Remus hangs around outside Sirius' door despite everyone else having wandered off. He can't leave Sirius alone again. Never mind that Sirius isn't alone, that there's an auror in there with him; that's for everyone else's safety not Sirius' (probably not Remus' safety either, if he's being honest) the auror won't help him if he has another panic attack (not that Remus had been able to do much, trapped on the other side of the door – he may as well have been an island away.) But would Auror Shacklebolt even try to calm Sirius down?

So Remus can't help but stay as close as possible to his friend. Just like he can't help but lie to himself about why he's there.

Of course he wants to help Sirius if he's in pain – but this is a small house; he'll hear if there's trouble and it won't take him longer than a few seconds to be back by the door. No, he's here for himself not Sirius.

He's here because he wants to be forgiven. Badly.

And the thing is, he knows that as soon as Sirius is in his right mind he will be. Sirius forgives people easily. He knows it too; Remus can remember him apologising for it once, during the war and drunk enough that he would have forgotten it by the next morning, apologising for the fact that he can't not forgive his little brother no matter if he turns out to be Voldemort's right-hand-man.

At the time Remus had taken it as a confession as good as. Now he wonders if Sirius hadn't been letting him know that he'd be forgiven.

Anything short of what Peter had done and Sirius would have forgiven them.

Merlin's beard but he misses James. More than he has since the funeral. James had been the only sane one amongst them. Remus with the wolf, Sirius with his suicidal impulses, Peter with his desperation. And James, holding them together.

Now that he's dead Remus wonders if they hadn't put too much pressure on him. It never occurred to him in time. Is that going to be the epitaph of his life? That he never truly saw his friends until it was too late.

Maybe it would be kinder to Sirius if he left before there was any chance for forgiveness.