Chapter 1
Sirius watches with eyes filled with anguish. There are some things too horrible to imagine, things too horrible to comprehend even when they’re happening. The grief is unimaginable and so big that it feels like it’ll weigh him down for the rest of all time.
It was never supposed to be like this. It’s a crime against nature, a cruel reality that he doesn’t know if he can ever accept.
His arm tightens around his best friend. He can feel Remus on James' other side and he registers Barty’s arm around his own shoulders. The others, Dorcas and Marlene, Peter and Mary, Evan, stand apart from the rest.
The wind whips against their faces and chaps their lips, leaving their cheeks and noses numb and aching. But this pain barely registers beside their grief.
Three caskets, two large and one so small it shouldn’t exist. It’s a crime, a shame. It’s incomprehensible.
The cemetery workers lower each casket into the ground one by one.
Regulus is first, the sleek black casket covered in roses disappearing slowly into the dirt. Lily is second, her white casket covered in lilies sinking into the earth. Harry is last, the tiny blue casket covered with colorful flowers of all kinds begins lowering slowly and that’s when James loses it.
“Stop, stop!” James screams hysterically. “My baby! My boy!”
James runs forward to Harry’s casket where the cemetery workers have stopped lowering it and James thrusts himself upon it. He’s sobbing and shaking with grief too big to put into words, grief so deep that it’s swallowing him whole, threatening to break him in half.
It’s Remus who steps forward, followed by Sirius. Together they each lay a hand on James’ back, soothing and gentle. It doesn’t help but James is reminded that he’s not alone in this tortuous timeline, that there are people who share his grief.
He cries over his son’s coffin for twenty minutes, his tears freezing painfully on his cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Sirius says to the workers. It’s freezing and miserable out here and he knows these men just want to go home.
“No, we’re sorry. Sorry for your terrible loss, take all the time you need,” one of the men says in reply.
Together, Remus and Sirius eventually coax James away so the cemetery workers can finally lower the little boy into his final resting place.
James is still on his knees beside Harry’s open grave. He can’t move, his legs are too weak to hold him up.
“My whole family,” James moans in agony. “It’s my whole family. Please, God, take me too, don’t leave me alone here without them.”
Sirius is on his knees now too, his body draped across James' back and he’s shaking with his own grief.
His brother, his baby brother, is gone. Dead forever. He’ll never see him again because now he’s lying in the ground and the cemetery workers are covering his casket with dirt. And he’s cold. Regulus is so cold and Regulus hates being cold. And Sirius, well Sirius hates this. Hates witnessing the last time his brother, sister-in-law, and nephew will see daylight.
Remus and the others share a look between them and then they’re at James and Sirius’ sides.
Barty and Evan are there to help Sirius to his feet and they lead him to the waiting car.
Remus and Marlene hoist James up and between them both, they manage to get the hysterical man into the car beside Sirius. Remus joins James and Sirius in the back seat and Evan and Barty sit up front.
The only sound in the car is the sniffing of noses and James’ occasional moans of pain.
They drive in silence.
When they arrive back at Remus and Sirius’ house, The three men get James and Sirius inside and Remus hands each of the men a pill to take.
A sedative to melt this cruel world away and let them rest.
The two men lay in bed together, tangled in one another’s arms as they drift off to sleep.