caterpillar
Remus can’t help but give the book a single, self-pitying glance before he gets up for the day. It’s been a year. He really should have moved it. But it feels too late now, too sentimental. An Observers Guide to British Butterflies, it’s called.
Every time he reads that title, it takes him by the throat and pushes backwards. Time warps and peels away. Remus inhales the smell of grass and dirt, summer and expectation. It’s blue and bright; Sirius sprawls against the tree roots beside him with his dark hair fanning across the ground like a moody halo. The tendrils of it are ink falling through water. James will be nearby- it’s the summer, and James is always nearby, probably cajoling Peter onto a broom or writing another passionate, disgustingly flowerly letter to Lily. On Remus’s denim-clad lap sits Orlando, which he reads slowly and attentively, with the occasional laugh aloud that prompts a curious look from Sirius and an explanatory passage recited into the air. Remus is smiling. He is always, always smiling. They have nowhere to be and lots to say; Sirius was quiet, as he was most days, but never in a discontented manner. His silences were filled with a contemplation and attentiveness that nobody else could replicate.
“Look,” He said, his first word in nearly half an hour, as Remus turned his page, “A butterfly.”
Remus glances up. “Pretty.”
The little white creature flits between flowers, barely comprised of two white petals on spindly legs. It settles on a dandelion and then changes it’s mind again, careening off into the grass. Nearly a decade later, Remus will be able to identify it as a cabbage white. He will know from the two spots on the centre of the upper and underside of the forewing wing that it’s a girl. He will have read An Observes Guide to British Butterflies every sleepless night for a month.
But in that moment, he’s sixteen; he knows jackshit about any sort of insect, and does not say anything more. He simply returns to his book whilst Sirius carries on admiring.
“It’s the first one of the summer, isn’t it?”
Remus shrugs. “I saw some red ones on Effie’s budlia, I think.”
“I love butterflies.”
“Mhm.” Sirius is still transfixed. Remus peers up again and just watches for a moment. “You know they only live for a few weeks?”
He pushes himself upright to stare right at Remus, as steely as a storm cloud. “No way.”
“I think so.” He shrugs. “Read it somewhere, I guess.”
“No way,” Sirius repeats, shaking his head. “No way! All of the colours, all of the drama- for a few weeks?” They turn and watch the butterfly leave. Another one appears, orange like a tiger, orange like the peel of the tangerine they just shared, hovering in the middle-distance. Finally, Sirius lies down again. He looks genuinely upset. “But they’re so pretty!”
“Doesn’t mean they live for longer,” he laughs, “that’s just nature, innit?”
Still, next time they go into town, Sirius makes them stop at the library. They scour every book they can get their hands on for information on the lifespan of butterflies- Remus even taps into one of the clunky computers to try to look it up, but Sirius is so awed by the buttons and noises that they’re quickly distracted. The only book that they ever end up checking out is a small volume, pocket-sized, called An Observers Guide to British Butterflies. They never find out how long a butterfly lives for, and Remus never returns the book.
Now, six years later, it’s absorbed into his nightstand. There’s folded corners on most pages, and a cup mark on the cover. On the inside it’s stamped please return by July 1st. Below that, property of S.O.B + R.J.L. He’s not been back to James’s town since. He wonders if they miss their butterfly guide. He wonders if Effie’s budlia still has red admirals. He wonders, if Sirius were here, he’d ever have returned it.
Sick with enough nostalgia for at least lifetime, Remus buttons up his shirt and aches like an old, old man. Downstairs, the front door opens. It’s probably his mam’s book club- they meet every Wednesday morning, to talk about almost everything but books. Remus remembers sitting in on those sessions as a little boy with his mouth open in awe that so much scandal could happen in their little provincial town. Now, as an adult man, he’s forbidden from their sacred time unless it’s to bring fresh coffee.
Buttons, he reminds himself. Ignore the book. His fingers shake most of the time now, so scar-ridden that the skin is bumpy and inflexible. Jumper. Wand. Getting down the stairs is harder than it used to be too- there’s a certain jolt that comes with each step which pushes his hips in just the wrong way.
“Morning, Rj.” Hope says. “You’re up early.”
Remus hums, shuffling into the kitchen and leaning himself against the counter. “It’s nearly nine.”
“You’re up early for a night spent brooding, then.” She says, shaking her head. Her hair is greying, finally- he’s always loved the frizzy, fluffy air to it on rainy mornings.
“Wasn’t brooding.“ He huffs.
“Aye.” His mother raises her eyebrows. “And close the door next time you’re out on the porch all night, hmm?”
Pink-cheeked, he turns away on the pretence of making himself tea. Coffee is better, but Hope forbids it before eleven AM. Between that and the smokes, he’s trying to spare himself from her constant reminders of yellowing teeth. “Wasn’t brooding. It was good news, actually.”
“And?”
He whistles, a bittersweet sound. “It’s over, Mam. The fighting in my world. They got him down last night.”
“Really?” Hope flutters over to him, grasping his shoulders. He bends down to let her kiss him atop the head. It feels like kicking your feet against the side of the counter, eleven years old and holding a thick cream envelope. “Ah, proper good news! What a change! That’ll be why your Da’s popped off so early.” She smiles and shakes her head again, retreating back to her abandoned coffee. “Good on ‘em! It was a long time coming. I’m happy for you, Rj.”
He was silly not to mention this last night- her joy is palpable, infectious, beautiful because it’s so well-intended. Yet, at the same time, Remus is suddenly glad for the details he keeps from her. There’s no point in giving specifics- the names and terms will all be meaningless. She doesn’t know the loss. She’s never held an order meeting and listened to them rattle off failure after failure, tragedy after tragedy, never awoke in the morning and wondered whose obituary you were going to find. “Aye,” He says simply, and turns back to the whistling kettle. “No book club today?”
“It’s Thursday, my love.”
“Ah.” He frowns. “Thought I heard the door.”
“Post man. You’ve a letter.”
“Bit early, no?”
Hope waves her hand. “A bit odd. Said that he just got the urge to come here first, so. But have some breakfast first- no news, of any sort, on an empty stomach.”
He makes himself an obedient slice of toast before rifling the papers on the table. Sure enough- Remus Lupin, the bedroom at the top of the stairs, Rose Cottage. He knows the writing- only Moody would be paranoid enough charm a muggle postman.
”Is it good news, then?”
“Haven’t opened it yet, Ma.”
“Hurry up.” She pours herself another mug. “Bit odd not to use an owl, though, if it’s your folk.”
The implications are subtle yet he hears them well. Remus doesn’t have any friend who aren’t ‘his folk’. Twenty odd years and he’s never been able to bond with someone who doesn’t have magic. “He doesn’t trust them.”
“Your old trainer? The gimpy one?”
“Mhm. You could call him that.” His eyes scan the parchment. Air rushes from his lungs into a single, “Oh.”
“Well?” She’s already getting up to peer around his shoulder. He shutters it, fast.
“I’ll be out tonight, Ma.”
“An invite? What is it, then?”
“D’you have’ta be so nosy?”
“I’m your mother.” She says. “I birthed you.”
He takes a deep breath, rubbing his temples. “The ministry finally broke the wards on Serpent’s End last night- they must of weakened when the main guy fell. They’re sending a group in tonight. Trying to round up the last of the Death- uh, the criminals.”
Her weather-beaten brow creases like worn paper. “And they’re asking you, love?”
”Aye.”
“Aren’t you done with all that now?”
“They think,” he swallows, suddenly feeling very watery and unsure, “they reckon it was Sirius’s last location. If his body’s anywhere-“
“It’ll be there.” She finishes, softly. “Oh, Remus.”
“I want to go.” He chokes. “He’s my- it’s Sirius. I want to go.”
“Of course you do.” She kisses his head again, brushes the hair from his eyes. “Of course you do, love.”
“Ach.” Remus says, as the tears overwhelm him. The lump of Sirius-coloured flesh pulses in his chest. It hurts like the end of Christmas Day used to- it’s all over now, Rj. No more presents. The feeling is so acute and corporeal, a genuine pain. Heartache and chest-burn. He wants to see Sirius, say goodbye. He wants to pull that leather jacket out of its box under his bed and wear it.
He wants to never, ever stop grieving.
He wants to be able to say sorry to the stone.
Remus passes the day in a half-hearted manner, flipping through outdated spell books whilst his mam pretends not to be worried and tells him he needs a haircut every time he passes her on the stairs. It’s not strictly official for him to come, he’s no auror, but Moody’s always had a soft spot for their group. Lily was his favourite; sharp as an arrow, he’d said, quick as a stunner. It was the only praise Remus ever heard him give in nearly three years under his tutelage of the order. Nevertheless, Remus can promise to stay under the radar, to only deal out jelly-legs jinxes and bat-bogey hexes, or whatever it takes to come along. He is infinitely grateful, and perhaps hopelessly angry, at being offered this chance. A proper goodbye, maybe. To see what Sirius saw the days he was taken. His final resting place. His last stand. Maybe there will still be that warm, soft tingle of his magic somewhere. The letter didn’t say all that much- just giving him a time, a little after the advance actually starts, to be picked up at his door by whoever’s apparating him.
His mother buys nice wine when she goes out for groceries. “For later.” She says. His dad isn’t home yet, but sends a patronus at four. Remus sits and waits for it to get dark. Remus sits and waits and wonders if he died, should Sirius have been so torn? Would he have kept their flat? Returned to living off his Mum’s groceries and his dad’s unfinished crossword puzzles? Would he have returned the book?
“You need a haircut.”
“I know, Ma.”
Hope tuts and disappears to phone her sister. She does that a lot- he wonders if she’ll ever go back to work. His condition is hard on her, but she was a damn good vet before her son made her drop everything to carry him up the stairs and force-feed him meals. They used to have a constant loop of stray cats and whinging dogs around the house, occasionally a lamb or two in the spring. They’ve still got the hens, he supposes, even though they don’t lay, and the old collie is in the kitchen.
Remus glances out of the window. He squints- is he late? There’s already a cloaked man waiting at the end of the lane. Conspicuous, impractical outfit like that can only be one of ‘his folk’. He yawns, stubs out his last cigarette, and fumbles for his shoes, before remembering that he had put them on already earlier. “Bye, Ma!” She returns with something unintelligible from upstairs. Remus pats his pocket for his wand, shrugs on his jacket, exits the house, calling out a hurried apology. “Sorry, mate, I must have got the time wrong- hope you haven’t been out here in the rain too long.”
He stops dead.
“Hello.” Says James Potter, with an ear-splitting grin. “I couldn’t resist, Moony- Alastor showed me the apparation spot earlier, and I just had to, you know?”
Good news, it seems, comes in twos.
His hug is strong, warm, solid. He smells the same. Remus draws in a deep lungful of that Hogwarts-scent, nostrils itching with the sparks of magic that weave through it. “Missed you, fecking hell.”
“Mhm.” Says James, happily, into Remus’s cordoy jacket. “Me too, mate.”
They pull apart. Remus smiles. James looks older, more tired- parenthood and grief must be a hellish combination. “How come you’re out of lockdown, then?”
“Not meant to be until next week.” James admits. He makes no pretence of scanning Remus’s face too, cataloging the shadowy beard and the new moon scars. “I’m going stir crazy in there, though. Only so long you can spend in one house without going mad.”
“And Lils?”
“She’s got Harry.”
“Ah.”
”I had to be here for this.”
Remus averts his eyes. He hasn’t seen James since last spring. Since months before Sirius died. “Yeah.”
“How are you, Moony?”
He shrugs. “Been worse. Been better. Living the quiet life, these days.”
“Seen much of Wormtail? He never writes to me anymore.”
”Nah,” Remus says, shrugging again. “He flits about, calls me from overseas every now and then. Does pretty well in the ministry, I heard.”
Suddenly, James is crying. “Moony,” he says, “god, Remus, I’m so sorry. Everything’s so fucked up. It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry- god, I’m so fucking sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Remus lies.
“I killed him,” James continues, pressing his hands over his eyes. His hair is so obviously home cut- the front layers of it are an almost diagonal swoop. “I killed my best friend. You were going to get married, Remus- and I asked him to be secret keeper. Voldemort fucking- they fucking tortured him to death! Because I asked him to sacrifice himself!”
There is nothing to say to this. This is the Big Hurt. The Emptiness of All Emptiness. Remus is hollow and wrung dry. The butterfly on the lawn is long since rotted and he cannot even cry. Quietly, the werewolf says, “I think he would have done it anyways.”
“Sure,” James says, bitterly. “But I’m only alive because he isn’t. I’m only allowed to have my wife, my son, because he isn’t here. The charm’s still up, you know. You couldn’t find my house if I wanted you to. We don’t even know when he died. Could’ve been a week. Could’ve been months.” His face crumples. He removes his glasses to wipe on the bottom of his red knit shirt. It’s new. Perhaps he has taken up a new hobby.
“He did it for Harry.” Remus murmurs, in an attempt to be kind. “For a kid to grow up in a world without mass murderers and constant terror.”
“Sure.” Says James, again. “But I still miss him every day.”
This hits him like a gut-punch; no one confesses to missing Sirius, anymore. It’s all ‘his noble sacrifice’ and ‘outstanding bravery.’ They don’t talk about him anymore. Nobody mentions the Sirius Black that his friends knew.
Fuck that. Remus misses him every day.
”Me too.” He echoes, softly.
“He’d love this.” James laughs, in that perfect way that Remus forgot he loved. “Our tearful reunion. He always knew exactly what to say when people cried.”
Hesitantly, Remus admits, “I hate speaking about him in past-tense.”
James glances at him, quickly and then away again. “Is he- is there a memorial?”
“Oh, yeah.” Remus snorts. “There was this stupid, hoity-toity funeral and everything. He’s got a black marble grave. Six types of wreath.”
“Good.” Says James. “Did they play Bowie?”
Remus shakes his head sorrowfully. “I did, though. After. Before I sold the flat, me and Marlene and Dorcas and Frank and Alice all had a Bowie all-nighter just for Sirius.”
James closes his eyes. He wasn’t allowed to go to either of their funerals- too dangerous to leave their little bubble. It must get exhausting, living the same life in the same house for eighteen months, whilst your friends carry on slogging forwards, death notices arriving through the post, pictures of funerals you can’t attend. No wonder James was itching to come tonight.
He seems to be having a similar train of thought. “All that for a void prophecy.”
Remus has been thinking this, too. Harry is two. He will never meet Voldemort. “He doesn’t believe in fate, anyways.”
“Who, the Dark Lord?”
“No.” Remus says. “Sirius.”
James laughs. “S’pose if anyone was going to change the course of destiny, it’d be Sirius Black.”
They stare out across the rolling, drizzle-capped hills. James puts his glasses back on. Remus zips up his coat pockets, securing the last pack of smokes. It’s cold, but not too much so for December. “Shall we go, then?”
James takes his arm. “For m’lady Stardust.”
Remus smiles. “His long black hair, his animal grace.”
And they turn on their heels to the beat of oh, he was alright, his song went on forever.
“Okay,” James admits, through panting breaths, “I may be a little out of practice!”
Remus ducks a beam of harsh white light. “Gone soft, Potter?” He says, hurtling a stunning hex across the lawn. “Need a sit down?”
“Fuck off!” James cries, perhaps to Remus or perhaps to Rodolphus Lestrange, as he turns his raging blue fire towards them. It lights up the surrounding trees and faces, like a toothpaste ad.
”Agumeniti!” Remus yelps, uselessly.
“Glacius!” James says, smirking when it immediately extinguishes. “See, still got it!”
The two of them were saddled with the back right-wing defence, shadowing the offensive aurors as they cut a path towards the house. It’s tall, a looming shape in the half-dark, with such seamless stonework it’s as if the rooms are carved from a single boulder. There must be ten or twenty windows on the top floor, three on some kind of triangular attic level too. It would perhaps look more impressive with the enormous wrought-iron gates, but they were already felled by the time he and James arrived.
As Rodolphus retreats, a lull is created. Remus finds himself hanging back as everyone else pushes forwards. He’s finding it hard to click back into the same easy, unthinking fighting style he used to have. Too long out of practice. Too many slices of toast from his mother, perhaps. Or maybe it’s the gaping hole on his left side that a dragon-heartstring wand used to cover. Remus’s stride falters.
”James,” he says quietly. His friend pops back up by his side, placing a hand on his shoulder. They say nothing. They are almost there- so close. But what if they don’t find anything? But what if they do?
”We can head back.”
He shakes his head. They can’t. Remus takes a deep, fortifying breath. Staring through the snake-mouth doorway, black stone with emerald eyes, he does what every good soldier does, and he keeps on fucking going.
The corridor, Remus thinks, is ghastly. He ground himself by running the tips of his fingers along the cool stone. Ten squirming basilisks lick their way around the doorframe, slithering forwards into the hall. It’s a black runner over some kind of bare rock that reflects the candle light, muddied by the bootprints of fifteen aurors. The house feels stale and cold, long-dead, even before the door swings closed. Its air is mawkish, frigid, like a sealed tomb. Did Sirius ever come here as a child, he wonders? Did he die in the house he holidayed in? Would he have been conscious as he was dragged through the door? Was he bound? Bleeding? Talking? Which room was his last?
“We’re on ground-floor duty.” James murmurs. “They’re getting the highest readings of dark magic from the basement and the attic. Plus, Bellatrix Lestrange just legged it up there.”
Remus nods distractedly. Now that it’s mentioned, he can really taste the bitter energy, seeping through the very pores of the house. His wand is vibrating gently in his pocket. Somewhere in the back of his mind, something growls like a wolf.
James leads. Remus opens his eyes as wide as he can and tries to absorb every detail. The floor seems to shift beneath him, like the back of some great animal. Taxidermy eyes lurk in every corner, hissing and squeaking on every wall. He cannot look at the rat, nor the stag. The boggarts, lethifolds and wolves are vaguely morbidly fascinating. They pass all sort of strange, dark-stench rooms. James pokes a door and it bites. There are glass cases of wriggling eyeballs, severed hands, a large chalice of a half-drank, swirling red liquid. All of the paintings are either slashed or burned or both. An entire room is filled by pinned insects and yellowing snake skins.
“Help me!” Wails a tiny woman in a birdcage. Her voice is so shrill that it hurts. “Oh, help me!”
Remus doesn’t get the chance to answer her before James calls his name, once, sharply. He hurries through the nearest doorway, his heart in his throat, and tumbles into a huge, ornate drawing room. The fireplace is still burning- a huge, marble things, with a candelabra and a gilt mirror atop of it. There’s a black chaise longue with swirling details, several wampus-skin footstools and an enormous set of frosted windows. When he glances upwards, the giant taxidermy acromantula nearly gives him a heart attack. It has the general atmosphere of a Tudor funeral home. James seems to be in no obvious distress- he’s leaning over a peculiar glass case in the corner, whilst Remus nearly collides with several invaluable deathly artefacts on his way across. The squirming rug-tassels almost get him, but a quick grind of his heel and they lie flat. He arrives to James’s side panting, a clenched ball of anxiety and hope in his mouth.
James say, softly, “Look.”
It takes a moment to click as to what all of these twigs are. At first, it seems only a strange quill-like structure inside of a transparent box, nothing remarkable in the scale of the house, but as he peers closer, Remus can read the little labels beneath each one. Mandy Moore. Jannat Klajdi. Alfred Lundberg. Ali Parvati. Oh. It clicks. They’re wands- it’s a trophy box of stolen wands. He finds a few he knows, Emmeline Vance, Gideon Prewett, Thomas Shacklebolt. But as he follows James’s eye, he feels bitter rage swell. Sirius Black. Dragon’s heartstring. Thirteen inches.
The air crackles.
“He was here.” James observes, tenderly. “Padfoot was here, Moony.”
His blood is thrumming. Unable to hold back that surge of unfair unfair unfair, Remus taps the glass and shatters it. Its final noise is almost satisfying. The wand is cool, and so long left untouched makes it shudder under warm skin. “Let’s carry on.”
James smiles, in a sad sort of a way. “Okay.” They turn around. “Your ears are bleeding.”
“Bugger.” Remus wipes them with the back of his palm.
“Don’t let your blood touch anything,” James advises, and tidies him up with a spell. They pick their way back out of the drawing room and he promises to return for the rest of those wands someday, to give them back to their proper families.
The next corner they turn leads to a forked path, two long stomach-like corridors tapering off into what Remus assumes is a loop. It looks like an ancient, medieval hotel.
“Left or right?”
“Right.” He pauses. “Should we be splitting up?”
James shrugs. “You’ll holler if you need me, right?”
“Have you never seen a horror movie?”
“No.” He tilts his head, already bouncing on the tips of his feet. “What’s that?”
Remus shakes his head. There’s a peculiar tingling at the base of his neck, right through the vein. “Don’t worry about it.”
With a wan smile, James lopes off down the corridor. His hair bounces with each quick stride. In his mirrored half, Remus follows suit. The prickling sensation is verging on almost painful, unaided by the two beady glass eyes of a stuffed Komodo dragon follow his path. He quickly learns that these rooms are all curiously empty- ground floor bedrooms, mostly, once again reminding him of a muggle hotel. A few have charmed locks. He opts for just talking down the doors, in those cases. Nobody’s going to live here again. Or at least for the next twenty years, whilst the ministry catalogues and contains all of its dark artefacts.
His spit is suddenly sweet tasting. Remus grips his wand and keeps going, pushing open doors of silent, stagnant bedrooms. The beds are all tall and postered, coiled with, yet again, more snake decor. The entire Manor seems to be this one spiralling motif, slithering over every surface. He touches his ears. No more blood, yet the taste of iron is only getting stronger.
James’s footsteps have been swallowed by the house, absorbed into its hissing, serpentine body. A chill comes over him as he reaches the next door, a darker stone to the rest. It immediately feels different. Magic weeps from the air like an infected wound, festering in his lungs. Remus tugs his sleeve down to touch the door, somehow gently swinging despite the lack of a breeze, and it slides open without a sound.
The space is dark and windowless. A patch of stained wall suggests there was once glass, but it’s been long-since sealed off by a spell, only evident by the deep gouges lingering beneath. As his eyes rove over the space, it yields no furniture. The floor is wooden and slatted, filled with horrible scratches and scuffs. Almost like a werewolf, Remus thinks, darkly.
At the far side sits a coffin.
He considers calling James, but his voice is stifled and cracks as soon as he opens his mouth. He steps inside. It tastes like pain and decay.
This is it.
The floor groans, then stops. Another step is slow in coming. There are chains on one wall, trailing along into the half-open lid. It faces the wall. Remus cannot see inside, only his own face reflected back, pale and wide-eyed. The scar across his nose warps and grows.
This is it.
(There are eighteen-thousand species of butterfly. Only a handful live more than a year.)
(A dead butterfly feeds the ground, but not much. It’s only small. It’s not for the ground.)
He kneels down. His joints don’t protest. (Butterflies have always been for the sky.)
The light in here seems to come from everywhere and nowhere, yellowed and undefined in its source. His wand is slippy with sweat. In his pocket, the dragon-heartstring trembles. One wretched hand reaches for the lid, ready, finally, to pull it back. It moves smoothly. It’s cold as ice, as memory.
Inside, amongst black velvet, lies Death.
The grim trails through the coffin, one paw hung over the edge. It’s mangy, scruffy, reeking of blood.
He presses a trembling hand to his face.
And then its chest rises.
“James!” Remus screams, “JAMES!”
The clattering of footsteps. The clang of the lid, as he scoops up this dog, this dog that he would recognise anywhere, in any state, in any form, and skids to his feet. What is love if not instinct? The instinct to know, to feels, to move? Chains rattle as they fall away. The press of fur, warm fur, against his clammy skin is intense. “Oh god,” Remus chants, over and over, all magical swears forgotten, “oh god, oh god, oh god.”
James skids into the room, panic sweeping across his face. “Is that-?”
“Padfoot’s alive!” Remus gasps, “Maybe not for long- there’s all this blood, Prongs, oh god, but-“
James pales. He rushes forwards, cradles the limp black head in his hands, and they’re shaking too, they’re all shaking. One big ball of vibration. Of disbelief and death, with a lowercase ‘d’. “He needs St Mungos.”
Remus starts running. They need to get out of the anti-apparition wards. They crash into Moody- no time, sorry, not-sorry- and Remus ignores him. James keeps one hand outstretched, reaching for his best friend like a wain after their mother.
“It’s going to be okay.” Remus says, to nobody. “It’s going to be okay.”
Back through the strange corridor, back through the taxidermy. The house really does seem to be moving this time- objects and curtains fly at him from strange angles, forgotten things screech at him from empty corners. Back up along the basilisks, the floor slippery with blood and sweat and snot and tears. Back out the door, across the grass-
“I’ll do it,” James says, also to nobody, as they approach the fallen gate, stepping carefully through its prongs. “Ready?”
They turn. They disappear.
(A butterfly flaps two tiny wings and a hurricane starts to scream.)
The hospital attacks them with sterile light and voices. A thousand wix with a thousand ailments. “He’s an animiagus,” James babbles to the staff wizard that approaches, “Do you know the spell? It’s important, he’s really hurt, he’s my brother, he’s-“
They assure him they know the spell. They prise Padfoot from Remus’ chest, leaving the sticky shadow of blood, like a potato-print of a long-dead lover. He wants to scream.
“Sirius,” pants James, belatedly, “that was Sirius.”
His heart is a moth, drawn to a flame.