Love Can Be Found In the Darkest of Places (A Marauders FanFiction)

Chapter 21: Aftermath and The Auror Office

There was a pounding on her door and she answered it within seconds, desperate for a new piece of news. All that she could gather was that two of her greatest friends were dead, Harry was still alive, and Voldemort was gone. She had not been there when they’d chosen the Secret Keeper, so she was unsure whether or not it had been Sirius or Peter. She just wanted Sirius to come home so he could tell her what happened and so she could feel his arms around her…

She opened the door to find Remus Lupin standing before her, wild-eyed and disheveled. Before she could get a word out, he flung his arms around her. She felt his body shaking against hers, so she let him hold onto her like that until the shaking gradually stopped. “Remus. What happened?”

He pulled away and they walked inside, shutting the door quickly behind them. Remus was as white as a ghost, and she was growing concerned. She poured them both a glass of water and they sat down at the kitchen table. “Sirius… it was Sirius…”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s killed Peter. And took down about a dozen innocent muggles in the process.”

It didn’t make sense to her. This was Sirius they were talking about, and he was the furthest thing from a traitor. Or so she thought…

“No,” she was shaking her head. “No, Sirius would never do something like that. I’m sure if we just talk to him there’s some sort of logical explanation, somebody else must have killed Peter…”

“Rose, he’s going to Azkaban... there were witnesses. He’s probably there now, as we speak. They aren’t giving him a trial.”

The emotions that hit her next had her feeling like something was tearing away at her chest. The glass she was holding slipped through her fingers and fell to the floor, shattering into pieces.

“Rose…”

She was staring blankly ahead, and the walls seemed to be closing in around her. “If what you’re saying is true, then that means that Sirius…”

“…betrayed Lily and James to Voldemort.” Remus looked in pain saying those words, but as far as they could tell, that was the ugly truth. They’d trusted the wrong man. Rose put her head in her hands, and it was now she who was visibly trembling. She thought of Peter, standing helpless before Sirius, and clenched her fists.

She stood up abruptly with such force that the table nearly toppled over and he had to quickly steady it. Remus couldn’t bring himself to look up at the enraged woman that was now his only remaining friend of the five of them.

“I TRUSTED HIM,” she yelled, picking up another glass and flinging it across the room, where it shattered against the wall with tremendous noise. Her rage quickly turned to grief as she crumpled to the floor, lying face down and sobbing into the tile. “I loved him,” she wept. Remus quickly joined her, pulling her into his lap as she fell apart in front of him. He looked down at her at a loss for words, unsure how she could ever be consoled.

After nearly an hour, her eyes felt raw and puffy, and she didn’t think it was humanly possible for her to shed another tear. She got up from his lap slowly and crossed her legs. “He asked me to marry him before he left,” she murmured, staring down at the diamond on her ring finger. She pulled it off and placed it on the ground in front of them. They sat in silence staring at the ring, thinking about all that had changed in over the course of barely a day.

“Where’s Harry?” she asked in a small voice. Of all the terrible things that had transpired, Harry had gotten the brunt of it. He was robbed of two wonderful parents before he’d even reached the age to remember that they were. The man who she had loved with every ounce of her being was at fault for that.