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Once Remus was alone -- once they had delivered the children into the care of Madam Pomfrey, once he had waved off Moody's gruff "do you need anything?", once Moody had left (he had looked at Remus the way Remus remembered him looking at the loved ones of people who died in the last war, and Remus was terrified of him saying anything that would make it real) -- once he was alone Remus could finally collapse into a deceptively uncomfortable armchair and stop holding himself up.
Harry was just a boy, he was only fifteen, so of course Remus had had to stay strong for him -- it would have helped no one for Remus to break down when there were still things to be done. He couldn't even remember what he'd told Harry as he held him back; it had taken an inhuman effort to turn away from the veil, to accept the thing he had been trying to convince Harry of all along. Despite the words on his wrist, despite the gaping, cavernous pit that had taken up residence where he stomach had once been, a small part of him had hoped that Sirius would reappear. They would laugh about it later, once everyone was safe, curled up together in bed -- Sirius would say he'd been inspired by the feints Prongs had been so fond of in Quidditch; Remus would scold him for making him wait; Sirius would apologise softly and make it up to him by serving as a very effective distraction.
But the words had been said and Remus would never see Sirius again because he was dead.
As Harry had twisted out of his grip to run after Bellatrix, Remus had been suddenly, irrationally angry at him -- he wanted to be able to run and kill Bellatrix with his bare hands, to repay her for everything she had taken from him: for every time she had hurt Sirius at school, for Benjy, for Alice, for Frank, for -- for Sirius. For the way she had been so triumphant, for the fact that Remus had to be the controlled, rational, sensible adult instead of the rash teenager he felt like in the grip of his desperation. For his soulmate.
But Remus had always played the role of the Bigger Man. It was his role in the Marauders -- the voice of reason, the hesitation, the consideration. So when Dumbledore followed after Harry, telling Remus to remain behind, Remus had followed orders, because that was all he was good for.
As he sat in the silent house, he couldn't stop thinking of the way Moody had wordlessly clapped him on the shoulder. All his life had been defined by things deliberately not being said: McGonagall not saying anything as she "forgot" to give him a late penalty on homework immediately after the full moon; Sirius too afraid to say "I love you"; his father congratulating him on his OWL results, carefully not mentioning that they wouldn't make a lick of difference to his employment prospects; most of the Order knowing during the First War that he and Sirius were breaking all kinds of buggery laws behind closed doors, but no one ever mentioning it.
He had chosen that, he had wanted his and Sirius's relationship to remain private -- it was no one else's business, and it was one scrap he could cling to and not share with anyone, that could belong solely to him. No one had said anything when Remus immediately took up residence in Sirius's bedroom at Grimmauld Place when the Order moved in. Moody had known (no point in keeping secrets from him, what with his eye), Dumbledore had known, Remus suspected Tonks had known -- but the don't ask, don't tell attitude had suited him. It had certainly seemed like a better option than explaining anything to Molly Weasley, who was so sure Remus could find a nice girl if he just gave it a go.
Now, the silence had swallowed him -- swallowed them. If things had been different, if they had been married, if they had been normal, people would recognise Remus as a widower. His grief would be recognised, acknowledged, earned. Instead, the public grief belonged to Harry. Sirius belonged to Harry.
If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? If two people love each other in private, is the survivor allowed to claim the public status of primary mourner? If no one speaks a truth out loud, is it still true?
Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was Sirius's face: the horror as Remus had said the last words they would ever exchange; the manic, wild desperation as he had duelled Bellatrix; the cruel edge to his laughter as he mocked her. Had Sirius -- had he done it deliberately? Something cold pooled in his stomach as he reassessed what had happened: Sirius had known one of them was going to die, so -- so he had beaten Remus to it.
Remus's kneejerk reaction to Sirius saying the words that had been tattooed on his wrist since he was born had been to run. To grab Sirius and Disapparate to the furthest place he could think of. To force Sirius to say something else, something that would negate it. To escape. But as someone screamed and Kingsley yelled that he'd found them, Remus knew there was no escaping this. The world turned, he tore himself apart every twenty-eight days, spring turned to summer turned to autumn turned to winter, and there was no way to prevent the words that were marked on your wrist by something bigger than all of them.
Sirius had known one of them was going to die, but Remus had known that it could very easily be both of them. It wasn't a matter of protecting Sirius, or dying first, or doing anything he wouldn't have done had they never seen the perpetually looping timeturners. Remus had had to accept his powerlessness thirty years ago, quivering alone in the basement and waiting for moonrise. Sirius had always tried to bend the universe to his will -- by becoming an Animagus, by escaping Azkaban, by remaining in contact with Harry despite all the ways it had been doomed to go wrong.
Every moment since that night in 1981 he had spent with Sirius felt like borrowed time: he had lived in fear of the universe coming to collect its debts, and watching Sirius fall backwards, his face frozen in a rictus of mingled fear and surprise, felt like watching a film he had seen before. He had seen this film before: it had played out every night since they'd first met. The details were different -- would Sirius leave him when he found out Remus was a werewolf? When he got bored of how drained Remus was after a full moon? When he realised he didn't love him? When he got himself killed doing Order missions? When he turned spy for Voldemort? Or would it be when he realised they had grown old, that Remus was no longer the bright young thing he had once known? When he did something reckless and left Grimmauld Place?
When he duelled his cousin in the Department of Mysteries and went through a veil and never came out the other side?
Sirius and the veil looped over and over in his mind like that goddamned cabinet. He stood up, ignoring the way his head swam slightly (when had he last eaten? Lunchtime yesterday?), and went towards the kitchen, knowing Sirius would have something appallingly alcoholic stashed somewhere. But before he could even get there, he was brought up short by the sight of the dining table, suspended in time as if its occupants would return any moment.
Sirius's fork still had a perfectly-proportioned mouthful of bangers, mash and beans on it, just waiting to be eaten. The mash had congealed, the beans shrivelled slightly after being left out overnight. For a moment he was frozen as well, unwilling to breathe lest he squander the chance for this all to go back to normal. For Sirius to walk in, grumble that Snape had ruined dinner -- did Remus see how the mash had gone all lumpy and weird? Snape probably knew bangers and mash was his favourite and done it on purpose, Sirius would mutter as he scraped everything into the bin. And then Sirius would look in the pantry and decide that they would just have to have cheese toasties instead, making Remus's exactly as he liked it without asking.
Moony, why do you think it's looping like that?
With an enormous effort, Remus waved his wand to disappear the food and stack the plates in the sink. Somewhere in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic, a cabinet full of timeturners smashed and reformed, only to smash again.