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James remembers when he first woke up in the cottage. It had been horrible. This knowing feeling that everything had gone terribly wrong. The complete panic that he couldn't trace back to an origin. It took him a good five to ten minutes for him to gather enough of his brain to understand what was happening.
As soon as he had, he had ran upstairs to find Lily. This wasn’t their house in Godric’s Hollow, of that he was sure. But he knew she was upstairs, in that weird logic that always seemed to be true to dreams. The logic applied to the afterlife too it seemed.
He’d found her where he expected, and she was a few minutes late to the realization that James had just come to. They’d cried together. For hours. All they did was cry for hours and hours on end, and when they stopped crying, they were paralyzed by their grief enough that they didn’t really get up or do anything until after the third day.
Realizing you were dead was a lengthy process, but nothing else made sense when they had the memories of being hit with the killing curse directly from Voldemort’s wand. They had no hunger or need for sleep, no bodily discomforts at all and no physical pain, so really the only thing that got them up from the floor was curiosity.
They had clearly died and they did so together, which meant Harry was alone. At the time they took solace in the knowledge that he had Sirius and Remus. It took them three days to get off the floor, and five more after that to figure out how to access the living realm. They were not ghosts, since they could not be seen or sensed in any way.
But they could watch, only watch. And so watch they did.
By the time they first figured it out, they went straight to Harry. Expecting Sirius and Remus to be grieving over them while figuring out life with Harry as a permanent addition.
They did not find that.
They found Harry, silently crying. They’re son wasn’t a silent kid, never had been, but he was silent now. Sirius wasn’t there, neither was Remus. But Petunia was, which calmed Lily down for a bit, just a bit.
Their second stop was Sirius. And they were right back to the tears. Sirius hadn’t moved at all in the time they were observing him. And they were there for a long time. He stayed quietly staring at the floor for hours. Alone in his cell. Occasionally Bellatrix would give a shout, seemingly bored with her newfound imprisonment, but Sirius didn’t even seem to be aware she was there. It fell to Crouch Jr. to answer, and then they’d started arguing. Lily didn’t hear what they were saying, it was all background noise to the heaving sobs of her husband next to her, all the noise competing with Lily's blood rushing in her ears at the sight in front of her.
After Sirius they’d gone to see Peter, they found him in the sewers, living as a rat. Though they had not eaten, and likely had nothing in their stomachs, they’d still felt like throwing up, and quickly moved on. James mumbling out a ‘oh Pete, what happened’.
By the time they first visited Remus, they had no hopes for a happy encounter. Remus was sleeping when they arrived, despite it being only six in the afternoon. The moon was in a few days so Lily and James were not surprised.
Remus didn’t wake up until the next day, and when he did he went straight to the liquor cabinet. After the events of the halloween of ‘79, Sirius and him always kept it locked.
It was open now, and rapidly dwindling. His silent weeping combined with the unseeing stare as he slowly but steadily drained the bottle led them to leaving the mortal realm entirely.
Just two weeks prior, they’d all been planning and coordinating halloween costumes over post. Now, every single one of their lives had been completely overturned.
Since their visits, they moved on to being reacquainted with the rest of those they knew. Both Lily’s and James’ parents had died by the time they did, as a large chunk of their friends from school. For some reason, they were not actually able to meet with their deceased loved ones until over a year after their deaths. But once they did, it was tears and hugs once more.
Marlene and Dorcas had cried with them over hearing how Peter had been behind it all. Their parents, reunited too soon with their children, cried and hugged them. Whenever they met with new people - not people anymore, souls perhaps? - there was always this charged sort of happiness. An unspoken ‘I missed you, but I didn’t want to see you for a lot longer than this’ hung between every encounter.
Yet the years did pass. Time seemed a little inconsequential where they were. It passed a little slower but a little faster, days seemed to drag on, but entire months flew by quickly. They spent their time watching. They watched Harry most of the time. James would go visit Sirius while Lily would go to Remus, and then they’d swap. They’d go watch Mary, who married and had beautiful twin baby girls, only one of which would go on to start showing magic. They watched little baby Neville, who had been left in a situation similar to Harry, though they chose never to think about which one was actually worse.
They wandered through Hogwarts from time to time, visiting Professor McGonagall, Poppy and occasionally Professor Slughorn. Surprisingly, or maybe not, the ghosts could not see them, or sense them at all. James was a little disappointed he would not be able to join Peeves in his mischief making.
One afternoon at the end of 1986, they’d gone to visit Remus together. IIn the past few years, he had been steadily pulling himself out of a complete drunken state. After a year or so living on and off through intoxication and unconsciousness, Remus was able to get himself up and out of his apartment.
Today, he was trying to read a new book, but the moon was close enough that he was too restless. He’s been fiddling with the edge of his blanket, which he often did. James could not count the amount of times he’d seen Sirius trying to discreetly stop Remus from doing so by holding his hand. Most of his sweaters and blankets were frayed at the edge due to his constant picking now, with no Sirius there to keep them from being slowly undone.
Lily always reached out and tried to stop him regardless, knowing he’d be annoyed at himself later when the threads started to break apart. Remus’ hand did not stop. Though he could not feel them, they could feel him. And James had taken to brushing his fingers through his friend’s hair whenever they’d come to spend time watching him. The hair didn’t move, and Remus didn’t notice.
Remus was valiantly trying to get through a muggle poem of some sort, some Gabriel or Garcia guy. He’d been into poetry recently. Lily was brushing her hand over his fingers while also reading the poems, and James had been playing with the curls on Remus’ head.
Suddenly, Remus’ hand flew out of Lily’s grasp and into his hair. His eyes were narrowed, expression more confused than anything else, but Lily and James froze.
He couldn’t see them. They’d tested that over and over again. They could not interact with the mortal realm. But he’d moved so suddenly, and he’d looked so suspicious. They held their breaths while Remus looked at his hand and brought it to his hair once again, shallow shaky breaths leaving his lips. He recovered fairly quickly and returned to his poetry, still restless and breaths still unstable.
At some point his hips must have started hurting because Remus was groaning and twisting his legs this way and that. He huffed and tried to sit up. Not noticing that his supposedly empty cup of tea was sitting on top of the blanket.
When he pulled the blanket to settle down better he realised – a little too late – that the cup of tea was not actually empty. The forgotten tea wet the blanket and soaked through to Remus’ pants.
He stood up quickly, all the while swearing like a sailor. James laughed and shook his head. When Remus was fully standing, he looked down at his trousers, now with a wet patch in the crotch area. He made a groaning laugh sound as he threw his head back.
Meanwhile James cackled and Lily giggled from the floor. Remus sighed and turned towards the bedroom, presumably to get changed. As he made his way out, he stubbed his toe on the side of the legs of a hideous armchair that Sirius had insisted was ‘very in style with the muggles’ when they’d got it.
His shout of “Merlin’s stinking balls” had drawn a cackle out of James. And though distracted by the pain and the discomfort of the cooling tea, Remus’ head snapped to where James was positioned behind the couch. His breathing became quicker and his hands flew up to the sides of his head. He looked at the spot James was in with scrutiny.
“I’m officially losing my mind.” Remus sighed, but didn’t look away. James and Lily tried once more to make contact. They’d called out to him, tried to touch him. James went around the flat looking for anything he could knock over or slightly alter but found that he wasn’t able to touch anything once again. Lily was calling out to Remus, getting more and more frustrated as her tone of voice increased and he remained oblivious. He did not acknowledge them again that night.
In the next couple of years, they’d come to the conclusion that it was linked to emotion. Remus was the only one who even remotely sensed their presence, and even so it was never a certain thing. They’d notice it would happen most often closer to the full, more specifically before the full moon of each month.
As long as there was a lot of emotion involved – happiness, sadness, grief, anger. They’d tested them all and it seemed that they all worked the same. Remus was able to feel their touch, hear their voices, and in one notable occasion, he was even able to see Lily crying with him. This would have been amazing news if Remus hadn’t managed to convince himself that he was actively going mad at age 28.
This had brought on a nice development though. Remus had started to talk to them. They weren’t usually able to respond in any meaningful way, their actual conversations rather short and usually riddled with pain and sorrow. Regardless, James would answer cheerily at anything Remus had to say and Lily would answer mostly when asked directly.
“So, my ghostly couple. Do you know who showed up at the office today?” Remus had said immediately as he walked into the flat. He’d started working at an office that organized something or other for a muggle company, James didn’t particularly understand it at all.
“Oh my, Moony, who?” James asked
“Donna motherfucking Hershield” He continued, only narrowly avoiding cutting James off. Inevitable when the conversation was this one sided. “She strutted in like nothing had ever happened!”
“What a bitch! Are you kidding?” James responded, with such intensity that it made Lily giggle. “And she didn’t notice the entire office was avoid-”
“She didn’t even look Julie in the eye! Can you believe that? What a bitch, honestly.” he said. He was working his way around the kitchen island to grab a bottle of water, all the while ranting to the seemingly empty apartment.
“That’s what I said,” James replied “I knew she would do this y’know, Moony. I tried to warn you.”
“She needs someone to knock her down a peg, she’s so condescending all the time. No Donna, you are not Godric’s gift to this world, and no, we do not want your advice on how to ‘look better’,” Remus ranted “Honestly you’d think she would own a mirror, that rat’s nest on her head certainly needs more urgent help than Bea’s boots.”
“I bet! You should tell her to back off Moons, honestly, she’s been thi-” James started.
“Though I will agree with her that the boots weren’t the best choice with the color of the belt she chose, but oh well.” Remus continued.
James was unperturbed with all the interruptions. “It’s not like everyone can have your sense of style and beauty Moony.”
“And then she just went on and on about how her grandkids were learning how to ride a bike and kept trying to show us pictures. Donna, no one cares about your slimy grandkids.” Remus semi-shouted.
Lily laughed loudly at that, and Remus’ head snapped to her. She quickly took the opportunity “She sounds like a right git Rem.” she replied, just in time for her voice to fade to nothing again.
Remus' laughter choked out of him. “She IS Lils, I can’t stand her.” Part happy and part longing, he just shook his head and kept on with his post-work routine. Water, book, dinner, book, tea, book, sleep. The moments in between filled with chatter about his day.
The years passed like that. They’d spend the day with Harry, most of the time. Sometimes they’d pop into the Longbottoms’ to visit Neville and Ms. Augusta, sometimes they’d spent time in Azkaban with Sirius, those days were always painful, regardless of how often they’d happen.
But almost everyday, they’d come to visit Remus when he was done at the office, at which point Harry was winding down for the day also so they felt better about leaving him alone.
It was also a way for them to calm down. Harry’s life was already painful on its own, so was Sirius’. No parent or best friend is meant to be watching their loved ones suffer as they are. So their time with Remus is always a reprieve from them witnessing how big of a hole they’d left when they died.
For the most part, Remus was doing well. It had been eight years since the events that led to their deaths unfolded. Remus’ complete breakdowns were farther in between and his grief rarely consumed him entirely anymore. He’d stopped drinking and was doing fairly well in a stable muggle job. He’s struggled a bit in terms of his job, it was hard finding work when you’d have to miss two days out of each month with seemingly no excuse. But it wasn’t as if his employers would come to the conclusion of ‘werewolf’ so he wasn’t as terrified as if he’d gone for a magical career.
Remus, as far as Lily and James observed, had never tried for a relationship in those eight years. And neither judged him for it. Remus’ first love – and soulmate, as James insisted that they were – in his eyes, had turned against him and killed all of their friends. So when Remus came home, a lot later than he usually would while tripping over his own feet in an attempt to fall into the couch with some bloke he’d brought home. Lily and James were… spooked.
“Hey Moony how- WHAT THE FUCK?!” James had shouted.
Remus immediately straightened from where he was still trying to untangle himself from the man to try to get to his couch. James had his hands covering his eyes, and Lily was blatantly staring at where the man’s hands were disappearing under Remus’ shirt.
Remus stood frozen for a good five seconds before the man even noticed that he wasn’t moving and reached out. His hand attempted to turn Remus’ face in his direction, but he was focused on the sight of his two best friends standing in the middle of his living room, clearer than they had been in years, more solid.
“You alright?” the man asked.
Remus shook his head slightly, waiting to see if James and Lily would fade, as they often did. But they were still there, clear as day. The three stared at each other for a few more seconds, while the man put a little more force into his hand to turn Remus’ attention back to him.
“Actually,” Remus murmured, “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this today. Can you… Can you go please?”
The man, though a little shocked, didn’t look too hurt. He frowned but started moving away from Remus. “What? Uh- Yeah, sure, I guess…” He ran a hand through his hair, and stepped around Remus to reach the door. None of them really paid attention to the man as he left, muttering his confusion all the way out.
“I’m sorry,” Remus whispered. But Lily didn’t think the guy heard it at all. He was gone just like that. Remus stared, surely waiting for Lily and James to start fading. But the shock was enough that they stayed.
“Rem” Lily started, but she never even got to say another word before Remus’ tears began to fall. “Rem no no. Why are you crying? There’s no need for that. Come here.”
Remus’ shocked expression faded over, he looked numbly at Lily as he walked over to where she was sitting on his couch now. She held her hands out to him as she often had done with Harry when he first started walking, beckoning him closer. And he went, tears falling faster as he got closer. “Don’t cry, why are you crying?” she said.
When he didn’t say anything, James walked around the couch to sit on the floor in front of the pair. “Moony, what’s wrong?”
“I- it’s just- I just…” He sniffled. “I don’t know, really.”
Lily’s hands had come up to his hair, gently soothing him with the light strokes through his curls. “It’s alright, we’re here.”
Remus let out a humorless laugh, “Not for long, I’m sure.”
“No, we’re always here, you just can’t see us.” James pitched in. Holding his hand out to hold Remus’ knee.
“Yeah, Rem. We’re always here, you just can’t see us sometimes.” Lily said, hands still calmly stroking Remus’ hair.
To his credit, Remus’ tears were justified. Just as he thought he could have fun for once, and not think about the life that Sirius had ripped out of his hands, the stark reminder of what he’d lost was standing in the middle of his living room. “I’m going crazy, I think.” he whispered, but didn’t try to leave the couch. Just because the touch wasn’t real didn’t mean that it wasn’t the most comforting thing Remus had felt in years.
Remus sighed, long and shaky. “I don’t-” his voice cracked, and the tears started up again. “I don’t think I can be angry enough. But I hate him.” he finished, voice barely loud enough for him to hear himself over the beating of his own heart.
“There’s no need for you to hate him, Moony,” James said from the floor. And Remus’ tears came in at full force. The guilt and the pain, and the sheer love turned grief all came rushing in at once.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I should hate him, and I do, but I still- I’m sorry, I’m sorry” he sobbed, shaking with the force of everything barreling down on top of him. The apologies rushed out of him as he cried. Lily shushed him and kept up with the movements in his hair.
“Mate there’s nothing to apologize for, none of it was your fault.” James said. “None of this was any of your fault, it was ours. It was all our fault Moony, We’re sorry.”
James stood and sat down on the other side of Remus, trying his best to comfort the shaking man. He had no ears for James’ explanations, he was crying and apologizing and half screaming with the pain of the tragedies that still plagued him.
Lily and James held him for a long time, surprisingly not fading away. And as Remus’ tears slowed down and he began to drift off into sleep, Lily shook his shoulders slightly and turned his face towards her.
“Remus, listen to us.” She said, voice stern but loving. “None of this is your fault. And you don’t have to hate Sirius. We might not have enough time to explain it all. So please just listen.”
Remus’ eyes had a haunted look, and he tilted his head sideways as if he didn’t understand what Lily was saying, but he didn’t interrupt, so she kept going. “Remus, it was not your fault, and it was not Sirius’ fault either. He is not a traitor, and he did not betray us to Voldemort.” she rushed out.
Instead of panic or a realisation, or any reaction at all from Remus, he just looked devastated. “I wish that was true.” he whispered, as the tears started up again.
“No mate, please believe us. This wasn’t Sirius. We changed secret keepers. We thought Sirius was too obvious, and so we changed it to Peter. Please Remus believe us.” James urged. His hands insistently pulling at Remus’ shirt, eyes locked with his best friend’s.
Remus let out a startled laugh at that. “Shit. I knew I was fucked up, but blaming the dead is something new.” He stood up suddenly, hands rubbing over his face in an aggressive attempt to wipe away his tears.
“Remus please!” Lily was begging now, desperation seeping into her voice. “We wouldn’t lie to you, please. If you don’t believe us, just investigate it. Go to Dumbledore!”
James jumped up from the couch. “Yeah! Moony please! Go to Dumbledore, he knows we changed secret keepers, and he hasn’t done anything about it. He didn’t even push for a trial for Sirius,” James said. “Please Remus. Just look into it, we wouldn’t lie to you.”
Remus looked to his best friends in his living room. His dead best friends. Who were imploring them to believe that the love of his life was not a traitorous murderer. Everything in Remus was pushing for him to believe it. But Remus knew that if there was anything that could mess with Remus’ morals, it was Sirius. He couldn’t trust his delusional grieving mind, but he could try to bring himself some peace.
“I’ll talk to him.” Remus said, and regretted it as soon as he did. Apparently the desperation and panic to get him to believe them was tethering Lily and James to Remus’ senses, as soon as he agreed, they started to fade.
“Rem we love you!” Lily tried to say as fast as possible, trying to make sure he heard them. Remus heard nothing past ‘we’, but he knew.
Lily and James stayed in the flat with him as Remus collected himself afterwards. He had stayed silent for many minutes after they’d faded, head in his hands, sat at the edge of the couch.
Eventually he stood, made himself a cup of tea as he prepared himself for the most delusional letter he’d ever write. But Remus would trust nobody if he didn’t trust James and Lily, even if the chance of it actually being them and not a hallucination was slim to none.
Eventually Remus got himself up and off the couch. He’d think about all of this another day, it was late, later than he usually stayed up for. It could all wait, Remus went to bed.