I Stand Alone
by L.M. Griffin
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I've always hated the moon.
Full. Half. Quarter. Any kind of lunar activity and you will see me with a frown on my face and tension lines creasing my eyes.
Sirius used to say I was as bad as a girl with my cycles. When the moon started its trek across the sky, he would start with the jokes. "Look out! Moony's about to get crampy! He'll be PMSing for hours now."
James would snicker, Peter would try not to but break down in the end, and I would clobber Sirius good, chortling myself. All of us laughing until the tears ran down our faces.
As I watch the quarter moon gleam down on the two ivory headstones before me, I know I will never laugh at that memory. Right now, it seems unbelievable I will ever laugh again.
How can letters carved in stone, I wonder, feel like they are stabbing me like knives? How can the names of my two dearest friends etched into simple curving letters feel like I am being torn from the inside out?
I had to chose them. The headstones, I mean. I had to pick the names - the quotes to go beneath them. I alone had to pick the gravesites, write the eulogy, put the flowers on the mounds of dirt after the coffins had been lowered to the cold ground. Then I had to do it all over again, for Peter. Now I'm standing here, hours after Peter's funeral, the sun just dipping below the horizon and the quarter moon alighting the frozen cemetary. It's cold, painfully so, and yet still I stand here.
I suppose when Sirius finally wastes away, I will go to Azkaban and gather his body up, and bury him as well. If the anger stops. If the pain and betrayal allows me to remember Sirius the boy, Sirius the young man. Not Sirius the betrayer.
He helped kill James and Lily. He killed Peter. Yet...yet. I remember those laughing dark eyes, and I wonder - did he really? Or was he framed? If so, by who and why? I alone must wonder that.
I think that is why I am so angry with Sirius, in a sad, selfish way. He left me alone. All alone to mourn, to cry, to stand here and look down at James and Lily's graves, wondering what in the name of Hell am I going to do now. I have nothing but bittersweet memories and the thin clothes on my back. I have been orphaned once again, and I believe that to be the most bitter betrayal of all.
To think this happened to Harry, as well, but he won't understand just how wretched it is until he comes into his full legacy. I think of Harry, and then I don't feel so sorry for myself. Oh Harry - to think you'll never get to know them.
Your father, so strong and so brave, a true friend and the best man I have ever known. Your mother, a ray of sunlight in a human form, her green eyes always seemed to look right through you and see nothing but wonderful things. Peter, the gentlest soul who never seemed to let his shortcomings get him down. Sirius - oh Harry - you would have loved Sirius. Funny, and shocking, and -- and loyal. Always loyal. He would have made you laugh until the tears ran down your cheeks...
Like they are running down mine now, and the only witness to them is the cruel and cold moon. I stand alone, crying. Crying for nothing. For nothing is all that is left.
by L.M. Griffin
---------------
I've always hated the moon.
Full. Half. Quarter. Any kind of lunar activity and you will see me with a frown on my face and tension lines creasing my eyes.
Sirius used to say I was as bad as a girl with my cycles. When the moon started its trek across the sky, he would start with the jokes. "Look out! Moony's about to get crampy! He'll be PMSing for hours now."
James would snicker, Peter would try not to but break down in the end, and I would clobber Sirius good, chortling myself. All of us laughing until the tears ran down our faces.
As I watch the quarter moon gleam down on the two ivory headstones before me, I know I will never laugh at that memory. Right now, it seems unbelievable I will ever laugh again.
How can letters carved in stone, I wonder, feel like they are stabbing me like knives? How can the names of my two dearest friends etched into simple curving letters feel like I am being torn from the inside out?
I had to chose them. The headstones, I mean. I had to pick the names - the quotes to go beneath them. I alone had to pick the gravesites, write the eulogy, put the flowers on the mounds of dirt after the coffins had been lowered to the cold ground. Then I had to do it all over again, for Peter. Now I'm standing here, hours after Peter's funeral, the sun just dipping below the horizon and the quarter moon alighting the frozen cemetary. It's cold, painfully so, and yet still I stand here.
I suppose when Sirius finally wastes away, I will go to Azkaban and gather his body up, and bury him as well. If the anger stops. If the pain and betrayal allows me to remember Sirius the boy, Sirius the young man. Not Sirius the betrayer.
He helped kill James and Lily. He killed Peter. Yet...yet. I remember those laughing dark eyes, and I wonder - did he really? Or was he framed? If so, by who and why? I alone must wonder that.
I think that is why I am so angry with Sirius, in a sad, selfish way. He left me alone. All alone to mourn, to cry, to stand here and look down at James and Lily's graves, wondering what in the name of Hell am I going to do now. I have nothing but bittersweet memories and the thin clothes on my back. I have been orphaned once again, and I believe that to be the most bitter betrayal of all.
To think this happened to Harry, as well, but he won't understand just how wretched it is until he comes into his full legacy. I think of Harry, and then I don't feel so sorry for myself. Oh Harry - to think you'll never get to know them.
Your father, so strong and so brave, a true friend and the best man I have ever known. Your mother, a ray of sunlight in a human form, her green eyes always seemed to look right through you and see nothing but wonderful things. Peter, the gentlest soul who never seemed to let his shortcomings get him down. Sirius - oh Harry - you would have loved Sirius. Funny, and shocking, and -- and loyal. Always loyal. He would have made you laugh until the tears ran down your cheeks...
Like they are running down mine now, and the only witness to them is the cruel and cold moon. I stand alone, crying. Crying for nothing. For nothing is all that is left.