But instead he'd watched Peter die.
He'd watched Peter die.
Deep breathes. In and out, in and out, keep the tears back; keep the feeling back, mix the pain with hot coffee and cheap tobacco. James is dead. Lily is dead. Peter. Flashes of life. Peter studying late in a dark library. James landing on the muddy green grass of the pitch, hands high in the air as he waved the golden ball wildly above him. Lily's green eyes. Drinks on the astronomy tower, kitchen raids, midnights under the full moon. James dazzling white body frolicking across the lake. Peter playing beneath his paws. Sirius running beside him, the long pink tongue lolling from his sharp white teeth. Peter's eyes as he laid his hands on Lily's pregnant stomach. Peter's smile as he told her what an uncle he would make. James laughing. Lily throwing the white sheet into the air, letting it settle slowly onto the mattress. Making a guest bed no one would ever sleep in. James laying on the living room floor sprawled out as he and Sirius finished a game of chess. James' rook making a block. Sirius' attack from behind. Hidden bishop, secret treachery. Sirius smoking a cigarette in the dark basement behind a solitary melting candle. His dark eyes. His dark eyes.
And Remus broke. Like the cork in a bottle a champagne. Like a stretched rubber band. He was the string of an old violin, the mandrake pulled from the ground.
He felt the water splash his face and soak his clothing as he kicked the box with all the strength he had left in his suddenly passionate body. The wet wood cracked and the bucket flew to the air. Molding paper slipped across the wood floor, black water seeped into the floorboards. Squelched letters like rotten fruit burst from the decaying wood. Ghostly water, reeking paper.
His knees hit the floor first, deficient of the strength to stand. Water soaked into his jeans and up his cold legs. Blood trickled from where a stray nail from the box had entered his leg. He collapsed to the fetid floorboards and lay among the soaking mass of pulpy ink and sodden paper. He cried out and his tears flooded into the ocean of filthy water and naked letters, bright red blood. The waste. The squander, the could have beens, the I Love Yous, and Forever Yours. He closed his eyes tightly like a child trying to shut away the world. He screamed the cry of someone who has lost everything, a lone wolf on a starless, moonless night. Blood and India ink. His dark eyes behind the red flame of a melting candle.
Somewhere in the world, a black dog slipped by a dark cloaked figure, unnoticed, and left an empty cell behind. Albus Dumbledore tied an envelope to the leg of a ruffled brown owl, and a black-haired boy woke alone in the night. Remus lay on the floor and thought he was dead.
Well that's it guys. The end. Terminus. You've been great, you've been brilliant, you've been the best audience I've ever had. Particular and ultimate thanks to RavenNat who helped me go the final mile. Starr2, Sophocles, Insanely Freaky Dudett, ev, the counter, you guys are awesome. Each of those e-mails from the fanfictionreviewbot was a diamond in my inbox. Thanks evermore. Mwamwa. –Gud.