Chapter Text
In shambles was probably the best way to describe Remus’s mental state at the current moment.
He wasn’t sure how long ago it had been since he’d gotten the call. It was on the emergency line that everyone in the Order had. It was from Dumbledore, and from the moment the phone rang, Remus knew whatever news waited on the other end wasn’t good.
This was worse than even he could imagine.
He’d gotten announcements of order members dying before. Each of the names called weighing on his chest like a stone as he recalled old memories of watching them in quidditch matches, or studying with them for their O.W.L.S., or seeing them dressed up for the Yule Ball.
But this wasn’t a peer.
This was Lily and James.
Lily and James, the two most alive people he’d ever met. So much so that when Dumbledore said their names, Remus laughed out of the pure shock that came with the mental image his brain procured.
Peter had betrayed him, and Sirius had gone to stop him. Both are MIA.
So now he's here, on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing in particular and trying to process what had just happened. People have called. He thinks he’s heard the door a couple of times, maybe people who came by to see him. Maybe death eaters hoping to kill him the same way they killed his friends. He didn’t get up to find out.
This wasn’t right. Out of everyone, it was supposed to be him. He was meant to go first. He’d always known that he would be. He and Sirius would have hour-long fights because he was certain that he would be the first of them to have a funeral held. He was so sure of it, he had made sure his will and testament were up to date every year the day after his birthday (Sirius and James said that doing it on his birthday was too morbid) ( and surely, if he were to die, his friends would know him well enough to do it all properly). He had made sure Sirius knew that he was to be cremated, and his ashes spread over the grounds of Hogwarts, with some saved for each of his friends, should they want to keep him near.
He didn’t know what to do for each of them.
He didn’t know what to do.
It was supposed to be him. It was always meant to go: Him, then maybe Sirius (though it hurt too much for Remus to actually admit that, logically, that would make the most sense), then Peter (he was always a bit weak), and then James and Lily, in that order.
.
This was the order. This was how it was meant to go. This was one of the many rules that Remus had lived his life by, and now that rule was broken. Now he was broken. He supposed he’s been broken since Fenryr had attacked him all those years ago, but this was the first time he’s felt broken since a group of three boys invaded his car on the Hogwarts Express and demanded to know his name, what year he was, and if he had space in between all of his books to be their friend.
But now, at least one of those boys is dead. A still, cold body that would no longer laugh or smile or make witty remarks anymore. There was no more life there. The boy that was once so alive that Remus questioned if he would ever really die was nothing more than memories.
Eventually, Remus stood up on legs that felt stiff and numb and walked over to open a window while he lit a cigarette and took a long, slow drag from it. It didn’t really help, if he was honest, but the familiar habit made him feel a little more tethered to reality, and not like he’d been forced into a different dimension where people like Lily and James could actually die.
As he watched clouds slowly glide across the inky black sky, Remus tried to come up with a plan. Plans had always made him feel safer. He would put something nice together for them. He’d pick out a nice headstone, and get some nice flowers for them, and he’d make sure they’d be given the dignity of a proper funeral. It would just be a few people; him, the Weasleys, and Hagrid. But that’d be enough, he thinks. Yeah. James would like that.
He was planning what the headstone would say when he heard the soft click of the door in the kitchen open and then shut, the unmistakable wailing of a baby causing more heartache than he was ready for. Assuming it was Molly with one of her twins and five months pregnant with her sixth boy (she and Lily were always so excited that their boys would start their first year of school together) (well- Hogwarts. Lily was insisting on muggle school up until that point) and bringing him some home-cooked meal that would sit in his freezer for a month before he could bring himself to eat something other than plain slices of bread and chocolate bars, Remus sighed and put out the second cigarette he’d lit. “Molls’” He started, “it’s sweet of you to bring the dish, but-”
Whatever words Remus was going to use to decline Molly’s offer died in his throat when he saw Sirius black, clothes covered in soot and holding a crying ball of cloth in his arms.
“Alright there, Moons?” He asked in a small voice, trying to soothe the swaddle uselessly by bouncing it gently.
As he looked at him, Remus wasn’t sure what to feel. Slowly, he walked towards Sirius and looked down at his arms, where he cradled a very upset Harry Potter.
.
“Me n Dumbledore..we kinda went at it,” Sirius said tentatively “He wanted to send Harry off to Lil’s sister, you know the real nasty one…but, I figured well, James made me his godfather. Isn’t this what we’re for?”
Slowly, Remus took the crying baby out of Sirius’s arms. Harry really did look just like James. Almond brown skin and messy black hair. If it weren’t for the emerald green eyes, it could’ve been James. Carefully, he pushed some of Harry's hair from his forehead, revealing the fresh lightning-shaped cut that stretched from his hairline to his eyebrow.
“Has he eaten recently?” He asked, looking back up at Sirius, who merely shook his head.
"Right." He said quietly, handing the baby to Sirius and walking to the pantry where they held a half-empty container of formula from the last time Lily left Harry at their house for a date night with James. Following the directions on the back, Remus prepared a bottle while Sirius changed tactics and held Harry upright against his shoulder, patting his back while humming the Hogwarts Anthem. When Remus looked over at him quizzically, he simply replied panicked, "I couldn't think of anything else that wasn't Queen or Bowie"
Remus sighed, a weak chuckle escaping as he took Harry from him and gave him the bottle, which caused him to stop crying almost instantly. He sighed, relieved, and looked over at Sirius with a soft, sad smile. Sirius merely walked over to him and carefully wrapped his arms around him while watching as the last piece of Lily and James hungrily wolfed down the bottle of milk.
“What’s the plan, moons?” He whispered as he rested his chin on Remus’ shoulders.
Remus merely shook his head. “I don’t know…”
It wasn’t long after burping him that Harry fell asleep, the lightning-shaped cut on his forehead already scabbing over. Slowly, Remus laid Harry down in the middle of the bed, allowing no risk of him rolling off the bed or suffocating in the duvet by pulling it over his face. Sirius was peering over his shoulder at his godson, his face unreadable except for grief. Looking up, he met Sirius’ eyes.
“Peter?” He asked quietly.
“I took care of him,” Sirius replied with a grimace. “Found him before he got to the Potters, but not before he told him.”
“So they really are-”
He nodded.
Remus nodded back solemnly and looked back at the sleeping baby in the middle of the bed, his mouth the same opened ‘O’ shape that Lily’s would fall into when they were on the train back from Hogsmeade. Sirius smiled a little and tried to close Harry’s mouth with his finger gently, only for the boy to stir and grab onto his index, chubby fingers wrapping and then eventually releasing his index.
Remus pulled away from Sirius and cupped his cheeks, taking in his face. He needed to shower, judging by the soot smears on his cheek and forehead and disheveled hair falling out of the bun he pulled it into messily as he rushed out of the house earlier. After searching him for any visible injuries, Remus met Sirius’ eyes, and suddenly he couldn’t do it anymore. A soft sob escaped his mouth, and he pushed his head into Sirius’ chest, wrapping his arms around him tightly.
“I thought I-” He croaked out, another sob leaving him. “You and James and-”
“I’m here” Sirius promised, his voice tight with grief and emotions “I’m here, dear heart. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. Honest.”
Remus let out another silent sob, and he could only manage to cry silently so as to not wake the last piece of his two friends while Sirius held him, his own shoulders shaking with silent cries.
Remus had been so sure that all his life, he would never have to worry about things as worrisome as how to plan his friends’ funeral. He’d gotten his own funeral planned down to the very last floral arrangement (daisies and white carnations in the wreath, and then peonies and tulips with Queen Anne’s lace in the floral arrangements), not because he would care, but because he refused to leave Sirius and the others trying to decide between trumpet lilies and tiger lilies while Sirius, at the very least, would be fighting to get more than a handful of hours sleep. James and Lily were fighters. James was the type to push a hungover Sirius during quidditch practice, and Lily had once forced Lucius Malfoy’s face into the mud after he called her a mud blood. They were fighters. They never went down without a fight, and Remus couldn’t recall a time when they had lost.
Remus didn’t know what time it was when Harry woke up, only that the sky had gone from an inky black to a dark, midnight blue with the faintest hints of dawn teasing at the horizon. Remus had long since cried himself out of tears, and let Sirius gently sway him back and forth.
“I got this one” Sirius promised as he carefully pulled away, going to pick up the screaming and kicking swaddle and already beginning to talk to him, muttering quietly. Remus slowly moved behind him, eventually sitting down on the couch while listening to Sirius soothe his godson.
“You slept hard, hm? All that fussing on Uncle Padfoot’s bike really tired you out, yes it did..” Sirius cooed as he fixed another bottle and then came over to the couch with Harry happily drinking up the formula in his arms. This time, it was Remus’ turn to lean his head on Sirius’ shoulder, and he smiled through red, puffy eyes at his nephew, and then he looked up at Sirius.
He still felt broken. This was still the exact opposite of how any of this was supposed to go. He was still feeling the aftershocks of the nuclear bomb that had detonated in his world rocking him to his very core. But he had Sirius, and it only took one glance from Sirius for them both to understand that this would become their new life.
After being fed and burped, Remus held Harry in his arms, Harry looking up at him with wide, emerald green eyes while his chubby fingers reached upward at Remus’ face; and Remus looking down at Harry like he had never held a more wondrous thing. Slowly, Remus bowed his head and pressed a kiss to the lightning bolt on his forehead. Hopefully, it’ll heal enough to be nothing more than a light mark by the time he’s going to school.
“Nothing is ever going to hurt you,” Remus whispered. “I promise.”
Maybe it would never be okay. Maybe it would always hurt. Maybe Harry’s emerald eyes would always be a bittersweet reminder of the friends that he had lost. Maybe there would always be a pang in his heart when he saw this James Fleamont Potter look-alike running around, but he would make do, and he would make sure to raise him just how he knew Lily and James would want to.
Maybe that, at least, would be a plan enough to plaster over the broken pieces of his heart enough to keep him running while he and Sirius raised this boy.