Disclaimer - Nope. If you recognise it, I don't own it. Haha, you can't sue me! :P
Written for The Occasion-A-Day Challenge, Day 2, Write about something directly at the end of either war.
Cut Short
He sits in a worn armchair, a bottle of cheap muggle vodka in his hand, forgoing even the effort it would take to get a glass. His world is broken, ruined beyond repair. It's a terrifying thought, that he is suddenly alone in the world. There is no one left who truly cares, no one left to ease the burdens with which he has to deal, no one left to remind him that life is in fact worth living, no matter how hard it can get.
James and Lily and Harry are gone. The first blow in a series that have left him wondering why he even wakes up in the morning. Voldemort, the monster that he is, blew them to pieces in his quest to prove himself unbeatable. If he were feeling anything other than despair, he might enjoy the irony of that particular situation.
Peter, dead, at their other best friends hand. How Remus was supposed to deal with that, he didn't know. How he was supposed to put Sirius Black, best friend and prankster extraordinaire, and Sirius Black, hardened Death Eater and Murderer together, he didn't know. Because they couldn't be the same person. They couldn't, because Remus would have known. Nobody can act that well for that long.
Sirius, locked away in Azkaban, sure never to see the light again, for betraying two of his best friends and murdering another. The laughing, flirtatious, fun young man that Remus had known, that Remus had loved, would never been known by anyone else. Even with the betrayal and the pain that moved through Remus' body on a continuous cycle, he can't help but think that it's a loss to anyone who would have met the Sirius he'd known.
People partied hard. They toasted Harry, toasted life, toasted happiness and laughed with joy. They shared in the relief that Voldemort was gone and they could continue their lives at ease once more, no longer under the reign of terror that they'd been suffering.
Remus hated those people. He hated the ones who could be happy when six young lives had been cut short.
James and Lily and Peter. Dead.
Sirius Black. As good as dead.
Harry Potter. Orphaned.
And Remus Lupin. Destroyed from the inside out. Alone.