You Could be Happy
Theme #28: Crazy

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He sat in the cold, dank cell, his mind a jumbled mess of half-remembered memories and distant fragments of shattered remembrances. Sometimes, when the creatures guarding him stepped far away, to the other side of the corridor, feeding on the other, screaming prisoners, a happy memory would bubble to the surfaces of his mind and a gentle, wobbly smile would tremble across his lips, the muscles in his face trying to remember the feeling of a smile.

But then they would return and the gentle moment of happiness sunk away into the darkness of his mind, sucked clean and dry. He would shrink into himself and collect into a ball, wrapping his arms around his knees and guarding himself, empty eyes watching the shadows on the wall.

The thought, the assertion, of his innocence kept him sane. It wasn't a happy thought. But it wasn't depressing and insane, like the hundreds of other prisoners felt. It was just there. A bitter reminder of his mistakes.

When the Dementors did slink away, and he happened to be thinking of his innocence, thoughts of Remus would float to the surface, dancing there like feathers caught in the wind. He would try to grasp onto the images of his face, of his lips, of his words. They would dance just outside of his fingertips, connecting puzzle pieces but never forming the entire picture.

He would remember the moments when he was happiest with Remus. When they would joke together while studying for an exam, when they would sneak behind closed doors in order to steal a few promising kisses, when they would walk through Diagon Alley after graduation whilst discussing their future, when they would share a flat together. These happy memories kept him sane for those bright few moments when the effect of the Dementors wasn't obvious. But they would always soon return, as if beckoned by the gentle light of a happy memory, and he would reminder some things of a much darker nature.

He would remember all the times he'd been insensitive to Remus, when he'd first learned of Remus' lycanthropy and was afraid, when he'd kissed girls in front of Remus, oblivious to the boy's affections, when they would fight over trivial things, when he'd left Remus without saying goodbye while going off in search of Peter that fateful night.

These were his regrets. And the reassurance, no matter how tiny, that he was innocent kept him from drowning in the waves of his regret.

And he would wish for some sort of memorabilia to remember Remus by, because his memories failed him in the dark dungeon of his mind and of his prison. He longed for something that smelled like Remus, to connect him to the tiny memories where he could be happy.

And he always wondered if Remus was happy, too.