The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

XXXVII: 6 January, 1994

"I heard my Dad," Harry said. "That's the first time I've ever heard him."

You should've heard him everyday... Remus thought. Should've heard him singing and laughing and telling horrid jokes and puns that were never funny but were because of their unfunniness. Should've heard him telling stories about the days when they were younger and should've heard him cheering you on. Harry should've heard his father in someway besides echoes from a dementor.

Harry said. "He tried to take on Voldemort himself, to give my mum time to run for it."

Remus closed his eyes. His stomach flipping over.

He should've known that's what happened.

He should've known.

But he didn't.

Despite the things Sirius Black had said that night - frantic, panicked, horribly jumbled and full of fear and emotion, voice shaking and screaming, blurry and terrible and manic all at once - it had never sunk in what Sirius had been saying. Remus had been so dizzy with the overwhelming scent of blood, which had absolutely covered Sirius, to the point that Sirius didn't even smell like Sirius. He smelled like James. It was too much and Remus's brain had launched his consciousness into a deep dissociation that he didn't come out of for days. It was only just now, standing at the desk in the History of Magic classroom with Harry staring at his back, that he had heard in his memory of the moment the words Sirius Black had been screaming... What the words had meant...

"He was on the fucking stairs, just laying there, Remus! He was just laying there... and Lily - Lily was upstairs and --Remus, I'm going to fucking kill him! Fucking kill him for killing James and Lily!
I'll tear him from limb to limb until there's nothing left to bury!!!!"

Remus got up and turned away. He could barely breathe. He felt dizzy.

But Sirius had killed Peter Pettigrew after saying those words.

Why Peter Pettigrew? It was Voldemort who had done the killing.

"You... you heard James?" Remus's voice shook.

"Yeah. Why? You didn't know my dad, did you?"

Remus gripped the edge of the desk so tight his knuckles turned white. This was the moment. This was it. This was what he'd been waiting for. For Harry to ask, to want to know about the past, for the chance to tell him everything that James and Lily had meant to him for all those years --

Remus turned around and his eyes met Harry's.

"Did you, Professor Lupin?" Harry asked, his eyes wide with awe and hope. "Know my parents, I mean?"

Remus's mouth was dry.

"I - I did, as a matter of fact," Remus murmured. He felt so weak and so dizzy from the echoes of Sirius in his head... he could barely form any words at all, much less fulfill his fantasy of telling Harry everything. He said, lamely, "We were... friends - at Hogwarts."

We told each other everything. We went through it all together. He was my best man. I was his best man. We faced the world, heaven and hell and everything in between, side by side. James Potter was right behind me, win or lose, every day... every step of the way... until he faced something I couldn't face with him. Until he faced death and it was me who could not follow. And I don't doubt for a moment, if there is any way whatsoever for him to do it, that he is behind me still.

But none of these words could come out of Remus's mouth. None of them would form. It was like his patronus. Wisps of smoke with no corporeal form.

Remus looked at Harry and he felt incredibly guilty for the boy had tear stains on his cheeks and a perplexed look of mingled fear and excitement - excitement that he'd heard his father at all, even if it had been in the throws of death. Even that was better than nothing.