Work Text:
Moony's Warning
February 1994
Early morning mist curled up from the grounds, drifting upwards in large curves from the treetops of the Forbidden Forest, returning lazily to the sky. The dew from the grass soaked the hem of Remus Lupin's robe, and had already seeped through his shoes and into his socks as he strode purposefully towards the forest. Hagrid's cabin had the first wisps of smoke coming from the chimney, and the grounds were bereft of any human noise. The birds were singing to one another: the first signs of Spring on an unseasonably warm morning after a long, dark winter.
But these early signs of hope did not impact the grim, set expression on Remus' face. He looked around swiftly, ensuring that he was not being watched. The Dementors were posted at the entrance to the grounds, and could sometimes be seen drifting at the edge of the forest, but today they were elsewhere. The grounds were still totally deserted. Good.
Remus crossed the threshold into the thick forest without slowing down. His right hand was clutching his wand, while his left held a crumpled copy of the morning's issue of The Daily Prophet.
He conjured from his memory an image of himself, transformed, running through the forest with Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, sometime in their fifth year. "Expecto Patronum," Remus muttered, and from his wand emerged a large, silvery shape: a large, shaggy wolf. It trotted alongside him, a welcome companion. He stroked its head, feeling a sense of calm settle over him. He did not much like the shape of his Patronus, and did not cast it when there were others watching. However, with what he was about to do, he could use the extra protection and, frankly, the extra sense of peace. The days had been short and dark, and the presence of the Dementors cast a pallor over everything.
The Dementors. Never had he been near so many Dementors in his life as he had this year. First, on the train, the first time he had seen Harry. He had boarded the Hogwarts Express early and promptly fell into a deep sleep, still recovering from the full moon. When he awoke mid-journey, Remus had thought he was in his own Dementor-memory, seeing James, unable to distinguish between what was real and what was memory, until he saw the unfamiliar children around him, and Harry's green eyes, wide with fear, in the light of the blue fire Remus held.
Since then, the Dementors had been everywhere; he had to pass by them every time he wished to leave grounds for so much as a cup of tea. And then, most recently, weekly lessons with the boggart-Dementor with Harry. He had half expected Harry Potter to master everything at once – famous Harry Potter, rumored Dark Wizard, defeater of Lord Voldemort at the age of one. Instead, he had met a disarming child, thirteen, lonely and struggling to identify a single happy memory, utterly determined to overcome his fears and master the darkness that pursued him. Remus hadn't expected to find so much of himself in him, hadn't expected to feel, for the first time in many years, a sense of fierce loyalty and protectiveness, as towards a cub in a pack. Week after week, Remus had watched Harry collapse to the floor of his office, white as death, thrashing in the memory of the murder of his parents twelve years ago, or lying utterly still.
It was the latter that unnerved him the most. He couldn't help but think he looked exactly as James must have looked. Remus wouldn't know. He was with his own kind, in the north of England, when it happened. He heard about it on the news; he hadn't even gotten so much as an owl from Dumbledore. But Sirius was there in Godric's Hollow that night. He had known. Hagrid said Sirius found James on the floor in the entrance hallway, that Sirius left James' body there on the ground when he came outside and begged Hagrid to give him baby Harry. Harry, whom he wanted to kill. A snarl curled Remus' lip. He quickly rearranged his expression; he only let things like that slip when no one was watching.
Sirius. Sometimes he had wondered what he would do if Sirius burst into his office while Harry was with him. He played it over in his head sometimes, gaming it out. Sirius might think that Remus would hesitate. He might think that Remus was the weak link at Hogwarts, and in that moment of hesitation Sirius could kill Harry, who would be at his most vulnerable, incapacitated by the boggart-Dementor. Perhaps he would ask Remus to come with him. No one would believe that Remus hadn't had anything to do with it, he might say, the werewolf and best friend of Black. He might as well go with Sirius… No, Remus knew that if he ever saw Sirius again, he would have to kill him, and kill him quickly. Peter wasn't fast enough. He tried to reason with Sirius, appeal to his conscience… and look what became of Peter.
If Sirius had a chance to speak to Remus, if he tried to recruit him, Remus was ashamed to admit that there was a part of him that no longer cared about the right side and wrong side. He had lost everything fighting for what was right, and where had it gotten him? He'd been alone for twelve years, and the idea of having a vestige of the Marauders back again stirred something in the depths of Remus' heart. What wouldn't he give? Remus didn't want to find out.
But that sense had faded since Remus had returned to Hogwarts, halls haunted with happy memories and promise for the future. Remus hadn't met his inner demon in half a year, thanks to the Wolfsbane potion, and felt, for the first time in a very long time, like a human with a condition, rather than a monster. Once again, he was secure in the trust of Dumbledore and found himself beloved by the students of Hogwarts. He was even trusted by Harry Potter himself, with the assent of Dumbledore, who watched Harry very closely and trusted him with very few. With these past months, Remus' fear that his resolve would crumble if Sirius approached him had softened. But still, one never knows. Sirius was always very convincing. He was always very good at convincing Remus to risk the lives of strangers in the name of friendship. Remus thought again of Harry's pale face as he was sprawled on the floor. No, he couldn't let Sirius speak.
When the boggart turned into a Dementor, Remus, too, heard the echoes, the screams. His parents, the first time he knocked down his bedroom door and his father had to attack him to subdue him, and then hearing his father cry in the room next door all the following day. The day his mother died. The day he sat in Dumbledore's office across from Snape, whom he had nearly killed, and the screaming fight he'd had with Sirius afterwards. Lily and James' funeral. The roaring fight that had ensued when Remus argued forcefully against James using Sirius as his Secret Keeper…
"And who would you have us use instead then, Remus? You, I suppose?" James had snapped at him. The words had knocked the wind out of him.
"What are you trying to say? You think I'm the traitor?" Remus had said, staring at James in disbelief.
James backtracked immediately, looking very uncomfortable. "What? No, Moony, not you, never you. I know you wouldn't betray us." His tone was earnest, but Remus noticed that James couldn't quite meet his eyes as he said it.
"It's because of what I am, isn't it?" Remus replied, his face going rigid. "You could never trust a werewolf, could you?"
"Just listen to yourself, Remus!" James retorted indignantly. "Could never trust a werewolf? You're one of my best friends in the entire world! I've just told you that I don't think that you could ever betray us."
"But Sirius has you second guessing, hasn't he?" Remus countered angrily. "James, I know you don't want to hear it, I know he's your best friend, but it's got to be him. It's got to be. He hasn't been right since Regulus died, you know he hasn't. And that's right when the information started getting leaked, around a year ago. He feels guilty about leaving his family. He's back with them, he's helping them, he has to be. We know for sure Regulus was a Death Eater. Bellatrix and Narcissa and their husbands are too, and he saw them all at Regulus' funeral a year ago. Caradoc died a week later!"
James scowled at him. "Remus, he can't help what family he was born into, any more than you can help being a werewolf. I've told him the same thing about you! And he can't help that his brother died. Of course he's torn up about it. How can you say that Sirius being sad about losing his brother is a sign that he's gone over to the Dark Side?"
Maybe it was the proximity to the full moon, or maybe it was attending yet another funeral a few days before, but something in Remus snapped. "I'm telling you, James," Remus shouted, "Sirius is the spy, and if you go through with this, you'll be dead in a week! You, and Lily, and Harry – "
BAM. Remus hadn't even had a chance to reach for his wand when the spell blasted him against the wall. James had gone very white, his face contorted with rage.
"Remus," James said, his voice trembling. "Get out. Get out now."
"James – "
"I said…" James closed his eyes, exerting every ounce of his effort in keeping himself from shouting, raising an arm and pointing towards the door. "I said… get out."
That was the last conversation Remus ever had with James. The memory of it made him sick to his stomach – a solution of rage, regret, and indignation. If only James had listened. If only James hadn't been so stubborn to prove that he was right about Sirius, that no friend of his could possibly betray him. Remus viciously snapped a twig off of a passing tree and threw it violently on the ground.
Most often, when the Dementors came near, Remus heard the screams from the exploded street.
When Remus had heard that Sirius had betrayed James, he, like Peter, had gone to hunt Sirius down. Remus left directly from the café where he saw the Daily Prophet headline. He had to find him, he had to move – slowing down, staying still for too long would allow it all to sink in: James was gone, dead. Prongs, his best friend in the whole world, who'd had the idea of him, Sirius, and Peter becoming Animagi so that Remus wouldn't be alone on the full moon, the first person besides his own parents who made him feel like he wasn't a monster. And James' great love Lily, kind Lily, who figured out that Remus was a werewolf when they were Prefects together and told him that they didn't have to talk about it, but she knew and she didn't care. The great love story, the perfect couple, gone, dead, just like that. Betrayed by their closest friend Sirius, yet another pair of lives snuffed out by Voldemort.
Remus had not been as quick as Peter at finding Sirius, but Remus had his Auror radio, which he kept to warn the werewolves of impending raids on their packs, and he heard the call come in.
"We've got a situation here, bodies everywhere. At least a dozen casualties. Just in front of St. James Palace, London. Suspect about six feet tall, long black hair. Looks like the older Black family boy to me. Laughing his head off… Send everything you've got!"
Remus was there in an instant. HIT wizards were popping in out of thin air all around him. And the screams – screams everywhere, babies crying, people running… the smell of smoke. And the crater in front of him, so deep it cracked the sewer below. And there, in the midst of the chaos, was Sirius, laughing maniacally, wand still raised. In front of him was a pile of bloodstained robes. It felt both like a nightmare and an eternal present. The reality of it all crashed down on his head. He had been telling James for months that Sirius was the spy. Seeing him like this, his true self unmasked, was something else entirely. It was all real, Remus realized. James was dead, Lily was dead, and Sirius indeed was, as Remus had come to believe, ensnared and consumed by the Dark Arts. A dozen people dead, and he was laughing.
"Don't kill him! Only stun!" a voice boomed. Remus looked and saw that it was Kingsley Shacklebolt. Kingsley looked shellshocked, staring at Sirius. Sirius had saved his life in an ambush just a month prior, Kingsley told Remus later.
Curses flew from every direction, and Sirius' laughter was cut short as he was thrown five feet backwards and landed on the street, unmoving. The sound of flames, smoke, and screaming seemed to grow louder. As though in a trance, Remus walked along the perimeter of the crater, pushing past crowds of dazed Muggles.
"The one who shouted at him, the one he blew up, who was he, did you get a name?" one of the Aurors was asking a middle-aged Muggle woman with curly hair. Remus slowed. The noise in the background seemed to fade to white.
"He was short… rather plump… I think the man called him Peter…"
Remus staggered, grabbing onto a wall, the world spinning around him. Prongs, Lily, and Wormtail, all dead in fewer than twenty-four hours. Killed by Padfoot.
"And what did he say?" the Auror asked, scribbling notes on a small notepad.
"He shouted, 'Lily and James, Sirius, how could you?' Does that mean anything to you?"
Never had the memories pressed so strongly on Remus' mind as this year, warping reality. And so we beat, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. His mother loved that book. As a child, he never understood that line. He didn't have that problem now.
Remus looked around the woods and realized that his Patronus had, at some point, gone away. He closed his eyes and cast around for something – all of his happy memories were from his times here. He finally settled on one: the day James, Sirius, and Peter confronted him about being a werewolf, and said that they wanted to be his friend anyway.
"I think it's bloody wicked," Sirius had said, grinning. "Nice little Remus… You're literally a total beast!"
"Expecto Patronum," Remus muttered. His wolf reemerged, wagging its tail.
Remus turned and carefully cast a silencing charm at the edge of the forest. He had gotten good at these over the years, muffling the sounds of his screams and howls during the full moons. This one would need to be especially powerful. The arc of magic climbed upwards from the where the grounds met the trees, curving over the treetops of the forest like a massive electric dome. This was the riskiest part. Anyone from the castle looking at the Forest at this exact moment would see nearly all of the Forest contained in the dome of magic. But a few seconds later, the silencing charm became invisible. Remus pointed his wand at his throat.
"Sonorus," he muttered. He swallowed, cold sweat breaking out on his palms. He steeled his resolve. The image from the Wanted posters of the Dark Wizard Black loomed before his eyes. Twelve years in Azkaban, and he was still remarkably sane, they said. Perhaps darkness feeds on darkness. Perhaps Black had only gotten stronger. Did Remus really believe that? If he believed that, would he be here, now, doing what he was about to do?
"Sirius," he said, and his voice boomed through the Forest as though through a megaphone. The birds stopped singing. "Sirius, it's Remus."
He took a deep breath. He was trembling violently, but his wand hand was steady. A ringing silence settled over the Forest. His heart was pounding. He raised the Daily Prophet over his head.
"They've given permission for the Dementors to perform the Kiss," Remus continued, his voice echoing deeply through the trees. "If they catch you, you will lose your soul."
A distant rustle of leaves brought Remus' breath up short. His eyes scanned the trees, and without thinking he inhaled deeply through his nose, trying to catch some strange scent. Silence settled once more. He threw his copy of the Prophet at the base of a tree. "It's right there in the paper. Come and see if you like. I'm a five-minute walk into the Forest from Hagrid's hut."
He turned, looking through the thick tangle that obscured the view through the trees.
"Leave us, Sirius," he said, his voice trembling. "There is nothing to be gained. Voldemort is gone. He's not coming back." The silence pressed against him as though someone had stuffed cotton into his ears.
"Everyone is gone," he added bitterly before he could stop himself. A wave of anger washed over him. "You've taken everything. Everyone. James. Peter. Lily. Marlene. Dorcas. Caradoc. Gideon and Fabian, Sirius. All on your information. Leave Harry alone. He's all that's left of James." Remus' voice broke. He took a moment to recover. "If James ever meant anything to you, if our friendship ever meant anything, I'm begging you to leave. You've already taken everything from me. You've taken everything from Harry. He has nothing. No memory of family, no memory of James and Lily, no happy memories at all before Hogwarts. You've taken enough. Don't kill him, Sirius. Leave us be."
Remus struggled to regain his composure. These arguments may mean nothing to Sirius. Remus had come to accept that he perhaps had never known Sirius at all. He had gone over it in his head, over and over, when the turn happened. Was it when Regulus died? When Mr. Black died? Or sooner, when they were kids together, when Sirius had insisted to James that he'd left the dark arts behind when James threatened to end their friendship? Could eleven-year-old Sirius already have been the traitor and spy that he was now? Surely not. Surely, at some point, Remus had known him.
"I have the Marauder's Map," Remus continued, willing his voice to steady. "I got it back. I'm watching it, Sirius. If you come into the school again, I will know. I will hand you over."
There was a snap of a twig. Remus whirled around, pointing his wand at the direction of the sound, taking a few careful steps towards it. His breathing came fast. He did not know if he could survive a duel with Sirius. He had no idea what he was now capable of.
There was another snap behind him. Remus whirled around again, and his breath came up short. The copy of The Daily Prophet was gone. "Quietus," Remus muttered, pointing the wand at his throat again.
"Sirius?" he asked tremulously.
He was ashamed to feel a wave of hope so powerful it nearly bowled him over. Even after everything, he missed his friend terribly. Sirius was the only vestige of a life that had been swallowed by fire twelve years ago, the ashes of which still seemed to drift over Remus wherever he went – especially here, especially at Hogwarts. Remus' wolf Patronus trotted forward and looked at something behind the tree, whining and wagging its tail. Remus steeled himself, then raised his wand and leapt over to the side, aiming behind the tree where the paper had just lay.
Sirius Black stood there, wandless, his hands raised. The Daily Prophet was rolled up in his right hand. Terror and relief washed over Remus in equal parts. He clutched his wand tightly, cursing his shaking hand, and took a steadying step towards Sirius, getting a better aim.
It was as though the entire universe had contracted into this single moment. They stared at each other.
Sirius' hair was long and matted. It hung down to his waist. His face was gaunt and waxy, his skin stretched so thinly around his face that it looked like a skull. His eyes were shadowed and hollow, fixed unblinkingly on Remus. Remus had seen the pictures – the empty eyes had followed him all year – but seeing the wasted body of someone he once loved more than almost anything in the world knocked the wind out of him. This was just a shell of who Sirius used to be.
"Hello, Moony," Sirius croaked.
"Don't call me that," Remus choked. Sirius blinked at him slowly. His eyes reminded Remus of fathomless, dark caverns. His arms were as thin as the bones within them. "God, look at you," Remus muttered. "Look at where your loyalties have gotten you."
Sirius let out a short, mirthless laugh. "You know, Moony," he rasped, lowering his hands. "I think about that sometimes."
"What are you doing here, Sirius?" Remus said, not lowering his wand.
"I could ask the same of you," Sirius replied hoarsely. "I can't say I expected to run into you here."
Fudge was right, Remus thought. Sirius seemed so… normal.
"I teach here," Remus said stiffly.
An odd look flitted across Sirius' face. "Professor Moony."
Professor Moony. Remus had forgotten they used to call him that. A flash of a long-forgotten memory: Sirius and James grinning at him as they sat in front of the fire in the Gryffindor Common Room, while Remus leaned over the book on the table, explaining something to a worried-looking Peter.
Sirius straightened and looked suddenly left to right. "Does Dumbledore know you're here?" he asked.
Remus' stomach twisted with guilt.
"I remember that look," Sirius said quietly. "You've come alone, then. Thank you, old friend."
"I'm not your friend." Remus said, more loudly than necessary. "My loyalty is to Dumbledore. I've come to ask you to leave."
"I gathered as much," Sirius said evenly. "That… and to warn me about the Dementor's Kiss."
"I would have warned anyone," Remus replied defiantly. "No one has a right to steal a man's soul." These were the same reasons he'd told himself as he stood before his mirror this morning, thinking about what he was about to do, convincing himself that it wasn't treachery, that it wasn't an excuse to speak with Sirius one last time…
Sirius was watching him closely.
"I daresay the Dementors would take your soul, Remus, if they found you talking to me."
"I daresay they might," Remus agreed, a shiver passing over his face.
Sirius considered him for a long moment. "We're the last two, aren't we?" he said quietly.
The words resonated more profoundly with Remus than he dared to admit. "No, Sirius," Remus replied evenly. "I'm the only one left. Padfoot died twelve years ago."
"If only I had," Sirius muttered darkly.
Remus stiffened. Was it possible that Sirius felt remorse? Or was he only mourning the defeat of Lord Voldemort and Sirius' own fall from grace? Remus was weighing whether to ask him, fighting the fear of what he would learn, when Sirius' next words drove all thoughts of remorse and mercy from Remus' mind.
"I need your help, Moony. It's about Harry."
It was the question that Remus knew was going to come. He knew it from the moment he decided to enter the woods to warn him. The approach. The first step to true treachery. He had let Sirius speak, and now here he was; Sirius Black was asking him for help hunting down Harry Potter. They had been right about Remus, all of them: Snape, the teachers who looked at him sideways, the Ministry. He was weak. Harry trusted him, and now Remus had risked Harry's life by even coming here. Everyone who trusted Remus had ended up the same way – hadn't he learned that twelve years ago?
Remus raised his wand again, going rigid with fury. "No."
"It's not what you think. Please, hear me out," Sirius rasped.
"I don't want to hear what you have to say," Remus said loudly, though his mind was whirring. Did Sirius truly wish to kill Harry? Perhaps the rumors had reached even Sirius in Azkaban: the whispers about Harry Potter, that he was a Parselmouth, that he had been targeted by Voldemort because he would be an even more powerful Dark Wizard. Perhaps Sirius was coming to recruit him, to train him.
"Remus, I'm trying to help him."
"I won't let you anywhere near Harry," Remus said calmly, though his heart was pounding painfully fast, and there was a strange ringing in his ears. "I am only going to ask you one more time, Sirius. Leave Hogwarts. Take a new identity, make a new life, keep your soul. If you leave now, you have my word, I will let you go in peace."
"I'm afraid I can't do that," Sirius replied quietly, his hollow eyes boring into Remus'. Sirius took a threatening step forward.
"You think I won't do it?" Remus replied in a low, dangerous voice, raising his wand. "You think I can't?"
"You're no killer, Moony."
"You know better than anyone what I'm capable of," Remus said coldly.
Sirius stopped short, studying his face, as though trying to read his mind. "Remus."
"Last chance, Sirius."
"You plan to kill me, then? Or turn me over to the Dementors?" Sirius asked quietly. "Let them suck out my soul?"
"Just tell me one thing," Remus said cooly. "Do you regret any of it, or is your soul so beyond repair that there won't be anything left for the Dementors if they find you? Do you feel any remorse at all?"
"Yes," Sirius said, scarcely more than a whisper, still staring at Remus with his haunted eyes. "Yes, I regret everything."
The words rocked over Remus, and the world seemed to spin. Something released inside of him, like a knot coming undone, a tangle which had sat in his stomach for so long that he no longer noticed. A strange sound escaped from Remus' mouth, a half sob, half disbelieving laugh.
"You regret everything," Remus repeated, his voice catching. The pain was too much. He felt as though his soul was being ripped in half. He struggled to harness the wolf, to shut and lock the gate. No. He could not lose control. His Patronus vanished.
Don't let him speak. Already the desire to believe him, to accept his confession of remorse and leave behind everything to rejoin his friend, threatened to overwhelm his reason.
"No," Remus said, his voice trembling. "You're lying. If you regretted everything, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't have broken into the castle. You wouldn't have slashed the portrait, or tried to murder Harry while he slept."
Remus finally regained control, his head suddenly clear of all feeling. He pointed his wand at Sirius' heart.
"You shouldn't have come back, Sirius," he said coldly.
"Remus, wait," Sirius said urgently, a new note of fear in his voice, realization flashing across his face.
"Avada Kedavra!" Remus shouted.
The jet of green light hit Sirius squarely in the chest. His eyes widened and he staggered backwards, the copy of the Daily Prophet falling to the ground. He slumped against the tree and slid slowly to the ground.
It was as though time had frozen. Remus stared at the slumped, wasted form of Sirius on the ground. Then he dropped his wand, a sob escaping from him.
"Oh, God," he moaned. He sunk to the ground, burying his face in his hands. This was it. The last of the Marauders was dead. Remus had killed him in cold blood, just as Sirius had killed James, and Peter. It was not as he had imagined. Sirius had looked so… surprised.
The ashes in his mind seemed to thicken and swirl blackly, like some dark living thing. He had done what he had sworn to himself he would do if he ever saw Sirius face to face again: avenge the deaths of the people Sirius helped to kill, starting with James, Peter, and Lily. Why, then, did he feel no relief? The knot that had just unraveled in his stomach twisted again so tightly that he felt as though he couldn't breathe, would never breathe right again. What had he done?
Unbidden, a memory swam before Remus' mind.
"Don't worry, Moony, we won't let anything bad happen," Sirius laughed, clapping him on the back. "Me and Prongs, we'll make sure of it."
"Besides, you said that we make you human, you know, in your mind, right Moony?" James said earnestly. "As long as we're here, you'll still just be our Remus." James tapped Remus smartly on the temple.
"We wouldn't let our best friend become a killer," Sirius said. "We've got your back, mate."
Remus clutched his hair with both hands and let out a long, terrible roar. The birds in the treetops took flight.
A low moan jolted Remus. He let go of his hair and looked up in disbelief. Sirius was stirring. A trickle of blood was streaming from his nose, and he looked dazed, but otherwise, he appeared to be unharmed. Sirius pushed himself to his feet. Remus stared at him, frozen.
Sirius flicked his hand. "Accio wand," he croaked. Remus' wand soared from the forest floor straight to him. He caught it in the air and considered it for a moment. Slowly, his eyes returned to Remus. Slowly, he raised Remus' wand, and pointed it directly at Remus' heart.
Remus looked up at him helplessly from the ground. The thoughts in his head seemed to be swirling around like a cyclone. Had Sirius learned some kind of dark magic to resist the Killing Curse?
Sirius walked slowly towards him, Remus' wand in his hand trained directly at his chest, his face gaunt and still as a skull, matted hair moving only slightly in the breeze. This was it, Remus knew. This was how it would end. Fear, love, regret, and fury coursed through his blood, but beneath that, he felt something entirely different: something like relief. Remus bowed his head and rose to a kneeling position, like a prisoner awaiting execution.
"You tried to kill me," Sirius croaked, his wand still pointed at Remus as he advanced on him with a dangerous expression on his face. "That would have been… most unfortunate." Sirius paused in front of him, staring down at him with a look of terrible fury. "You lured me out. You knew I would trust you. You've betrayed me, Moony."
Judging from the look on Sirius' gaunt, wasted face, Remus guessed that he had only a few moments left to live. Remus steeled his resolve. He looked Sirius in the eye and stood up straight, though his heart was beating painfully fast and his breathing was quick and shallow. "I warned you, Sirius. I gave you a chance to leave. I came here for only one reason," Remus said, his voice shaking. "To protect Harry. He's a good person, and he trusts me. You can do whatever you want to me. You can torture me, you can kill me, it doesn't matter. James and Lily died to save him. I will never betray him."
Sirius froze, his hollow eyes boring into Remus'. Although his wand was still trained on Remus' heart, the fury on his face flickered.
"You care for him," Sirius said quietly.
Remus cursed himself silently, his stomach turning in fear.
"He looks just like James, doesn't he?" Sirius added softly.
His words caught on Remus like hooks, fury blossoming in Remus' chest like blood from a wound. How dare he speak of James?
"Have you no shame?" Remus growled.
"I only want to know," Sirius said, blinking at him, "what he's like. You say he trusts you. James always trusted you, too. He would never hear a word against you, even when I tried to tell him that you were the traitor… James was always a better man than me."
"Go to hell, Sirius," Remus snarled through gritted teeth.
"I've already been. I don't recommend it." A ghost of a smile flickered across his face. "I'm not going to hurt Harry, Remus."
"Just like you would never betray James and the Order, right Sirius?" Remus said, his voice rising with emotion, his last vestige of control slipping through his fingers.
"I never betrayed anyone," Sirius said, more quietly than ever, a haunted look passing over his face.
Remus let out a short, harsh laugh. "God, do you ever stop lying, Sirius?" he snarled. "Or have you gone mad in Azkaban after all? James told me himself it was you! But I saw through you from the start, Sirius. I warned James, I warned him. I told him that if he trusted you with the Fidelius Charm, he wouldn't last more than a week. And I was right, wasn't I? Wasn't I?"
"Yes," Sirius whispered, as though to himself. "Yes, you were right." He looked up at him. "James told me about that fight," he said in a low voice. "He said he threw you out. Was that the last time you spoke with him, Remus?"
Remus opened his mouth and then closed it again. He couldn't bring himself to answer; his throat seemed to have closed up. He squinted hard at the ground, feeling his eyes grow hot with tears. He didn't want to give Sirius the satisfaction of seeing how his words tormented him. He could feel Sirius' eyes boring into him.
"He wouldn't have wanted you to part that way. I'm sorry," Sirius said quietly. "I'm sorry you were right."
"I'm sorry, too," Remus spat, looking at him hatefully, blinking the tears away. "But what does love, and loyalty, and friendship matter in the face of the kind of power that Dark Magic affords? I see Voldemort has even taught you how to survive the Killing Curse."
"Voldemort did not teach me to survive the Killing Curse," Sirius growled. "I survived because of you, Moony. When you cast the curse… you must not have really meant it." His eyes flickered. "For that, at least, I am glad."
For a moment Remus stared at Sirius, stunned. Then he looked away, disgusted with himself.
He had one chance to avenge his friends, to protect Harry, and he had failed. Love had always been his weakness. He had spent the last twelve years purging himself of it, yet still enough remained to destroy him. Thus ends Moony. The same way as Prongs, and Wormtail, the fate that had been careening towards him like an oncoming train since he saw Sirius across the crater twelve years ago. The ones who loved, who were loyal: lives eaten by the brutality of the ones ruled by darkness. It was the way of things. He should have known it since his first transformation.
"You've won again, Sirius," Remus said, his voice trembling. He looked him squarely in the eye and took a step towards him, so that the wand in Sirius' hand was pressed against his chest. "You're right. It's the worst part of all, to be honest with you: that even after everything, I'm still glad that I knew you. I despise myself for it, but I cannot change it."
Sirius blinked slowly at him, his sunken eyes unreadable in his waxy, skeletal face.
Remus took a deep, steadying breath. "Come, Padfoot, let's get this over with. You've already taken everything else from me; it's fitting that you would come back for the rest. I may not be able to kill you, but I'm not going to help you. Do what you must."
Remus thought fleetingly of Frank and Alice Longbottom, and his heart began to pound painfully fast. He felt his face flush, let slip the mask of impartiality he always wore. He would let himself feel, at least in these last moments. He met Sirius' eyes pleadingly. "Put me out of my misery, Padfoot. I'll thank you for it. Just do it… do it quickly, would you? For the sake of the friendship we once had." His final words lilted upwards, the first hint of a plea. He blinked and looked up at the treetops, tears blurring his vision.
There was a long pause. He heard Sirius step backwards. Remus' heart was pounding, and the forest seemed to spin around him. He waited for the blow to fall. He resisted the urge to speak; he wasn't going to beg. He was going to die looking at the sky. His pulse was thrumming in his neck, his breathing fast and shallow. Would Sirius blow him to bits, as he had done Peter? Would he torture him first, as his cousin had done to Frank and Alice, leave him with no memory of who he was or whom he'd loved? Or would he use the Killing Curse, just to show that it was Remus alone who loved too much to kill his former friend?
"I'm so sorry, my friend," he heard Sirius rasp.
Forgive me, James, Remus thought senselessly.
There was a rustle of leaves, like an animal running, and a long silence. The blow had not come.
Remus looked down from the sky. Sirius had gone. He was alone in the forest.
His wand was a few feet in front of him, lying on the forest floor. He threw himself forward and grabbed it from the dirt. He scrambled to his feet, looking around wildly. There was no sign of Sirius. He became aware that he was covered in cold sweat.
He backed up, aiming the wand at the forest in front of him. Then he turned, and he ran, ran through the Forest and past Hagrid's cabin, up the sloping lawn towards the towering castle. He ran as though the ghosts of a past life were howling after him. He didn't slow down until he had pulled open the great front doors and skidded inside.
He spun around, as though expecting Sirius to be right behind him, but there was no one. The grounds were still as ever, the mist still rising like ghosts into the morning sky. Remus took a step backwards, wand at the ready, and let go of the door. It slammed shut, and Remus stood frozen, breathing hard, wiping his face on his sleeve as the first students wandered past him, chatting sleepily with one another on their way to breakfast.