4 The Hours
Remus is trying not to think of dust and ashes.
He is lying on the heavy green bedcover of a four-poster in a room beyond which the world has been narrowed down into a display of words he never spoke to Sirius, places they never went together, things they were going to do when the captivity and hiding and war would be over. And of course, also a display of everything they did do. The world has become cramped and somehow sharper, its colours and sounds cut into Remus when he is moving in it and also when he isn't. The most bearable thing is to lie still and let hours pass by randomly, stubbornly, at their own pace that cannot be predicted or measured.
It is not that he means to shut the world out, he just needs a break from it: the lawn he crossed earlier in the summer with Padfoot, who was chasing butterflies, the old muggle song that may play on the radio anytime and Sirius used to sing off-key ("...hot tramp, I love you so!"), the book he lent to Sirius to shorten his long, narrow hours. The book is still lying on the bedside table, opened somewhere around page ten, its back pointing towards the ceiling, but Remus is too tired to rise up on his elbows and reach out to remove it from his sight. He closes his eyes. It is easier that way.
Bitterness has had many chances with him, but he has always penetrated it mercilessly, torn it open with his quiet determination and ability to find laughter in unexpected places, thrown it around until it has stopped floundering. Bitterness has seen him strong and it has seen him weak, and it has never survived their encounters yet.
But he hasn't been this weak before.
He needs to think his teeth and claws can still tear. He needs to believe some day he will be able to say it is a great fortune to be alive, a rare and precious gift indeed, and mean what he says.
But that day is not now, now it is night. Tonight he will lie on the dark green bedcover of the four-poster fearing the only thing he can still fear: time. Because an hour from now he will have forgotten as much of Sirius as it is possible to forget in an hour's time, and it seems like an irreplaceable loss. When many enough hours have passed, he will no more be able to recall Sirius's scent, and after more hours his touch on Remus's skin will be more of a decorated product of imagination than a real memory, and slowly by the hours Sirius's face will become unclear in his mind, until he can only see a blurry figure that goes by the name of Sirius Black in his memory.
Remus knows to live it is essential to forget. But right now he would rather remember.
Tonight in this lightless room in the midst of dust and ashes he will remain awake through every hour that carries him further away from Sirius, and he will feel every mark those hours leave on him. He will stare at the night skies through the window and he will not see the thin arc of the moon or the stars, for they are all hidden behind a thick veil of clouds. But he knows they are there, out of reach yet eternal.
There is something in that thought to curl around, as a new hour starts its spin and flows away.