.
Grimmauld Place was once a dingy, depressing old house, but the two of them had made it habitable and charming. The portrait of Sirius' long dead mother that had hung in the entrance hall for so long exploded as he closed the door a bit too loudly behind him, screaming in rage. "FILTHY HALFBLOOD NON-HUMAN SCUM! BELITTLING THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS, HOW DARE YOU?!" Rolling his eyes, the man walked on, long used to ignoring the never ending rants of the impossible portrait. Each room he passed was like a strike to the heart, another memory that he simply couldn't repress. It had been three years since Sirius had died, and the world was at peace again, but he still couldn't move on.
For the first few months after Sirius' death, Harry and his friends had tried to bring light back into their old professor's life again, offering words of hope and encouragement in an attempt to make him move on. However, after a few months of failed attempts, they too, began to drift away. Now that Voldemort was defeated, there was time to focus on their own lives, to move forward and have families. Harry had married Ginny, and Hermoine and Ron had married, as everyone knew they would. Remus was left alone in Grimmauld, forgotten and alone.
He continued on through the hall, moving upstairs and passing doors until he arrived at the room which had been his and Sirius'. Entering quietly, he moved through the room slowly, touching a picture frame here, a cherished hairbrush there, exploring each item carefully as if for the first time. Finally, he paused in front of the large oak dresser, picking up the single framed portrait sitting on its smooth surface. Staring into the grey eyes of his lost lover for the last time, he bit his lip softly and whispered, "I'm sorry Sirius…there's no one left…my pack is gone…he doesn't listen anymore…" Staring down at the picture apologetically, he kissed the cool glass softly before setting it down carefully and leaving the room, closing the door with a final snap.
He made his way down the stairs into the dungeon like basement below slowly, pausing to make sure the letters he had spent the last few nights composing were placed on the table where they would be found the next morning. Looking over the blood splattered walls, he scowled at the room in which he had spent the last three years' worth of full moons. He swallowed quietly before shedding his clothes and turning to stare out the window at the slowly rising full moon. "Tonight…you shall win you bright bastard…"
With his final farewell complete, he sank to his knees, staring at the blank wall in front of him, allowing his mind to clear. As the clock struck eleven, and the moon rose to its peak, Remus Lupin closed his eyes, giving himself over entirely into the pain of his last full moon.