Remus was sick of it.
He was sick of the odd, strained half glances Molly kept giving him over her dinner plate. He was sick of the hushed voices everyone insisted on using whenever her entered a room. He was sick of the sniffling noises coming from the kid's rooms every night when they thought everyone else was asleep. He was sick of the sniffling noises coming from his own room when he thought no one else could here.
But most of all, above all else--the thing that made his blood curdle and his eyes come alive with fire--he was sick of people being "sorry."
"Sorry" implied possession. "Sorry" implied acting of your own accord. "Sorry" implied responsibility.
"We're so sorry, Remus. We really are. He died much too young."
You're sorry are you? If you're so damn sorry than why didn't you do anything to stop it? If you could have seen his face, if you could have felt the air ring after his laughing abruptly ended, if you could have heard the cries that no one else would ever admit they had heard in the middle of the night...then you would have really been sorry.
Some how it had been easier when Lily and James died. Or perhaps the torment had lessened with 14 years to ferment within him.
Death was a simpler thing back then. They had expected it, they all had. They had expected it to come creeping around any corner that they dared to pass. They expected it to come from every friend who they dared to trust.
The deaths of the Potter's had sent a quiver of destruction through the Order.
But they weren't unforeseen.
This...this was a whole new kind of torment that the Order hadn't experienced for some time. This was a sudden, surprising, harsh realization that the good old bad days were back.
Sourly, Remus wondered why it had to be...why it had to be him that died. Any one else he could have handled...he could have moved on with his life.
But this!
This was something...this was something that he never thought he'd have to go through again.
The images of them haunted his dreams.
All three of them.
They watched him as he wept, and they begged him to calm down. They begged him to come with them to hang around by the lake, or to take a venture into the forest, or to run into Honeydukes through the passage in the hump of the old one-eyed witch.
Remus watched them in his misty, watered down dream as if they were the last life that he could possibly cling to.
There was Lily, with her eyes bright and green and burning with a desire, a thirst, for anything and everything that life could possibly throw her way.
There was James, his hair a mess and his uniform in shambles, always a smile across his cheerful face, an arm forever wrapped around Lily's waist.
And then there was Him.
Of course he was smiling. And Remus knew that any moment now he would hear that laugh. That loud bark-like laugh that would send him reeling back into his old school days, the times when nothing mattered except where they were running off too, or who was riding what broomstick.
And Remus would stay in this dream for as long as he dared until he would wake with a start, his shirt and face drenched with icy sweat and tears.
Always the same word formed upon his lips until he would crumble again into his pillow, knowing that he would never get back to sleep until morning.
"Sirius..."
He was sick of the odd, strained half glances Molly kept giving him over her dinner plate. He was sick of the hushed voices everyone insisted on using whenever her entered a room. He was sick of the sniffling noises coming from the kid's rooms every night when they thought everyone else was asleep. He was sick of the sniffling noises coming from his own room when he thought no one else could here.
But most of all, above all else--the thing that made his blood curdle and his eyes come alive with fire--he was sick of people being "sorry."
"Sorry" implied possession. "Sorry" implied acting of your own accord. "Sorry" implied responsibility.
"We're so sorry, Remus. We really are. He died much too young."
You're sorry are you? If you're so damn sorry than why didn't you do anything to stop it? If you could have seen his face, if you could have felt the air ring after his laughing abruptly ended, if you could have heard the cries that no one else would ever admit they had heard in the middle of the night...then you would have really been sorry.
Some how it had been easier when Lily and James died. Or perhaps the torment had lessened with 14 years to ferment within him.
Death was a simpler thing back then. They had expected it, they all had. They had expected it to come creeping around any corner that they dared to pass. They expected it to come from every friend who they dared to trust.
The deaths of the Potter's had sent a quiver of destruction through the Order.
But they weren't unforeseen.
This...this was a whole new kind of torment that the Order hadn't experienced for some time. This was a sudden, surprising, harsh realization that the good old bad days were back.
Sourly, Remus wondered why it had to be...why it had to be him that died. Any one else he could have handled...he could have moved on with his life.
But this!
This was something...this was something that he never thought he'd have to go through again.
The images of them haunted his dreams.
All three of them.
They watched him as he wept, and they begged him to calm down. They begged him to come with them to hang around by the lake, or to take a venture into the forest, or to run into Honeydukes through the passage in the hump of the old one-eyed witch.
Remus watched them in his misty, watered down dream as if they were the last life that he could possibly cling to.
There was Lily, with her eyes bright and green and burning with a desire, a thirst, for anything and everything that life could possibly throw her way.
There was James, his hair a mess and his uniform in shambles, always a smile across his cheerful face, an arm forever wrapped around Lily's waist.
And then there was Him.
Of course he was smiling. And Remus knew that any moment now he would hear that laugh. That loud bark-like laugh that would send him reeling back into his old school days, the times when nothing mattered except where they were running off too, or who was riding what broomstick.
And Remus would stay in this dream for as long as he dared until he would wake with a start, his shirt and face drenched with icy sweat and tears.
Always the same word formed upon his lips until he would crumble again into his pillow, knowing that he would never get back to sleep until morning.
"Sirius..."