Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Not the characters, not the Carpenters' 'Solitaire'… I don't even own my own time…I really should be writing about whether Clytaemnestra acts more like a man than a woman in 'Agamemnon'. But guess what? I'm not. So life goes.

AN: ok, this is it now, for all those hordes and hordes of people who have been flocking eagerly to their computers to read the latest instalment. NOT. So, ok, I admit this hasn't exactly been setting the world on fire, if the reviews are anything to go by….but who cares, I liked writing it, and it was niggling me that I hadn't finished it. Alors…voila. And yes, you guessed right, the angst doesn't let up. Bit draining for reader and writer, methinks. Maybe a nice fluffy one-shot next time…

5

And I am gone, from her flat, from her life and from her heart. So you see, I am resorting to clichéd, self-indulgent thoughts to keep my sanity from breaking from its flimsy anchor.

I am dressed in a shirt that lay rumpled on the floor most of the night, and a pair of trousers with rents on the knees, and the November wind is cutting through me like the hiss of a bullet or a hex (see how I am trying desperately to hold onto my quasi-Muggle self?), but I relish its icy passage down my throat. It feels in tune with the dread in my stomach.

I can only live for tonight…I may only live tonight, gods know I can do little malice with my wand, which Dumbledore somehow, for some reason, pressed into my hand as I fled. After tonight I must face facts too dark and sombre to name, and I am a coward.

I will not face them now. I must bury them.

But in some respects, I am Hector, I am Orestes, I am so bloated with courage that I cannot help but fly like silence through the streets in search of bloody vengeance.

I would give it all, all the wretched remnants of my life, and if I were a millionaire I would hand over my little golden key, to see his blood spill syrupy across some deserted alley, and know that it was by my hand.

Yes, there are times when I wish I were a Muggle.

A night that makes me choke to recall it, twisted in a perfect pose of love, with no magic dwarfing our own tentative efforts to become something more than ordinary.

There was a man, a lonely man, who lost his love through his indifference - A heart that cared, that went unshared until it died within his silence

Again I am running through a tunnel, seeing orange lights stream past me on the high street, as I careen carelessly on my murderous way. There are huge, cold hands clutching at my strings and making me dance, a tiny helpless marionette on a bare, harshly lit stage, guiding me gently on through a neighbourhood I barely know, but pulling my feet one after another, some twisted destiny.

And because I am myself, because I prefer always to stand back and be devoured by emotion rather than leap in and play the shining hero, I often pause and lean on my knees and catch my hitching breath, and let tears course unchecked down my face with frightening speed and fall splashing on the gum-spotted pavement.

I run on. The rushing wind, a roaring accompaniment, dries the tears crustily on my cheeks, and stripes the dirt that blights the face so many have called 'beautiful'. So many…mathematicians, help me now, do two people constitute many? I suppose, had I been allowed to freeze time in that tiny little flat, and pad around in my shirt and socks, and share a Cup-A-Soup (chicken and noodle) wrapped in a duvet, I might have heard those words again. I could have notched another tally on my mis-placed self-esteem.

But no. Bitterly I recall that I am barred forever from the lives of poor, unsuspecting, wonderful Muggle girls with white-blonde hair and delicate hands.

This is what spurs me on, the shadows of touches long-gone but not forgotten, left to linger hauntingly in a closed box. A box of successes and elations, though the bottom is barely covered, and the contents are coated in dust.

And even he whose touches are consigned to this meagre treasure trove, he has roared out of my life on that monstrous machine, and committed unimaginable treachery.

The hours that I spend doing God knows what on the streets of this ghost town, running, crying, contemplating, do little to diminish my lust.

I may be dull, dreary, dependable, but my passion scares me sometimes. My trembling hand clenched by my side to stop myself grabbing at Lily in her wedding dress. A burning blush watching Sirius struggle into a sequined costume for that pantomime, closed eyes to deny myself such illicit sights.

And now, a thumping in my spine, echoing the slap of my shoes on paving stones, a war drum that snatches my free will away and drags me through the night.

A little hope goes up in smoke, just how it goes, goes without saying - There was a man, a lonely man, who would command the hand he's playing

Time passes in near perfect idleness, repetition. There is little originality about my misery and frenzy.

It is by now about 8.45, the height of what I believe is called the 'rush hour'…a boiling pot of cars and tempers and belching exhausts and shrieking school children.

The side streets I am blindly still trailing along, a steady plod rather than my hasty, erratic running, become busier and families pour out of terraced houses. Lunchboxes are thrust into little jammy hands, and mothers are lovingly flustered as they load into huge people carriers and straighten ties, separate scrapping children.

Through the night, it has become starkly real to me that I am running for myself…I may immortalise myself in gold with talk of Freya, and of James and Lily, but in truth my façade is backed with nettles that remind me that I am still the same selfish being claiming things around me without a thought for others.

But these wonderfully domesticated scenes remind me of days on the lawn, playing with Harry, watching James and Lily live in comfortable intimacy.

So, I am running for them, too, and for Harry, wherever they are now.

But kissing couples on slate doorsteps recall emotions, memories that are entirely personal to me. I cannot voice names, particulars.

But without this hideous dawn, I might too be in such a situation with some faceless lover…chances are all shot down.

And solitaire's the only game in town and every road that takes him takes him down, and by himself it's easy to pretend he'll never love again

Terraces of domestic bliss pass away and are replaced by streets of shops and bus stops swimming in broken glass.

I may have walked here before, seen nothing ominous in the stiff mannequins of window displays and huddled beggars even more ragged than me, but I can barely sum up the energy to remember.

I am giddy with adrenalin and lack of sleep and constant, relentless exercise. I know that any sort of showdown with Sirius would now be pointless, one-sided. Nothing new there, then.

But recalling the frailty of Freya's gently clenched fingers, and the little smile on Lily's face as she wiped Harry's mouth, I have a mad, idiotic urge to play the hero. One last time. The first time.

I will die fighting, in full view of the world, and I will be immortalised. Maybe in this will I find solace. Maybe, trying in vain to slaughter the person who has taught me most about life, maybe this is how I make my mark, not valiantly at the hands of cruel Death Eater torturers.

Facing a friend. A friend…more, surely. I have given up analysing our relationship, if it is to die soon.

Poor Remus. He has no real enemies. Even those who pretended to love him, who tolerated his shabby company, find pleasure in wheeling around and casting fire against him.

The world goes white.

I am thrown to the floor by the blast, and there is suddenly, after a hollow second of perfect silence, in which I think I am dead, write this upon my tombstone – Moony, unloved, there is screaming, and a pounding of feet, and dust settling on my hair.

I cannot tell whether I am being surged towards the blast or away from it, and I cannot tell which I would prefer. I know what lies at the centre…something hideous, something that I should have been part of. I want to revel in the sight of his body and curse the man who took up the Potters' mantle when it was mine to wear. But I want to escape. There is nothing else to do. There is a whole life to be lived in guilty, cowardly shame.

As the zig-zagging dust clears, and tiny little cuts on the side of my face where I fell begin to pulse with slight pain, it all becomes clear. There are occasional pops as wizards Apparate in droves, turning brandished wands at those nearby, sending them on their way oblivious.

One readies himself to do dreadful magic on me, ready to commit a crime as awful as my own against Freya.

'No! I'm Re-Remus Lupin, I'm in Gryffindor, please…look, my wand, I – I could help, please' – as though I am begging for my life.

He nods and turns to a group of cowering, sobbing Muggles. These are scenes of terror so unimaginable…something Freya might watch on her television, images of far-off disaster now so close at hand…in the High Street, for God's sake.

He is like a print of some mighty prince, standing victorious on a pile of rubble, hands spread out in exultation.

A gentle wind lifts his black hair.

There are just the two of us in the world. Something unnatural, the sounds of panic and desperate attempts to restore calm are muffled, underwater as I look at him, ignoring the wizards creeping tentatively towards him, as though he is a monster.

They are closing in…and I know it is really over now…there will be no after the war. These are the last moments of our relationship.

'Sirius!'

My crazed shriek turns heads I barely note.

But his eyes flash upwards and lock with mine, like before in Gryffindor tower with a thick tapestry casting shadows across our faces.

I hope he reads many things in my eyes.

Hatred, perhaps. Surely nothing else could drive me on so long? Love I would have called eternal that is now lying maimed and bleeding somewhere unknown. A final, desperate, inevitable farewell.

I expect little back…a disembodied, alien madness. I cannot say I want anything from him, any longer.

Not…he almost seems to be apologising to me. There could be shame in those eyes, eyes that so often have twinkled with fire and mischief, that have ignited everything but apathy in me.

He is dragged away, in slow motion, and the pop as the struggling group disappears is like surfacing from a black pond. I can hear the sounds again in deafening clarity, but I see little.

I am too busy denying what faces me now.

A lifetime.

I am barely a quarter of a century old.

I must surely die in this war. I shall go insane, otherwise.

If not, if through some twist of injustice, I live to be an old man riddled with bitter memories and regrets and solitudes, I will at least have time to ponder my enigmatic friend and this strange farewell.

Laughing, coldly cackling.

But apologising to me, for something I will never truly know.

I am glad that the streets are empty as I walk away. I seem to be doing that a lot in recent times – away from everything that has ever offered me security, or joy.

For the love of God, let it be for the last time now.

And keeping to himself he plays the game, without her love it always ends the same, while life goes on around him everywhere, he's playing solitaire

AN: so there you have it. Tadaaa. That's it. C'est tout. I fully accept responsibility for the rubbishness of it, I feel any skill I may ever have possessed leaking away...you know what? I'm not even going to waste my energy thinking of an amusing way to beg for reviews. Til next time…dd xxx