Better Days
"Remus!" His broken voice pitched into the air and hit me like a slap in the face. "Remus!"
Try as I might, I couldn't face him. The tears on his face, the ones in my eyes, I couldn't deny them. And I couldn't bear to watch the Aurors drag him away. I couldn't look at the muggles, scattered everywhere, screaming at the devastation on the road. I couldn't…
I stopped and looked to the middle of the road, to the roundabout. There sat a statue, a praying figure all carved from marble, and she seemed to weep as the rain fell down her face. I turned my back on her and apparated back home. Inside the door the room was dark. I turned to hang my hat, and saw the empty hook where his coat ought to be. But he had taken it with him when he went to "check up" on Wormtail. Oh, poor Peter.
The kitchen window sat a little ajar, as it always did, and the rain snuck in through the crack there, creeping its way down the wall and onto the bench.
In that room, everything reminded me of him. There were pictures on the wall, there were broken, uncleaned mugs lying in the sink. There was a jumper, that blue woollen jumper on the couch, the couch that he had insisted upon.
I stepped quietly over to the couch and sat down tentatively. The room was quiet and I didn't want to ruin that. The couch was cold, but it would warm soon. The jumper was cold, but it smelled of him.
I had looked at his eyes, and I recall feeling as though I was watching his heart break as I turned away from him. He had stopped screaming then, he had stopped calling my name. That black-haired boy who had taught me the truth about everything, that god to my world, that wonderful creature who had taught me, above all other things, what love truly means. I had closed my eyes and turned away, walking back down the street and his silence was cutting.
"I regret nothing," he said, smiling, tossing another frog in his mouth.
"Everyone regrets something,." I told him.
"True, there is one thing I regret," he kissed my cheek and I smiled despite myself. There was no need for him to tell me what he was talking about. "The way I see it, you'll only ever truly regret the things you didn't do, or at least, you'll regret them more than anything else."
I breathed, shuddering, and dug myself further into the soft couch, clutching his jumper to my chest until my arms started to ache. Let them ache.
"I could have turned," I told myself. "I could have stayed."
I could have done a lot of things. But I didn't do them. I turned and I walked away, leaving him to the Aurors, leaving him to Azkaban, though I could barely admit that to myself.
"So tell me," he went on. "If everyone regrets something, what do you regret?"
"I regret one thing, Sirius," I whispered, as though, for the life of me, he could hear it. "I loved you, and I still love you." I clutched the jumper even tighter to my chest, and breathed its scent deeply.
I regret that I didn't turn, and run right back to you.