The chipped ceramic mug shattered as it hit the floor.
Remus stood there with the newly opened letter in his hand, so numbed to his surroundings that he didn't even feel the scalding tea pooling around his toes.
No. It wasn't possible. He was rejecting the contents of the letter as fiction. There was no way they could be true. He looked down at it once more, starting with the date it had been written (November 2nd), and hoping against all hope that somehow it had changed. He read the letter down the flourishing signature of Albus Dumbledor, despairing in the fact that the words had remained the same. He didn't know if he was breathing or not, the shock was so intense.
James and Lily: Murdered.
Peter: Murdered.
Sirius…
Sirius: their murderer.
Oh God! No! No it wasn't true. It couldn't be true. He collapsed heavily into his chair at the kitchen table. How could this have happened? He should have been there, should have stopped it. But Halloween had been a full moon. A particularly difficult transformation had left him incapacitated the next day. Two days. His world had ended. In two days.
They were gone. All of them. Gone. Every friend he'd ever had. All of the people who had ever loved him. He could almost see them. Jame's eyes: hazel and charming; now lifeless. Lily's understanding smile gone, leaving her face blank and pale. Peter's watery eyes widened in fear. Siruis…
His best friend. He and James had always been the dynamic duo but he had always been there for Remus. Always.
So why did he do this? How could he do this?
He had seen the malicious look in Sirius' eyes when they had tortured Snape in their school days but…Sirius? Capable of murder? And why James? His best mate! And Lily…she had been nothing but good to him. Why just last week Remus had seen Sirius playing with Harry. He had been lifting his godson into the air…trying to give him a taste of flying. No one had been concerned. Sirius loved Harry, James, and Lily more than his own life! Everyone knows that!
Then Remus hit the painful realization. He had to correct himself. Everyone knew that.
And Peter had tried to confront him about it. The one time the poor bloke stood up for something…
Remus exhaled and groaned as a weight seemed to settle on his chest. It hit him now just how empty his closet-sized flat was. Just a bedroom and a kitchen plus a hole-in-the-wall-the-realator-called-a-bathroom. Yet he had never felt so small in such an empty place.
The faucet was dripping. Drip. Drip. Drip. Reminding him with agonizing and metronomic clarity that he was alone. Alone. Alone.