There are mornings when the open window causes the sheets to flutter against his back, and he smiles at the tingling feeling left by fingers ghosting across his bare skin, waiting for the warm mouth that will inevitably follow and glide slowly along his spine. But then he remembers.

'You know,' Sirius would have said, 'You can actually connect the freckles on your back to your scars and form the Dog Star.'

And Remus would have groaned, stuffing a pillow over his head after grumbling, 'You, Sirius Black, are nothing but a hopeless romantic.'

'It's true!' Sirius would have whined. 'Why are you so inclined to deny that it's fate for us to be together!' And then he'd go on to prove just how fateful it was, tracing patterns along his back with the tip of his tongue, a suspicious gleam at the corner of his eyes that Remus wouldn't even have to see to know that it was there, wearing an expression that somehow managed to be dopey and wicked and sheepish and lustful all at once.

And then he would have started tracing letters, an 'i' that would have brought a shudder down his spine, an 'l' that would make him arch his back involuntarily, an 'o' that would cause a soft sound to escape his mouth until he'd finally pounce, pinning Sirius down on the mattress and silencing his laughter with his mouth.

Remus closes the window, puts on a shirt and then goes back to bed, squeezing his eyes shut as though that will somehow compress away the empty spaces around his body.

There are afternoons when he plays records while he cooks, classical sounds that manage to convince him that the silence isn't really there.

Invisible fingers make their way into the pot, stealing an uninvited taste before screaming out in pain as the burn begins to settle.

The sound echoes off the empty walls, echoes inside his own head until he sinks to the ground, covering his ears with his hands in a desperate attempt to preserve his own sanity, to protect anything at all from this parasite that is memory.

And suddenly he's overcome with rage, throwing a plate across the room and causing it to shatter into a million irretrievable pieces that will never, ever be the same again.

It's strange, this mixture of love and hate he's become, this bipolarity that once used to be so characteristic of the very person who has caused it in him. He lets out a laugh as he thinks of how he's finally become the monster he's always been, being in love with someone responsible for death. In spite of death. Loving someone to the point of insanity. Loving someone to the extent that you hate them for making you love them, hate yourself for loving anything at all.

Remus leaves the food uncooked on the stove, settling amongst the pile of broken ceramic.

There are evenings when he sits in front of the fireplace, a bottle in his hand with no one to pass it along to, a book in his lap with no one to steal it away.

'Drinking games, Pads? What are you, 13?'

'Oh sod off, Prongs, you just had Mac and Cheese with dinosaur chicken nuggets for dinner.'

'And I regret nothing.'

And Remus would catch Sirius' eye and smile, knowing that he was doing all this for James even though he would never admit it, knowing that only he could distract them for long enough and make them pretend for long enough and make them laugh for long enough to forget the war at their doorstep.

As the fire gleams red Remus thinks, yet again, that perhaps the universe had been wrong about Sirius Black. It wouldn't be the first time. But an ache rises up his chest, a guilt he's felt every single day since that night, a constant dagger poking into the back of his mind saying that maybe, just maybe, if he hadn't been so blinded by this man he would have been able to stop it. And so he chooses his own pain, accepts his own guilt because it's a lot easier than entertaining the possibility that he just might have let him down.

There are nights when he lies awake in bed, staring at the moon, the sky the same deep deep blue as the night they all heard the baby's cry for the very first time.

'I promise you, buddy, I'm gonna take care of you. Even though they named you 'Harry' when they clearly should have gone with Elvendork. Much more badass. Anyway, point is, my purpose in life is to completely and utterly spoil you, you got that? Me and uncle Moony are gonna buy you tons of presents and have competitions about who's name you say first and dress you up in ridiculous outfits and probably hide you a fair few times just to give Prongs a heart attack.'

And Remus would watch him from the doorway, thinking for the first time in a very long time that maybe, just maybe, things were going to be alright.

There is an ethereal plane that lies between dreams and consciousness, a state of mind Remus enters in a daze every night, and images flash across his mind just as he's about to slip beyond the veil: colours of gold and scarlet, grey eyes meeting brown under the moonlight, four heads bent over a piece of parchment, a train compartment littered with empty sweet wrappers.

And it's in that moment, that very instant, that he really, truly knows. Knows beyond all doubt. Knows beyond all hesitation. The realisation either kills him or makes him alive again.