From the playlist:

Asleep - The Smiths

novembre - ultra version - November Ultra

evermore - Taylor Swift

We Are Broken - Paramore

Ch. 53 - Sufficient/Numb/Bloodthirsty

November

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

Turns out, they were plenty sufficient.

…

It seemed Remus would never leave the bed.

When Emmeline finally dragged him off the Potters' kitchen floor and brought him home, he laid down on the mattress and scarcely got up for three days.

He wouldn't take food. Emmeline was having to pour water into his mouth.

He cried so frequently and so forcefully that his voice remained hoarse.

He couldn't speak anyway.

The earth had crumbled. The sky had fallen.

When he did rise, it was only because Dumbledore requested to see him, and Remus had questions.

Everything about the world felt different after he got out of bed.

Nothing was beautiful anymore.

The flat felt like a sepulcher.

He became much more aware of all the dust.

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He was like an outdated, ignored piece of furniture in some great and long-forgotten estate, covered in a sheet and collecting dust.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 week 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.

…

"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."

"…Why did he do it? Did he say anything?"

"…He did not. I won't pretend to understand what causes someone to do such a thing to the people he seems to love the most."

…

The Order - or what was left of it - was aiding the Auror Department in rounding up remaining Death Eaters, and accelerated trials were taking place every day before the Council of Magical Law. 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 felt more like a directive than a request. If she hadn't been so devastated, Emmeline would have gone mad. Remus might've too, if he could bring himself to feel anything at all.

…

"What will become of their 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...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."

…

A week went by.

The agony became too much for Remus to bear.

The minutes passed like years, and the crushing pain of the cavernous hole in his chest 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 sobbing just...stopped. The tears stopped altogether. The pain stopped, too. 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 sorrow. It exhausted him. Emmeline cried nearly all day long, every day, and the more he saw her cry, the more anesthetized he became. Any remnant of a feeling or an emotion was too much for him to handle. Numbness was easier; easier to go in the other room, to be alone and to leave Emmeline alone.

He didn't know when else to do, and 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?"

Remus swiped his finger across some dust on the surface of the table, his other hand thumbing a letter his father had sent. "It doesn't matter," he muttered. "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 seem so apathetic when you say those things," she insisted.

"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 not-...I didn't mean-"

"I know," she interrupted. Even if he didn't, she knew precisely when the numbness had taken him. She'd been trying to wait patiently, but going through this alone was becoming impossible. "I'm just worried Petunia might muck the funeral up just to spite them...it's already going to be so small…"

She wiped her tears with the back of her hands. Remus stood and left the kitchen.

…

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

Remus stared catatonic at the black trousers and button-up she'd laid out for him. "...You mean Harry?"

"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, monotone.

...

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 invited no one else but Emmeline and Remus - but only because Emmeline had found her phone number and begged to be there.

Petunia had allowed them to come, on one condition: she made it very clear that they were not to extend invitations to anyone else of "their kind." It was hard for Emmeline to stomach the thought of such a sparse funeral for two people so well-loved, but in the end, she decided that taking on Petunia was more than she could handle right now.

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 nearly broke down on the spot.

They found Petunia standing by herself as the burial workers readied the coffins and plots. No service had been arranged at St. Jerome's. Emmeline found herself torn between desperately wishing to see her friends' faces one final time, and thanking God that Petunia hadn't arranged an open-casket observance. 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?"

Remus shook his head. "No, I didn't tell anyone…"

Evidently, word had gotten around.

Because within minutes, a large crowd of witches and wizards, many whom Emmeline didn't even recognize, had come to honor the Potters. The graveyard was soon filled with people in black cloaks interspersed throughout the graves or overflowing into the roadway beside the church. 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 clothes 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 burial.

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 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 still as a memorial statue. One might've thought he was cut from the same slab of marble as the headstone.

At one point Emmeline felt another person take her left hand, but it couldn't have been Remus.

She turned to see Mary MacDonald standing beside her.

Emmeline attempted to say her name, but no sound came out of her mouth. 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 caskets. They'd begun their life together at this church in each other's arms, it was only fitting that they should end it together in each other's arms, and not be separated by any earth.

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's numbness was temporarily overtaken by the white-hot rage that surged through him at the sight. "I swear, If he says 'may they rest in peace and may they not die in vain'-"

"Remus, don't," Emmeline hissed.

He exhaled, 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.

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. 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 been there, 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 saw him lingering, he nudged Emmeline.

"Vance, a word?" grumbled Moody.

Emmeline wiped her face. "Sure."

Silently, Remus turned and walked away.

Alastor stared after him. "How's he holding up?"

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

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

"I'm...alive. Alive is 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…"

"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, turning back around.

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

Remus didn't say anything. 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 live with his aunt and uncle. Remus knew he'd inevitably fail Harry the way he's failed his parents.

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

"It was fine."

"Did his mother receive his Order of Merlin?"

"Yes, she was holding on to it the whole time."

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 once-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 want your wand with us."

"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 before."

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

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 Alastor spoke about Remus; though upon second thought, she suspected he 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. 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 adjacent 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. 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 again. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed hold of his hand.

"You just keep going."

Tears threatened Remus's 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 crumble now, 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.

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. The sight of the wands damaged the dam even further.

Moody rolled the pouch back up and levitated it gently into the hole he'd dug before covering it back up, and when he'd finished, he 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 entirely. Just long enough to tell her.

"Remus, please talk to me-"

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

Emmeline laid a hand on his shoulder and turned him towards her; but his eyes immediately darted to his shoes.

"Whatever it is, you can tell me," 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 affirmed.

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 phone call from Bristol...Why didn't you say anything?"

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

"To what?" 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 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 nothing to offer her; no rebuttal, no defense. Nothing.

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

"Emmeline-"

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

He started towards her, but she recoiled.

"...You bastard-"

"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 unparalleled revulsion.

"I'm so sorry, Emmeline, I should have told you-"

"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's huffing and puffing turned more vocal, and soon he was hunched over as the exhales turned to choking sobs like 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 sank 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 for the earth to swallow him up more than he did at the foot of the Potters' graves, and he remained there for many hours, hoping that it would.

…

By the time Remus apparated home, it was well 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 loathing. 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 saw her sitting at the table in front of an old stationary box, thumbing through photos: their life in and after Hogwarts captured on 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 look at him. "I hadn't seen them in months...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."