From the playlist:

Less and Less - Matt Maltese

O - Coldplay

Ch. 56 - The Requiem

December 16th

The water in the tub had chilled just below tepid, yet Emmeline remained.

Even a scouring charm wasn't enough to make her feel truly clean. She needed to submerge herself in water. Maybe she'd come out of the bath feeling new; like a baptism. But she feared she would come out the same, so she stayed in the water to prolong the inevitable.

Remus sat with her in the bathroom, but propped himself up against the door and kept his distance. Even though she covered herself with her knees against her chest, just being near her while she was bathing was the most intimate act they'd shared in ages, and silence was just about all they could muster in the meanwhile. For a long time, they just sat next to each other, Emmeline in the tub and Remus against the door, staring straight ahead and saying nothing.

"I thought you were dead," he croaked after a half hour or so. His gaze did not waver from the cabinets in front of him.

She kept her eyes on the tile. "...I'm sorry. I know I missed the full-"

"You can't leave me to wonder like that, not after everything that's happened," he interrupted.

"I was so focused on Alice and Frank, I wasn't thinking-..." of you. She stopped herself just short of it, but not soon enough.

Remus numbed his hurt.

"It should have been me," she whispered.

"...What should have been you?"

"I think…I'm the reason they're…"

But Remus had heard this sort of talk from her before, and was ashamed to admit that it exasperated him. "You always think you're to blame when something goes wrong."

"You don't understand," she breathed.

"I'm sure I don't," he retorted, his words sharpened with an edge of bitterness.

She rubbed her eyes with her palms. "I disobeyed orders. I fell for a distraction, and the Aurors were so preoccupied with me that nobody was there to keep tabs on the perimeter. Frank walked right into a trap. If I'd just stayed put like I was supposed to, maybe he wouldn't have been taken," she explained, her voice coming out toneless. "And if he hadn't been taken, maybe Alice wouldn't have been either…"

Remus huffed an aching sigh and lowered his head. "...I know what that feels like."

Wrong thing to say, apparently.

Emmeline's lip curled up in disgust. "This is not the same-"

"Fine," he growled, rising to his feet. "You're right. I wouldn't understand. You don't talk to me. You didn't tell me you were in the field now, or that you wouldn't be coming home, or anything. How could I know?"

"Alice and Frank have lost their minds, and you're whining about how I've not been around!?" she returned.

"Oh, excuse me madame Auror, I must be such an imposition," he snapped, ripping the door open. "Clearly, you're too busy with important Ministry matters to speak to me. My humblest apologies that you've had to endure the burden of my company."

He stormed out and slammed the door, muffling an expletive.

Then, disconcerting stillness.

Remus sat on the edge of the bed, huffing and puffing. He waited for when she'd burst through the door to keep arguing; to tell him he was an arse, and that he was a useless sod, and that he was the reason their friends were dead, and that, and that, and that…

But she didn't. She remained in the bathroom for several minutes. It was so quiet, he wondered if she'd disapparated, and he'd simply forgotten.

Guilt began to swell within the void that the pained silence had left. He'd barely slept, was coming down from the panic that her no-notice absence had caused him, and still in an incredible amount of pain - physical and otherwise. Emmeline hadn't slept much either, even before the Longbottoms went missing. Even before the training program. She could have told him she didn't care for the brand of tea he liked, and they probably still would've been at each other's throats…

One thing he did know from their few-and-far-between conversations was that Frank and Alice had been incredibly supportive ever since Emmeline was hired.

Just when he thought to go back into the bathroom, he heard the splish of the bathwater and footsteps on the tile. She came out in a robe moments later, looking exhausted beyond measure, but not upset.

"I'm sorry," she apologized for the third time that day, her eyes on the carpet.

No. He wanted her to scream at him. This resignation only made him feel worse. "You don't have to-...I shouldn't've-..." he stumbled over the words. "It wasn't-...it wasn't fair of me to say those things."

Searching for the right words herself, Emmeline folded her arms. "You're right, I haven't been here. And I didn't-...At first it was because I was angry. I mean, I'm still-...but, it's not-...I think…I think there's something wrong with me," she concluded, her voice trembling. "I'm different." Recalling Bellatrix's crazed face, and words Mad Eye had said once about the difference between them and the Death Eaters, she attempted to surmise the shift she felt in herself:

"I don't feel…good…anymore."

Her eyes never left the floor, try as Remus might to catch them.

"It's like everything that I thought was good about myself went away. I can't feel sympathy, I can't feel remorse…I don't think I hear my conscience…now, where those things used to be, there's this…something else. Something worse. I had Travers in my hand, like this," she said, miming her grip around an imaginary collar. "Bellatrix Lestrange too. And everything around me just went red. I cast a Cruciatus curse for the first time in my life yesterday. All I wanted to do was hurt them. I wanted to kill them. That's what I wanted. And the only reason I hesitated…it wasn't Mad-Eye, or Wilkes, or honor, or anything like that. I just…I got scared of how it all made me feel…the only thing it made me feel…"

"...How did it make you feel?"

"...Alive," she confessed in a deep, gravelly tone.

She met his gaze then, and as if he could see it there in her eyes….

He'd gone numb and put his emotions behind a wall, but Emmeline had hardened into something else. She became the wall.

"I've got this sinister, ugly thing inside of me now. Like part of me rotted," she continued wearily. "I'm not good anymore, Remus. And Lily…I keep thinking how she'd hate the person I've turned into…"

After she said this, Remus couldn't help feeling partially to blame. Maybe if he could focus on anything other than his self preservation…even if he'd just forced himself to hold her hand at the burial, maybe things would be different…

…He wondered if he'd just held her when she needed him to, if she might not have hardened into someone who didn't need to be held at all.

Having searched herself down to the marrow, she closed with this: "I think I lost a part of myself to the war that I'll never get back. And I think if I continue in this direction I'm headed now…more of me will rot away." Emmeline's blank stare softened ever so slightly, as if she were about to cry, but she didn't.

Remus wasn't sure what to say to her. He didn't know if he could say anything…

Maybe he needn't say anything at all.

"...Get dressed," he urged. "There's…something I need to show you."

…

Snow crunched under their feet when they landed. As soon as she smelled the juniper on the air, Emmeline felt her heart quicken.

It was nearly Christmas time in Godric's Hollow.

Remus began to walk out of the wooded area, but Emmeline could not bring herself to take a step. "Why have you brought us here?" she questioned, recalling the sour taste of smoke intermingled with tears.

"...We won't-…We won't go past their house. Or ours. We don't have to pass any of it."

Reluctantly, she followed.

They walked in silence. Every so often, he'd check Emmeline's face in his peripheral vision. She always loved the snow. She used to stare and stare at it with a childlike wonder that gave him a strange sense of hope and calm. But with each step Emmeline just looked down at her boots, the flicker of awe and amazement extinguished. Snow held nothing for her anymore. Now, it was just something that covered her friends' graves.

Remus kept his word, making a point not to walk past theirs or the Potters' houses on their way to the village square. Just one more row of shops, and she'd see it…

"Just a bit further," he assured her.

She hated being here. She hated the snow. She hated the cottages. She hated the juniper. She hated the-

Obelisk.

There in the main courtyard of the town stood a large, stone obelisk that Emmeline had never seen before. Pausing their journey for a moment, Remus took a good look at the statue. It was inscribed with names, perhaps of muggles lost in one of their past wars. He was quite impressed with how they'd hidden the sculpture's true nature.

Emmeline shifted her weight. "This is what you wanted to show me?" To say this was hardly worth the trip was an understatement.

Remus began to approach the stone. "In a moment you'll see it. It was enchanted so that it only appears to wizarding folk. The muggles just see a war memorial."

She wasn't sure what he meant; not until the obelisk began to shift in her vision as if it were a hologram.

Remus must've recognized what it was first, stopping to marvel at the new memorial before them. "She really did a marvelous job," he said, swallowing tightly.

It was then that Emmeline realized what the figure actually was.

The obelisk had gone. In its place now was a stone statue, out of which a man, a woman, and a baby had been masterfully crafted. James, Lily, and little Harry sat before her.

Her jaw hung slack.

"I wrote to the board of trustees in town and had it commissioned," he explained. "Yesterday, an owl arrived with a note from the artist saying she installed it…Told me it took her ages to get James's hair right..."

He wanted to smile, he really did…

Emmeline stood there speechless, feeling something she thought was long gone rekindling inside of her, if only a little.

He withdrew a photo from his pocket that he'd given the sculptor for reference, holding it out to show her. She took it and rubbed the photo between her thumbs, glancing between it and the stone faces a few times. Marlene had taken this, maybe during Christmas a year ago. Harry was only about five months old at the time. Marley thought they looked so sweet, just sitting on the sofa as a family…

"It was in your box. I should have asked your permission for it, I didn't mean to be secretive," he clarified, acutely aware of his past transgressions.

"...It looks just like them…" Emmeline whispered.

"…Now you'll never forget what they look like."

She turned to him, her eyebrows angling inward.

He admired the statue again. "...You were right. It is important to honor them…I had to do something. A headstone in a graveyard is a drop in the ocean. They were so much more than that…"

It didn't make any of it better. But it was one last measly thing he could do for them. He owed it to them.

Emmeline ventured a few steps closer, drawing the photograph close to her chest. With her free hand, she reached out slowly until her fingers were brushing the stone of Lily's cheek. Goodness, the artist had paid attention. Even in stone, you could see the kindness radiating from her face.

Her hand moved to Harry. She wished more than anything that she could see him again…

"...I'm different too," Remus offered softly from behind her.

Not an admonition.

Not a lecture.

An olive branch.

Emmeline exhaled and she turned to face him. "I know you are," she acknowledged. "It's stupid for me to pretend I'm the only one…"

It crossed her mind to reach for his hand, but she didn't. She doubted whether or not she could anymore.

"...Do you think either of us will ever go back to how we were before?" she asked, looking down at his glove and trying to remember the people they used to be before Halloween.

"…It's hard to say," Remus answered honestly. "Sometimes when things break, they can't be mended…"

Seeing her chest collapse the slightest bit, he tried to conjure a more comforting answer, even if he didn't really believe it himself.

"...But I suppose whoever made this had to break the stone to get to the sculpture, and it turned out beautifully."

He observed the statue. It was beautiful. They were beautiful. "I just thought that maybe, someday, Harry could come to see them here," he shared aspirationally.

At that, Emmeline's hardened heart felt just a little more tender. "...I think he'll be very grateful."

They lingered at the foot of the statue until the cold became too much, and even longer after that. Remus found it difficult to bring himself to leave, even though he was shivering.

"I'm not ready to let them go," he whispered. "I don't know if I ever will be…"

"...Then let's not," Emmeline reasoned. "Let's not ever let them go."