August [j.p]

045- Could've followed my fears all the way down

And it's hard to be at a party
When I feel like an open wound
It's hard to be anywhere these days
When all I want is you
-
this is me trying

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The months following the events of  The Last Stand, as it had been named and printed in history books, were a blur for Remus Lupin.

He vaguely remember dragging himself up from bed and forcing himself to pick out a gravestone, and a casket and fucking stupid flowers. Who really cared wether it was roses or peonies. Augustine chose Orchids.

And James came by that dreadful morning and helped him dress in his black suit. The sun was shining and he wished it would've rained and stormed because how could the sun be shining and how could the sky be clear when Sirius Black was being buried. Augustine came by when he was dressed, carrying scones and cups of coffee and he burst out crying because he still hadn't cleaned up the half-full cup of coffee on Sirius's bedside table.

James and her, they never spoke. They only offered pleasantries and then went back to doing what they were there to do, making sure he was alive.

Remus didn't know where Neville was going to go, he understood that he was his Godfather, along with Sirius but he just couldn't. Couldn't bring himself to even look at the boy who was supposed to have parents and a home and two Godfathers not one. Augustine was looking after Neville, that's what he was told and when she was working it was James. And when they were busy it was Lori and Sadie. Everyone was looking after Neville except him.

He remembered standing in the graveyard, the sun hot on his back and there were far too many graves already. He felt James's arm around him, keeping up and for a brief moment he thought of consoling him. His best friend was dead too.

Augustine stood on his other side, Neville's small body tightly wrapped in her arms. He wanted to laugh because he remembered her saying that she didn't even have a shred of maternal instincts.

He had loved words his whole life, loved stories and books and even dictionaries. All his life he had loved languages and phrases. He loved weird words and smart words and rare words and words that were hard to pronounce and words no one used anymore. But there wasn't one single word he could think of that could describe how he felt when the casket was buried.

Sirius was dead. He was dead and he was still alive. Because if Sirius's stupid last words that made him stay, "for me". Damn him, he hated him. Hated him for making him live a life without morning kisses and scouting for old records and trying recipes in cookbooks they found at second hand book stores and nights lying together by the warm fire.

It was loneliness or perhaps just needing someone to listen that brought him to Augustine's doorstep at 3am.

He wanted to feel bad for waking her up, she was still working late hospital shifts to compensate for the low number of nurses and the high number of patients chewed up and spat out by war and she was looking after a baby that wasn't even hers. Regardless, he knocked on the door.

There was a shuffle of footsteps and the click of a lock.
"Remus?" She asked into the dark.

"Can I come in." His voice was hoarse from not speaking for days.

"Of course." She beckoned him in.

She didn't look at him with pity like most people did, she looked him directly in the eye. She saw him, and she understood. She had seen far too much death too, was still seeing it.

"Is Neville here?" He asked sitting down on a wooden kitchen chair.

"He's with James tonight. I king of feel like we're divorced parents." She chuckled, taking two mugs from the cupboard.

"I killed Peter." He admitted suddenly, "And I'm not sorry."

She showed no shock or repulsion, which he took as a sign to continue.

"I stormed after him and I broke him with my own two hands. First I broke his fingers, then I dislocated his knees, then his shoulders and then finally, I looked him in the eye and snapped his neck. And I smiled because he was as broken on the outside as I am on the inside."

She placed a mug of hot tea in front of him.

"Working in a field hospital, you see a lot of gore." Her dainty hands wrapped around the mug and he thought it ironic that her hands built for playing the piano were currently stitching up skin and setting bones.

"There was one case, it was only my second week on the job but we were short on staff, so the head healer grabbed me and allocated me a bed. A girl, of only seven years old, mangled and torn up. I spent the whole night reconstructing and growing and healing her and she was still unrecognizable. I was so angry."

Her hands shook around the mug.

"How could someone do that to a little girl?" Her voice was thick with sadness.

"I asked the head healer if she knew where this girl came from. She said they found her by their campsite, left to the wolves. So I asked who was there, and she told me it was a man called Graham Mulciber. I wrote his name down but I knew I didn't have to because I wouldn't forget it."

She looked at him intently, "I've never been violent or vindictive or vengeful but that night I came across him I felt no remorse as I did what he did to her to him. And I still don't regret it. Not even a little bit." She swallowed thickly.

"War has warped our souls, I don't think there's any returning but I do know that there's moving forward. That's all we really can do."

She reached her hand across the table and placed it over his.

"What if I told you I don't know how to move forward yet." He buried his head in his hands, "I replay what I did to Peter, over and over again in my head just to feel something."

He looked up at her hopelessly, "I would just like to feel something other than this abyss of emptiness even if it's fleeting."

She drummed her fingers on the table, "Me too, Remus, me too."

That night they stumbled to her bed and for a fleeting moments he stared at the emptiness and it stared right back at him and he looked away as he felt her legs around his waist and her hair against his neck. And for fleeting moments he forgot about his empty house and the extra toothbrush in the bathroom.

Just a single glimpse of relief and then he'd go back to his empty apartment and the empty bed and the canary that didn't even sing anymore.

"I'm leaving tomorrow." She told him once they were lying facing one another. The moonlight shone through a gap in the curtains and made her look like she was luminescent. Her curls were matted to her forehead and her legs were intertwined with his.
It made his soul ache for Sirius.

"I know." He closed his eyes sadly, "Stay." He whispered.

"If I stay I won't ever leave." She sniffled lightly.

He knew without even speaking that she was talking about James. She loved him, she loved him more than anything and anyone and if she stayed she would go back to him.

"You're going to be great." His voice cracked but he let the smallest of smiles appear on his face.

"I played the piano again today, for the first time in years." She laughed giddily.

He hummed in response, closing his eyes and feeling himself drift into a dreamless sleep for the first time since Sirius's death.

"I wrote a song. It's called Sirius's sonnet." She closed her own eyes and her breathing grew even.

Remus smiled then, a real smile. His beautiful boy, his beautiful boy would remain. Not just in history books and news reports but in the hearts of the gentlest souls he knew. Augustine, James,  him. And wasn't that a beautiful place to keep someone until you could be together again.