August [j.p]

044- This has broken me down

My twisted knife
My sleepless night
My win-less fight
This has frozen my ground
-
hoax

⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

31 October 1981

James Potter knew that nothing would ever be the same again as Remus Lupin let out the most guttural sob he had ever heard in his life.

His best friend was dead.
Sirius Black was dead and he wasn't coming back.

Remus placed his body down softly and gently, picked up Neville, who was screeching and crying hysterically and plopped him down in James's arms.

With deadly calm he marched down the stairs and James could do nothing but soothe the young boy. He knew he didn't want to see what Remus was going to do. Knew that Remus wouldn't want him to see.

Snape was deathly pale. "Go see a healer." James muttered as he turned his back and walked down the stairs. He would give Neville to an Order member and come back for his best friends body.

A corpse. That's what he was now. An empty shell of the best friend and brother he would never see again.

"Nice one, James."

His last words spoken to him. The thought sent a wave of sorrow over him. Everything from now on would be Sirius's last.

He would walk into his flat and remember that this was the  home Sirius was in. He would look in the sad, practically dead fern and see a stomped out cigarette butt, the last one Sirius ever smoked.

He would seek out the old cup of coffee on Sirius's bedside table and he'd think, "that was the last cup if coffee he ever drank."

And then there would be firsts. His first full day without Sirius, his first mission without Sirius, his first Hogwarts Reunion without Sirius.

It was all too much. James didn't want to live in a world where he had to do anything without Sirius.

He hardly registered who he handed Neville too, only hoping that it was an Order member and not a stranger before storming back upstairs.

⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

Augustine Williams was on her way to grab another pain relieving potion when James Potter shoved a crying baby into her arms.

She knew James was here, came with the full intention to see if he was okay.

She had been a healer for the Order for two years now. Two long years with long hours and injuries and death.

She had gotten used to death, had learnt to let it go and move on to the next patient. That was really all you could do. There was always someone, always someone that needed saving and there was always someone who couldn't be saved.

She had gotten used to death but nothing could've prepared her for seeing Sirius Black dead.

The babe was still crying and wriggling around in her arms and she had to lean back against the doorframe to stop her legs from buckling beneath her.

"James." She whispered, her voice barely audible.

James was crouched over his friends body, pumping his chest and trying to breathe back life into him.

Her eyes found the figures of Alice and Frank. She had only met them once, a long time ago. Back when she was getting ready to marry James. Alice had been so caring and Frank so polite. She felt her heart break for the baby boy in her arms who would grow up without his parents.

She gently placed Neville down onto the floor, wrapping the blanket tightly around his small body before walking through the blood of Sirius Black and crouching down next to James.

"Come James, let's get you patched up." She gently spoke, not daring to lay a hand on him. It was the first thing she learnt when they got taught how to handle traumatized patients.

"Not me." James looked up at her, "Help him first." He pointed at Sirius's lifeless body.

"Okay." she smiled a watery smile at him, she had to be calm. She would mourn her friend later. "Okay, I'm going to heal him now but he'll only wake up later."

"Okay." James agreed and sat back.

With shaking hands she drew her wand and pronounced the healing charm. His skin knitted itself back together where the gashes were deep and gruesome. She swallowed the nausea in her throat. She had seen brains dripping out of a man's skull and a woman holding her organs in her body with her hands but healing her dead friend. That was something she would never return from.

She muttered all the episkys and latin healing phrases she had learnt at the guérison. After her step-father was sentenced to lifetime, she rejected her Ministry job, barged into the main healer's office and demanded she be taught how to make a collage out of broken things. She didn't want to know how to mend someone because broken people could never be mended, but they could be sculpted into something extraordinary.

Sirius's body looked good as new, were it not for the pool of blood around her knees and smeared on her hands and staining his clothes she would've thought he was simply asleep.

"He's going to be better soon but we need to get you down there." She spoke as if she were speaking to a child, "Can you do that for me James."

He nodded distractedly. God, she hated herself. She hated herself for the hope that shone in his eyes as he looked at his dead friend. Her dead friend.

The friend who had walked the path back into the light with her, who let her stroll into the darkness but never let her stay. Now he was gone, and no guérison training could bring him back.

She gently scooped up Neville and cradled his warm body against her chest. With her free hand she grabbed James's, his was also wet from Sirius's blood.

Would he ever come back from this? Would Remus? In that moment she wished that she had stayed back and cowered in France, then she wouldn't have had to see any if it. She would've read about it and she wouldn't wept but she wouldn't have had to see it so vividly and so clearly.

She brought James outside and the snow ground was stained with red.

Pureblood, Muggle born, Half-blood. They all bled the same. And they all died the same.