Disclaimer: Remus/Sirius/Harry etc. do not belong to me. They belong to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, WB, etc.
A/N: Long time no post huh? This is the second chapter! I hope you guys enjoy it! I had fun writing it, and there will be one more chapter after it. There need to be *more* S/R in my opinion;) And I love writing them so..oh yeah: This is SLASH. Very mild, but consider yourselves warned;)
Rating: PG for slashyness
Summary: A week after, a cup of tea, a walk and a phrase.




Follow Me: Chapter Two; When The World Didn't End






It had been one week since our fight.


Remus Lupin sat in an overstuffed chair shoved near the small fire, which glowed its crimson remains into the rest of the cozy room. A mug of still steaming tea clasped between his hands gave a warmth to his body that even the fire didn't provide.

Holding something-anything remotely warm was better than holding nothing and realizing how empty his hands really were.

Everything still seemed clear to him; every movement he had made that night, every few seconds how he would look over to make sure that Sirius was still ok, still fighting along beside him.

Everything was still so very, painfully, tellingly, clear. The smell of the blood on the field, and the cries of wizards and witches, Death Eaters and ones from his own side, falling with a splatter of mud to the ground, mud which too often found it's way to the other's faces. A sort of natural war paint, Remus was still finding it in places. His boots or the robes he'd been wearing that day and hadn't found will enough to clean yet.

Two days after, when he'd gathered himself enough to shower, he'd found that blasted mud behind his ears.

He pulled the blanket on his lap more snuggly over him and brought the mug of tea to his mouth; though none of the brewing liquid found it's way out of the cup and past his open lips.

He breathed it in, slow, urging breaths that clung to his lungs with the scent of herbs and thyme.

There weren't very many situations when tea wouldn't warm the inside of Remus. But sadly this was one of those times. It seemed he'd been drinking nothing but the mild brown liquid since that day. And still it didn't warm the undeniably hollow spot somewhere just above his stomach, and just below his heart.

If ever there had been a time in which Remus needed to have Sirius, this was it.

They'd been forced to spend near 13 years apart while Sirius had been locked away in Azkaban-yet somehow Remus now found that to be a far more bearable option than this.

Everything about the fight seemed so clear-except one point.

Remus Lupin glanced to his side, after casting a rather nasty spell onto his opponent, who had fallen to the ground with a disturbing crunch. At his right and about ten feet away stood Sirius Black, fending off his own Death Eater, yet still doting (which it could be called since it was in the heat of battle) on Remus as ever. He spared a meaningful look and a wink that spoke more to Remus than words ever could have.

Remus smiled softly back, before turning his attentions again ahead, forward, ever toward their goal, and Voldemort's downfall.

It could not have been more than a minute before Remus looked back again, ready to see Sirius still fighting by his side, ready to see that wink, that smile and than ready to turn back again to the fight with a renewed need and want to get this over with. To be alone with his Sirius.

But it didn't happen. Remus stopped dead-frozen. Sirius was simply not there.

In the aftermath of the battle, Remus struggled free from the pats on the back and the congratulations, which were swapping between the victors of the fight. Several people he couldn't see-Harry, for instance, or Dumbledore, but that didn't worry him in the way Sirius' absence did. It dragged at the pit of his stomach, as he quickly made his way back to the spot where he had last seen his lover.

As he crested the hill Dumbledore plainly came into sight, Remus rushed to him. "I can't find him, Sir." Remus whispered, out of breathe.

"We are-so far-all accounted for in one manner or other..." Dumbledore said slowly, "I presume to have the tolls within the hour." The Headmaster's face was very grim indeed, and the dimming light played odd tricks with its shadows cast on his face.

"The tolls..." Lupin trailed off.

"The Death Tolls, my boy."

"Sirius...he's...you mean that he didn't survive the fight?" Remus almost didn't dare to ask.

"I do not know. There are some things that are not for me to say, my dear Remus. Though in this instance, it happens also to be something which I cannot answer you, even if it were my place. I have not seen him yet. Harry's being bandaged now, Voldemort...was more prepared than we had thought him to be. But he's gone now. Though I wish I knew if he.... But never mind that for now, he's gone."

Remus nodded dumbly, swallowing deeply, trying to rid himself of the lump lodged halfway down his throat. He failed.

He swallowed his tea down in one long, deep gulp. It rid him of that sickly empty feeling in his stomach, if only for an instant. He turned his eyes from the fire and his thoughts from the battle fought nearly six days ago.

That had been the last time on the battlefield Remus had seen Sirius. It had been the last time all together.

He searched the sky just outside his window for Canis Major, but failed to find any trace of the big Dog Star.

Remus moved out of his chair and carefully picked his way over to the window, taking a closer look at the night sky outside. He could feel the chilled air radiating from off its glass a few inches from his face.

In a moment of pure determination, he told himself he was going to go for a walk. He needed one. In the past week he had barely left the tiny cabin once. What he really needed was to go for a run as wolf, to be in a simpler body, a simpler mind for a while, and simpler desires more easily quenched. But there were two weeks before the moon would return to full again, and so for now, he would have to settle for his own body, his own busy mind, and his own aching desires.

It took a few short moments for him to prepare; he took his tattered cloak from by the door, wrapping it around him in place of his blanket, and slid off his slippers, his feet finding the way into the same boots he'd worn the day he lost Sirius. Clean now, the mud was gone.

The night air was cool and refreshing, it held with it a promise of many more hours of the beautifully quiet night. It reminded Remus of the air his very first night at Hogwarts. It had been this same sort of beauty.

But those thoughts brought with them ones he chose not to think of tonight.

He moved carefully away from the light of the cabin, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dark, he moved down the small dirt path that led deep into the woods. If you followed it long enough-until it ended-and then even past it, wandering through the woods as Remus now did, you would eventually come across Hogsmeade about two hours walk in.

Remus, never being one take things too slowly when he hurt (though he knew of some who would have disagreed with that), sped his pace and came across the tiny wizarding village in little more than an hour.

Almost all it's lights had long been put out, and the streets were quiet with only the sound of summer crickets to haunt them. There were no ghosts out here tonight, no one haunting the Shrieking Shack this time.

Remus hadn't ever needed a goal when he went for walks, that had always been Sirius' thing. Yet, on this walk he had one anyway.

He paused a moment by a lamp-post, leaning on it for some support, it's bent iron something more firmly placed in the world of reality than Remus at that instant.

For a time he stood there, clasping at the metal, thinking perhaps another night would be better for this journey, some other time, but just not now. He knew though that the longer he found reason or excuse to put it off, the tougher it, in the end, would be for him.

No, determination back in place, he continued on his way, down the main street of Hogsmeade, and into the woods beyond.

He was outside Hogwarts now, a good 15 minutes later, could see it in the distance, a glimmering reminder of things, with it's few lights burning in odd windows here and there.

Remus' thoughts briefly turned to Harry, who was in his final year there. Harry had fought bravely, had, as everyone knew he would, fought Voldemort in the end. And, as everyone knew he would, had defeated him. For now, Remus' mind spoke up. The worrying doubt that the Dark Lord couldn't honestly be gone for good still lingered, and Remus, especially now, was unsure of how to banish it.

He didn't, he pushed it aside and away, and went deeper into the woods, until he came to a path of familiarities to him, and headed down it, with less spring and hurry in his step than the last time he'd been here.

After walking a time, the trees thinned and broke away by the base of the hill, revealing it, and the clear fields surrounding it.

Remus stayed at the base for a minute, looking up the slope, and up higher to the sky. His eyes tracing patterns through the stars before he raced with himself to get up the hill, thinking that maybe if he ran fast...maybe he would outrun all these thoughts of his. Something which he sorely needed to accomplish tonight.

But by the time he found himself at the top of the hill, it's grasses blowing in the warmer breeze; his thoughts he knew were to stay with him. Perhaps for the rest of his life.

He found a seat on the large, flat rock that overlooked the edge, the tiny lake below it. Remus sat and felt the stone beneath him still warm from the sun of that day.

He closed his eyes and looked up as if he might still feel it's rays, but none found him, and he opened his eyes, casting them down to his own hands. He remembered how once, more than once, he had lain beside Sirius in bed, on Sunday mornings all sunny and promising, and how he had studied his lover's hands; strong, and lean, and pale, not so gaunt as Remus had found them after Azkaban. He studied them until Sirius awoke, trying to lock their image in his mind, as if he knew that someday, the chance to look upon them might be stolen from him.

And Remus felt it then with urgency now that he must remember every line and curve, every look and word that Sirius had ever given him. As though it would prove he was still alive! No body had been found, and for all that poor Remus knew, his Sirius could have been captured by some Death Eater that had escaped. He could be being tortured, he could be having any number of...oh but...but Remus shook himself. He couldn't think of that. He couldn't! It was almost better to think of him as dea-as having died in battle than to think of him helpless and lost and calling for Remus.

A tiny quiver of emotion ran along Remus and he clenched his hands into fists. He wanted to howl, to let all this out of him, put it into the world and see what they made of it.

Sometimes you feel like standing on the highest building and shouting out your feeling to everyone below, so that there are no more secrets, and no mistakes as to where you stand and with whom you stand.

Sometimes you want to crawl into your room, a cave, under a rock, with that one someone, just to escape the world for a while. At this moment, with the stars hovering above, and the breeze taking on a colder air, Remus did not know which he wanted to do more. Only he knew he wanted to do it with Sirius.

He looked down at the lake and saw by it some animal drinking. He looked more closely, and found the animal to be a wolf. Large and dark in the shadows, for a moment Remus hoped it might have been...him, but it wasn't. Of course, what was I expecting?! He scolded himself.

"He's not even the wolf in this relationship."

The animal looked up at Remus, it's eyes glowing a brief and faint green reflected from some unknown and unseen light source. Remus stared back at it, a common understanding seemed half to settle in the air between them, and it calmed Remus more so than anything had in the passed week. He let out a quiet breath, and softly kept it up, lost in the unworried eyes of the wolf below him.

After a moment the creature turned and trotted back off into the woods, lost to Remus' sight.

The calm brought on by the wolf lasted for several moments as Remus watched the spot where it had been, the lake that held so many stones with so many worries locked in them, and anywhere he could look without coming again to the realization that Sirius was not beside him.

Remus hadn't yet dealt with the idea of turning around and finding no Sirius to greet his gaze. He had told himself it was only because of the short time that had gone by, but in truth, and in some small but growing part of him he knew why. Why he had not yet cried. Because Sirius was his mate; his lover. And wolves knew when they lost their lovers; they mourned, they howled, they cried out to the watchful moon all their worries and the moon shone down the light of comfort onto them. They mated for life.

But Remus did not feel as though his mate had gone. He could not understand it, could not make himself realize. Perhaps it was shock, many people said it probably was. 'You're still in shock' 'he's still getting over it'. But no, he thought...it was his last hope, staying in the back of his heart and soul and taunting him with its whispers of truth.

And he didn't want to let that go. His last hope, the last gift that his Sirius had given him.

As he sat there, thinking, vaguely he noticed something fluttered down and sat beside him. Remus smiled very slightly as he saw the big brown-yellow eyes looking up at him, and the small leg held out for his notice and retrieval.

Complying, Remus took with hands suddenly shaking, the note from off the tiny owls' outstretched leg, before the bird, with a chirp, flew off and down over the lake below, away into the woods.

His smile faded and he opened the note slowly, curiously, but warily. He didn't want to know what it would say, and in not opening it...well, it gave him some other sort of hope. It could say anything. It could say...anything.

Remus-
I write you in great haste and shall not go around, but come
straight to the point-

Remus' eyes grew wide, and without thought or realization-pure instinct-, he was running down the hill and toward the woods, cutting through the old haunts he knew so well. Running up the paths, and coming to the clearing he and James, Peter and Sirius had often spent time in during their youthful ventures.

To this no attention was paid as Remus made a speedy way to Hogwarts, with all the power his human and wolven states would offer. The note played in his mind and it's words he whispered as another burst of speed found his stumbling feet:

-He's at Hogwarts.





A/N2: Ok, so, you didn't really think I could kill Sirius off?!?! Come ON!;) I adore him! He's one of my favorite charecters!!! I have to say I sorta like the 'he's at Hogwarts' thing, 'cause remember that's the phrase Sirius kept repeting about Peter in PoA. Anyway, please review, I'd love to know what you think! Flames welcome.