AFTER
Remus and Harry sit on the floor of the yellow room, picking randomly at some of the food parcels Molly had dropped round earlier. A week has passed since the night at the Ministry, and neither of them has spoken about it.
Remus doesn’t remember what pulled him away from the archway, but he knows he has once again failed Harry when he was needed most.
The two of them stay in Sirius’s house, and no one has questioned them on it yet. They have taken to spending their days in the yellow room, drawn to Sirius’ handprint, and the lack of other Black family objects.
“I smashed up Dumbledore’s office” Harry admitted suddenly, into the silence.
“You did?” Remus smiled. “It’s funny. I did the same once.”
“What was it over?” Asked Harry.
“You, actually. Before you even knew me, after you took on Voldemort for the first time, and just before I started teaching. I didn’t want you getting involved in the war. I didn’t want it doing to you what it did to us - to your parents, and to me, and… Sirius.”
He tried the name out on his tongue. Did it feel different now it no longer belonged to a living, breathing man? It did, he decided. It tasted metallic, and it ended in a low hiss, as he breathed out the end like he was trying to carry the sound across into the other world. But it sounded like a promise, one that he had to go on making. Harry was still here, after all. He was the future, he was why they had fought, and why they had died.
“I wanted things to be different for you, Harry. I’m sorry we didn’t fight hard enough back then. And I’m sorry I never told you everything.”
“Did you get the Lion statue? That one really smashed into millions of pieces.”
Remus laughed. “No. I got the spindly one with the glass teardrops though, that was great.”
While Harry had been in Dumbledore’s office, Remus had been with the other members of the Order and the Unicorn, attending an emergency meeting with the Minister of Magic. None of them had slept, and a few key members were absent, being shipped off to the hospital. Kingsley took the lead in recounting events. Remus trembled as he spoke about Sirius, explaining his innocence, and the role he’d had in fighting that night.
“I just think…” Fudge started, after a long silence. “... in terms of keeping public trust in the ministry during this time, it would help keep everything stable to continue with this line. That, erm… Mr Black was working with You Know Who, and all that.”
Remus’s body moved before his brain could stop him.
“You will clear his name,” he squared up to Fudge, forcing the shorter man to cringe backwards, “or I will fucking kill you. I will burn the Ministry to the fucking ground.”
“Okay, ok Remus… let’s go” he felt an arm on his, and Eloise beside him. As she led him away and out the door, the Minister recovered and shouted out to them.
“He needs to go. You seem more reasonable, maybe you can give us the Unicorn’s statement?”
“You heard him.” Eloise stilled next to Remus, and turned round slowly. “Our statement is… you clear his name. You should be ashamed of yourselves.” She spat on the ground and led them out.