juls’s Reviews > That’s the Art of Getting By > Status Update

But her hand gently lowers to rest on his arm, and her eyes crinkle at the corner in a reluctant, welcome happiness. Friendship feels so warm and familiar. Remus had forgotten that.
“I know.”

“C’mon love, there you go,” he says as Remus feels a blanket wrap around him. Then he is levitated through the woods, his eyes barely open enough to peek at the sky, and deposited in the soft comfort of their bed. He hears Sirius clamber downstairs, then back up again.
“A pain potion, yeah?”

Remus smiles and begins the tale, watching as Sirius and Harry’s eyes droop and the fear he feels is only distant proof that he has something too precious to lose.

“Does it ever stop?” Remus asks. He thinks of Molly and the twin brothers she adored, and the children that surround her.
Molly twists to look at him. “Does what stop?”
He grimaces, throws a hand out. “The... I don’t know. The fear that it could all disappear tomorrow?”

Sadly, grief doesn’t simply go away. It catches them in the oddest moments. When Sirius teaches Harry to play catch and the image of James’s sparkling eyes and hands outstretched in victory threatens to overwhelm him. Or dinner at the Weasley’s, when Molly pulls her orange-red hair up in a twist at the nape of her neck and sticks her wand haphazardly through it–not at all like Lily but enough, that Remus has to leave

He looks at Sirius suddenly, desperate. “That’s not even the worst of it, that’s not even... fuck, how can you look at me ... how can you touch...”
Gently, Sirius kisses the words out of his mouth. Remus doesn’t flinch.