The house was dark, but he knew his way around well enough.

It had not been a good day, but then, none of them were. Nor had it been a good week, or even month. Year? Better not to ask, really. Remus Lupin would probably just smile bitterly and turn away.

It was the day before the full moon, and his mind was stretched taut with the wolf-call, and his heart was in shreds with the memories. That he had just lost another job due to mistrust and prejudice was only the lightest of straws, but it was enough to break him.

He was remarkably calm about it. Even if he'd had friends whom he saw daily, they probably wouldn't have noticed (...but they would have, had they not been dead or as good as these past three years...) anything out of the ordinary.

In the dark, he found his way to his small, cramped bathroom and began to run water by touch. He shed his robes easily and stepped into the warm water. In a whimsical moment he shot a small stream of scented bubbles from his wand. It was dark, but he didn't need the light. His eyes were... better than normal.

And yet, he raised the wand and murmured, "Lumos."

The light echoed his wishes and was dim, very soft and unobtrusive. He didn't need the light to see by, but some things shouldn't be done in darkness.

He contemplated himself as the bath slowly filled around him. His body was too thin, his bones too prominant. The scar where the werewolf had bitten him looked livid in the wandlight, even against skin much too pale. His hair felt lank to the touch, and he wondered if his eyes looked as dead as the soul watching through them.

He wondered what James would say if he could see him now. He wondered what Peter would do. And Sirius. He wondered if Sirius would weep to see him now - the Sirius he'd known, the one he'd loved - Sirius who had spared him alone from death for reasons he didn't even dare to contemplate.

He let his thoughts wander. He let their faces surface one by one. He tried not to feel misery or pain, but only to remember how things had once been. He turned the water off and lay back, raising his wand and regarding it carefully.

James would have it out of his hand in a second. James would have his arms around him, ever the friend, ever the brother. Peter would have disarmed him from a distance, would be talking now quickly and urgently, trying to change his mind. Sirius would...

Sirius would just say, "No."

There was silence. He didn't move. The wand didn't move. Silence. Breathing.

"Avada Kedavra."

Nothing happened. He nodded, unsurprised. He'd heard in school that you couldn't use the killing curse on yourself. Something like trying to strangle yourself, they said. It didn't matter how much you wanted it, how strongly you willed it. He tossed the wand to one side, not caring if it broke or bent. It didn't matter.

It would have to be the other way, then. He looked at the knife as he'd looked at the wand before. He'd used sharpening spells. It was more like a razorblade than a knife, but a long, strong, lethal razor that you wouldn't want near your unprotected throat.

He sat up, setting the water sloshing, and weighed the knife in his hand. It felt odd, to someone who'd never held a weapon. He held out his other arm, palm up, and looked at the blue veins traced under the translucent skin. It really wasn't a healthy arm, he thought.

You had to be careful how you did this. Children, teenagers, they'd slash away with rage and passion, tear the veins, make a lot of mess. It didn't often work. You needed to hit an artery, or lay open the veins all the way up. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to wield the knife after he'd made the first cut, but he was loathe to use a charm on it. If he was going to do it the hard way, then he would do it the hardest way.

He touched the blade of the knife, letting it slice his fingertips. It didn't even occur to him to think that he could stop now and get out of the bath. There was no way out of this except the dark road.

Very slowly, very carefully, he drew the blade across the back of his left wrist. Not a deep cut. Just enough to give him the feel for the pressure it needed. It hurt, but not as much as he'd expected.

Then he laid the knife against the skin on the inside of his left elbow. His eyes were distant for a minute. He was remembering a boy with glasses, smearing healing salve over a self-inflicted wound and telling him that next time, next time it would be different. That they'd almost got there with the spell. Next time he wouldn't be alone, he'd promised, and the promise had been kept.

You had to push hard. Very hard, very firmly, even against the way your hand started shaking halfway through. He felt dizzy, but determined, and after the first few shocked, pained seconds, it was almost easy.

All the way down the length of his arm. Deep, not quite deep enough, he thought. He could smell the blood and feel it warm as the bath water, but it wasn't the heart's blood. He hadn't cut deep enough.

Getting his left hand, now wet with blood, to take the knife was hard; it seemed to have gone numb and clumsy. Moving the bleeding arm was harder, but he found a kind of fascination in the way the blood gushed faster when he did.

The point of the knife went into his right arm much deeper than he'd meant it to; his movements were awkward now and everything was dark with blood. He drew the blade down sharply, hard, and felt the frightening, agonising sensation of the deep flesh tearing. This blood didn't trickle or even gush, but spurted viciously bright from the severed artery.

He fell back in the water, head thumping painfully on the rim of the bath, but it didn't matter. The feeling of blood leaving him was profoundly horrible, but the fading of consciousness was almost blissful. His head had started to swim. He was suddenly glad of the light. Better to end in light.

He closed his eyes. It was easier to remember now. James smiling, Peter laughing, Sirius looking up at him with words only for his ears. Easy to remember those things. Not the pain, not the betrayal, not the grief, not the emptiness. He was going to end it in joy. He would not end it in despair. He started remembering his first day at Hogwarts, taking himself through every second of that morning, but mindless lassitude came on him so swiftly that he had barely set foot on the train before his memory faltered and died.

Darkness.

Silence.

Cold light of dawn.

He woke in cold water, mixed with cold blood. He was confused, and shivering, and his arms hurt like hell. He sat up in a hurry, looking wildly around him. Remembering.

Then he looked at the long, already healing cuts on his forearms. He looked at the blood around him, too much for anyone to lose and live.

Anyone human, at least.

He began to cry then, or maybe it was a kind of laughter. He pressed shaking hands to his hot tears, not caring that they were stained with dried blood and left red prints on his skin.

After a long time, he drained the bath and washed himself.

Then he got up and threw away the knife.

The End

Author's note: An attempt to write about a strong character committing suicide, without reducing it to a hurt/comfort plot device or turning the character in question into a weeping, angsty teenaged girl - about the kind of despair that can come over someone without them losing their strength of mind or will.

I do not, in fact, believe that Remus Lupin has ever even considered this. I think he's too strong. But the story fits him, barely, and so I have told it.

"dona mihi requiem" means "grant me rest". It's a rephrasing of a line found in the funeral mass.