After the Veil

By Neurotica

Cold

Lupin woke suddenly in the middle of the night gasping for air and grasping his bare chest. He sat up straight in his bed, looking around his dark room with wide eyes. He was able to get his breathing under control finally and wiped a layer of cold sweat from his forehead. It was effortless to remember what it was that had woken him; he was still seeing flashes of the nightmare as he reached for his wand to give him some much-needed light.

The subject of the nightmare was relatively predictable for someone who had just experienced the loss of a close friend as Lupin had. It was Sirius. In the Department of Mysteries. In the Death Chamber—as he had dubbed it subconsciously. Sirius wasn't alone, though; James and Lily were there, as was Lupin himself. James had explained that Sirius needed to leave, that there were reasons that Lupin could never understand. Lupin had argued, saying there was nothing he didn't understand and that Sirius didn't have to leave. He'd also told his friends that James and Lily hadn't had to leave, either.

As in most nightmares, things had gone downhill from there. Slowly, Sirius, James, and Lily had begun to decay before Lupin's eyes, losing any and all familiar characteristics that he was familiar with. Pulling Sirius with them, James and Lily had disappeared behind that blasted veil, leaving Lupin alone... again.

Lupin rolled his eyes at the childishness of nightmares—he hadn't had a true nightmare since he was eight years old. But he supposed it was a side effect of seeing a friend... well, die.

Deciding that sleep was not going to come to him anytime soon, He removed himself from the warm confines of his bed and stepped onto the cold wooden floor of the bedroom. Shivering slightly, he used the light from his wand to locate his battered robe and put it on. He left his bedroom and made his way through the dark, admittedly creepy, corridors of Number Twelve down to the basement kitchen for a late night snack.

If it wasn't for the fact that he had nowhere else to really go, he would have left the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black the night he'd returned from the Ministry of Magic, without Sirius. He'd sold his home in the country to move into the old, abandoned house. Sirius hadn't really asked him to, but Lupin had been able to tell from the tone his friend used when he'd made to leave that first night that he, Sirius, actually wanted him to stay. Sirius had never been one to come right out and ask for a favor, and one would have had to known him well enough to know when he desperately needed something.

Sighing, Lupin sat at the kitchen table with a bottle of butterbeer and a plate of biscuits left by Molly earlier that night. The Weasleys had returned to their home in Ottery St. Catchpole just after the children left for Hogwarts the previous September. After their departure, it had seemed odd to once again be roommates with his old friend. But slowly, very slowly, Lupin and Sirius had become reacquainted with one another. They'd become the same kids they had been before they'd been torn apart by the events nearly fifteen years ago. It was as if nothing had ever happened at times. They'd changed, of course, as all men do as the years go by.

Sirius had spent twelve years in a place the majority of the wizarding world considered the depths of hell. He'd had to adjust to his new surroundings in Azkaban while he worked out how to maintain his sanity with the dementors around him day and night. The first few months after the night Sirius had shown up on the back porch of Lupin's cottage, the former professor hadn't been sure if his friend would ever be the same. He'd lost some of the deadened look in his eyes as time wore on, but still had the worn look of a man who'd been through way too much throughout his years.

Lupin had spent the same twelve years in a much different way. The first three or four had been used to get out of the depression he'd fallen into after that Halloween night. Finally, he'd realized that binge drinking and misery weren't going to bring his friends back. He'd used what little savings he'd accumulated since his Hogwarts graduation on a two-year trip around the world to study some of the most famous locations used for Dark Arts in history. Lupin had returned to England with a new sense of self-appreciation. He'd found something he enjoyed.

For a few years, he continued on the path he'd wanted to take when he left Hogwarts. Lily had always encouraged him to work with his talents, do what he was good at. He applied for a job with a local Muggle primary school teaching History. Unfortunately, he had lost that job less than a year later when he was required to miss so many days due to a rather horrible full moon. Luckily, he'd saved his earnings from the job to last him until he found something else. A few odd jobs later, He found the ad in the Daily Prophet for a Defense teaching position at Hogwarts. And the rest, as they say, is history.

He drained the last of his butterbeer and looked around the kitchen. It was quite lonely without Sirius trudging down the stairs like a hoard of trolls after their next meal. The overwhelming feeling of being completely alone once again was starting to fill Lupin's insides completely. It was a sick coldness that one could compare to the feeling a dementor inspired. Thoughts of never again having someone to laugh with, never being able to tease someone relentlessly, never having someone to tell him it would all be okay, or vice versa... It was depressing, really, thinking that his life was back to where it had been fifteen years ago.

With another sigh, he rose from his chair, disposed his butterbeer bottle, placed his plate in the sink, and headed back up to his bedroom. According to his wristwatch it was still long before dawn, and he would need more sleep if he was to be expected to function at all.

A few hours into his fitful sleep, Lupin was once again awoken suddenly, but for a much different reason this time. He'd heard a dull, slightly sickening thud a few floors below him, followed almost immediately by the screeches of the one and only portrait of Mrs. Black. Raising an exhausted eyebrow, he once again got out of bed, pulled on his robe, and made his way to the ground floor.

As he reached the bottom step, he spotted Mad-Eye at Sirius' mother's portrait, covering her with the tattered curtain the Order used to silence the old bat. Normally, Mad-Eye was quite careful not to wake the portraits in the house, and Lupin was quite curious as to what had caused the chaos so early in the morning.

Stepping off the stair, his bare foot hit a warm, squishy form. Looking slowly down, He restrained himself from cursing loudly. Kreacher the house-elf was lying unconscious on the floor, a small pool of blood forming under his head. He looked back to Mad-Eye questioningly. The other wizard was still facing Mrs. Black's portrait, but Lupin could feel the blue magical eye watching his every move.

"Fell," the retired Auror grunted to Lupin's silent question. Mad-Eye then turned and limped down to the kitchen without another word.

Lupin shook his head at Kreacher and followed Mad-Eye's path. It was hard for him to feel any sympathy for Kreacher at the moment. The house-elf hadn't been seen since Dumbledore had questioned him a few nights ago. Lupin had no real concern over it; he wasn't sure what he would have done to the treacherous creature. He'd never been known to be violent, but he'd also never encountered a house-elf who'd betrayed his master in the way Kreacher had done to Sirius. The lunatic elf had been the cause of Sirius' untimely death. He'd probably been planning it for months...

Mad-Eye was sitting at the kitchen table nursing his hip flask when Lupin entered. The younger wizard sat across from the elder and watched him thoughtfully for a moment.

"Sirius would have thanked you," Lupin said in his quiet, hoarse voice.

"He'd been wanting to do that since day one," Mad-Eye said. "Just thought I'd help out a bit."

Lupin gave him a weak smile. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Mad-Eye said gruffly. "Healers fixed me up straight away. Tonks had to stay an extra day; she had bit of a head injury after that fall. Doesn't seem to have affected her much, though."

Lupin nodded, but his mind was clearly on other things. After long moments of silence, the front door closed above them, followed almost immediately by a muttered curse.

"Speak of the devil," Mad-Eye said, his magical eye swiveling to the ceiling.

"Tonks, I presume," Lupin said quietly.

"Aye."

"Shall I leave the two of you alone?"

"If you want," Mad-Eye said gruffly. It was more than obvious that Lupin would prefer to be alone, and he was pleased to have a reason to get away from people.

Lupin nodded, stood, and made his way up the kitchen stairs. Tonks was standing over Kreacher's body with an unidentifiable expression on her heart-shaped face. Lupin stopped next to her.

"What happened?" Tonks asked, kneeling beside Kreacher, checking for a pulse.

"Mad-Eye says he fell..." Lupin trailed off.

"Hmm," Tonks said, standing again. "About time, too. Never did like him. Want me to get rid of him for you?"

Lupin shrugged. "Throw him in an alley somewhere," he said coldly.

Tonks raised an eyebrow at Lupin's tone. "Right... well, I better get downstairs before Mad-Eye goes mental. Are you going to be around later tonight?"

"I don't have any plans," Lupin said flatly.

Tonks nodded. Lupin raised his head away from Kreacher and found Tonks watching him. Lupin looked away.

"See you, then," Tonks said, moving towards the kitchen.

"See you," Lupin replied, going back up the stairs.

He stopped suddenly as he passed a room with a closed door. His eyes moved automatically to the doorknob with a lion that had been transfigured from a serpent—the only doorknob in the house to undergo the change. This, of course, was Sirius' old bedroom.

Lupin stared unblinking at the doorknob for long minutes, waging an internal battle with himself.

Did he really want to go in there? Did he really want to see the place his best friend would never again be? He was in Sirius' house, after all—the place Sirius despised almost as much as Azkaban, the other place he described as hell; what was one room? Did he even want to think about his dead friend at the moment?

Lupin tore his blurring, burning eyes away from the doorknob and continued down the hall to his own bedroom.