1.

Remus remembered the past.

2.

It was a cold, windy afternoon; the graveyard was all but empty. It hadn't been like that earlier that morning. Remus could remember the crowds of--weeping--people hovering around the new graves. The funeral had been even earlier, before the crowds had come and Remus didn't remember who'd attended--private funeral for friends and family; he hadn't cried--he hadn't wept--he hadn't said anything--just tried to breathe.

He remembered a lot of things.

He tried to forget the other things.

The trial--not really a trial no not really a trial--was even worse; to see him there; 'Under charge of…'

Remus clenched his eyes at the memory; clenched his eyes and returned to the courtroom and high, high, high above he watch down, down, down below; he opened his eyes, but it still played. 'Guilty?'--'guilty.'--'guilty.'--echoed and echoed and then a little later it faded out.

He clutched the sheets and wept.

It was a warm, sunny afternoon; the graveyard was all but empty…

Remus wondered.

3.

The world could've ended tomorrow and he wouldn't have noticed. He wouldn't have cared, either. He'll sit on his bed for a little while, in the morning after he's made it, staring out the window at the setting sun and wondering how long it'll be before the forest recedes from around him and the cities grow up in place of it and how long it'll be before he moves on again. He'll wonder how long it'll be before there are no empty houses in empty forests, how long it'll be before there's no going back.

He sighs--

sirius is sitting on the doorstep and remus is laughing clutching his shoulder kissing his cheek and doing what in love people do while the rest of them are laughing and harry's climbing james' shoulders and peter's over there in the corner and everyone they know and a little while later it's almost been a year since they visited the hospital on that stormy night when lily gave birth.

--and the picture's at the bottom of a pile of Sirius' clothes in his old school trunk; it's been around forever. You can still see them--

harry's giggling and laughing and he's almost set on fire as he tries to blow the candles out

--wandering about trying to wave through the dust and the tea stains and the ripped and the torn clothing that's stuck to it with something like glue that has long since dried and left patches of red and gold.

Remus goes insane.

4.

Remus is a silver ghost; stands at the window and stares out of it. Sirius is at the door, leaning on the frame but his face is anything less/more than shock and just a little bit of fear. 'What?' Sirius asks; meanwhile, a tear runs down Remus' cheek, and it glitters silver in the light.

'It's my curse,' he doesn't turn.

'Curse--?' Sirius echoes.

He might have stopped the tears: 'Forever,' Remus said--then repeated--'I'll live forever; I'll never die a natural death, unless they…' stops because he chokes up with tears.

Sirius is still staring when Remus leaves the room. But then:

Remus drowns in silver.

--he can't hold on any more, stares down as they fill up the empty grave with an empty coffin in an empty cemetery where there's only him and everyone else. There's no rain. He'd always expected it to rain; but it didn't, nobody wore grey, it was all black and the occasional white tulip on top of the coffin. But then, Remus was drowning in silver--couldn't hold the tears--and then died.

He can't breathe for a little bit; when he remembers, he's clutching the tree and staring out at the setting sun and he can feel a hand gently on his shoulder; can hear a voice, gently in his ear. But that's nothing. Can't fight the tears and lets go, because holding on is harder than letting go. When he lets go, he falls--into the foaming silver river; goes crazy, and then a little while later, he's awake.

'Curse?' Sirius says again, at dinner.

Remus nods. 'Oh,' Sirius frowns, 'so that means…'

He nods again: 'Oh…' Sirius repeats.

Sirius doesn't say anything else for a while.

--he would have stood on top of the Astronomy Tower and thrown himself off, but then that had never surmounted to anything other than a few broken bones that had healed rapidly of their own accord and a frightful crick in his neck but it was Sirius who had stared at him, eyes wide and held him tight, and said that everything was (would be) ok.

Remus didn't believe him. Drowned again.

--'You'll…--' Harry can't believe it, sitting there on the bench in the park and Remus is next to him. Remus, who looks just like he did ten years ago at the funeral and then the tears come. Remus doesn't know what the tears are for: Harry held him and whispered in his ear, 'I'm so sorry.'

And it's the first time Remus has cried for years.

Goodbyes are always the hardest: 'What is the one thing you want in the world, most of all?' Lily had asked him, at the end of their wedding and she'd held the remnants of her bouquet. She thinks she'd dry it.

Remus stares out at the sky. 'One thing?'

Lily nods. 'Only one thing.'

He bows his head. When he answers, Lily can't really hear him. 'What?' she asks.

When he looks up at her, his face is tear--stained; uncommon, but she's not very surprised. 'I said,' he says, 'that I want to be able to say goodbye, and mean it.'

'Oh…'

She's still sitting on the bench when he leaves. And she doesn't leave until James asks--her 'what's wrong, love?'

'Nothing,' she says, but under her breath: 'that I can understand.'

5.

Remus sat in the corner of his empty, cold white room; nothing there, after all the years he's still hiding away somewherewherewherewhere you can't find himhe doesn't want you to find him.

He was laughing.

6.

In the end, he remembered the past.

In the end, he was alone.

In the end, it was the end and then there was nothing more.

He rolled over and waited for sunset.