"Hey Remus!" A friendly voice called as he stepped out of his front door.
It was the first time he'd been out in a week or so, on account of the full moon rising, and Lily and James...
Even Sirius and Peter had gone missing, and the Ministry of Magic was blowing up about it, claiming Sirius had killed Peter, while the Dark Lord was returning and his werewolf phase had been even worse this time, without anyone to help him through it and the grief.
Remus forced himself to shake off the compressing thoughts and turned to smile at his neighbour, over the small fence, separating their front gardens.
"Hi Marlene, how've you been?" he smiled, more of a grimace and hurried to collect the mail.
Tony, Marlene's cockapoo howled softly as Marlene walked him past Remus' gate, stopping to finish her conversation.
"Hey, why've you stopped walking Padfoot in the park?"
Remus froze and felt the weight of the last few days crash against him. The letters from the Ministry declaring his friends dead, arrested or missing. The owl from Dumbledore, telling him there was nothing he could do for Sirius, and that the Potter's son was being taken to the next of kin. The moments were he expected Sirius to crash in from the living-room or kitchen and demand tea or walks. When he would wake up in the middle of the night to find that Sirius had accidently changed and was slobbering all over his face.
Not for the first time, he wished he was back at Hogwart's, learning potions and spells and lazy afternoons spent under the shady trees, leaning against Sirius, with his feet up on James and discussing Potions with Lily. Even with Severus' snark and the teachers constantly wary of them, it was better than this... This Limbo.
"He- he died." And, trying to stop the tears falling down his cheeks, he turned and walked away.
Because dead was what Sirius was to him now.
And that is the end of this story.
Fanfiction has been messing up the last couple of days, so I'm sorry about the long wait.
Of course, there will be more Marauders stories, I'm Marauder trash.
(A cockapoo is a cocker spaniel and a poodle mix. They're pretty cute)
Hope ya'll have had a great day back at school (I had the best PE lesson in three years... We sat in our friendship groups and talked about PJO, dogs and gossiping about a science teacher and other kids at school -nothing mean, just general 'oh so they went to France'-)
Fez.