Ch. 51 - Sufficient/Numb/Bloodthirsty

Sirius thought the dementors wouldn't have been sufficient punishment for Pettigrew.

Turns out, they were plenty sufficient.

Remus had become much more aware of all the dust.

It seemed insignificant really, since most of the time he didn't notice dust on a surface at all. But things were different now; now, he saw it everywhere. He would catch sight of a speck drifting across his vision and hone in on it for far too long. Now, everything seemed covered in dust. His whole life seemed covered in it. He felt like an ornate, ignored piece of furniture in some great and long-forgotten estate, covered in a sheet and collecting dust.

"You assured me they would be safe," Remus muttered, his eyes down in his lap.

"Nobody could have known what Black was planning," Dumbledore said with even-tempered regret.

The details of Harry Potter's mysterious triumph over Voldemort had stirred quite an excitement among the wizarding population in the first few weeks since the confounding incident. Though Voldemort seemed to be gone and his reign of terror concluded, chaos abounded. Amid the celebrations, the Ministry was closing in on death eaters left and right, and they were putting up a fight. If you back a dog up into a corner…

"But I told you something was amiss."

"When you came to me, I saw a man mourning the loss of his friendship. I never imagined what could have come of it."

The Order (or what was left of it,) was aiding the Ministry in rounding up remaining death eaters, and accelerated trials were taking place every day before the Wizengamot. If anything, the death eaters were more volatile now than ever before. In light of their recent loss, Dumbledore had given Remus and Emmeline permission to stay out of the fighting, though it had felt more like an order than a request. If she hadn't been so torn up about Lily and James, Remus half expected that Emmeline would have gone mad at home. He might've too, if he could bring himself to feel anything at all.

"What will become of the boy?"

"Harry Potter will be protected, so long as he remains with his relatives. He must stay with his aunt and uncle until the time comes for him to attend Hogwarts."

Remus nodded.

"...Regretfully, I cannot permit you to visit him."

"...Albus, Emmeline wanted me to ask...is there no way that-"

"I am...sorry. For the sake of his safety, this is how it must be."

Remus had grieved for James, Lily, and Peter for a week, and the agony was too much for him to bear. The minutes passed like years, and the pain was worse than a thousand transformations every day for the rest of his life. He could not pinpoint where, but somewhere along the line, he was surprised to find that the tears just...stopped. The pain stopped, too. In fact, the everything stopped.

Remus became entirely numb.

But this wasn't like Marlene; when she'd died, it had been a blessing that he and Emmeline hadn't both processed it all at the same time. He thought, perhaps, that would have been a benefit of the numbness, but it had the opposite effect. Instead, he couldn't stand to be around Emmeline or her pervasive grief. It exhausted him. It made his chest twinge with the shame that he hadn't told her about the plan or the charm, and any remnant of a feeling or an emotion was too much for him to handle. She cried nearly all day long, every day, and the more he saw her cry, the more anesthetized he became. Numbness was easier; easier to go in the other room, to be alone and to leave Emmeline alone. Remus knew this emotional paralysis was harmful for him and unfair to Emmeline, but feared facing the alternative more than anything else he'd ever faced in his life.

"...Do you think Petunia will have chosen the right headstone?" Emmeline asked one afternoon as she leaned up against the kitchen counter.

Remus swiped his finger across some dust on the surface of the table. "It doesn't matter," he muttered. "They're gone and we're the only ones around to see it."

Emmeline's upper body writhed under his indifference. "...I really hate when you talk like that. Like it's not important to honor them."

"Of course it's important to honor them."

"You just seem apathetic when you say those things," she insisted, raising her voice.

"You think Prongs is up there somewhere going 'you ruddy idiots, I wanted the marble one not the granite one?' Really?"

Emmeline abandoned her tea on the counter and slumped down onto the floor where she began to cry softly into her hands.

Remus realized too late that he had been cruel. He couldn't tell anymore. "...I'm-...Emmeline I'm sorry, I'm not-...I didn't mean-"

"I know," she interrupted. Even if he didn't, she knew precisely when the numbness had taken him, and she'd been trying to give him space, but going through the pain alone was becoming impossible.

The urge to leave the room came over him, but something that reminded him of what guilt used to feel like kept him tethered there.

Emmeline wrapped her arms around her knees. "I'm just worried Petunia might muck the funeral up just to spite them..."

A long silence passed, and the thought of confessing what he knew crossed his mind. But before he could convince himself to do so...

"...He's not going to grow up knowing any of it, is he?" Emmeline asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

"...You mean Harry?"

"Petunia hates our world. If he stays with them like Dumbledore wants, they're not going to tell him anything about James or Lily, or what he can do, or...any of it."

"...I suppose they're not."

"...He's not going to know us," she realized.

"...I suppose he's not," he repeated.

Emmeline began to cry again. Remus stood and left the kitchen.

...

As she'd insisted over the phone, Petunia had not brought Harry to the funeral. In fact, she hadn't brought anyone. She came alone and had invited no one else but Emmeline - but only because Emmeline had found her phone number and begged to be there.

Petunia made it very clear that Emmeline was not to extend invitations to anyone else of "their kind." Remus was inclined to respect Petunia's wishes, but Emmeline couldn't bear the thought of such a sparse funeral for two people so well-loved. In the end, she decided that taking on Petunia was more than she could handle right now, and did as she asked.

So for the second time that week, Remus and Emmeline, dressed in black, trudged into a graveyard. A few days prior, they'd attended Peter's funeral. His poor mother didn't have any of her son's remains to bury save for a finger, so the burial plot was quite a bit smaller. When the two gaping holes in the earth came into view, Emmeline's heart sank six feet under.

They found Petunia standing by herself as the burial workers readied the coffins and plots. Emmeline did not want to think about how James and Lily lay dead in those very coffins. She couldn't remember a time she'd seen James Potter sitting still...yet there they were, motionless in the polished wooden boxes. Emmeline found herself torn between desperately wishing to see her friends' faces one final time, and thanking God Petunia hadn't arranged an open-casket wake. To her credit, she had picked out a lovely headstone after all; made of white marble. Emmeline thought Lily and James would have liked it very much.

Remus just stared at the coffins, and if he could've felt anything, it would have been envy. He got the sense he'd been left behind.

He and Emmeline kept their distance from Petunia, and no one greeted each other. It was quiet.

Until:

Out of the corner of her eye, Emmeline saw someone moving through the headstones.

Dumbledore seemed to appear out of nowhere, and took his place near an adjacent tree. When Emmeline spotted him, she pointed him out to Remus. "...Did you tell him about today?"

"No, I didn't tell anyone…"

Evidently, word had gotten around.

Because within minutes, a large crowd of witches and wizards, many that Emmeline didn't even recognize, had come to honor the Potters. The graveyard at St. Jerome's was soon filled with people in black cloaks interspersed throughout the graves or overflowing into the roadway beside the church. The previously gut-wrenching silence was broken by the crunching of leaves underfoot. Through her tears, Emmeline smiled at the multitudes that had come to pay their respects.

Remus had half a mind to turn and run.

It was clear that the large gathering rattled Petunia, and Emmeline half expected a slap on the wrist or a scolding, as she probably thought that this was her doing. Petunia did not reprimand Emmeline, but she did try her very best to pretend that the magical folk in strange dress around her were invisible - particularly, the seven-foot tall man blubbering on the outskirts of the crowd. Petunia's severe features remained unwaveringly stoic during the entirety of the ceremony.

Soon, Alice and Frank came forward and stood to the right of Remus and Emmeline. Behind them among the crowd stood Order of the Phoenix and several of their former Hogwarts professors. Professor McGonagall was inconsolable, and Professor Slughorn, who looked particularly glum, held an empty fish bowl in his hands.

Alice clutched Emmeline's hand tightly as ceaseless tears streamed down both of their cheeks, as well as Frank's. Emmeline had hoped that the burial might draw Remus out of whatever hole he'd dug himself in his heart - but just as he had at Peter's funeral, he stood as straight and tall as a statue. One might've thought he was cut from the same slab of marble as the headstone.

Emmeline felt another person take her left hand, but it couldn't have been Remus; he was too disengaged and the hand in hers was too small. She turned to see Mary MacDonald standing beside her.

Emmeline attempted to say her name, but no sound came out of her mouth. Because of the war, she hadn't seen Mary much at all since they'd left school, and the friendly, freckled face before her stirred up even more nostalgia of Hogwarts and memories of Lily and James. Mary understood her silent mouthing, and hugged Emmeline tightly, remaining by her side for the duration of the burial. Remus stepped a few inches away.

As the two coffins were lowered side-by-side into the earth, the once silent crowd broke out into a chorus of sniffles. It occurred to Emmeline that something about it felt incredibly wrong, and then she realized: they were separated in their own boxes. It didn't matter that they were side by side - James and Lily would much rather have gone together.

She couldn't restrain her sobs any longer, and she shoved her face into Alice's shoulder to stifle the noise.

When the burial was concluded, Petunia walked swiftly away without a word to anyone. The funeral workers left too, and when they'd gone, Dumbledore made his way through the crowd and up to the fresh graves.

Remus' numbness was temporarily put on hold as that white-hot rage surged through him. "I swear, If he says 'may they rest in peace and may they not die in vain,' I'll-"

"Remus, please," Emmeline hissed.

He suffocated his anger, and retreated to numbness.

Albus was known for his skill in keeping his emotions under strict control, but today, his bottom lip quivered ever so slightly as he spoke. "The loss of James and Lily Potter...is an immeasurable tragedy," he began. "Their bodies may be gone from us, but their spirits shall live on forever in those of us that loved them - and, as you can see, there are many of us. Their legacy will continually remind us that there is no greater power in this world than love for one another. I can only hope to show half their bravery at the end of my earthly life. You can be sure that their great sacrifice will never, ever be forgotten."

When he'd finished speaking, he raised his wand towards the graves and conjured a beautiful bouquet of white roses to rest against the headstone. Then, one by one, each person in the crowd came forward to leave their own enchanted flower upon the graves, paying no mind to the potential of muggle on-lookers. Professor Slughorn, his cheeks moist, set the fishbowl down on Lily's side of the headstone and conjured a single magenta water lily into the bowl.

Having been provided a sense of closure, the crowd slowly began to disperse. Emmeline considered catching Dumbledore on his way out to ask him if he'd changed his mind; if there was any way she and Remus could take Harry; but when she turned to look for him, he had already snuck away. So instead, she thanked the Longbottoms for coming and said a tearful goodbye to Mary, who promised to come see her soon. Remus watched the rest of the crowd as they went, supposing for James and Lily's sake that he was grateful that they'd come, but knowing he was no less numb or alone than he had been before.

Alastor hung back near where they stood and waited patiently for their attention. When Remus noticed him lingering, he nudged Emmeline.

"Vance, a word?" grumbled Moody.

Emmeline wiped her face. "Sure."

Wordlessly, Remus turned and walked away.

Alastor stared after him. "How's he holding up?" he asked, though he already knew the answer.

"...He won't talk to me about it," she breathed, her lip still quivering.

"Hmm," Moody grunted. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm...existing. That's just about all I can manage."

Alastor huffed a sigh. "...I want to tell you again how sorry I am. There's just no good in this. None at all."

"Thank you, Alastor," Emmeline murmured.

"Secondly - mind, this may be shite timing, but it can't wait any longer - I want to offer you a job."

Emmeline furrowed her brow. "...What, in the Ministry?"

"In the Auror Department."

A few paces away, Remus was examining the heap of flowers at the foot of the gravestone. He stood back with his hands in his pockets, not wishing to stand on the freshly dug earth lest he tread upon James or Lily. Now that they were buried, they really seemed gone. He wondered how he could conceivably go back to living a life without them in it.

"I'm so sorry, Lupin," a light Scottish brogue lilted from behind him.

He turned to face Professor McGonagall, whose complexion was reddened and teary. He was sure that seeing her cry was worse than seeing Emmeline cry. "Thank you," Remus muttered.

McGonagall came up alongside him, staring down at the graves. "It's not right, their little boy having to go live with those horrid people…" she said, wiping another tear. "None of this is right."

Remus didn't say anything. McGonagall wasn't the first to imply that Harry should go to himself and Emmeline instead of the Dursleys; but Dumbledore had insisted. Though he'd never breathe a word of it to Emmeline, Remus thought he was just about the last person who had any right to look after Harry, sorry as he was that it meant he'd have to be with his aunt and uncle. He knew he'd never be able to keep Harry safe, since he'd failed to keep his parents safe.

"I was sorry I couldn't make it to Pettigrew's burial. Was it alright?"

"It was fine."

He could feel her eyes upon him; feel her pity creeping up on him to the point that he thought it better to face her than not to. Her sharp features had softened considerably, and she looked as if she wished to embrace him.

"I truly am sorry," she whispered, opting for a comforting pat on the back and keeping her hand there.

"Does that sound like something you'd be interested in?" Moody had continued.

Emmeline returned her slack jaw to the rest of her skull. "...Talk about shit timing, Moody."

"That a no, then?"

Having trouble stringing her thoughts together, Emmeline shuffled her feet. "Well not necessarily, but...what about the training period?"

"I can fast-track your training like I did for the Longbottoms. There'll be some preliminary orientation, then you'll do your training and your field work simultaneously. It'll be rigorous, but I need your wand with us."

His use of the word "need" puzzled her profoundly. "I don't understand. Well, no...I'm just...surprised, is all."

"I can see that."

"You've never mentioned that you wanted to recruit me."

"That's because I didn't need to before."

She continued to ogle at him.

"I'll be blunt. Dumbledore's not going to need an Order of the Phoenix for much longer, but that doesn't mean there's not still a fight to be had. There are too many of them still out there that need to be brought in...O'course, I'd take Lupin too if his circumstances allowed, but the last thing he needs is extra scrutiny from the ministry. Crouch is firing on all cylinders, and not one of them contains anything resembling mercy."

Emmeline was a bit shocked by the way Moody spoke about Remus; though upon second thought, she supposed she suspected Moody had known about the lycanthropy for some time now.

"Look," he continued in lieu of her silence. "You're a grand witch and you're smart in a conflict. You, me, and the Longbottoms already know how to work together in the field. Seems a waste for you to go back to a bookshop. Unless…" Alastor's magical eye seemed to focus in on her more intently than it had before. "Are ye too bloodthirsty for this?"

"...I'm not sure what you mean," she replied innocently.

Both his eyes now drifted to the newest additions to the graveyard. "I mean you're gonnae be tracking down people who were involved in, or at least in support of what happened to the Potters, the McKinnons, Meadowes; everyone. This isn't just patrols and espionage anymore. It's a hunt. And I need to know that you can join me as an agent of the law, not a rogue. Can ye do that?"

Unholy, vicious fantasies that filled her with a strange satisfaction began to pass across Emmeline's eyes. An honest answer would've led to Mad-Eye revoking the offer. In reality, she had changed her tune since that night at the port of London. Now she thought, if given the chance, she'd have no qualms killing a death eater - any death eater - with little provocation. She wanted revenge. She wanted to take the lives of the people who helped take the lives of her friends, and if the Order was disbanding, she would have no other way to do it. Moody himself had killed people for resisting arrest, so she knew it could be done under the right circumstances. Of course, if she told Alastor this, she'd have no opportunity to do so.

This was her in.

"...Yes, I can do it. I accept."

"Aye, that's the spirit." Alastor gave her a squeeze on the shoulder that resembled something close to endearment.

Remus glanced over his shoulder; Moody and Emmeline were still talking, so he remained there with McGonagall. It occurred to Remus that his former professor was no stranger to loss like this; her own brother had been a victim of the war. He'd heard about it when he was still in school. In truth, she'd lost more people close to her than he knew of. Since Remus understood that McGonagall knew far more than he did about everything, particularly this, he thought it prudent to seek her counsel.

"What do I do now?" he asked softly.

McGonagall turned to face him, and taking a deep breath, grabbed hold of his hand. "You just keep going."

Tears threatened Remus' eyes for the first time in days, and he felt the dam which he kept all his emotions behind crack ever so slightly. If he let it break now, he thought he'd never be able to mend it back up again, so he swallowed hard to get rid of the lump rising in his throat. Back to numb. Go back to numb.

McGonagall continued. "Even if you don't see any way you can, you keep going. And if you're not going to do it for you, by Merlin you'd better do it for them. And for their boy," she almost reprimanded him, her voice breaking. She knew Remus well enough to know that he did next to nothing for his own benefit.

He thought if he tried to use his voice again that it might enlarge the crack in the dam, so he just nodded. Knowing she'd been heard, Professor McGonagall turned and walked solemnly away.

"We can discuss things further tomorrow. Come by my office in the afternoon," said Alastor.

"Sure," Emmeline agreed, a murderous reel still playing on a loop behind her reddened eyes.

Moody grunted his approval, then turned and began hobbling towards where Remus stood, pulling something from the pocket of his utility kilt.

When he reached the graves, he came up alongside Remus like McGonagall had and drew his wand.

"Defodio."

A small clump of earth was scooped up from the margin between the two plots. Turning to Remus, Alastor unrolled a tawny leather pouch and showed it to him - it contained both James and Lily's wands. "They didn't have them that night. I thought they ought to have them now."

Remus could not control the shuddering exhale which escaped his throat as he reached out towards the pouch, then retracted his hand. Memories rushed into his mind, further damaging the dam.

Moody rolled the pouch back up and levitated it gently into the hole he'd dug before covering it back up. Emmeline watched from the spot he'd left her in, her tears having dried.

When he'd finished what he came to do, Alastor turned to leave. Just before he exited the graveyard, his gaze wandered back towards the Potters one last time - Emmeline could've sworn she saw one tear roll down his scarred cheek before he plodded away down the street. The quiet returned.

Now that Remus was alone, his dam began to rupture. The first thing to leak from the fissure was anger; he clenched his fists tightly, his fingernails cutting into the skin of his palm. Searing hot tears welled up in his eyes and he could feel himself shaking.

"Remus?" Emmeline murmured from behind him.

He had to suck it up before the dam crumbled - just long enough to tell her.

"Remus, please talk to m-"

"I have to tell you something," he croaked, wiping the tears from his eyes.

Hopeful that they might finally have a productive conversation about how he was feeling, Emmeline laid a hand on his shoulder and turned him towards her; but his eyes immediately darted to his shoes.

"You can talk to me, you know you can," she encouraged him.

What made it worse was that Remus knew what she wanted him to say, and this was quite the opposite. But he couldn't contain it any longer.

"Emmeline, I-...I knew about the plan to keep them safe."

Her eyelids twitched ever so slightly. "You-...you knew?"

"Yes," he sighed.

She withdrew her hand from his shoulder, backing up a few paces. "...How? When?"

"...Before I went North."

"...Before, or after you saw me last?"

He had hoped she wouldn't have worked that bit out so quickly.

"...Remus."

"...Before," he admitted.

He looked up and searched her swollen face, waiting for whatever verbal retaliation she had in store - but she only stared back at him, stunned. Remus began to greatly regret that he hadn't come clean sooner.

"...That phonecall from Bristol...Why didn't you say anything?"

"If I had, you would have gone and tried to-"

"To what, Remus?" she shouted, backing up further. "To help them? To guard the house? To make sure they were okay?!"

"Your life was in jeopardy, too," he retorted.

"I don't care! I would have risked it to-..." She stopped her shouting as her gaze shifted towards him menacingly. "...You knew I would have, and that's why you didn't say anything…"

Remus had no rebuttal.

With her eyes still upon him, she began to analyze the depth of the deception. "So you knew about Sirius…" she growled.

"Emmeline-"

"Answer the question. Did you, or did you not know that Sirius was their Secret-Keeper?"

He started towards her, but she recoiled.

"...You arsehole-"

"Emmeline, how was I supposed to-"

"DON'T," she bellowed, halting Remus in his tracks. Her eyes were full of something he'd never seen them hold before, not towards him, anyway - they were brimming with disgust.

"I am so sorry, Emmeline, I should have told y-"

"What if there was something we could have done, and we didn't because YOU never said anything!?"

"YOU THINK I DON'T ASK MYSELF THAT?!" he roared suddenly. "YOU THINK I DON'T WONDER EVERY SECOND IF THEY'D STILL BE HERE IF I'D GONE TO THEM, OR IF I HADN'T LEFT, OR IF I'D KILLED SIRIUS WHEN I HAD THE CHANCE?!"

Emmeline stood stiffly in the wake of his eruption, too furious to speak. In the aftermath of his tirade, Remus' huffing and puffing turned more vocal, and soon he was hunched over as the exhales grew into the choking sobs from the night he found out. The dam had been washed away.

He moved towards Emmeline, but just as he reached out to grasp her hand, she disapparated.

Now, he was truly alone with James and Lily.

He dropped to his knees before their headstone. "I'm sorry," he moaned, the sobs contracting within his throat. "I'm so sorry I failed you both, I'm so utterly sorry…"

He never desired to be swallowed up by the earth more than he did at the foot of the Potters' grave, and he remained there for many hours, hoping that it would.

By the time Remus apparated home, it was past midnight. He landed in the entryway and staggered into the wall, his body exhausted from the flood of tears. He was reluctant to cross the threshold into the rest of the flat, afraid that he would find it empty. He was positive Emmeline must've gone - she'd never looked at him with such unequivocal revulsion. This time, he wouldn't have blamed her if she left without so much as a goodbye; which is why he was so shocked to find the light on in the kitchen.

He moved raggedly along the wall through the doorway, and found Emmeline sitting at the table in front of an old stationary box, thumbing through photos: their life in and after Hogwarts captured by both muggle and magical film alike. Quidditch, parties in the common room, N.E.W.T. study groups, the wedding - Remus knew well that James and Lily were in many of these photos.

"I had to see their faces," Emmeline said softly, electing not to face him. "I hadn't seen them in months and the caskets were closed... I don't ever want to forget what they look like."

"...You're still here," Remus muttered in disbelief.

She turned from the box and glared at him contemptuously. "Of course I am. You and I are all we've got left."