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It said something that Remus noticed the lack of another person beside him when he awoke. What had been the status quo for going on six years had, as of late, changed drastically and, surprisingly, for the better. He stretched a little without moving much, ribs pulling apart with a deep breath in before he sank down again with a sigh. He was still a moment, listening for the sounds of Sirius shuffling about on bare feet, in search of or coming back from smoking a fag. He heard nothing.

Which just meant the bastard had skipped off home. That was all. Remus drew himself out of bed, shrugged into a threadbare collared shirt and lightweight, formless denim trousers, scrubbed a hand through his hair, which was getting rather shaggy, all told, and stood. He'd only three of five buttons done up when he noticed Sirius' clothes, still strewn haphazardly on the floor.

There was no chance he'd left without his pants.

The walk to Sirius' house passed in a brightly sunlit blur, and he didn't bother knocking before going in. Nothing looked particularly out of the ordinary, save that it was empty of his friend. On a strangely desperate hunch he took the stairs three at a time to get to the bedroom, which was also empty. He took a few steps in, feeling a slowly rising tide of panic, which hummed in his ears and brain like white noise. Static.

It wasn't that simple. This was paranoia. This was unfounded panic. Remus left the house at a brusque pace and didn't slow until he'd canvased all of the parts of the island he thought of as counting, including the Winchester. Possibly he had asked, in a halting, distant tone, if Neil had seen Sirius. The answer must have been no, because the next moment he was fully aware of was being back in Sirius's bedroom, looking at the mid-afternoon sky through the open window and knowing, knowing with a sharp, all encompassing, shuddering certainty that Sirius was gone.

Gone.

It was such a hollow sounding word.

He sank down the wall into a crouch, and pressed the knuckles of one hand over his mouth, eyes never leaving the unmade bed. It seemed impossibly empty. It would doubtless smell of stale cigarette smoke, but not only that, and Remus wanted very badly to go crawl into it, breathe it in, but felt as though doing so would, somehow, be a final, decisive act. So he stayed where he was.

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I realize that I'm watching him walk away, watching him disappear through the doorway, the blood rushing so loudly in my ears that my knees are starting to feel weak. It takes a long, desperate moment to remember what he even asked of me, the wheels in my head turning while I stand there with my hands braced on the bar counter. It hits me at the same moment my eyes focus and I realize I'm staring at a worn patch of lines carved into the bar. Scratchy and a little slanted, the edges worn smooth.

Sirius Black Was Here.

There haven't been many times that I've just left the bar without any word, but the door's clanging behind me before I have time to think about things like responsibilities and manners and shit.

I'm just glad the girls are with Tunny.

I don't make a habit of going to Harry Potter's place, but I know where he lives, and on the ATV, it doesn't take long to get there. I don't say much to him. I don't really have to. I think we both make the decision to go to Sirius' place without actually saying any words to each other. Thank fuck, since we can't fuckin' talk, half the time, without it going sour.

I walk in, unannounced, without waiting for Harry, and find Remus upstairs. If the look on his face at the bar wasn't enough of a confirmation, this right here seals it.

So, I stand there in the middle of the room, hands pushing back through my hair, and I say nothing. What the fuck am I supposed to say?

Edited 2012-09-05 06:27 (UTC)

Harry had thought he would like Neil infinitely better if he didn't talk so much, joke so much, tease so much. But the bare conversation they had made to propel them to Sirius' house was easily the worst conversation they had ever had, in Harry's book. He would have preferred burning frustration over the creeping cold dread that weaseled its way through his body now.

He hesitated at the front door, letting Neil pass him, and steeled himself. He knew what he would find when he entered: the remains of the life of Sirius Black, still smelling faintly of cigarettes, of him.

Fuck, he couldn't do this.

He had to. Harry took in a deep breath and entered the house, heading straight for the staircase when he didn't see Neil on the ground floor.

Harry had tried to prepare himself for an empty house. He had forgotten, with everything else demanding his heart and mind, that he would have to prepare himself for Remus as well.

Pressing his lips into a thin line, Harry turned away and hovered near the open door of the bedroom. You have to do this, he told himself. You have to do this. You have to do this. You have to do this. But everything, everything in him did not want to. He wanted to run away and be sick and hide. A bone deep weariness made his shoulders sag as he leaned against the door frame.

How many times was he going to have to lose the people he loved?

And there they were. It was wholly alien, to be surrounded by others feeling the loss so soon after it. He wasn't used to it.

"He's gone," he said, which was incredibly stupid because firstly, that was obvious, and secondly, that made it real.

"I'm so sorry, Harry," he added uselessly.

After last year, there was a part of me I think honestly believed that Sirius Black was here to stay. Others might come and go, but his was a loss I'd never have to deal with.

I'm not ready. I can't fucking do this.

"How do we know it's not like last time?" I ask, which I know is the wrong fucking thing to say, but now that the thought's wormed its way into my head, I can't shake it.

Harry could hold onto empty hope just as well as anyone. Perhaps even better. He could blind himself to whatever he did not want to see. He did not want to own up to the fact that Sirius was gone, but he couldn't make himself latch onto Neil's idea.

"Because it's fucking not," he growled under his breath. Sirius could only take so much. If the island had screwed Sirius over as thoroughly as before, he might as well be dead right now. The thought of his godfather abandoned somewhere angered him.

Accept it. They had to accept it and try to cope. Somehow.

"If you want to take a boat out and look, go ahead."

"He fell asleep at mine last night," Remus said, voice small and rough, not looking at either of them and propping his forehead against the hell of his palm.

"The things he had with him were still there this morning. Not what he was wearing." At the time. He decided to leave that phrasing vague.

"His cigarettes. His... Was that the way of it, last time?"

There should have been a flicker of hope in him somewhere, but there wasn't.

"I don't... I don't remember," I admit, shaking my head absently. We were all so fucking sure, last time. It seemed like any other disappearance. But it was so soon after Tom vanished, the details of both are jumbled in my head. I feel a sick wrench of guilt in my stomach, mouth pressed into a tight line as I ride it out.

"It wasn't," Harry said coldly. He did not want to be unkind, but he wasn't thinking of his tone when he spoke, only felt a kind of finality to the moment that came out in his voice.

"He was taking food to Cassie. I remember, because that was how he survived. At first."

If Sirius were locked up in a dank, depressing, desolate Azkaban cell out in the middle of the ocean, he would have his bloody cigarettes with him. How reassuring.

For some reason, thinking of Cassie made the whole thing worse, and Remus drove the heel of his hand against his forehead before he covered his mouth with it. After another moment's silence, he pushed himself to his feet and shuffled over to the edge of the bed. He wondered if it would be removed, or just stripped down for the next tenant.

"So that's it, then," he said quietly.

It seems so depressing and final. An anti-climax, after years of the kind of drama Sirius Black always managed to stir up. An abrupt end to a friendship I was nowhere near ready to give up.

Death was no easier, but at least there were steps to be taken. Now there's just... nothing left to do.

That's it, then, pretty much sums it up.

I see Remus looking down at the bed, and I say, "If there's anything left here, we should take it now... Somebody new comes in to stay, they'll fuck it all up."

Somebody new would be coming in to stay. The Green Arrow Estates had some of the nicest homes on the island. Sirius' empty space would likely fill up fast. And Harry would have to walk past the house every day mindful of the fact that his godfather was no longer there.

He needed to get out of here and never see the place again.

"Clothes," Harry muttered, trying to think up all of Sirius' island possessions quickly. It felt awful. His stomach turned coldly at the thought of them divvying up his things, cutting up pieces of him for them each to keep. But what other option did they have? There was no will this time.

"His motorcycle. Bugger, the bird." Harry winced as he imagined how Hedwig might react to the snidget.

"I'll take the bird," Remus murmured.

Clothes. Books. Bedding. The furniture he'd constantly been sprawled on or had a foot kicked up against or had absently let cigarette ashes fall to. All of it. He'd leave it up to Harry, he supposed, what to do with the bulk of it, but at least he could take the bird.

"And whatever else," he added, tearing his gaze away from the sheets to look at Harry, "even just to store. My place is mostly empty."

My place is... just about the opposite of almost empty. We've collected so much stuff over the years, the house can go from clean to a fucking disaster area at warp speed.

"I got the ATV. I can help take whatever you need. So you... don't have to carry it or whatever."

It's all too similar to the day after Mike died. The little practical things that had to be taken care of before anybody could mourn. A knot lodges itself in the back of my throat and I let out a shutting sigh, my hands burying themselves in my hair.

Sometime between his last words leaving his lips and Neil finishing his sentence, Harry started shaking his head. He wasn't sure where it began or if there even was something said specifically that triggered it. But suddenly he could not take this.

Accept it. Move on. Act like an adult. That was what Harry had wanted of Sirius not too long ago. But standing here now, calmly accepting this felt wrong. He clenched his hands into fists and fought against the urge to fight reality.

"I can't," Harry started. He didn't want Sirius' things. He would take them and appreciate them later, but he did not want this.

"I- Later. I'll do this later," he muttered, backing up out the door.

Remus watched Harry withdraw, and felt a tug of impetus in the pit of his stomach to go after him, but to what end? He opened his mouth to say the boy's name, but didn't. After a moment of what felt like a slow creeping claustrophobia brought on, no doubt, by an overwhelming sense of uselessness, Remus sat on the edge of Sirius' bed and fisted one hand in the sheets.

"He's right," he said quietly to Neil.

"It can be dealt with later. When." When what, the hurt was less? Not likely.

"When everything's a bit less raw," he said, because it wasn't sinking in. Just like the last time, it was sinking in. It had been mere hours since dry fingertips were tracing up his spine and the taste of cigarettes had been pressed into his mouth and now that was gone. Again. And he hadn't ever even expected it back. Maybe seeing it in writing would drive it home.

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