fic, harry potter: ending (remus lupin, sirius black)
Title: Ending
Format & Word Count: Ficlet, 425 words
Rating: PG
Cross-posted: ff.net, AO3
Fandom: Harry Potter
Warnings: Canon character death. Obviously.
Summary: This is the absolute end of the Marauders, he thinks. Remus, right after Sirius's death.
Author's Note: This ficlet takes place in the few minutes, or maybe seconds, between Sirius's death and Harry's pelting off after Bellatrix (because naturally Lupin did notice that part).
Ending
by lady_moriel
Remus is surprised, in a dull sort of way, that he can think at all. Of course, it isn’t what anyone else would call thinking, most likely; he’s following impulses that are little more than instinct, turning from the dais, dragging Harry away, lifting the spell on Neville’s twitching legs, grasping after rationality when nothing seems to make sense anymore.
He tries to speak, knowing something-anything-must be done, thinking surely he needs to take some sort of action, only his brain is struggling to process any thought at all, far less anything clever or complicated. “Let’s-let’s find the others,” he manages, amazed to hear something that resembles normal speech coming from his mouth. “Where are they all, Neville?”
Find them.
Neville’s probably said something; Remus knows he should have heard it, should be responding somehow.
Find them…
Find him…
“Padfoot’s run off again, see if you can’t find him on the map…”
SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPES AZKABAN
“The dementors will find him before long; no one can really escape them, you know…”
“I understand your concerns, Severus, but I trust Remus completely. He will do nothing to help Black.”
Even now, Remus realizes with a sickening stab of something like guilt, he’s done nothing.
This is the absolute end of the Marauders, he thinks. There’s nothing left of them now but an old map and a rippling, tattered black curtain.
A curtain- And he thinks of other black curtains, not so far away, and wonders whether that hideous screaming portrait will be happy now.
At least, he supposes-and here his mind flickers to life for a moment in recognition of a thought that approaches irony, though it is a cruel irony-he need no longer worry about three reckless and unregistered Animagi earning themselves a stint in Azkaban, for only the traitor and the werewolf remain. The thought might make him laugh (because like Sirius, he would choose the laughter over tears), but he has gone numb again and can do nothing.
“It’s all right,” he hears himself say-to someone, maybe, he doesn’t know; maybe he’s only hearing it inside his own head. “It’s all right…”
But it isn’t, it’s not all right, it’s never going to be all right ever again.