Chapter Text
February 13, 1982
6:04 pm
Mary visited from time to time. She’d been the only person who’d bothered to check up on him at all. For months, she’d been secretly vanishing Remus’s Firewhiskey, and bringing him takeout from the Chinese restaurant down the street and making sure he put something in his stomach, and holding him while he sobbed and broke when he thought so much about Sirius. One night, after Remus had promptly downed an entire bottle after accidentally picking up Sirius’s Doc Martens instead of his Converse, Mary decided they needed to have a conversation.
“Remus?”
“Y-yeah?”
She sighed. This would not be an easy one. “I think you need to get rid of his stuff.”
Remus stared at her wide-eyed. “What?”
Mary looked at him sympathetically. “Listen. Every time you see something that was his, you break down and everything goes up in flames again. It’s not healthy, Remus. I know you can’t possibly move on now, because neither can I, and I know how hard it is because I - I’m never - never going to see Lily again-” At this her voice broke, too. “It might be easier to forget. You know?”
Remus looked down. “Must be why I fall apart every time I look in the mirror.”
Mary hugged him tightly. “I’ll help.”
Remus nodded, with fresh resolve. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be nice.”
Mary patted him on the back. “That’s my boy. Where shall we start?”
So they both took a deep breath and tore the bandage right off the wound - by starting with Sirius’s room. Even when he’d been here, Sirius had never used his room much, except to work, or to put his clothes and books in. He’d sleep in Remus’s room every night. At one point, they’d wondered why they’d even bothered with buying two beds. Still, the room was remarkably Sirius, with posters and records and one of his leather jackets lying across the squashy armchair that doubled as a desk chair in the corner of the room.
Now, the room was coated with a layer of dust. Mary’s feet made little clouds of dust puff up from the carpet in the middle of the room. She wondered if anyone had been in the room after last Halloween. That question was answered though, when she saw that the sheets on the bed were all rumpled and unmade, with footsteps leading up to it and Sirius’s perfume on the bedside table. She didn’t say anything. She knew. And she wasn’t going to tell Remus she did. She cast a quick evanesco to get rid of the dust and summoned some cardboard boxes and tape.
“Right, let’s get to work, Rem.”
“What do we start with?”
“I don’t know, what do you want to start with?”
Remus paused to think about it. “Clothes.”
Mary nodded and threw the doors to the closet open. “You toss, I’ll fold.”
Remus nodded and hesitantly walked up to the hangers. He started taking down the jackets and jumpers (some of which were his, he thought painfully). A few minutes into the leather trousers and jeans, he paused. Mary looked up.
“What’s that, Remus?”
Remus shook his head, moving his hand towards a small box in the back as if in a trance. He picked it up, and held it out to Mary. “What do you think it is?”
It was a red velvet box, with a delicate gold lining. She turned it over. On the back, in curling golden script, was WW JEWELERS. Mary fought back a gasp. If it was what she thought it was…
“Remus.”
“What?”
Mary swallowed. “I-I think you should open it, Remus. Not me.” She passed the box back to him.
With some trepidation, Remus lifted the lid. After he’d opened it a small way, it snapped back. Remus dropped the box like he’d been burnt. Whatever had been in it tumbled out and bounced onto the carpet.
She looked down, where Remus had fallen to his knees. And this time, she didn’t hold back her gasp.
Because lying in between them was a glimmering diamond ring.