/\Excuses\/

You stare at me, your eyes hurt, your smile bland and fake. You mumble a "Hello," and try to cover it up, try to cover your pain, the wounds I've caused you. But I can still see it. In the way you hold yourself, shoulders hunched over, in the way you smile, the smile feeble, stopping at the eyes. Even your voice, hollow and grim, even when you're laughing. And each time we stop and see each other at the Ministry, each time we meet up unexpectedly in the halls, you look more disheveled, more torn, more alone and broken. And each time it sends a stab through my heart, knowing I did this to you.

Knowing I killed you.

I try to find excuses, things to pardon me from what I have done, to say to you when I ever become any less cowardly than I am right now. You stand like a judge to me, and now that I lost my first case, I've got to prove to you that this second case is worth hearing out, and that you've got to forgive me for losing the first one. And then I realize I'm not making any sense and I'm just talking myself into oblivion. But I promise not to excuse myself.

It's funny, you know, or not funny at all, to know I didn't know it was happening, didn't see us being torn apart, the Marauders separated. I didn't realize it, or maybe didn't want to acknowledge it, until I needed you guys more then I ever needed you. It was a blow to the head, like I had run out of air and the world was closing in on me. The world was this great big shadow, and I couldn't find anyone in the dark to help me out.

I didn't mean to, I didn't want to happen. Merlin, I didn't even see it coming! It was just….after Hogwarts, one day at a time, I just became more busy, and you were busy……

I'm not sure I know what life is anymore. Life? I don't have one. Scoff at the idea. What is it, life? I know I had it once, I had this purpose, and that was my life. I have only one purpose now, and it's so meek and cowardly that I hardly call it a purpose. You were my purpose, the Marauders.

And I don't even have that anymore.

When I broke your life, I guess I broke my own, too. See, Padfoot? You effect my life without even doing anything. That's how great friends we were, how strong our connection was.

My mum said, once, that sometimes friends outgrow each other. People grow too fast while their friends grow too slow and sometimes, people get just so bored of each other that they can't stand each other anymore. I remember when my mom said that (although she wasn't referring to us, but to a different pair of friends), we took it offensively and protested profusely against Mum's words. You said she sounded like she was talking about an old pair of socks or a toy. People can't grow out of each other.

I said we never would.

I say, it wasn't us. It was the world. The world was too busy growing, too busy becoming whatever it was supposed to become, that it forgot all about us, forgot to tend to our friendship, to nurse our emotional wounds. It was like everything we had known this world to be, it just changed, and it was like when you hit puberty, and you look at yourself, changed, and you don't know what to do with yourself anymore, because it's all so new and unknown.

But we never got used to this new world like we would get used a new body, or break in with a new pair of shoes. We were just wanderers, trying , trying, trying so hard to find our place in this world, that maybe we tried too hard. Maybe what I had found waiting for me (or what I created to fit me in this world), it wasn't what I wanted, it didn't fit my old life. But still, I insisted, insisted, insisted on making life perfect today, so that I forgot about yesterday. And then yesterday kind of ceased to exist, because I forgot what it had brought me, and refused to think about what today took away from me.

And then, it was like a…a…hamster wheel, and you don't know how to stop, because then life just goes on and on and on, and you forget to think, "There once was more to life than this," But then again you don't really want to think that, because it would mean that now is just all a lie, and all you are doing is useless and stupid and…

You just don't know anymore.

But I knew. I knew…it was like a cloud, a dark cloud, loomed over me and a little something was whispering in my ear, "You've got it all wrong." But I didn't know, because I didn't want to know.

And then, in the end, you only find yourself going on and on and on and on about this something and you forget about the whole point of the something was and you wonder is that what life is, too?

And you're at the start again.

And you know what, Padfoot? It hurts me…hurts me more than anything, that I know that it was all my fault, and that I had forgotten about you.

Didn't my mother say once, "It's easier to be mad at people who love you because you know they'll love you no matter what?" Maybe it's easier to forget about people the same way. But it doesn't make sense, because we're right back at the metaphor of the socks, because it's like a friend you just drop whenever you want to and then come back to when you've fallen apart.

Socks.

Just. A. Pair. Of. Bloody. Socks.

And maybe because we're so, so, so, stupidly stubborn, so stupidly alike, that we can't. We can't apologize. It would be a blow to who we were. It's like we are giving up to ourselves. And then it hurts.

And here I am wondering about all this, wondering what the meaning of life all this, my wand staring blankly at me, and then I start realizing, all I've given to you are excuses, even when I had already promised I wouldn't.

And I guess that should've depressed me more, knowing how pathetic I am, breaking the simplest of promises, ones you can't even hear, but can probably feel, and I stop.

And I do grab my wand, but not for it's intended use and push it back into my robes and I wonder where my feet are carrying me, but I really don't realize where I'm going, and now that I think about it, I don't even remember the journey, until I'm there.

I'm there.

And then it seems all useless, but I stop and I look at you, and I look at myself, and wonder where I've seen a more pathetic pair. And you look at me, and I can't tell you're thinking the same thing.

And then you start talking. And you are mad. And truthfully, I don't hear a word you are saying, or the words that are coming out of my mouth, but I feel them, and I wonder if that's all that matters. What you feel.

And we are crying. We're two oversized babies, crying like tears have never escaped our eyes before, and we are hugging, clutching ourselves like life depended on it, and then I see Moony. And he is here. And he is different.

But I don't care.

So we pull him in for a hug, too.