Under the Light of the Full Moon

Life goes on. It always has, and it always will. Nothing can change that inexplicable fact that everyone accepts. No, life goes on, despite everything that happens in it. It's the individual lives that can shudder to a halt. That are snuffed out, that perish, while life goes on around them. And so my life goes on, and yours does. Despite the life that has been ferried from this world.

They say that as you die everything becomes clear. That there is a long tunnel with a white light at the end, and that while you walk down that tunnel towards the light everything becomes crystal clear, and that you can understand the meaning of every thing, of life. And I suppose that this is why I understand things now.

Werewolves are creatures of evil, creatures of death and destruction and malice. However, they have a strong tie to the epitome of good, a tie that neither species will acknowledge, that no one else can see. The phoenix will not admit the tie that they have to us, because to do so would be to put a taint on their brilliance, their purity. The wolf-kindred will not admit that they are connected to the flighty bird whose tears can heal, because they are weak creatures, and the lycanthropes must always remain strong. To the rest of the world, a tie between werewolf and phoenix is absurd, not to be considered. But the tie is there, for those who wish to see it.

It is not one of blood or heritage, but one of magic. The phoenix is a bird of cycles, of rebirth. They are born again from their own destruction, forming a loop of life and death that they cannot break, that can only be broken by the final death, by another's hand. For the werewolves, the cycle shifts with the moon, but it is still one of inescapable death and rebirth. As the wolf emerges, it snuffs out the life of the man. The man is dead; dies once a month to make room for the wolf. The two cannot exist with each other, and so when one exists the other cannot. When the moon begins to set, the man is reborn and so the wolf dies. These two lives, completely dependant on each other, exist in a constant battle for supremacy, for if the wolf can overpower the man in the fateful moment of rebirth, there can be no second chance for the poor lost soul.

And so I die, once a month. And in the hours before my life is lost to the beast, everything begins to come into focus. For me there is no tunnel, just a gathering of everything that has ever meant anything to me. My power, in those fateful hours, can probably be topped by no wizard who is not like me. Not that I have much of an opportunity to use it. But the power is not what I cling to before the change. No, I treasure the understanding.

It is an odd dichotomy. The moment of perfect clarity, the moment that I treasure always, comes before the only part of myself that I wish to destroy forever. I never wish for the moment of understanding, of perfect truth, because that would mean that I wish for my own death. But when it comes I snatch at it, grab as much as I can, and try to make the most of my life, my hopes, my dreams, of everything. What I take from that moment I carry with me to my rebirth. It is why people see me as wise.

For most there is a tunnel, for most the moment of understanding comes in an instant, a flash of realisation of all that could have been done with life, all that they can now never do. The understanding that I treasure, which comes to me in slow streams that I have to force myself to wade through against the current, is anguish. To know the meaning of life, that bit of knowledge that I will not possess until my life will never come again, and to never be able to explain it to those lost souls who seek so hard to understand, that is torture. But it is also rapture.

And for many of those souls, the understanding is clouded. The light for them is not a pure, shining, brilliant white, but blinding, smoky green which wraps itself around the soul, which clouds the tunnel and blocks out the white of understanding, leaving the souls lost in a world of darkness amongst radiant spirits who understand.

To take that understanding away, that is worse than to take the life. To kill a man with a sword is to take away his life on this earth, but it still gives him a chance at the next. To kill a man with that flash of green, that blinding flash that obscures the way and blocks the knowledge, is to cripple him for eternity.

And that is what you have sentenced so many people to. And even now, even when the world is made so much clearer to me, I can't understand how you could do that. I thought I knew you. Not just the superficial knowledge consisting of ice cream flavours and girlfriends, I thought I know what you valued, what forces pulled you along. I trusted you with my secret, my life, because I thought I knew that once you had chosen something you would remain true to it. I suppose I may have been right about that part.

But it appears that I was wrong about the rest. It appears that I was wrong when I thought I knew that you were a kind soul. I was wrong when I thought that you would stay true to us, our group, and to me. I thought that honour was important to you; that the Gryffindor values that you seemed to embody filled you within as well as without. I didn't think that you would turn on us, that you would betray us. I didn't think that you could kill your best friend. To be perfectly honest, I didn't think you had the strength.

I can understand why you turned, I think. If I really force myself to look at it from how you must have seen it, I can understand why you joined Voldemort. You were ambitious; that is one thing in which I think I was correct in my assumption. You and James were always trying to learn more, to do more, to be more. And I suppose Voldemort offered you that opportunity, in spades. Where I am wrong is that I thought you also had the core values that James had, that grounded you to this world, kept you from his world.

But I guess that was wishful thinking. I know that at that time Voldemort was advertising his need for followers. Quietly, discreetly, but I know he was. I know, because he offered that opportunity to me. As a werewolf, I think he assumed that I would willingly come to his side, come to those who understood me and wouldn't fear me or show me prejudice because of what I was. I stayed true because I already had that, in you, in James, and in Peter. So, I know how golden his treasures can seem. He has a way, I think, of targeting each person specifically. I don't know why he came to you, but I suppose that when he did he promised you exactly what you thought you wanted.

So, I can understand, I guess, how you could abandon us. I just don't understand how you managed to hide that from us for so long. You couldn't lie to me. They say you were good at lying to everyone else, but I could always see through you. At least, I thought I always could, but apparently you fooled even me on this one. You stayed close to us, pretending that nothing had changed, more adamant than even Peter in your declarations that the Dark Lord must suffer, must be brought down.

But you lied to us, and in the end you had more strength than I gave you credit for. You had the strength not only to turn away from the three people who had supported you, trusted you, and helped you for the last seven years, not only to pledge allegiance to the man who would destroy the free wizarding world, but you had the strength to then turn back to us, with his power in your hands.

You had the strength to betray us, to betray James and Lily, and Harry, who was only a baby. Who was your godson. You had the strength to look at those three faces, into the trusting blue eyes of your closest friend and into the shining, innocent green orbs of the boy you had sworn to protect and love, and to turn them over to the man who wished to kill them. I don't know how you did that, how you could do that.

And so now I feel betrayed. I feel betrayed, although you have never done a thing to me, directly. I feel betrayed because I had thought we were close, closer than secrets or deceit. I thought you cared about me; I certainly cared about you. Not love, at least I don't think it was love, but I cared about you. But, you couldn't care about me and do what you did. You couldn't care about me and then betray them, because you betrayed us as well as just them, and I was part of us. I sit and remember the friendship that you kept up, the farce that you maintained, and I feel the sting of betrayal for that almost as much as for anything else. All right, be honest. I feel betrayed for that more than anything else. But humans are selfish creatures, so it's to be expected.

I feel betrayed because you let me down, because you hid from me, and because when you left you not only took yourself, you took the two other people who understood me. So you left me alone, without you, or James, or Peter. And now you've returned.

Have you come back to finish the job? Have you come back to do what your Master could not, to take Harry away from his life as you stole James? Do you even know why you're doing this? Do you understand, completely, with your entire soul, exactly why you wish to slay this child who has done nothing, absolutely nothing, to you. Has Voldemort explained to you the need to commit this crime? Or are you just blindly following orders? Have you lost all of your old sense of identity, your strength of self?

Well, I suppose you couldn't have. You survived Azkaban. Survived, and escaped. The first person to do either. That should make you happy, if there's any of the man I used to know left inside you. But I think that you also have an idea of what it's like to die, to lose to the beast that has its own ideas of how to live your life. And I guess at this point I stop making sense. I didn't think you would have the strength to kill James, but I expected you to be strong enough to conquer whatever it is that rose in you, that quashed the person I once knew.

And yet, somehow I can't understand this. It makes sense, and I see that. But I knew you. I knew you. And you weren't the type of person who could just falter and go down so quickly. It was what I would expect from a Hufflepuff, or perhaps even Peter, another soul who has paid with his life for your choices. But you, I just can't believe I was that wrong. I can't believe that I saw no trace of something that came to so monopolize your life.

But, it makes sense. I have tried, believe me, I've tried, to see this from another angle, to take the blame away from you. But everyone else is dead. You were the only one who survived. So I must be wrong. I won't be wrong again.

I trusted you, and still feel the sting of that mistake. I will not make it again. You will not take Harry. You will be caught, and when you are, you will look at me and explain how you could have done this. Because I need to know. I will know. And perhaps then, if there is still a scrap of humanity remaining in you, you will understand how you have hurt us all, how you have hurt me. And maybe, just maybe, you'll care. But you will not run free. You will not betray me and run free. The wolf will not let you, even if I would.

And so now I pull my thoughts together, cling to them, to give myself the strength I will need when the moon sets. And I pull these thoughts of you here to call me from death, to give me the will to fight the beast, to conquer when, possibly, just once, I would like to rest. But if I rest you will win. You will take Harry and finish your job, and I won't let you. It's ironic, really. You've taken so many lives, and now you will be calling me back to life. I wonder if you can still appreciate the humour of that.

I have just one question. One question. Because I'm not responsible for you or your choices, and if I can understand the answer to this one question maybe I'll be able to accept what's happened. I will never forgive you, but I may be able to accept. Just answer this one question. Why, Sirius? Why?