Kingsley is sitting in that chair, thinks Remus.

Sitting where another man used to sit and should be sitting now.

He is being entertained by Tonk's changing nose trick, which Remus has seen about ten million times to many. A horrible rage fills him, unjustified anger that Kingsley can be laughing, can be happy when he is sitting there.

He sat there, and they pretend he can just be forgotten, his presence painted over like frosted glass when it is his house, his bloody chairs they're all using!

Well, Remus isn't so lucky. Ignorance, as they say, is bliss, and he believes at this moment that Kingsley is the single most idiotic man he has ever laid eyes upon.

/Look at him there, flapping his fat lips, his voice like nails on the chalkboard, his laugh like the scream of a banshee./

Soon Remus will be screaming.

He hears Molly Weasley talk about a cat she found behind the garden shed at the Burrow. He wants to pick up his plate of cold, uneaten food and hurl it at the woman who could make it with a steady hand.

/How dare they seem so carefree, so unfazed!/

He shifts his glare to the man at the head of a table that was Sirius's also. His fists tighten. Dumbledore takes a bite of dinner and chews pleasantly.

Sirius will never have dinner again. Never.

Suddenly, Dumbledore looks up at him, blue eyes warning, trying to appease. Pleading silently with Remus not to have an outburst.

But Remus is defiant.

He raises his eyes to meet Dumbledore's and tries to send him a silent message to back off.

He'd decided only days ago that he hated this man, once mentor and savior, about as much as he despised Voldermort himself.

He will not be kept on a leash by the old wizard anymore.

No. No, he will not.

He will stand and yell and smash and cry and snarl until his throat bleeds raw, until they all bleed raw. And then he'll rage some more.

He'll terrorize them until their hair turns as grey as his. Until they understand this terrible void that just sucks and sucks. It pulls at your insides, and before long you're left in a state of polite stupor, your already-fragile psyche breaking under the pressure of a thousand painful memories. All memories are painful now. Even the good ones. Especially the good ones.

Yes, yes, yes, he will do this. He'll do it now. He'll get up, and make them all pay for Harry's mourning, for Sirius's lost hope of ever being happy, for the death of his only friend.

"Remus, dear?"

/Now's the time to do it./

"Yes, Molly?"

Stand, Remus, he thinks to himself, do it now!

"Pass the rolls will you?"

/Sirius.../

"Of course."

He smiles at her, and from the corner of his eye, sees Dumbledore put a hand to his face.