A red jet of light sped past the man's face. He heard him laugh, heard the smack as it hit his friend, saw the look of amusement and surprise that struck his face. He saw the decent into the silky blackness-the black whole-the veil. Someone was running towards the man, a boy. He grabbed him, trying to keep him away. He's not dead he told himself. My beloved is not dead. He's merely playing a trick on us. Anguish and hatred spread throughout his entire body. He could hear himself telling the lump in his arms that He was gone. That the child's only living family was gone. He's not gone. He'll come back. He can't leave me! But he knew better. He knew the awful truth. His lover and best friend was dead.
"SIRIUS!"
Lupin's body sprung forward, almost landing him out on the cold carpet of his room. He looked around him in surprise. Icy sweat trickled down his face. The damp spot in which he had been lying in a moment ago squished as he tried to move. He looked around again, realizing that he was in the Black house, in his room. The same room he had shared with Sirius when he had been alive. Sirius was dead. He had been for a month now; a month without his familiar body lying next to him. He hadn't been able to sleep right since the incident. Nightmares of that scene in the Ministry plagued him every time he closed his eyes. Sirius' surprised and horror-struck face haunted him like the remnants of his past. The scene kept playing itself out every night, and every time he found something he could have done differently, something he could have done to save him. He could have fought Bellatrix with him, could have fallen through the veil instead of Sirius, could have reacted fast enough to get there to stop it. He could have even stopped Sirius from going after Harry so he wouldn't have even gotten mixed up in it in the first place.
Everyone told him to forget his death, to let it pass. But he couldn't. His mind, the one who had always been the practical one of his friends, could not accept the truth. His mind was physically divided between believing Sirius was still alive, standing in the doorway looking fondly at Lupin with the confused puppy expression he got on his face when he didn't quite get something Lupin was talking about. He'd come over and drape his body over Lupin and say, in that lovely, beautiful voice of his, "What do you mean I'm dead? Do you really want me gone that badly?" The other part if his brain though, the practical one, knew the truth. Sirius was dead. He fell through the veil, and was never coming back. This was the part that probably giving him the nightmares; to convince him he was gone. Why? Why now? Why when I need him most? Why has he left me? Why did he abandon me? How am I to take care of Harry? How am I able to take care of myself? He is back, the Dark Lord, the one who cursed me to begin with. Why did Sirius have to leave me in this cold artic of a world? Why couldn't he at least taken me with him? He looked at his wand on the bedside table. I know a few curses. It would be over in a few minutes, not much pain. I could be with him. We could be happy. What of the others?his sensible side asked. What of them? How do you think Dumbledore would feel, if you went off and killed yourself? How would the Order feel? How would Harry feel? This though hit Lupin with an icy chill. How do you think Harry would feel if the only other adult role model in his life went and committed suicide? What do you think this would do to him?
The werewolf sat there for several minutes, listening to the sound silence that filled the house. He then got up, took a few wobbly steps towards the bedroom door, and opened it.
"I'm not getting any sleep again tonight." He wearily walked through the deserted house to the library, which was once such a comforting place for him. He looked around, not exactly sure why he was hear, and felt a warm surface hit his hand. He looked down to find one of Sirius' favorite books, One Hundred Witty and Clever Things to Say to a Prick Standing behind You. He smiled, a thing he rarely did these days, and sat down to read the rest of the night.