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It's something that haunts everyone, but you never truly understand the gravity of the situation until it happens. Perhaps in a fleeting moment, you ponder a life without a loved one. But do you really understand the gut-wrenching feeling, the melancholic symbolisms you see of their dying breath everyone you walk? Hearing a voice, you hadn't dare recall until you dream, dream once more and are harshly reminded of your loneliness? It was a sickness; an illness. Remus would awake from a dream, turn over, and throw up everything his stomach contained. It wasn't much. Most of his appetite dissipated long ago when James and Lily first died, and he lost the love of his love to Azkaban. It would return and a slither of the man he once was peeked through at the Shrieking Shack, begging for anyone.
But it would just as quickly be ripped apart and cast aside.
Did Sirius know, really understand, how it feels to lose everyone? But Remus could never bring himself to be angry at Sirius Black. It was a sinking ship, and he was the poor sailors who would go down with it. But once Sirius became the sinking ship, Remus was afraid. So, he jumped from its deck and into the stormy water, allowing the once beautiful surface to die. (Remus wondered if in death, others became so broken. Did James, Lily, Sirius, Marlene, Mary, everyone pity him? Did they wonder how he might feel and how they left him like a carcass in the road?) Voldemort was looming in the distance. Yet it felt as though the thing harsher was his own mind. He was confined, a prisoner to his desolate mind. Was this how Sirius felt in those 12 years in Azkaban? It was a thought that often crossed his mind as he swirled a bottle of fire-whiskey in his slitted hands. It was self-inflicted and perhaps a younger him would roughly reprimand himself.
But he was no longer that boy, he hasn't been for awhile.
His apartment he shared with Sirius was disgustingly filthy. Every time he cast his eye on it he felt more trapped in a sinkhole. He was letting him down, Sirius down by going so low. At some point, it was their home. Yet he allowed it to cover and enclose in grief, so similarly to himself. It became unbearable until— who was it again? Nowadays he could feel his memory slipping away. Unforgettable things slipped out his grasps until he couldn't even remember what James looked like. How his face with contort with happiness at a match won. How Lily would scowl, but ever so quickly soften and peck James on the cheek. Or the way Sirius would lean casually on his palm, fluttering his eyelashes and admiring Remus. (He knew this only from a ridiculous conversation in 7th year. Or was it 6th?)
After Sirius' death, a woman who shone so brightly entered his life with an umbrella. But the umbrella attempted to stop a tsunami, and so she too left as quickly as she arrived. He recalled her more than the others, whether it be because of her witty remarks or strange hair. She reminded him of Sirius, and it ached when they would brush shoulders. (It didn't help they related.) So, with disdain, he would ridicule her until one day, she snapped and loudly professed her feelings. But his heart truly belonged (and painfully longed) for Sirius. Maybe that's why she eyed him with contempt in meetings. His heart was locked for a man who has been dead for over a year. A gaping hole in his heart fit perfectly for his friends, whose bodies have rotted and decomposed. Did Harry understand why Remus couldn't look him in the eye? Why he avoided him as though his mere presence would contract himself with a disease? He looked so, so alike James that he often bit his tongue from calling out.
"Prongs! I can't believe your–"
But then the boy would turn around with his eyes, so green like Lily, and frown slightly. With a voice as comforting as James, a heart so pure and feathery like Lily would remind him kindly, he was Harry. Did they believe him to be senile? He knew better than anyone that no one in this living world would ever be James Potter and Lily Evans. But he couldn't help it when his throat begged to be able to call the dead once more.
And get a response, but it was stupid to even think it. They were dead and would always be. There's something that has carried on throughout the years. It was 5th year, or maybe 6th (He could no longer recount exactly.) when Sirius first kissed him. It was a dare of all things, yet it sparked lust in both of them. It was a daily thing from then on; sneaking out during free time to snog behind the greenhouse. Maybe the next day it was behind the grimy curtain in the common room. Yet Sirius wasn't truly his because a man couldn't like another man in the 70s. It was taboo, a disgusting past-time for fags. Sirius' hands would still roam upon the backs of girls because who would want to admit that just the night before, you were sucking off a bloke? It was a cover-up; a distraction from their affectionate touches or a hand-placement that lingered for far too long to be considered platonic. It wasn't the fact that they had to keep secret, Remus understood. But it hurt seeing Sirius' lips which were his moments ago marking yet another girl in the common room. Or running into a disheveled Sirius and a girl, giggling and buttoning her top hastily in the corridor. But all he got was a pitiful glance in retribution before Sirius' signature smirk would kick in and him and the girl would walk away. Leaving only a broken heart in their trail, but why did it matter what a faggot felt? So, for the very months Sirius' was truly his, he relished every moment where he could place a kiss upon open skin. To awake in the early dailies of the morning, turn, and see his beautiful face lay next to him.
Then the war continued to rage on and James and Lily were dead. It felt unreal, fraudulent, since just the day before their deaths, Lily and him were on the phone speaking about that exact same thing, the same worry that would come true ever as violent.
It was another conversation his hazy mind recalled.
"Honestly, I just hope this is all precautional, you know?" Lily sighed, the sounds of baby babbling in the background.
Remus shared the same sentiment, it sucked, but it never hurt to be safe. He hastily extended the phone cord further as he plopped himself onto the couch. "Of course, Lils. But I'm sure it will be over soon, I can't see why Voldemort would come after you."
Lily dryly chuckled, sniffling."I know, Rems but— I just can't help but feel like something is wrong. Do you get that feeling sometimes too? I feel like something horrible is going to happen and I–" Lily began sobbing, her shaky breathing breaking through like glass in the receiver.
"I won't be able to do anything to stop it, not even Dumbledore." Lily finished, her voice hesitant.
That conversation often haunted his mind. If they trusted Remus a bit more, if they allowed him to come over and protect them, would they be alive now? The feeling of dread that protruded his gut after that conversation and his mind screaming to do something. But at that point in time, he didn't know what that feeling meant. If he had second chance, he would have stormed over to Dumbledore and have Peter butchered. Teared limb by limb, guts flailing in the air as he asked for forgiveness– But Remus would never give it to him. He would have continued to cut him apart until he was just an un-beating heart.
Do you know the saying 'distance makes the heart grow fonder'? But I ask you, do you really understand it? It doesn't matter how far the distance may be, even as Remus leaned over the graves of James and Lily and begged for them again. They were only 6 feet away, but he knew even then, he would never have the comforting hugs of Lily Potter or the soft comforts of James Potter. They were only bodies in a coffin and never to be awakened again.
My point being is that the saying is stupid.
Distance makes the heart grow fonder but emptier. The placated feelings of reminisce are simply painted over feelings of guilt, sadness, loneliness. Remus Lupin had no-one, no-one who truly understood him like James, Lily, Sirius, Marlene, Mary. No one else knew how Remus could go on hours rambles about Shakespeare, how his favorite teddy-bear was named 'Daisy', or how much he just wanted his fucking friends back so, so bad. If heaven and hell existed, surely he must be going to hell for the putrid thoughts that would fill his head. If he killed everyone in the room right now, would that cure his black heart? The guilt for even considering such things was immediate, therefore he desperately wrenched the feelings into a deep crevice. But the intrusion occurred so often that he wondered if he was going insane.
Can longing drive a man to insanity? He sure felt like it. No sane man can write paragraphs filled of his friends in the all the ways he would bring them back. It probably proved he wasn't all there when he could willingly write stories of death, anguish, and torture just for the ending to result in his friends coming back.
No, he was no longer a man. He was the aftermath of years of disappointment. And right about now, he felt like he'd been let down. A life started in misery, which began to look up, just for it to end just like it started. In misery. Suicide was a morbidly beautiful word. Beauty was terror, it was a personal motto for himself. A word that causes so many deaths has such a beautiful tone. If you break it down to its core, it isn't such a terrible thought, is it? Death reunites the soul of many. In all his manic writings, it was the one thing that emerged each time. At the end of each of his psychotic writings, he would emerge and continue on to death with his friends once more.
Fiction is never far off from real life; would it work too? If he took the razor in his bedroom and slit his throat, just as he does his wrists, will he find himself in a paradise where all is well? Where Lily can look at him with her soft green eyes and hug him tight, where James and his rowdy black hair would pat him on the back lovingly? In a world where Sirius would kiss him right there, damn whatever consequences?
So it was this that brought his plan to fruition. In a sickeningly twisted way, he wanted Harry to find him. Perhaps it was how he was the spitting-image of James and Lily, but it brought a morbidly comforting feeling that he would go to Hogwarts the following day. The image of Remus' head split open with blood openly spewing on the floor. A day of reckoning, it's what he believed it to be. He awoke just the same in the Order of the Phoenix headquarters, the walls unaware of the horrors to unveil. It was August 31st, therefore a day before Harry was set to leave alongside his friends. (They reminded him so much of the Marauders. He wondered if one day, one of them might betray the others just as Peter had.)
The moment the rest of the Order left to their mornings, he begun the preparations. He was set to 'babysit' the trio, since they allowed him a moment to grieve Sirius' death. How could they not, when he officially lost every spark of hope in the dark? A gun; holstered securely in his pocket. A note foretelling his life and his reasoning. An apology, to Harry, Hermione, and Ron for allowing them to be the audience to his murder. Finally, a strong resolve.
Because death took all things he held dear, so perhaps the Grim wasn't all bad. If it could take the purest of people, the Grim would excitedly accept someone so horrible like himself. What kind of man would let children find his mangled body? He would and it no longer mattered his morals.
The thing with Muggles is that their technology is fascinating; their weaponry was awe-stricking. So for only a fleeting moment, he thought of the repercussions of his actions before his finger lovingly grazed the trigger.
And he pressed it.