It Was the Heaviest Rainstorm All Season

By Soyokaze

It was the heaviest rainstorm all season. The rainwater soaked the ground, obscured the sun, turned the earth into a slimy brown mass that sucked up everything in contact with it. Including happiness.

The rain fell off the sides of the gentle hill somewhat, but still caused a puddle of the gluttonous mud around the three stone markers at its crest. The gravestones were darkened by the water, made gloomier by the gray sky. A constant, looming blanket of clouds hovered overhead, threatening to smother the world with its thick layers. A figure, rain-drenched and slumped, trudged dejectedly up the hill, the thick mud licking greedily at his boots and the hems of his robes. He slipped a few times before reaching the top of the hill and pausing in front of its three burdens.

A number of moments passed. The figure slowly began to tremble, rainwater drenching him through and through. Quiet, pitiful little sounds were barely heard above the crackle of the raindrops hitting the sloppy mess of the dirt. The figure fell to his knees, his body giving out after years of exhaustion, and buried his face in his hands. Pure, solitary anguish fell over the area.

A few more minutes passed by, not noticing the man suffering at their hand. A second figure, taller, straighter, and with an air of power and kindness, approached the first, gliding easily up the hill. A spell protected him from the water, repelling it from him in a transparent shell. He knelt by the suffering man, extending his spell to his companion and sheltering him from the heavy rain.

“Remus,” the figure spoke, powerfully, yet softly, “you’ll catch your death.”

“I had to come,” Remus Lupin sobbed in reply. “I was afraid to come to the funerals.”

Professor Dumbledore, still quietly maintaining his water-repellent spell, gently reached out an aged hand to touch his former student’s back. “There, there, Remus,” he soothed, rubbing a circular pattern into the smaller man’s back, “I’m sure they would understand everything.”

“I don’t understand!” Remus exclaimed, his voice hoarse. He now rose his eyes to look at his teacher, his face pale as death, his eyes shadowed and tired. It was the face of a boy, a child who had to bear so much more than his fair share of pain. Dumbledore felt a deep sorrow when he looked into it. The werewolf’s shadowed eyes were bright with tears. “I don’t understand,” he sobbed again, burying his face once more. “How could he? How could he?”

“Some things will always remain a mystery to us.” Dumbledore knew he could offer his suffering pupil- and friend- no solace with words, but he hoped perhaps he could help Remus to come to terms with his loss. “Sirius, as he is now, cannot give us the answer to that question.”

There were a few more moments where no words were spoken. Dumbledore continued to offer Remus his presence while Remus wept all the emotions he was feeling into the cold, wet earth. “I know-” he finally replied, “yet- I still want to see him.” The younger man grabbed his companion’s arm as if it were an anchor to the world, looking up at his professor with eyes wishing to know everything and nothing at the same time. “Is that wrong, Professor? Is it?”

“No, Remus,” Dumbledore explained warmly. “We all always shall wish for the old Sirius to smile and laugh with us. It isn’t wrong.”

Remus turned his head, looking at each gravestone in turn. They read the names of three of his most loyal friends; Peter Pettigrew, Lily Potter and James Potter. All dead at the hand of a beloved friend and brother.

“Remus, I know you would never betray Lily and James...” it was more a question than a statement. Remus looked at Sirius, aghast.

“Of course not! I would betray them just as easily as you would, Sirius!”

His friend smiled warmly in return. “It’s good to hear you say that, Remus.”

Remus was now disgusted with himself, disgusted at how he had unknowingly said he would betray his friends. Remus shivered, partly with memory and partly with the cold. Dumbledore put an arm, brittle with age, but with a strength belied by its appearance, around and lifted up his distraught friend. Remus welcomed his support.

“Something just isn’t right. This is not the way things were supposed to turn out,” Remus breathed bitterly, almost a whisper. He shook his head in surrender. “I don’t understand.” He lifted his eyes again to look at the three gravestones in turn. “I never will.”

It wasn’t a possibility; the werewolf said those words with such finality it tore at Dumbledore’s heart. He knew Remus would never stop mourning. “Remus, come back to the school with me. You can stay there tonight.”

Remus nodded, accepting the invitation extended more as a safeguard than a casual invite. Dumbledore wanted to make sure he didn’t become sick from his fool actions. Or kill himself.

The taller professor slowly guided his former pupil back down the hill, a shell of repelled rain surrounding the both of them. The head of Gryffindor house awaited them at the foot of the hill. McGonagall had seen the whole thing, and at the same time both identified with and pitied the devastated werewolf. His friends had now doomed him to a life of solitude. He was perhaps the only person in the world who was truly alone. She felt the sorrow he did, but at a much smaller degree. The lives of five of her most brilliant, most dazzling students, all ruined. Again, this suffering was due to Voldemort’s war on the forces of good.

The three headed back to the great gilded carriage that would carry them back to the school.

The light of dawn had just barely begun an intrusion into the world of darkness that was the night. It was pouring rain, and it still seemed as if it were midnight, and the moon full. Remus was soaked to the bone, and absently scolded himself for dripping on the carpet as he wandered into his flat, exhausted and barely conscious. The transformation tonight, on Halloween, had been especially difficult. He coughed, stumbling towards a sofa, and collapsed before he even sat down on it. His arms and head rested uneasily on the sofa’s cushions.

A lightning flash sounded outside, lighting the room brightly. There was a small, nearly inaudible ‘pop’ in one facet of the house, while the glass sliding door Remus had forced open haphazardly in his quest to be safely inside his flat was pushed open a small bit more. A short, rather stout figure wandered into the room, wielding a wand in his right hand. He approached the sleeping werewolf, a look somewhere between maniacal and pitiful on his face as he raised his wand.

“Remus?” A call, rough and emotion-torn, echoed through the small house. The figure on the sofa didn’t move. The figure above him rose his wand a bit higher with resolve. A third man entered, frenzied, looking relieved as his gaze rested on the werewolf. His eyes suddenly flashed with anger as they found the intruder above him. “Get away from him, Pettigrew!” he said, withdrawing his own wand from the pocket of his robes. “Bastard traitor!”

Pettigrew smiled wickedly. It then occurred to Sirius that his old friend was gone, warped by Voldemort into a slave without a thought of his own. Pettigrew pointed his wand at the sleeping figure in front of him. Sirius was instantly on the offensive, jabbing his own wand at his old friend.

“Make a move, and I kill you,” he said, with a quiet ferocity. Sirius was still scolding himself for believing Remus was the traitor; if he had just trusted his lonely friend, there would have been no problems. James would still be alive. He’d endangered everyone by opting not to trust anybody but himself. He nearly broke down as he viewed his sleeping friend, peaceful and exhausted, and completely unaware of what was going on around him. Sirius swallowed.

“Don’t do it, Peter,” he warned, a lump in his throat. “Don’t.”

But the next second, Peter was gone, a small popping noise sounding in the flat. Sirius cursed, trying in vain to track him. He cursed himself a few more times, thinking of the horrible scene he’d come upon at the Potters’. Debris everywhere, bodies spelled to a crisp, the smell of burning flesh permeating the area. He would get revenge for the Potters, revenge for James and Lily, but he could only guess how that revenge would be had. Sirius already realized he was likely to die.

He stepped forward, approaching the soaking wet figure resting halfway on the couch. He bent down, picking up his fatigued friend and placing him in a more comfortable position on the sofa. With an odd sense of nostalgia, he checked the werewolf for any serious injuries resulting from his transformation. He was relieved to find none; Remus was simply exhausted. He allowed himself one lingering look at a friend who had been more like a brother. He knew he would not be seeing Remus again.

“I’m sorry.”

And then, with a small, almost inaudible ‘pop,’ Sirius left his friend alone.