Work Text:
Remus sat in the living room floor. He was reading from old, tattered, parchment. The fire was dying slowly. Remus didn’t seem to notice... or care. He’d only just heard the news. Dumbledore himself had come. He’d come to the apartment. The apartment they’d shared. Dumbledore had been calm, too calm. He’d made Remus sit down and had handed him a cup of tea. Remus wished it had been something stronger. Dumbledore’s words echoed in his head.
Lily and James... dead... Voldemort is gone... Harry... with his aunt... Sirius... Sirius betrayed them... betrayed...
The echoes got louder and louder, so Remus had turned to the letters.
That hadn’t helped.
Remus had once kept every letter in a shoe box, he’d read them after bad moons. When the Marauders found out they bought him a better box. It was mahogany; with a gold latch and hinge. Sirius had made it his first summer with the Potters.
Thank Merlin the Potters hadn’t lived to see this... their sons.
Remus went back to the letters, his eyes burning. Each letter said the same thing. They were filled with love. Remus was searching for anything, any sign that Sirius would do this.
They’d been a family once. Where had that gone?
Sirius had torn their lives apart, then laughed when Peter...
The muggle street had burned for hours.
It seemed appropriate. Remus was watching it burn now.
The tears were falling now. He saw thousands of “Dear Moony”‘s. He saw Peters scrappy writing, asking about Christmas presents. He saw James’ round letters, asking him to come over for the new year. He saw Sirius’ looping, sloping writing asking how the moon was.
All the people in those letters were dead.
Remus realised he was shaking, the fire was only embers now. Sirius stared up at him.
If Remus’ life was burning around him, the fire should be going. Remus picked up the most recent letter from Sirius.
How long had he known this would happen?
And threw it in the fire.
He threw another, and the shivers stopped.
Two more and he felt warm.
After that he threw them in, piles at a time. He watched with a strange satisfaction as the paper burned and curled in on itself. He couldn’t do anything else. He sat and threw every single letter Sirius had ever written him into that fire. He basked in the warmth.
He couldn’t do anything about what had happened but he could burn the memories. Burn the letters that might one day redeem Sirius.
Remus sat in front of that fire for hours. When he added the last letter he hesitated for a moment. It was the oldest and most crinkled. It had torn along the folds from being opened so many times. It was from their first year:
Dear Remus,
How are you? James invited me to his house! That’s so cool! There’s no Mother around to yell at me! Are you coming over soon? Write quickly.
-Sirius
They were so young, so happy. Remus envied the happy boy who’d received this letter; but that life had ended.
Remus threw the last letter into the fire. He stared, numbly as the last trace of Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs burned away.
“I hope that you burn.”