Silence filled Grimmauld Place when the few Order members returned after the fight at the Department of the Mysteries. News was already spreading through the wizarding world that Voldemort was back. The Minister had seen the man with his own eyes. The children had been rescued and returned back to school . . . but it had all come at a great cost.
While the house had always held an element of gloom to it, now there was a weight that seemed to push down on all of those within its walls, too. None felt this weight more so than Remus. As far as he was concerned, he had lost a brother that night. The werewolf ignored the voices of sympathy and offers of tea. He was blind in his grief.
Instead, his feet took him to the sitting room and sank into his favorite armchair--one that had always sat across from where Sirius often sat. Eyes bloodshot with misery looked at the empty chair and half-expected his old friend to be there still, excited over what a good fight it had all been. Instead, only a shadow blankets the cushion.
Despair roots deep within him. So deep that it settles into his bones and makes him feel thirty years older than he is. Tears don’t come. Not yet. There’s only a giant wake of emptiness. A few minutes pass, and he isn’t sure who remains in the home and who has gone. He isn’t even sure how long he’s been sitting there.
Remus’ mind can’t unsee it. The scene is forced before his eyes as if he had never left the Department of Mysteries. The curtain, the flash of light, the elegant arch . . . and nothing. No body to prepare. Taken entirely. There’s a brief fear that sparks. What about his soul? Was it trapped in that mirror as well? Was Padfoot still separated from Prongs?
A hand lifts to rub his dry eyes wearily. No, of course they were reunited. It was the only silver lining of the whole thing. But they had all left him behind now. All those of note, anyway. The tears still don’t come, but he presses his face into his hands, buried there, trying to escape the scene that keeps playing over and over and over and over and over.
