Title: He's Gone
Warnings: Mild m/m references, author hasn't written HP fanfiction since she was thirteen. Excessive sap. OotP spoiler intensive.
Notes: Wrote this a few days after OotP was released. Apparently in order to stop myself from crying every time I thought about it, I had to write about Lupin being drunk first. NICE. Comments and criticism welcome, both via review and via e-mail—morwen_oconner@yahoo.com.
And he could still smell him on the sheets. His only regret, beyond that Sirius Black was no longer among the living, was that they had never shared those sheets. They had never bought them for a queen size bed with the intent of falling asleep under the same comforter every night, had never argued over whose turn it would be to wash them.
Sex was nice, but after a while, after seeing enough things… Companionship was nicer. Sex and companionship, now there was a combination Remus Lupin had once foolishly hoped to achieve again. He had had it once—In the brief years when everything was still fine. Terrible, horrible… But fine. Yes, the Dark Lord had been at his peak, yes, Remus had suspected the very man he had found this contented feeling with of betraying some of his closest friends, yes, he was afraid for his life every day. But with Sirius there, with a little denial and a little effort to ignore what he read in the newspapers, Remus had been able to feel as though everything were, for once, fine.
Now he was stripping the sheets from the bed in a room he had slept in dozens of times in a little over a year, which had never been enough, if he was honest with himself. They were not his sheets to strip, he guessed, but with Sirius gone, who else would? The resident eccentric house elf? Remus suspected that Kreacher would sooner burn Sirius's sheets than wash them.
At least he didn't have to worry about anyone else snogging them.
Remus chuckled wearily and sat at the edge of the mattress, letting it sink beneath his weight, the far edge of the sheets crumpling in lap and still clinging half-heartedly to the other end. God, but there was nothing more horrifying than losing someone twice. Was it worse this time? Than last time, when he had been tortured by the idea, by what had seemed definable by the word "knowledge" at the time, that Sirius was a black-hearted, soulless, betraying, back-stabbing fiend?
Yes, it was worse this time. Perhaps time had dulled the feelings from before, but then he had had anger—Righteous anger—to cling to, to blind himself with. Now there was nothing left but empty space where Sirius Black had once been. Nothing left but the smell of him on his sheets and a burned hole on a tapestry bearing his family tree and one very upset godson.
Remus wondered if he would ever tell Harry that his favorite Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and his godfather had slept together regularly. Had even considered themselves lovers. Remus doubted very much that homosexuality would bother James' son. If a werewolf didn't revolt him, a gay man couldn't be that much more shocking. But who knew? Harry had no preconceptions about aspects of the Wizarding world upon his arrival at Hogwarts. His aunt and uncle had seen to that much. But surely they had, at some point, impressed upon him a dislike for anything other than the standard, nuclear, prepackaged family?
If Remus was entirely honest with himself, he knew that Harry would be more disturbed by the mere concept of his godfather having sex at all, than by whom Sirius had been having it with. The only thing that kept him from wanting to divulge such private aspects of his life—Of their life—was the clinging feeling of jealousy.
It was unfair, it was childish, and it was a terrible thing to think. But there it was, none the less, the idea rearing its ugly, brutish head through the dust motes of the late afternoon on this summer day, through the curtains and into Sirius' room, onto his bed and his unused, unshared sheets.
Sirius had cared more for Harry. Cared, when it came right down to it, more for James. Sad, prideful James, who was both arrogant and noble in his childhood, and died the death of a brave martyr. In the last fleeting moments of his life, Sirius had, most likely, wondered what Harry would think, that he had allowed himself to be struck down by the enemy. HarryJames—Remus knew that the two identities had melted far more horrifically in Sirius' mind than anyone, even Molly Weasley, had ever guessed.
Remus had only been wrong about Sirius once in his life, and he seriously doubted that he was wrong now. Although to everyone else, it was painfully obvious that Harry was not James, was too hurt and nervous and now very angry to be James, Sirius had never really known. Had loved Harry more than anything, wanted to protect him more than anything, but out of loyalty to James. What affection he had developed for Harry himself had been limited.
Remus was certain that if they had been given enough time, Sirius would have realized that his godson was not his best friend, was not the secure, stable, proud man his father had been. Might have seen Harry Potter for the scared boy he was, frightened of fear and searching for someone who wasn't. Sirius was the ideal choice—Often too enthusiastic to know fear.
Unless made to wait.
And until that last moment.
Remus closed his eyes against the memory—The look of shock on Sirius' face, the veil fluttering as if by a breeze from outside a window, Harry lurching against his arms.
"HE—IS—NOT—DEAD!"
Remus had wanted to agree, wanted to heave Harry backwards and run to the veil and pull it back and see Sirius, and see Sirius relieved to see him. Had wanted to see that expression on his face that he could still recall to his mind's eye from fifteen years before hand, when Sirius would wake up with his head buried in the pillow, and turn his face slowly towards Remus. And be relieved every morning to see him still alive there.
Remus often wondered why the memory of that expression had not been enough to convince him of Sirius' innocence.
But Harry, for all that Remus wished he could damn him and think nothing of him and be jealous, meant too much. To the Order, to Sirius, to Dumbledore. And yes, if Remus was really, truly honest with himself, to him. Remus had loved James, too. Not in the way he had loved Sirius, but in a very affectionate, patient way. James had been a good person. Flawed, yes—In some ways, Harry was very much like his father—Proud and unwilling to accept help when he sometimes rather needed it. But endearing.
And there were qualities to Harry that James did not have. Sincerity, a raw emotion to him that James had allowed to be diluted by natural process, by the systematic aging they had all suffered.
Remus buried his face in the sheets and breathed in slowly, inhaling a scent like sweat and wet dog. Noting that it would have been utterly revolting if it weren't Sirius. Olfactory data stormed his brain with biological magic—How wonderful that science and the scientifically intangible were so closely intertwined, that the two sides of the same coin in one species could ignore both sides so adamantly.
He could almost see Sirius again. Could almost swear that he was standing on the other side of the room, eyeing the portrait of two of his numerous cousins and their sickly-looking children critically. About to wonder out loud if it weren't a tad too creepy for the gamboling representations of the products of incest to overlook their activities.
Remus exhaled, blowing warm, living breath onto the cotton and smelling his own breath back at him. The smell of alcohol was strong, and the bottle of whisky at the foot of the stairs had now gone from never opened to almost gone in the span of two hours. Biological, scientific facts worked their way through Remus Lupin's veins and loosened tears, which soaked into the sheets and flavored everything salt.
For a moment, Remus stopped believing in magic.