5
Sirius
Cold…cold, damp, and dark and I cannot remember where I am…then it flows into me like ice water…Peter.
Death and pain and Azkaban. Peter's eyes watering as he shouted "James and Lily! Sirius how could you!"
God, he even meant it! He blamed me for giving him the opportunity to betray them!
James body stretched out in the doorway too pale, too still, too empty.
Lily crumpled like a rag doll on the floor in front of Harry's cot.
Both of them dead.
I did this. Me.
It is whole, hollow, and real.
I can hear my own voice telling James that Peter was the better choice, and I can remember thinking "The spy, god…Moony must be the spy!" It feels like a bludger is loose in my stomach…all the pain, distrust, betrayal, and I brought it on myself. I try for a moment to grasp at some happier thought, quidditch, chocolate, fingers running over sun warmed skin, but I find that they are all tainted. None of my memories is safe from what they inevitably lead to; the war, and death and mistrust, lost faith and James...and Lily... Peter.
I push myself to take it, to endure it, and when I can no longer stand it I shift into Padfoot raise my head and howl piteously at the rising moon; Moon…Moony, Remus. God I have left Remus alone, and he doesn't know…he does not know. I didn't trust him, and I was wrong. Wrong about everything, I was wrong about him and Peter and myself and everything. Damn it! I Betrayed Moony. I betrayed myself…but slowly I come to understand; I didn't betray James…I did not betray James. I'm innocent. I shift again and try the words out. "Innocent" I whisper it into the darkness. Then the on-slot stops. I am just Sirius, cold and hungry, alone and hurting,shamedand Innocent. Innocent.
Remus
Almost two months have passed since the end of the world and I am standing in the kitchen that I once considered my mothers domain. I am naked, shaking and bleeding, but I have survived another moon. I almost want to curse my resilience. How can I keep going when so much in the world is broken? Why do I have to keep waking up and living through this? Haven't I earned the little bit of peace that death might bring?
I suppose it really doesn't matter what I have or have not earned, because it has no effect on what is. My world is so empty, built haphazardly on the ashes and bones of so much pain. I know I should only be mourning Lily, James and Peter, but I can't help but think of him. The careless way he brushed his hair from forehead and squinted at the crossword puzzle as he drank his morning tea and struggled into wakefulness. The way he would scowl in sleepy concentration as he charmed the brush to wash our breakfast dishes, or tip his chair back on two legs and talk about his plans for the day. Despite it all it seems a travesty that he isn't here doing just that. I am angry and disgusted with myself for thinking such things, but I can't make myself deny them either. It feels as though I am living with the ghost of the man I thought he was. The fear that shakes me to the core is that I may never truly accept the man I now know he is, that I will go on living with and loving the ghost of someone who never was, for the rest of my life.
It is that thought that finally bursts something I hadn't even realized was inside me and I suddenly, must know. The why, the how and the million other things that people have told me I should not seek. Those answers, which I have been told, will add to my suffering rather than ease it.
My suffering and pain has gone on static and holding since that fateful day when the entire world fell apart and the pieces suddenly refused to fit back together. I've cradled my pain inside me like a precious jewel because it is all I have left of any of them. The bitter cold of it has radiated through me the way love and joy once did, till I have become frozen by it. I move listless and worthlessly through my days and you could say that I am living, but I couldn't tell you why. It cannot get worse than this I tell myself, as I have done so many times before. However, this is the first time I believe it.
