(A/N: I wrote this months ago, and decided to do away with it. But I happen to stumble across it, and...well, here it is for any one who'se interested. Enjoy...)
He never visited enough. He knew that.
Yes, it had been far too long time since Remus Lupin had visited the graves of his late friends. He wished he could say his job simply kept him too busy to visit.
But that was a lie. He didn't have a job. Not since he had been the Defence against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts. Though he scoulded himself for resigning, he knew it was the right thing to do.
'Noble Moony,' he thought miserablely to himself. It had been nothing short of his dream job. Excepting, of course, that he worked with Severus Snape. A man who not only acted like an over-grown bat, but looked like one as well.
And so the unemployed Remus Lupin sat lazily in his shabby little cottage that he'd inherited from his late parents, totally alone in the world, and basking in the thin warmth of the fireplace. It was a humid night at the end of June, and a rumble of thunder mixed with a clash of lightning caused the windows to shack slightly.
Currently he was thinking that he ought to set out tomorrow and visit Lily and James's graves. He hardly thought about the subject and shamefully admitted this fact to himself. Even though the night was hot, Moony felt a cold penetrating the heat of the night.
Remus sat on a creaking rocking chair with the Daily Prophet open. It had a small article on the last challenge in the Triwizard Tournament that was held the night before. And it had him disturbed.
The fact that it listed Harry as the winner was only slightly...how to put it? Off, perhaps. But what had really gotten to Moony was the article being so small and vague. It didn't even give a discription of that final challenge.
He had been following the progress of the Triwizard tournament ever since he had opened the Daily Prophet months ago to see Harry among the group of Champions and Headmasters. The entire article had basically been a biography of Harry's life.
Moony knew the year must have been Hell on Harry. Only 2 days before he read an article by Rita Skeeter completely trashing Harry. And yet, so much coverage had been published in the newspaper during the course of the Tournament. Why was the Daily Prophet so unconcerned with the last event of something that would clearly go down in the History books?
No, something wasn't right. Among his musings, he had somehow side-tracked onto subjects that hardly a year ago he would have given anything never to think of again.
But he thought of them now. He pondered where Sirius was and what he was doing. He phathomed where it was Peter had escaped to and where he was hiding now. And of course he wondered how Harry felt now. Having learned that he was the champion of an international tournament of champions...Moony would have thought Harry would have been thrilled. But there was a deep chill in his spine as he thought this was far from this truth.
Indeed, it had been far too long since he had visited his friends. There were skeletons in his closet that had been released from their dark graves.
The storm gave another BANG, and Moony turned away from the firelight to his wooden door.
There was a scratching noise outside. An animal was scratching on the door.