All rights belong to JK Rowling and respective publishers/film studios/media bodies. This story is additionally posted under a different author name, though written in whole by myself.

***

It is rumoured that my favourite poet, Dylan Thomas, died seven years before I was born after a non-stop, alcohol-fueled bacchanalia that lasted six entire days completely obliterated any semblance of functioning liver cells or brain mass.

If he were alive now, he'd probably be hugely impressed at the effort we'd put in down at the 'Dead Donkey' over the past two hours. I bet Dylan Thomas would've been a great Marauder.

My motivations for introducing Harry to the wonderful world of cirrhosis were complex, partly spurned into action by Molly's claims that somebody should get him out of his room and stop him being so morose. She didn't, however, like the idea of commiserating over a bottle of Mexico's finest (Mundungus' one great idea), but her opinions were overruled by the nagging little voice that sounded a lot like James. 'What, you're the last Marauder who's not dead or evil and you can't even get my kid plastered from time to time? What kind of shitty friend do you think you are?' No doubt Sirius would've agreed. 'Yeah. Poor little bastard, sixteen and STILL hasn't done lines off a dead tart's body? He'll grow up warped!'

I think it was because, in part, I needed someone to get me out of the house myself. As a certain pink haired young lady explained, sitting around in my underwear listening to 'Surfer Rosa' is hardly going to ease my woes. And also because he's underage, and if there's one thing I'm in the mood for at present, it's breaking obsolete and thoroughly ineffective laws.

And with that, Mundungus and I swept him out of the house with a grand flourish, Miss Granger pursing her lips and Master Weasley looking after us remorsefully, wishing, no doubt, that he could be a part of our festivities.

From the expertise I gained from having a boozed-up lush for a father, wizarding pubs are simply not up to scratch compared to Muggle ones. And the 'Dead Donkey' is one of the very few London pubs not to employ itinerant Australian backpackers as bartenders, which is pleasant, because I was getting thoroughly sick of being looked at like I had three heads every time I ordered something that wasn't beer. Seemingly, the only problem for getting in would be Harry's age, but once again, Mundungus shone through and procured a reasonable looking fake ID - reasonable, that is, if you could believe that Harry was in his mid-thirties.

"An' this, 'Arry, is what we call a good fookin' lager. You know what lager is, don' chew? Fookin' exceptional." Dung mopped up a bit of beer that had spilled onto his plate with a pie crust, the greasy mince leaving streaks on his plate. Harry nodded in response, obviously humouring Mundungus, who'd already spectacularly thrown up over the wastebin in the women's bathroom.

"Agh, just as bloody well, I say. You know what? You're only on your fifth pot! Disgraceful fookin' effort."

Another nod, this time a rather sympathetic one.

"Loony... erm, Moony, what's this business 'bout 'Arry not having another drink ahead of him?"

I looked over. "You're a complaining creature, Dung. And it's your round next," I slurred.

"Bleedin' 'ell. What am I, some magical fountain of love and piss am I?"

"Harry bought the last round, and I got the one before that. It's clearly your turn."

He grumbled something in his delightful Scottish brogue, and shuffled up to the counter. I turned to Harry beside me, and ruffled his hair, a little more roughly than I would've had I not downed almost a litre and a half of a horrible local brew. "How are you feeling, Harry."

"Dunno. All right, I guess. Bit sick."

"Well, that's to be expected. It is your first experience, of course. You'll get used to it with time."

He picked up the jug, and shakily topped up his glass, head spilling over the rim slightly. "Oy, professor..."

I took the jug from his grip, and replaced it back on the table. "Harry, there is one thing you cannot call me in such an establishment, and that's professor."

"Right. Lupin... I can't bloody remember what I was going to say."

"You're getting legless. I'm so proud of you. Your dad and Sirius would be most pleased."

He looked up at me. He had a four day growth of sleep in the corners of his eyes, and I doubted he'd washed his hair since he arrived at Number 12 two weeks ago. And was that the slightest bit of fluff on his upper lip? "Really?"

"Of course. Astonishing drinkers, they were. We all used to head on into Knockturn Alley during school breaks, tell our parents we were just looking at the Quidditch Supplies."

"Wormtail too?"

"No... he was a bit wet, really. His mum was psychotic, wouldn't really let him do anything. No wonder he turned out the way he did."

"Yeah." He took a long swill of his beer, spilling some on his shirt.

"Fuck. Oops, sorry, Lupin."

"I don't care, say whatever you want."

He wiped it rather uselessly, and Dung stumbled back into our booth, cradling a pitcher of amber fluid.

"And our poison this time, Dung?"

"Scotch and soda."

"Excellent choice." I reached for my glass, and helped myself. Dung had pulled his pipe out, and was stuffing it with something that smelled far less innocuous than mere tobacco.

"Oy Moony... who'd Sirius say'd get 'is girlie mags?"

"I don't really want them, you can have them if you want, unless Harry has his eyes on them."

Harry shook his head queasily. They were particularly tasteless, amateurish publications that we'd had confiscated in fifth year after James had handed in a profile of ShiShi Le Cocktease instead of a potions essay. A noteworthy cause celebre in the Griffyndor common room for weeks.

"Aight, you're a good man, 'Arry."

"I think I need to throw up."

I stood quickly, and he rushed past me, clenching his hand over his mouth. He made it as far as the bathroom door when he launched an arsenal of orange fluid over the floor. I made my way over to him, and pulled a pitifully thin handkerchief out of my trouser pocket. He accepted it, but as soon as he'd wiped away the remnants he simply threw up again. In our stall, Dung was laughing hysterically.

"Come on. I'll get you a drink of water, wash the taste out of your mouth."

He nodded, lurching violently towards the floor. I grabbed the back of his flannel shirt, and pulled him in the direction of our booth. I slipped a tenner to the waitress, and called for a pitcher of water. Back at the booth, Mr Potter looked sheepish, and more than a little green.

"Sorry."

Dung leant over, and grabbed his hand. "S'all right, young chap. It's part of life. At least you weren't on a train with no loos or openin' windows. Tell you, you never forget your first chunder, do you, Moony?"

I nodded. "Fifth year, Sirius' bedroom, right out the window onto some stupid family reunion his mum was having and we were avoiding. His mum never really liked me before, but she certainly didn't after. And besides, once you've been sick, you do feel a fair bit better. At least you don't get a hangover if you throw up."

He nodded, and almost wrenched the water out of the waitress' hand, pulling the jug to his lips and spilling a fair amount over him in the meantime. "Thanks, guys."

"Not a problem at all, Harry. Everyone gets sick in public at some point in time. You just need to have a bit of dignity about it." Well, as much dignity as you can have with a red face, watering eyes, runny nose and vomit splattered on your clothes.

"Did..."

I looked at him. "Did... what?"

"Did... you know, Sirius..."

I smiled. The poor kid looked like he was about to burst into drunken tears. I didn't know whether I should disrespect his memory and go on about how decent and noble he was, or at least attempt to lighten him up with the truth. I chose the latter.

"Let me tell you something about Sirius Black, Harry. He carried vodka around school in a water bottle, constantly needed James and I to keep him upright when walking, and once passed out naked on a park bench in January because he was too lazy to walk home. But he would never sit back and let a friend throw up drunkenly alone. He was the kind of friend who'd be besides you, throwing up in unison."

He smiled, his eyes going watery behind his glasses. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and took another slower sip of water. A tear rolled down his cheek, and he swatted it away angrily, rubbing his eyes.

"Bloody hell."

My heart broke for the kid. I reached around drunkenly, and pulled him into a rough, one-armed hug.

"You know what, Harry? You're a tough blighter. I've seen grownup wizards, who've put up with far less than you, crying over the silliest little things. Don't feel bad for having a bit of a cry, you know."

I heard a dry sob beside me, and I noticed that even Dung had adopted a more respectful demeanour (or as respectful as you can get with a blood alcohol level of 0.65).

"I'll go 'n see to it that we've got somefing for lunch then, shall I gents?"

I nodded, and he made his way over to the counter. Harry had leant his arm against the table, and was propping himself up, doing a pretty lousy job of hiding his tears.

"Harry... are you all right?"

"Are you upset at all?" The volume was pushing silent, but the tone was dangerous.

"Sorry?"

"Are you upset?"

"Well, of course I am..."

He looked at me with bloodshot eyes, his volume rising exponentially.

"Then why are you so bloody cheerful all the bloody time? What's the matter with you?"

I can't say I was slightly taken back. I had to admit that I have a very strange way of coping with loss.

"Harry... believe me when I say that people have different coping mechanisms. You're coping with rage. Molly Weasley is coping with overcompensation. I handle things my way."

"Yeah, you handle them like a bloody bastard."

I pushed my drink away from me. "Go on, Harry."

"What?"

I looked at him, and I felt (not for the first time) the years gaining momentum. "Whatever you want to talk about, talk. Anything. I don't care. Yell at me, beat me to a pulp, whatever. I don't care."

He stared at me as though I'd just slapped him. "I..."

"Harry, somebody else said it better. It's a line of poetry. 'After the first death, there is no other.' It's not that I don't feel it, or that I don't miss him. But I've lost so many close to me, Harry. And God knows that I won't lose more. With every person I lose, I just get eroded away like a dirty, empty shell, and I just can't help but shove it all aside. I don't want to lose any more of myself, Harry. See? Purely selfish of me. I hate it. I hate it so desperately, but I just can't let it take further of a hold of me."

He looked at me, pushing his glasses back up on the ridge of his nose. "So you're just going to pretend it never happened and forget it?"

"Someday, Harry, when this is all over, for better or worse, I will let whatever feelings happen just take over me, and I will most likely just collapse in on myself like a black hole. But for now, I already have a ravenous beast taking charge of me enough."

He nodded, and copied me in pushing his drink away from him. "I don't think I want to drink much more."

"You don't have to."

We were a rather glum trio on the train back to Kings - Harry shaking like a fish, Mundungus asleep against a window, and me nursing what must be the worst headache of all time.

The prerecorded voice on the speaker let us know, usefully, that we were approaching our stop. I stood up, and my stomach lurched violently. Harry was gripping onto the handrails for dear life, Dung still asleep on the train. I hit him on the arm, and pulled him onto the platform as the train rested at a halt, my stomach, unfortunately, not.

We shuffled down the underpass, our shoes kicking up a duststorm of debris, cigarette butts and the discarded byproducts of a less salubrious existence. The light at the end, though weak, was enough to send up a flurry of brightly coloured visual disturbances, and I squinted my eyes shut, gripping onto Dung so I wouldn't walk into the graffitied walls.

Harry was walking slowly behind us, and I turned back, peeling my eyes open. I motioned to Mundungus to just walk on ahead without us to Number 12, and caught up with him.

"How are you, Harry?"

He bravely mustered a weak smile, and nodded at me. "My eyes are bloody gritty, they feel like sandpaper."

"Yes, they feel like that when you cry for a bit."

"You ever felt it?"

"Once. While ago. It's the only thing that I think I've ever really had a proper bawl about."

"What happened?"

I looked at him. I wasn't sure that I was happy to share the entirety of the experience with him, but felt that settling for a vague truth would be enough. "I did something incredibly stupid."

"Why?"

"I lied to someone, very stupidly of me, and told them I felt nothing for them. Then it came back and bit me in the arse when she got with someone else."

"Oh. Some stupid bird who didn't deserve your love?"

I smiled, a lump rising in my throat for the fiftieth time in the past few days. "Actually... I get the feeling you would've liked her quite a lot."

He looked up at me, and I could've sworn for a second that a glimmer of acknowledgment flooded his eyes. He turned back to looking at the ground intently, and I felt stupid for continuing on.

"It doesn't matter though, Harry. Everything turned out for the best. I can't... I can't say I don't regret it, but I can say that it probably never would've happened any other way."

"Right."

The lump in my throat was still rising. Tears? No. Far more messy. I turned to the wall, coating it in sickness, and I helplessly threw up in waves.

A hand was on my back, and somebody was helping me to my feet. I pushed him away, and continued my wretched sickness.

"You ok?"

I halted, spitting the foul remnants from my mouth. "Yes, I think so."

"You want to stop for a bit?"

"Let's just get out of this horrible underpass first."

And with that, the light exploded around us as we blinked like moles and emerged from the tunnel. A footpath bench up ahead. I sank into it, my body shaking furiously.

"Lupin..."

"Harry, just don't let anyone know you've seen me like this."

A broad grin. "You've seen me. Why should they care?"

"Because I'm supposed to be a tired, stuffy, responsible old bastard who couldn't muster a curse word or handle a mouthful of liquor. And, of course, because you were my student."

"I'm not any more though."

I looked at him thoughtfully. He was a bright kid, that Harry Potter. He mock-punched me in the arm. I'm sure my breath was horrible, and I felt worse than I ever had on a freshly waning moon.

"You're all right, you know that Harry? I'd be really chuffed to have you as a son, you know?"

He didn't say anything. He just stared ahead, and I'm pretty sure that was a smug little smile playing at his mouth, very similar to the smug little smile playing on mine.

Obviously I'm on a Mike Leigh theme here, what with the endless dialogue and almost no action in the plot.

No, I lie, Mike Leigh kicks arse, and everyone should aim for his excellence and not that of Baby Geniuses 2. Man, did Jon Voigt have a career slump. The title, obviously, Secrets and Lies, Tonks' delightful bit of existential monologue is from Naked, and, without saying, starring a character who was played by a dude in a Mike Leigh movie.

***

I woke up in the pitch black of an unknown room, waves of a nauseous hunger crashing against the sides of my skull and a cold sweat running down my back.

How much had I drunk that afternoon?

I opened my eyes. Clearly a bad idea.

I had no idea where I was. I wasn't tired, but mentally I was exhausted. I ran my hands over my face, spiky bristle grating against fingertips which were so sensitive I thought they were burning off.

I let my hands have a bit of a wander around, trying to get my bearings.

All right. I was on a bed.

A bed with a lacy bedspread. (What the?)

A bed with somebody next to me in it. (Double what the?)

And I was naked. (Triple what the?)

I ran my head over the person's face. Please don't let it be Dung, please don't let it be Dung ...

It wasn't. It was just Tonks.

Uh oh.

"Tonks ... get up."

She didn't move, so I figured I would rouse her from my sleep with my deadliest weapon: drunk breath. I could hear her groaning, and pushed me. To her left, a lamp switched on, and she turned over to look at me.

"Tonks, we didn't do anything, did we?"

She grinned. Dear God.

I moaned, and pushed my face back into the pillow. "Please. I can't remember anything after noon. Tell me what happened, please ... "

"Well." She was sitting up by now, looking as alert as I was queasy. "Well. See, you stumbled back in on Harry's shoulder. Then you ran away from us all, crying, and fell in the pond outside. We had to strip you off and lock you in here so you wouldn't hurt anyone."

"All right. You've had a good look. Now please give me the dignity of getting me a pair of trousers at the very least."

At this, she jumped off the bed, and raced out of the room, returning with what looked like a pair of horrible yellow tracksuit pants in a shiny material.

"You're a cruel woman, Nymphadora." I pulled them on, noticing immediately that they came up to my midcalf. Fantastic. "Are they meant to be clamdiggers, Tonks?"

"Don't think so. According to Ron, they're the trendiest pants in London. Apparently, Ali G wears them."

"But isn't he being ironic?"

"He is, Ron isn't. Come on down, I'll get you something to eat."

I rolled out of bed, and regretted it immediately. I still must've had some fluid in my stomach, and it was just yearning to be free. I made a mad dash for a waste paper basket, making it in the nick of time.

"Lovely, Remus. You do realise that you're vomiting into a wicker waste bin?"

"I do. Consider it to be an installation artwork."

"Will do. Come on down, let's put something else in your stomach to throw up."

I made my way down the stairs after her, lumos lighting the pathway between the bedroom and the kitchen.

"Erm ... well, we seem to have only cheese or beetroot. It's my turn to do the shopping tomorrow. What do you prefer?"

"I don't know."

"I'll fry you some cheese."

I sank into the kitchen table, resting my head in my arms as she fiddled with the stove behind me. The clock only read 11 -- I'd been sleeping for six hours.

"You tired, Tonks?"

"Not really. I pulled an all-nighter last night, slept during the day. I got up for a bit in the afternoon, to put you to bed. Then I got bored, I guess. Went to bed."

"Uh huh. Really. You were probably trying to have your wicked way with my unconscious body."

"Oh, you were conscious when I did that. Or semi-conscious, anyway. No, I just didn't want to mess with my circadian rhythm."

"Why?"

A cup of tea had been summoned in front of me. "I'm not sure. Sleep is for night, isn't it?"

"Tonks, when you're congenitally unemployed like me, you can sleep whenever you like."

"Great! Yet another reason why I want to be just like you. You take sugar in that?"

"God yes."

In the distance, I could smell a salty, fatty, wonderful concoction, which was heating the room nicely and etching its scent into the walls. A scraping, footsteps, a chair being pulled out, and she plonked herself down, a plate of greasy yellow mess in front of me. I poked it hesitantly with a fork, and pulled some to my mouth.

Excellent.

"You know, Tonks, if you ever cure my cirrhosis, you'll probably give me heart disease."

"You know, just for a change."

I swallowed, and looked up at her. Painfully orange hair and blue eyes. It reminded me of primary school, where my art teacher would try to explain the colour wheel and complementary colours.

Somebody needed to explain that orange and blue don't complement each other.

"Why are we here, Nymphadora?"

"Well, Lupin, there was this little dot, right? And the dot went bang and the bang expanded. Energy formed into matter, matter cooled, matter lived, the amoeba to fish, to fish to fowl, to fowl to frog, to frog to mammal, the mammal to monkey, to monkey to man, amo amas amat, quid pro quo, memento mori, ad infinitum, sprinkle on a little bit of grated cheese and leave under the grill till Doomsday."

"No. Why are we awake at midnight eating miserable generic brand cheese from under the grill in some morose house?"

"Because you woke me up with your hobo breath."

"Fair cop."

She looked over at me, and rubbed my hand in the way that only a shoddy clairvoyant or Sybil Trelawney (and seriously, was there a difference) had done before.

"You know what you need, Remus? Apart from a rocket up your clacker, obviously?"

"I have no idea. Twenty minutes ago I couldn't even dress myself."

"You need to get help. And a woman, too. But mostly help."

"I don't need a woman, I have a perfectly serviceable inflatable girlie that Sirius bequeathed to me."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, but you ARE going to get help with coming to terms with Sirius, aren't you?"

"Whatever are you talking about? Of course I've come to terms with his demise."

"That's a lie, and you know it." She stole my teacup, and took a long swill. "Pretending it never happened and imagining that this is as good as it gets isn't accepting and grieving, it's being pathetic. And so's taking out a teenage boy and getting him drunk to project your stupid repressed expression of emotion."

Tonks. Twenty-four, five seven, and her two best talents are psychoanalysis and frying cheese.

"I can't imagine what you'd mean by that, Tonks. I was looking for someone of a similar mindset to me."

"You mean a similar maturity level?"

"Bingo. That's why I brought Mundungus."

She pulled my empty plate away from me. "Go on, go up to bed."

"I'm not tired."

"Well, neither am I, and I'm not going to talk to you again until you get some sense knocked into you."

And with that, she dumped my plate in the sink, and strode into the library, the light from her wand going with her.

I got up and followed her in. By the time I made it in there, she'd curled up in a chair, reading what looked like a pig breeder's journal.

"Are you upset at all?"

She looked up at me, the magazine revealing itself to be a financial publication, as opposed to an agricultural one.

"Remus, do you know how long you locked yourself up in this study, reading stuff and not even acknowledging that he'd died?"

I shook my head.

"A month-and-a-half. Do you know how everyone else was doing during that time?"

I shook my head again.

"Well, I'll fill you in. Molly Weasley broke into tears every time something minor happened, like a book being slammed shut noisily or dropping a fork onto the ground. Ginny got creeped out by the concept of curtains, and ripped them all down. Harry's been sitting in that front room, just like you were in here, and Ron and Hermione have been tiptoeing around the house, trying to pretend they weren't there just so he wouldn't yell at them. And do you know how I was doing?"

Shake.

"I've been working nineteen-hour days, six days a week, just so I wouldn't have to return here and look at the horrible old paintings and racist memorabilia on the walls. And when I wasn't working, I was sitting outside this door, because at the end of the hallway outside this room there's a very nice window that looks out onto that cedar tree outside. And there's a little birds' nest in the tree, with four blue eggs. And one day, one of the eggs rolled out of the nest, and smashed on the ground, and the tiny little bird inside died. And you know what? Birds grieve. They fucking grieve. The parent birds didn't even have to see what their baby looked like, and they stayed on the ground with it until it got too cold and the chick died on the ground."

I sat down beside her. She was looking at me angrily, her teeth clenched against each other, gasping, her cheeks shining with tears.

"But it ... "

"But what?! It was still a life! I hate it."

I covered my mouth with my hand. "I had no idea."

"No, you clearly didn't."

I sat there, the room growing colder and quieter, the silence only breaking when I could hear a sob from her end of the chair.

"Nymphadora ... what was his service like?"

"There was no service. Nobody could bear to arrange it. We were going to leave it to you, you know, because you were his best friend and all. But you know, you were very busy and all -- what, with sitting in here and listening to depressing records and drinking."

I didn't know what to feel. Guilt. Absolute, abysmal sadness. Disgust and self-loathing.

"Do you hate me?"

"Of course I hate you. We all do."

I felt a rush of cold air onto my skin, but the windows were all shut.

"You know, we would've given you any sympathy you wanted, Remus. And we did, for a fair bit, and until you just told me you'd gotten over him, I thought you were just handling it in your depressing, emotionless British way."

I stood up, and walked out of the room, halting at the door.

She was back to reading her magazine, the tears wiped away, and she was making a very concerted attempt to not look at me.

"Thank you."

She looked up. "What for?"

"Divine realisation."

I own nothing. I have thirty dollars and a half-full bottle of Tanquerays to my name, and you sure as hell aren't getting that. My little brother is rich though, I give you permission to find him and beat him with a crowbar to get his money. The poem is 'Sometime's The Sky's Too Bright' by Dylan Thomas, and it's a great poem.



I never got the whole wizarding thing, to be perfectly honest. I mean, it was sort of handy and all to be able to do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, for free and totally at your convenience, but at the same time there's a lot of ingenuity and intrigue in muggle technology and arts.

Take, for instance, the car. When in a hurry, I apparate. But if I have the time, I drive, having been taught by my father in one of his rare sober moments. There's something so calming about the feel of the road underneath a car not fancy enough for ABS brakes or power steering, or even a properly closing petrol cap or tunable radio. I like the scenery of the east coast of Britain, scenery which is sadly missed if you apparate.

One thing wizards didn't get either was music. It is a wizarding rule that every single band must feature an accordion, obscure Eastern-European flute, or a lute, and if the lyrics don't involve trying to rhyme 'spell' with 'girl' the song is to be discarded immediately. You will not, for instance, see a wizard band produce anything of the calibre of 'Golden Brown', 'Angie' or 'Across the Universe'. And because the radio in my '83 Gemini was stuck on the oldies station, I was at least guaranteed some decent music of the aforementioned variety.

Sirius and Tonks were some of the few people to understand my love of muggle music, Sirius not necessarily with my taste in bands. Tonks had herself hooked on eighties pop rock, and for the last few weeks I'd heard XTC and what sounded suspiciously like my 'Temple of Low Men' album being played down stairs. Sirius, on the other hand, had surprisingly bad taste. He used to put on this absolutely horrible stuff: Hootie and the Blowfish, Crash Test Dummies and Avril Lavigne.

(Actually, on that note, he convinced Dung, Tonks and I on one of our drunker nights to listen to the entire 'Let Go' album, in the effort of persuading me of its genius. It being a pirated copy Dung had (sniggeringly) acquired for him, the disc didn't come with an accompanying cover booklet, but I could only imagine that the girl was one of those overweight, desperate gothic ladies who would insult men in her songs, but would then sing about why she couldn't find a boyfriend in the interim. Needless to say, the disc unfortunately suffered a tragic accident in which I put it in the oven and melted it. But not before he had me regrettably promise, after seven whisky sours, a schooner of pilsner and half a cask of terrible white wine, that I play 'Sk8er Boi' at his funeral, should he die and I be left responsible for his ceremony. I can assure you that we did laugh heartily at him and shamed him into not coming out of his room for at least four days after. On second thoughts, that might be due to him being so hungover I had to change him.)

For the first time in an entire week, I was sober enough to drive a car without the fear of being pulled over for a DUI. Course, I had no fear of being pulled up for anything, my car being unable to go faster than 50mph. Harry was up front with me, head leaning against the window and looking blankly ahead. The skin that was pressed into the window was as bloodless as his scar, and the faint lightning bolt disappeared into his forehead.

Dung was behind me in the back, snoring loudly and head lolling occasionally onto Tonks, who would push it away disgustedly every time it came into contact with her shoulder. I caught her several times staring at me in the rear view, always averting her gaze when she knew I was watching her watch me. On the radio, what sounded like 'Comes A Time' was crooning tinnily.

We were about two miles from Dover, and to my right a small gravel road veered off into a forest of beech and she-oaks. On the windscreen, mist had started to gather, and I turned the wipers on, hoping that the salt wouldn't rust the rest of my car's body away.

The gravel turned a paler grey as I drove towards the sea, the others in the car winding down their windows. The temperature in the car plummeted a good twenty degrees, the air salty and cold and wonderful, and I pulled into a park that looked straight into the surf.

I picked up the box that was at Harry's feet, and turned to my passengers.

"Coming, or are you going to appreciate the scenery from here?"

Harry wasn't looking at me, and Dung was still asleep, but Tonks stared at me intently.

"Are you going to tell us what we're doing here?"

"Sure. Once we get down to the beach."

She shrugged, and opened her door, slamming it so loudly behind her that it startled Dung. Harry got out too, looking far less hostile than Tonks, and slightly colder. I lead the way down a path made of rotting pine planks lined up over the pebbles and grasses.

The beaches around here aren't too inviting for swimmers or sunbathers. Actually, they aren't too inviting for anything really, unless you're a Bronte sister and like this kind of thing. There is no actual sand to speak of - just tiny sharp pebbles that necessitate the wearing of shoes. And the water is always swollen, and grey-green, and utterly vicious, with the depth dropping off into a sharp channel about five meters from the water line and seaspray constantly flicking you in the face. In the distance, I could see the white cliffs of lime and sandstone. My watch said 5.39, and the sky was already a dark shade of grey, highlighted by flashes of lightning on the horizon.

I've heard that these waters are plagued by sharks. When I was little, and scared of beasts that I thought would never hurt me (like werewolves, ironically enough), sharks were the things that horrified me most. I remember that in my youth, James always commented that Sirius' animagus should've been a shark, because he always got that bloodthirsty, animalistic vigor into him whenever he saw something he could attack or consume mercilessly. Today, however, I don't think I was scared of what lurked in the green.

I paused by the waters edge, and they gathered around me: Dung curious, Harry freezing, and Tonks apathetic. I took off my own coat, passing it to Harry, who nodded in reply and wrapped it around himself. I indicated to the box I was holding, and opened it up.

"So. You're all, uh, well, wondering why I brought you here this afternoon."

"Are you going to tell us, or are you just going to waste our afternoon?" Tonks said, arms crossed.

"Fair call. I... well, I..."

I realised I was staring at the ground. The tide must've been coming in, because my feet were suddenly soaked by a streak of white foam.

"Look. I just wanted to apologise to you all for being an uptight idiot these last few weeks. It was just selfish, and thoughtless, and disrespectful - not just to Sirius, but to all you as well."

Dung nodded. I don't think he was actually listening, but I'd give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Tonks brought something up to me about a week ago, which I thought was a really fair point, and um... yeah. I suppose I should just show you what I want to do."

I pulled a long, thin stick from the box. His wand, coated in a lifetimes' worth of grime, chewing gum and his name scratched into it with a thumbtack. I regarded it, running my fingers down the length of it. Beech, ten inches.

"Nobody really spoke to me for my first year at Hogwarts. Well, except Sirius and James, and that was to call me a useless fairy. I didn't really think too much of it, apart from the fact that I probably would've killed the dirty rotten sods if they'd kept calling me that. The reason Sirius first spoke to me in non-hostile terms was when he caught me sewing my own knee up with fishing line, because I didn't want to trouble Madam Pomfrey with yet another bloody injury. He was even more impressed with me developing gangrene as a result and still being stupid enough not to seek medical attention."

Harry's lips were pursed, but I could tell there was a faint smile. Tonks had uncrossed her arms, jamming her hands into her jeans pockets.

"So he sat me down one afternoon, and handed me this bottle of what smelled like drain unclogging liquid, and cut the bottom of my trouser leg off. He then performed a spell which not only aggravated my gangrene, but caused my leg to fall off below my knee."

I heard a snort. So Dung WAS paying attention. I tossed the wand into the surf, watching as the wood floated against the surface, and disappeared under a breaking wave.

"Course, re-attaching limbs is simple enough on the condition that they've only recently fallen off the body. But it is odd explaining to a trained nurse that your leg fell off because it got cut off with a trip wire."

I pulled out the next item. It was his prized possession from ages fifteen through to his arrest: a vintage, beta tape of "Deepthroat" that held the record of being the most confiscated item in Filch's career. No matter that there was no possible way to actually play the damned thing at school, Filch obviously knew of the moral filth it concerned (though would get furious with you if you ever asked him how he knew of its contents). It joined the wand in the surf.

"Harry, you remember me taking you out last week?"

He nodded, avoiding my gaze.

"The first present I ever got from Sirius was when we were twelve and he nicked off from the Hog's Head with a gallon cask of cheap white wine. I think the label said it was a 'fruity lexia' - which he said described me very well. The condition of the gift was that I had to drink it all in one sitting. I remember lying in bed the next day, shaking violently in a cold sweat, having water administered with a sponge. I..."

He was looking up at me, and Tonks was looking decidedly less belligerent than before.

"Well, you know... I felt that it would only be fair that I do for you what he did for me, and introduce you to a life of cheap liquor and painful tomorrows."

With that, I tossed the entire box into the ocean, watching it float off, and as the water soaked through the cardboard it sank into the waves. I felt strange as it sank into the water, and I knelt down, a lump rising in my throat. I sat into the damp stones, wrapping my arms around my knees and looking out at the surf.

And Harry sat beside me.

"Hey, Lupin."

I looked at him, breathing in deeply and exhaling heavily.

"He was a good man, wasn't he?"

I laughed fakely. "No. He was an absolute bugger of a man who--"

I choked, and covered it badly with a cough. I leant my head back and opened my eyes, hoping that the tears would dry before anyone else saw them. I think Harry did though, because I could hear a long sniff, followed by sobbing, and him leaning on my left shoulder. I cleared my throat, hoping my voice would be steady enough.

"I brought you to this beach because this is the spot where he landed when he swam away from Azkaban. He took me here the night I resigned from teaching. He didn't say much that night. We just sat there all night right here at the water level, him looking out, not saying anything. We had barely spoken to each other in twelve years, and we just weren't talking.

"We were walking back up to the car, see, because he wanted the drive, and I figured it'd be safe if we disillusioned him, and it was late at night and all. And there was this aluminium rubbish bin near the railing at the carpark. He took this bit of broken railing that was lying on the ground, and he just mauled right into the bin, beating it, kicking it. He eventually broke it off the post it was on, and he just kept attacking it, screaming, just screaming nonsense. I couldn't stop him, and I didn't even try. I'd never seen him like that. I've never even been that vicious during the moon. And he... he turned and he said..."

Another body was sitting down to my right - Tonks. She nudged me softly.

"Go on."

"He said... he said he didn't know why he'd lost twelve years of his life. He said that he'd never felt so disgusting, and cheated, and insulted, and he kept going on about being so sad and angry that he'd just walk back out onto the beach and make a hole in the ocean that was his size."

My nose was running, and I wiped it on my sleeve. I pressed my eyes into my arms, and I felt a hand running through the back of my hair.

"It's not there anymore. The bin, that is."

I pressed my eyes closed, and covered my mouth with my hands, breathing in jerks through my nose whenever I wasn't racking with crying. Beside me, Tonks was staring at the water with a steely gaze, her lips twitching, and Harry was crying loudly. Behind me, Mundungus was pacing, kicking up the gravel and clinging his hands against his shirt.

"He, he... he, he was, he was... he--"

"Shh. Don't talk, ok?" Tonks had grabbed me by the shoulder, gripping me tightly.

"Sir... Padfoot. He wanted me to play 'Sk8er Boi' for his funeral. Much as I don't want to spite the dead... I really hate that song."

Harry nodded beside me. I had the impression that he, too, was unfortunately familiar with Ms Lavigne thanks to Hermione.

"This is one he sent me when my dad died after we left school. He didn't write it. Another drunk man did. This would be near the top of great things he introduced me to."

I cleared my throat and looked around. They were all watching me, even Dung, who'd stopped pacing and looked very pale in the face.

"Sometimes the sky's too bright,
Or has too many clouds or birds,
And far away's too sharp a sun
To nourish thinking of him.
Why is my hand too blunt
To cut in front of me
My horrid images for me,
Of over-fruitful smiles,
The weightless touching of the lip
I wish to know
I cannot lift, but can,
The creature with the angel's face
Who tells me hurt,
And sees my body go
Down into misery?
No stopping. Put the smile
Where tears have come to dry.
The angel's hurt is left;
His telling burns."

Nobody moved. My face was drier, and my hands had started to shake from the cold. Harry'd closed his eyes, and was clenching his hands together.

Mundungus had started walking up to the car, looking to the sky and blinking heavily, for once moving in a straight line. I only realised then that he hadn't said a word all day, and suddenly I felt very sick, and small, and lonely.

Tonks stood, and followed him off, brushing my arm with her hand as she got up. Harry remained down with me, and for what seemed like hours we watched the edge of the world as the blinking light grew more intense and the sky changed from grey to green to black, and we only got up when our toes and fingers started to turn bright red from windburn.


the end.