Mourning

Mourning

I. Dusk

Molly Weasley stared worriedly at the closed door. “He’s falling apart, Arthur,” she said to her husband in hushed tones. “I see it, day by day.”

Arthur, tall, thin, and balding, pulled his plump wife away from the room. He led her down the hall while she cast anxious glances behind her, and down the stairs into the kitchen. Ginny and Tonks, her hair a brilliant blue, looked up from their game of noughts-and-crosses, played in the margin of the essay Ginny was getting an early start on.

“Anything?” asked Tonks.

“No. He’s sealed the door and won’t speak a word.” Arthur sat down across from his daughter.

“At least he comes out during the day,” offered Tonks.

Molly, standing near the counter, frowned. “That doesn’t mean he’s doing well during the day,” she said. “He sits and looks at the walls, only going through the motions."

Ginny bent her head over her schoolwork again, excluded from the conversation. The suffering of her former professor made her unutterably sad, but she was not a part of this unofficial committee on his welfare.

Molly sighed deeply. Unlike Arthur, with his Ministry job, or Tonks, always off on Order or Auror business, she spent the entire day at Twelve Grimmauld Place with the children and Buckbeak... and Remus J. Lupin. She had grown quite fond of the man over the past year, and now she was the witness to his grief. At first, he had seemed to be grieving normally. He kept his head in the Department of Mysteries, he was strong for Harry at King’s Cross, and he was reserved as ever, weeping silently when he was alone. And then the tears stopped their flow, and even his grief seemed to depart, and he was hollower than the old, decrepit house. And this was what alarmed Molly. His eyes were blank, and his actions half-hearted, and he seemed merely to be rather than to live.

The front door slammed shut, and Molly ran out to quiet the shrieking of the portrait of Mrs. Black. “I’m terribly sorry, Molly, a gust of wind —” babbled Dedalus Diggle.

Remus Lupin, sitting on the edge of his bed, did not so much as start when Mrs. Black began her solo tirade. All the other portraits along the hall had been removed, but she clung to the wall with an unholy tenacity. I ought to go help Molly, he thought detachedly. He made no move to rise. The wind that had slammed the door now flared the curtains of his window, opened as wide as it would go, and caught at his greying hair.

Oh, Sirius, Sirius, I know you wouldn’t want me to waste away miserably like this... If you were here you would make me see reason, give me the swift kick in the pants that I seem to need so badly. But you’re not here, and therein lies the problem.

The shrieks quieted.

Moody and Dumbledore had decided that Remus ought to have time to grieve properly, and had removed him from active duty for the Order of the Phoenix. The entire order was treading lightly around him.

They had no inkling of how sharp his hearing was. They spoke of him when they believed he could not hear. They spoke hushed, ugly words, like, “taking it badly,” “eight stages,” “such a pity,” and “St. Mungo’s.” Somewhere along the way, he had ceased to care. About anything.

Remus Lupin was a burnt-out shell.

Twelve Grimmauld Place is driving me mad, Sirius. When you were here, it was tolerable, because you brought life to this horrid, dead place. But now, without you...

His mind ambled along the paths of memory without his guidance or consent. Every memory of Sirius caused fresh pain and gouged a new wound to bleed from in his soul. Every memory killed him, as much as a silver dagger to the heart would. And he had years upon years of memories.

Remus Lupin was crumbling on the inside.

At last overwhelmed by the tide of memory and emotion, Remus sank to his knees. Illuminated by soft moonlight, dry sobs wracked his body, and he lifted his hands as though watching the memories slide between the fingers like grains of sand. I can’t even stand the joyful memories, because they’ve got you in them. You would hate me if you could see me now, wallowing in my grief. I should be helping Dumbledore and looking after Harry. You would be. But then, you were always stronger than me. And now, just when I’d got you back, I’ve lost you again. I’m the last one. And I don’t think I can take it.

And alone, in the moonlight, Remus J. Lupin fell apart.

II. Dawn

Sometimes, you must let yourself fall apart before you can put yourself back together again.

In the calm just before dawn, when all the cavernous house was still, at last he stirred. Remus J. Lupin rose from the floor at the foot of his bed, pale and wraithlike, and crossed to the door. He smiled faintly at the two young women slumbering against the wall across from his room. They must have come during the night.

Ginny Weasley and Nymphadora Tonks had been drawn to each other by their shared compassion and optimism, and were now united by their sisterly concern for his welfare. Pastel fairy lights danced around their matching mops of flame-red hair, their small effort to chase away the gloom of the house as they kept their vigil outside his door.

A final fond glance was granted them, and then he stole along the hall and down the stairs, and into the kitchen. Molly Weasley, thoughtful and mothering to a fault, had left out a plate of biscuits for any hungry soul who might seek food in the ungodly hours of night. Of course, that meant that the small pests who also made their home in the house could get at them, also. He slipped noiselessly past the tables and out the back door into what was once a sinister garden, where he stood facing east and greeted the sun as it rose, cleansed and renewed. The world still turned, and life would go on.