Title: Out into the Sunshine
Remus sat at the aged wooden table in his tiny kitchen, a bottle of cheap muggle alcohol in his hands. He hadn't started drinking any of it, but he knew if he sat there any longer, he would, though he never had been much of a drinking man. He left that to Sirius and James, because it usually took a lot more to get him drunk than it did them. He took a long sip, straight from the bottle. The second it hit his throat, it burned. He didn't care. At least pain was something for him to focus on.
The alcohol did not, could not, make things any better for him; in fact the more he drank, the more he remembered the things he wanted so badly to forget. All of those magical summers with James, Sirius and Peter, all of the pranks at Hogwarts…the ability to forget he was a werewolf, if only for a few hours. He wanted to forget those times, because instead of making him happy like they should have, the memories served only to remind him that James and Sirius were dead, Peter was dead from working for Voldemort, and he was alone.
"You aren't alone, Remus." In his slightly hazy frame of mind, Remus thought that he heard James' voice. James and Lily had told him that so many times over the years. He turned slowly to face the door and tried to get up but decided it might be better if he stayed in his chair. He couldn't tell who the figure currently standing, sopping wet from the thunderstorm that was going on, in his door was, but he knew the person was too short to be James and he knew that Sirius would have never worn an emerald green cloak because it was too Slytherin for him.
Without taking the soggy cloak off, the figure sat opposite Remus at the table. "Can I have that, please, Remus?" A pale hand gestured at the now half-full bottle. Remus nodded. The still mysterious guest took the bottle, dumped the remaining contents down the sink and sat back down after performing a wand-less drying charm on his/her cloak. "You aren't alone, Remus."
"Yes, I am. Everyone who ever loved me is gone or gone evil. There is no one left, and I'm alone. Even Harry doesn't care about me anymore. He hasn't written or visited in months. Before Voldemort was defeated, he used to come over all the time."
Finally the hood came off. "There are reasons he hasn't visited you know." Emerald met amber."Remus, you know that I've been at Auror training for the past three years. I haven't been allowed to write or talk to anyone except for Ginny, and that's only because she's my wife and having my child."
"She told me that last week when I was at the Burrow for their weekly dinner."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Right, because if you've been taken in by the Weasleys you're completely alone, and have to resort to drowning your troubles with cheap muggle alcohol?"
"When you put it like that, it sounds kind of stupid, Harry. I guess that sometimes my past catches up with me." Remus managed a weak grin.
"I know how that is, believe me. It's been five years since I got rid of Voldemort and I still have nightmares about things that happened then. You know what I do instead of drowning myself with a bit of liquid that's only going to keep the pain away for so long?" Harry reached out and touched Remus' hand. "I talk to my family, and I remind myself over and over again, that I don't have go on alone,because their going to be there for me. Do you want to know something else? You don't have to go on alone either, not when you've got a whole family of people who care about you just as much as my dad and Sirius did. Bet that you never thought you'd be able to hear that, did you?"
Remus shook his head. Harry helped him up and they walked out the door together, not into a rainstorm, but sunshine. Remus finally let go of the past, because he could finally embrace the future. Somewhere, Sirius and James were smiling.