Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light

Chapter Twenty-Four

"There's nothing you can do, Harry… nothing…He's gone."

Remus would have sworn those were the last words he had said. He was told he had helped find the others, that he had kept Harry from lunging through that veil to bring Sirius back. He was told that he had said plenty after that, but he had never heard it. Those last words spun circles in his mind, an endless loop. He'sgonehe'sgonehe'sgone, louder and louder until it reached a crescendo, until he found himself in a chair in the lobby of the Ministry of Magic breathing in hiccupping gasps while tears did not pour down his face.

He did not remember telling anyone that he was fine, that he just needed some air before he walked straight into one of the fireplaces and whispered his destination.

He walked through the dark house, looking. Behind doors, under beds, in every room and every closet until he found himself in Sirius' room. Until he looked around at a half-written letter to Harry, crumpled on the desk, the black ring where ink had spilled around the well, the tattered edges of the quill Sirius had used for all his exams through school. He looked at the unmade bed, at the Quidditch magazine on the bedside table, under a little handheld mirror Remus recognized from their school days.

He picked it up, half expecting to see Sirius in it, and failing that, to see James. He shook it once, twice, then dropped it on the bed, his legs buckling and he sank to the floor, head in his hands.

There was a numbness about it all, a detachment. This was a room, a bed, a desk, a crumpled bit of parchment. This was a smudgy mirror and a slightly water-damaged magazine and worn wood floors and a Gryffindor scarf tied to a bedpost. It was just things, physical objects occupying a space, except that these things were doing what Sirius no longer was – existing. And he kept telling himself that this was Sirius' bed. It was Sirius' mirror. His magazine. This was the last thing he read. This was the last thing he wrote. He would never do this again. And for every last, never or Sirius was a pain so sharp he forgot how to breathe.

God, all he wanted was to stop saying it. To stop saying those words, stop reminding himself of the significance, to stop causing himself this pain. But it was important because it was true and it was real and he owed it to Sirius to feel it because he had failed him. He had failed to save him from a spell and from a disease, from anything else. Sirius had never failed any of them, not a single time. They had always looked to him, all of them, for a laugh, for a listen, or a best friend or confidante or encourager. He was there for Remus' lycanthropy, for James' girl problems and for his protection. He'd been there to guide Harry, to protect him, to avenge James' death and to donate a house. And what had any of them ever given him?

But even as he thought it, Remus knew it wasn't the whole truth. The truth was that, while he had always been there, he had never been all there. There was always something of Sirius missing, something he had lost and never found again. A fatal flaw in the most literal sense. His own hamartia.

The tiniest corner of paper protruded from under Sirius' mattress, and Remus carefully tugged at it until a picture slid forth. The four Marauders, no older than fifteen, grinned up at him, arms across each other's shoulders, and Remus swallowed hard. They had all looked so happy. And they had been. They had been, back then.

But the truth was, it wasn't lasting. No matter how much they loved each other, how hard they worked to protect each other, the outside always got in and somebody turned traitor and someone else tried to die and someone else did die and one person was left to keep the memories for all of them and to tell people what it had really been.

Remus stood up, tucking the photo into the pocket of his robes. He tidied up the room a little, taking nothing else save for a photo of Sirius and Regulus he found under Sirius' pillow. Then he made his way downstairs and packed his own things, lingering for a moment staring at the cover of his book. Realizing that he still did not understand, but now it was all moot because Sirius was dead and it didn't matter if anyone ever understood how he had suffered because in the end, he had died a hero in battle just in time to avoid dying from starving. He had been dying all along, and maybe it was better this way because no one would ever know, especially not Harry. They could think he died heroically. Remus could protect the truth.

He ended up at the Weasleys. He had nowhere else to go, and he couldn't stay either. And Molly sat him at the table and worried over him and he couldn't meet her reddened eyes. He pulled the photos from his pocket and set them on the table and he knew that these were how he would always explain. This was Sirius, as far as anyone knew. A loyal and happy friend. A protective big brother. A hero.

Molly smiled forcefully through tears, offering to make him a meal before she headed to Hogwarts to see to Ron, who was still in the Hospital Wing. Remus had forgotten all about it. He insisted he could make himself something, that he would only be here a couple days, that he didn't want to intrude. She said it was all nonsense and he would sit just there and be quiet and let someone take care of him, and with another stab, Remus wished he had said that to Sirius just one more time. Maybe it would have been the one that mattered.

She set a plate before him, warm, comforting food, and she ran a hand over his hair like he was one of her children and she said she was so sorry, and hugged him tight for a moment, her tears dripping down his collar. He nodded and forced a smile and thanked her, watching her walk to the fireplace as he picked up his fork, still staring at the photographs of a lifetime ago.

Then he took a single bite and choked it down past the mass of bitter tears in his throat, past the throbbing in his chest, and into the roiling emptiness of his stomach, before shaking his head and pushing the plate away, realizing that, too late, he finally understood Sirius Black.

~The End~

Author's Note: Thank you to all of you who stuck with this to the end, and to all of you who reviewed and gave me feedback! I'd love to hear what you thought of the ending as well, and if you have another Sirius-based story you would be interested in seeing written, I do occasionally take suggestions! Enough of you have asked about another sequel, taking place during Sirius' relapse around age 20, that I really think I am going to do it. I promise the wait won't be as long this time! Thank you all again.