But Here There Is No Light

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Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes. – Oscar Wilde

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“But Here There Is No Light”

‘Harry,’ he said, his eyes downcast. The word carried, burning my ears. One word; two syllables. It was decisive. It was finial. Yet he was pained.

‘So that’s it?’ I asked, banking tears. I wouldn’t cry, I couldn’t… Mostly because I knew that I shouldn’t.

Blindly, he reached up, aiming to touch me. Anywhere. I pulled away, turning on him, letting him be. He had to go, he had to go before I started begging him. I couldn’t beg.

‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled as he walked out, leaving me in darkness.

Somehow I knew his answer, I knew it before I asked. It’s the way he is, I shouldn’t have expected differently. He has his loyalties and his reasons. I know. Merlin, how I know! But that doesn’t mean that I have to like it, does it? It hurts, so much, to think about it.

I asked him to decide and it took him three days, he left for three days because he knew that I was being serious. I don’t think he wanted to return with his answer, but the moon was rising and he wanted to be there. He wanted to say ‘good-bye’.

No, not ‘good-bye’! Never ‘good-bye’!

I was left to heal on my own. I was bleeding and bruised and very apathetic. What did I care that my blood was staining the bed, my heart was bleeding worse. My heart keeps telling me that he betrayed me, and I’m losing to its power. ‘Follow your heart’, they say. He betrayed me, but I love him. He can’t change that! As if our separation didn’t prove that before. First he was taken away from me, then he stayed away from me, then he was hidden from me and now…

It’s Harry’s fault, it really is. I mean… well. I know that he didn’t just decide to take my Sirius from me, but he did. Each time, he did. James asked him to look over Harry, so he did. Since then, he’s chosen Harry over me. He’s Harry’s godfather, he does have some kind of commitment to him, I know that. And I know that I’m a selfish prat, but I would hope that Sirius being my mate would mean that he would have some kind of commitment to me, too.

How could I make him to choose one of us over the other?

I ask myself the same question over and over. I’ve since left the house to go back to the London flat. The house is too big, and too much a symbol of us, of the family we could never be. The flat, though… maybe I hope that he’ll walk in that door and tell me that he’s sorry. You see… Sirius has wanted it to be the two of us and Harry for a while now. We all have and we have permission to take him from Petunia.

I guess it’s for Sirius’ own good. Sirius has three things in his life that have meaning to him; Harry, the Order and myself. I’m a big boy and he thinks that I can care for myself (I can’t…) and then Harry, he needs love, but that’s what Ron and Hermione are for. And the Order… We’re in the middle of a war, so I guess he needs to keep his word to the Order, I know that I am. Kind of.

I’ve been avoiding them, I do my work and hand it in either via owl or via Tonks (who, yet again, is the one keeping me sane). She found out about Sirius leaving and came over to help me out. Since then she comes over most nights to make sure I eat, and so forth, and sometimes she brings her girlfriend (a nice Muggle born that’s recently entered the Order). They brought me a recent photo of Sirius recently. They caught him when he was alone, and he’s so… gorgeous.

He’s been gone for two months, almost exactly. I feel the moon calling to me, it’s so hard to be without him now. Moony is yelling for him, and it’s tearing my skull apart. I want to give in and let Moony get to Sirius and claim him, tell him that he can’t leave us alone again. But I can’t.

Soon Tonks will be here, maybe I can ask her for another photo, one of him with Harry. I want them to be happy in the wartime, I want to know that they’re safe. They’re at Hogwarts, though, so they have to be safe. I know they are.

It’s getting late, I can see the darkness seeping in through my windows, yet I’m too accustomed to the dark to turn on some lights, dark suits my mood best anyway. I feel myself thinking that Tonks is late, but she may have been caught up at the Ministry or something. As I look at my cold tea, I get a strange sense of déjà vu.

The door swings open and I turn my head. Sirius. Merlin, it’s him. What is he doing here? He’s just staring at me, waiting for me to make the first move, while I’m waiting for him to do the same.

‘Remi,’ he steps forward, cautiously. ‘I know that you’d rather I wasn’t here, but…’

‘That’s not true, Siri,’ I shake my head. ‘But there’s a war and things are different during a war.’

‘But they needn’t be.’

‘Sirius.’

‘No, Remus, listen. Come back to Hogwarts. You were the best Defence teacher in a long time and we need that now. Come back to Hogwarts and you can stop avoiding me.’

‘I can't.’

‘Who told you that? Tell me and I’ll beat his face in, you know I will.’

I lick my lips, an unconscious movement of nervousness, ‘I did. I’m unsafe. Damnit! I’m a werewolf. How can they need someone like me?’

He steps closer and kneels before me, ‘because you’re the best.’ He rests his head on my legs, ‘and we can all be together there.’

‘Sirius, I can't.’

‘Says who? Remi, you’re too brilliant to be alone, and I’m dying without you. We were meant to be together.’

‘But times are dark, times have changed. Sirius, I couldn’t bare if it something happened to you—again—because I was too close to you. I can't rely on you forever, you know.’

‘Why the hell not!’ He’s trembling, I can feel him shaking. It’s so uncharacteristic. I’ve always been the one to lean on him… but he needs me as much as I need him.

I pause a bit, cautiously I run a hand through his hair, ‘because I love you too much.’ I can sense his confusion; ‘Sirius, I’m done blaming myself for harm that comes to you, I can’t take the heartbreak any longer. Do you have any idea how bloody hard it is?’

‘Remus…’ his arms snake up, wrapping themselves around my waist, ‘Remus… Moony… Don’t do this to me.’

‘You chose Harry,’ I mumble as I rise, ‘he needs you now.’

‘He’s with Ron,’ he protests. ‘He says they’re going to study, but I know better than that,’ I can divine the unspoken they’re in love. Funny, I guess, how whenever there’s a question about Sirius and me, he mentions the two of them. Is it to make me think? Merlin, I hate him sometimes.

‘Don’t you have work to do?’ I ask bitterly and then immediately regret it.

‘Let’s not fight.’ He comes from behind, once again engulfing me in his embrace. Resting his head on my shoulder I feel at home; at home in his embrace. ‘Just give me a reason, Moony, that’s all I ask. A good one, mind. I need to know why, when we finally have a chance to be together, we have to be apart.’

I decide, quickly, that I hate it when he uses my old nickname like this. Moony, Padfoot, Prongs and Wormtail. The Damned, the Dazzling, the Dead and the Death Eater. He brings me back to Hogwarts and the Good Times. And he knows it, too.

‘Because… Don’t make me do this, Sirius,’ I whisper.

‘You can't tell me, can you?’ his breath tickles my ear even as his voice retains absolute seriousness.

I try again to pull away, but he’s stronger than I am. ‘Siri, I can't go back there.’

‘So it’s Hogwarts that’s irking you? You know that’s the best place for any of us, especially at a time like this.’

‘That’s not it…’ I pause, ‘Well, it’s part of it, but not a very large part,’ I amend.

‘Then what?’

‘I do love you.’

‘So you’ve said.’

‘I couldn’t do it… Do you expect me to juggle everything and remain sane? I’m not like you, Siri, I never was. And then, if you pull a stunt again… well, chances are, like as not, that you wouldn’t live to tell the tale.’

‘Remus,’ he says my name as a mentor lightly scolding, ‘you can do what you’re up for, you know that’s what Dumbledore will say, and I’ll be there. You and me, Remi, like old times.’

‘But yet so very different.’

‘Granted. Instead of Prongs we have Prongs Junior,’ he shrugs, ‘but we can watch the new age Marauders kick some major Slytherin arse. And, I can sleep soundly knowing that you’re safe beside me instead of off doing something in the fit of depression.’ He turns me around, looking me in the eyes, ‘I know what you’ve been up to, who you’ve been searching for. Let us search together. The two of us.’

‘Sirius,’ helplessly I burry my head in his robes.

‘Then it’s settled,’ he decides, ‘let’s go back together. At least for now.’ He cups my face and kisses me, wordlessly telling me that I never had a choice anyway.

Strangely Hogwarts is, indeed, like some kind of sanctuary. It’s not what happens, really, but rather that it’s Sirius and me, together again. And I find myself caring less and less about the consequences. Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. Where that leaves me, I do not know, but I do not care.