The Last Farewell
Summary: It is July of 1997, and it's been a year since Sirius slipped beyond the veil. Tomorrow, in the midst of a Wizarding War, Remus is getting married to Tonks, but there's something he must do first: he has to say one last goodbye to Sirius, and he has to ask for his blessing (and his forgiveness) for this next chapter of his life. (Wolfstar oneshot)
Some Wolfstar angst for the soul, because sometimes you just need to hurt. :)
Find it on: AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25478989 FF.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13651855/1/The-Last-Farewell
The only sound breaking the still calm of the early-summer afternoon is of his soft feet padding on the leaves, rustling them up into whirlwinds like memories in an idle mind. Around him, at a far distance, the voices of playing children rise from the neighboring cottages, and Remus can't help but smile to himself: despite the war, despite everything, the riot of childhood continues to be an ingredient in the recipe for a July day. He continues treading lightly along the cobblestone street, careful to stay as quiet as he possibly can. He's shrouded himself in protective spells, but even then, the trek he's making is reckless, so it never hurts to take additional precautions.
Tonks begged him not to come. She ran him through the risks over and over again, her voice rising, pleading with him to stay, to play it safe. But he had to come. In his mind, there was never an option. Even as fear ripples down his spine and every bone in his body seems to whisper a silent command to go back, to turn around, because this is a bad idea.
But he had to come.
And as the small, nondescript stone comes into view, the eleven letters and eight numbers carved simply onto it, he's glad he did.
Sirius hadn't wanted a luxurious funeral. He'd told him that, whispered it, when one of their late night talks had bled into the wee hours and into the realm of the heart's deepest chasms. They'd talked about death, and dying, and what came next, and Remus remembers clearly how adamant Sirius had been about straying from anything pompous. "It'd be my mother's greatest joy," Sirius had scoffed, "to have her son buried like a king. And I can't please her, not even —literally— over my dead body."
He'd wanted to be cremated (an absurdity for any self-respecting member of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, with its own mausoleum), his ashes scattered in a place he loved. But his time had run out before he could pinpoint the place. Which was just as well, because there hadn't been a body to burn anyway. Which makes it all the more stupid that he's kneeling here, in front of the symbolic stone he had placed for him in Godric's Hollow, because the truth is Sirius isn't anywhere near, not even six feet under, and there's nothing to tangibly justify his being here.
But he had to come.
"Hello, my love," he mumbles as he kneels in front of the stone. The grass in front of it has sprouted nicely, and even boasts a few assorted flowers. He'd have liked that, Remus thinks, because as dark a portrayal as Sirius liked to paint of himself, he was one to pick out beauty wherever it bloomed, however small it may be. He'd certainly done it with Remus. "It's been a while since we've talked."
He looks now at the taller, wider gravestone next to Sirius's, and the size difference is more than understandable, because it's Lily and James's in the flesh (or in the bones, by now, rather) that actually rest beneath it. "I hope you don't mind," he tries to justify himself to Sirius now. "We couldn't get a body, and I thought this was a good substitute." The corner of his mouth twitches up in sad amusement. "Padfoot and Prongs, side by side even in the great beyond. And it's just as well, really, because— well, you could use some company, because in all likelihood I won't end up here next to you."
He swallows now, and it's hard, and it's not only saliva that goes down his throat but also the sorrow of knowing what comes next, mixing with the pooling guilty in a gloomy cocktail at the pit of his stomach. This is stupid. Sirius can't hear him, of course he can't, because there's nothing to assure him that there's an afterlife, and even if there were, Sirius would probably have much better things to do in the beyond than follow Remus's every step. Wouldn't he? And even without an afterlife, his body isn't even resting here. This is stupid.
But he had to come.
He braces himself for what comes next, and he blurts it out clumsily, the words spilling out as if somehow their hurry will steamroll over the guilt they carry: "Because I'm getting married, Sirius. I'm getting married tomorrow." His eyes flood with tears, but he lets them flow, because these are tears he can't allow himself to cry in front of anyone else. "I'm getting married, and it's not to you. And I need..." he wipes furiously at the tears now, angry at himself for breaking down before he's even really gotten into it. "It'll be a small affair. Just a few members of the Order, if they can make it, and nothing larger than a regular dinner. But still, I... I need your blessing."
He laughs bitterly now, aware of how ridiculous it is. But Sirius's headstone, and his name etched on it, the name under which he was sure his would eventually be carved as well, stares him in the face. So he makes himself continue.
"I hope it's alright with you," he sighs. "It's Tonks. But that probably doesn't surprise you. She was there for me in the most wonderful way after you..." he can't bring himself to say it, because even a year later, the image of Sirius's last, gaunt smile as he falls back through the veil haunts him, and it's too painful to muster up again. "Anyway, she was a tremendous help. And she was respectful, too. She hurt for you, too, and I suppose we found each other along the way. But I can promise you, there was never anything there before..." And there it is, again! That horrible knot in his throat! He wills it untied and forces himself onward. "It all happened after, and it happened so fast. I suppose it's the war that's got us living in the moment. So I will be marrying into the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, after all," he chuckles dryly, but all the humor drains from his voice as he ekes out the next words, "just not in the way I'd originally thought."
His thighs are burning with tension now, and he allows himself some relief, sitting down with his legs crossed before the gravestone. He reaches a hand out and touches it gently to the top of the stone, brushing it lightly, as he did so many times with Sirius's cheek. He feels the tears coming on again at the mere memory of his touch, at the slight rasp of Sirius's stubble tickling at his fingertips, which he'll never feel again. He pushes himself through it, and ventures to speak with a choked voice.
"I think I love her. I think I might, in time." He thinks about the words, and they ring true in his head. And yet he feels like he's just made a confession, and his chest doesn't feel any lighter. He finds what's weighing it down, and he pushes it out, his words quivering with the tears he's holding back. "But never as much as you. Please, Sirius, I need you to know that." And he fully breaks now, his voice crashing down in an ocean of tears, struggling to get the words out through the sobs that rack his thin frame. "It's always been you, and it always will be. And... and however much I may come to love her, just know that it will always, always be you."
And now it all bears down on him, the weight of time lost and time wasted. The years they spent tiptoeing around each other at Hogwarts, that were years they could've spent together; the years Sirius spent rotting in Azkaban and Remus spent wandering in abject, solitary misery, twelve years they will never get back now; the months he spent in hiding, far from him, unreachable, when he could've returned to his arms. The insufficient nights spent that final summer in a shared bed at Grimmauld Place, arms around each other as if they'd forgotten what it was supposed to feel like. If only they'd had more time to melt back into one another's comfort! If only they'd had more time to relearn their ways around each other's bodies, to stop shivering at the lightest brush of a hand, to remember what a good, long kiss was supposed to feel like. If only they'd had more time to rediscover, truly, what it meant to love.
"Please forgive me," Remus whispers desperately, and his words shake out laden with the deepest, blackest guilt. Sirius would get it, Sirius wouldn't want to live out the rest of his life alone, and he would've been glad that it's Tonks. But still the guilt claws at him, eats at him, scratches him from the inside out. "Please forgive me, Sirius," he pleads again so softly it almost goes unheard, almost gets lost in the murmur of the dying afternoon.
He falls forward and presses his head to the soft earth, wishing ardently it would swallow him. Because he loves Tonks, or at least he might, but it gets harder and harder each day to exist in a world without Sirius. Because he'd give anything to see Sirius flash him another one of his roguish grins, with a toss of the hair over the shoulder and a wink to match. Because he'd give anything for a last exchange of shaky breaths before their lips collide, for the instant of tension where everything seems to hang on who's going to lean forward first and satisfy the desire pounding in their chests. Because he'd give anything for a last time, a last time of anything, a last time that would make their parting easier, that would eradicate the reality that Sirius was brutally ripped from him without a chance to say a proper farewell.
This is, he supposes, the most proper farewell he's getting to bid him. And it can't end like this, with him weeping onto the earth, a crumpled heap of a miserable soul, with no desire to keep going. But, ever the fighter, Sirius would want him to. And that's the thought that pulls him upright again, like a marionette on slow strings, that Sirius would want him to move on, to push through. And in his honor, he must.
"Goodbye, Padfoot," he says slowly, his voice wavering with the last resides of his desolated cry. He brings two trembling fingers up to his tearstained lips and sends a shaky hand forward, to press the most final kiss he gets to give him onto the surface of a gravestone he's not even under. "We'll meet again," he promises, and he feels his chest constrict with the weight of his oath. "Not in this life, but in the next."
He can't bring himself to say the words. They might just be the thing to destruct him. So he must content himself with mouthing them, hoping the breath he puts into them will carry them to the place beyond the veil. I love you. His mouth forms the rings and slopes, the necessary motions, and he allows himself one last glance at the tombstone before he turns around to trudge back up the street, back to life, back to Tonks— away from Sirius.