The Eulogy
“Did you sleep at all, mate?”
Sirius had just wandered into the kitchen and saw Remus seated at the table. There was a cup of tea in front of him, but none of it had been drunk. Sirius imagined he had just made it to give himself something to do. It was then he remembered that it was Remus’s mother who said that when you didn’t know what to do in a bad or awkward situation, you should make tea. It was now ten in the morning and while it wasn’t unusual for Remus to be up at this time, it didn’t look as if he had even made it to his bed. In fact, Sirius was sure it had been perfectly made when he walked past the man’s room.
“For an hour or two,” Remus said, rubbing his tired eyes and taking a sip of the tea. He stood up and proceeded to dump the rest of the contents into the sink. He wasn’t very thirsty and the tea had gone bad, anyway. He was determined not to think about what he had to do, that he had to bury his parents. “Lily had the baby?” When Sirius had gotten home the night before, Remus had been in his room, the door shut as he pored over the contents of his parents’ wills. He really just hadn’t wanted to talk and had neglected to ask about the woman.
Sirius grinned. “Yeah, a baby boy.”
“Good… that’s great.” He really was happy for Lily and James. He could just imagine the thrill James would have raising a son. Yet he was having difficulty expressing that at the moment. “What did they name him?”
Sirius had received the owl with the name later the previous night and he couldn’t help but think it was the perfect name for the boy. “Harry James Potter.”
Sirius could see the miniscule widening of Remus’s eyes as he took the name in. “That’s… that’s a nice name.” He hadn’t expected it, but he was happy to hear it. The names went together and the fact that they had decided to name him Harry… Remus would have to thank them for that one day.
“We should go see him at the hospital,” Sirius suggested. He was going to do anything possible to make his friend happy again and he knew that, under any other circumstances, Remus would probably beat him out the door to the hospital so he could see the new addition to the Potter family. Now he would be lucky if Remus even moved towards the door. “You’re not working today, right?” He knew Peter had said he’d give the man a few days off to collect himself.
“No, not for a few days.” Remus finished rinsing out the cup and he set it on the counter to dry. He had a lot he needed to do, but he had to go see James and Lily. It would be disrespectful not to. “Yeah, let’s go see them.”
Within twenty minutes the two men were in St. Mungo’s and making their way towards Lily’s ward. Sirius knocked softly on the door, in case the woman or the baby, or both, was sleeping. They could hear Lily’s voice from within, saying to come in. When they entered the room it was to see Lily sitting in the rocking chair by the closed window, the bundle that contained her son in her arms. Sirius had never been sure he believed the cliché about a mother’s glow, but he did now because that was exactly what he thought when he saw Lily.
She was absolutely glowing as she held her son.
“Where’s James?” Sirius asked, noticing the man was absent from the room.
“Oh, he had to go help with a patient who came in after a chicken spit fire at him.”
“That’s… not natural.”
Lily chuckled good-naturedly. Sirius had a very good point. “No it isn’t. A bloke hexed the chicken and they had to call someone in from the Ministry to sort it out.” She looked down as Harry babbled some nonsense and cooed playfully at him. “He just woke an hour ago,” she explained.
“Did he sleep alright?” Sirius asked, walking forward to get a better look at his godson. Harry did look well-rested. That had to be a good thing. Sirius remembered his own mother saying that when Regulus was a baby he cried long into the night.
Lily nodded. “He did wake up for an hour, crying, but he went back to sleep just fine. He’s a good baby.”
“And in the event he wakes up and cries at home, I suggest pushing James out of bed to get him to calm him down.”
Lily laughed lightly. “I was thinking along the same lines.” Of course, if Harry needed to be fed, James wasn’t much help there. Yet if he was crying for the sake of it, James was getting his arse out of that bed. The woman brought her gaze Remus, who was standing by the door and had been quiet since he came into the room. He looked so sad that she felt her stomach clench and her heart break slightly. She nodded to the empty chair beside hers. “Come on, Remus, sit down and hold Harry.”
Remus shifted where he was standing and slowly shook his head. “No… no that’s okay.” He didn’t trust himself to hold a baby that was barely a day old, especially not when he couldn’t stop himself from shaking. He doubted a baby would enjoy that.
But Lily wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Maybe it would make him feel better, give him a good distraction. “Come on, I’ll show you how to hold him. You won’t break him.”
There was slight panic in the man’s eyes when Lily said that. That was just what he needed to do “ break Lily’s baby the day after he was born. Still, he knew the woman wouldn’t stop asking until he did as she said, so he took the offered seat. Wasn’t there a specific way he was supposed to hold his arms? There was a way he was supposed to hold the head, he knew that. Merlin, he didn’t know. Women must have been born with that knowledge ingrained in their brains already. The men were left to figure it out for themselves. He wondered if James thought the same thing when he held his son.
Lily gently placed the warm weight of Harry in her friend’s arms, adjusting them so they were properly holding the baby. Within a few seconds, Harry had begun to cry loudly and Remus sent a panicked look towards the woman. “He can tell you’re scared, just calm down and he’ll be okay.”
Remus tried to relax, hoping that Lily was right and it would make Harry stop crying. He hated the sound of a baby crying, especially when he was the one causing it. Soon, however, the wailing subsided and Harry babbled contently in Remus’s arms. That was a relief. If he wasn’t crying he had to be happy, didn’t he?
“Harry likes you,” Lily said happily, her face beaming as she looked fondly at her son.
Remus looked down at the baby, who was gurgling in, what Remus supposed, was a happy manner. The little boy turned his green eyes upwards towards him and Remus suddenly had to get up. “Lily?” he said, nodding for her to take the bundle out of his arms. Lily did so and watched concernedly as her friend hurriedly left the room.
“Will he be okay?” she asked Sirius, who had also watched with the same concerned expression on his face.
Sirius shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe he’s just tired. He didn’t sleep that much last night.” Or maybe it was the fact that he was holding his father’s namesake. Maybe it was because the reason James and Lily had named their son what they did was because Remus’s own father was dead. “He really appreciates that you named your son after his dad. He just needs to be on his own right now.” Remus would tell them that himself one day, but Sirius was sure it wouldn’t be for a while.
His parents wanted a Muggle funeral, like his grandparents had had. That meant Remus had to find the old church his grandparents were buried in and talk to whoever worked there. Sweet Merlin, he knew nothing about these kinds of things. He had been thirteen when his grandparents died; his parents had made all of those arrangements. Remus had been trying to process the concept of death back then; he hadn’t paid attention in the slightest. He thought his mother may have left some sort of instructions about it, but she didn’t. He knew he had to get this done soon. Their bodies were being held at St. Mungo’s and they couldn’t stay there much longer.
Remus walked around the cabin he had once called his home, still called home. He had finally finished packing up all their belongings and had to find a good charity to donate them to. His parents had instructed him to keep certain things “ belongings that had been in the family for ages and things they specifically wanted him to have. As for everything else, they told him to donate it. There was no one they wanted to give them to. He had found some of his old baby clothes, shocked that his parents had even bothered keeping them. Those would go to Lily and James for Harry. They already had more clothes than Harry could possibly need, but what could some extras hurt?
Babies did vomit a lot.
The house was either to be left to him or to be sold. At the moment, Remus was greatly leaning towards selling it. He didn’t imagine he would ever want to live here without his parents being around. It just wouldn’t be right. This was the home they had built ever since they were married. There was so much work put into it, so many memories within it. While it would seem wrong to turn those over to complete strangers, it would be even worse to have all those things surrounding him when he was doing his best to block them out. He supposed he would just have to get used to the idea of another family living here.
He couldn’t deal with that right now. He would sell it eventually. He wasn’t sure he would be able to make the place sound appealing to anyone with the way he felt right now. Any potential buyers would think he was a bloody nutter. It made sense though, as that was how he felt. How could they be dead? Remus knew it was natural for a child to outlive his parents; it was the natural course of life. But they were so young, he was so young. He still needed them. He didn’t want to depend on them for anything material, but for those situations where only parents were the ones who could help, he needed them for that.
When he was in St. Mungo’s, he was happy his friends were there for him, he would never say that he wasn’t. But his father was the one who had meant the most. The fact that he had hurried over the second he found out and stayed the night with him - that was what meant more to him than anyone ever knew. He had never even told his father that. He had died before he could. Remus was still numb from it. He could still hear Moody’s words as he delivered the news. Even Moody didn’t seem to be able to believe it. Remus just wanted to know why they had to be killed. They shouldn’t have had to be.
There was a small part of him, he was scared to admit it, but there was a smart part of him that believed he was the reason they’d been murdered. He was a part of the Order of the Phoenix and one of the Death Eaters’ best methods of torture was to pick off the people the members of the Order cared about the most. A person’s parents were one of the best targets. Remus hadn’t voiced this idea to anyone, as he knew they would tell him that wasn’t the reason, that Harry’s own involvement in the Order had endangered himself and his wife. Remus didn’t want to believe that; he didn’t want to believe his father had brought his and his wife’s death upon them.
Maybe that was why he blamed himself.
He shouldn’t, he knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help it. He knew he should blame the people who had actually killed his parents, those miserable Death Eaters, yet he couldn’t help but think he shared a large amount of the blame. He was a known member of the Order of the Phoenix and they seemed to have it out for him lately. He shook his head; he needed to get out of this place. He wasn’t doing anything to help himself by staying here. If anything, he was making himself worse by surrounding himself with things he wasn’t ready to confront. He still had so many things to do, first and foremost was writing a eulogy for the funeral. He felt very much like Sirius had when he was trying to write his best man speech “ utterly at a complete lose for words.
The biggest different was that Sirius was writing something for a happy occasion and Remus was writing this for a funeral. His parents’ funeral.
It was the next day that Remus found himself in his best, and only, suit, looking in the mirror in the living room. His face was paler that it had ever been, adding to the already sick aura about him. The funeral was in an hour and he just wanted it to be over with. He knew it wouldn’t technically be over, that the pain he’d felt over the past few days wouldn’t just go away because his parents had been buried, but he could stop putting on an act for everyone. He could grieve in private. He was just grateful that Sirius hadn’t tried to push him into going out and getting over it. Sirius understood that when he was sitting alone in a room, he wasn’t going to do anything stupid. He just needed to be on his own. James, Lily and Peter hadn’t tried to do that either and Remus was more grateful than they would ever know.
“Look what Mrs. Sherman sent over.”
Remus looked around and saw Sirius had just entered the room, carrying a tray of what looked like his favourite biscuits. “She didn’t have to do that…”
“Considering we moved out without giving her a good reason, I’m inclined to agree with you,” Sirius said, setting the tray down on the coffee table. “But she insisted and asked me to tell you that she’s sorry.”
Remus swallowed with noticeable difficulty and nodded.
Sirius nodded towards the tray. “You should really eat something.” He hadn’t seen his friend eat anything yet that day and Remus was usually the one who complained when he didn’t have breakfast. Of course, the complaining part came mostly from the fact that Sirius had usually finished any breakfast item in the house…
“I will later,” Remus said, straightening his tie before shoving his hands in his pockets and crossing towards the open front door to look out onto the street. It was so bloody nice out. It was too nice out to lay his parents to rest.
“Look, it’ll all be over soon,” Sirius tried to assure him. “We all know you want to be by yourself, but you know you’ve got to do what your parents wanted. Just try and focus on the fact that it’ll be over soon.”
“I know,” Remus said shortly, pushing the front door open and walking out after muttering something about getting to the church early.
Sirius stayed where he was for a long time before deciding he should leave as well. He knew everything was steadily building up inside of his friend. Remus wasn’t allowing himself to grieve. He wasn’t allowing himself to just give in and admit he was upset. Hopefully once the funeral was over that would happen. There was only so much a person could take before it became too much to handle.
“Hey, mate,” James said when he spotted Remus standing outside of the church. James had just arrived and instantly looked around for the man, spotting him leaning against the metal railing on the stairs. “I’m really sorry. You know Dumbledore’s doing everything he can to try and find the mutants that did this.”
Remus nodded mutely. He knew the Headmaster was doing just that, but he just didn’t want to think about it. He knew what the outcome would be, anyway. Dumbledore would find them because it was impossible to find people who didn’t want to be found.
“Lily wanted to come and pay her respects, but she doesn’t want to bring the baby so close to so many people at once.”
“Yeah, I know, tell her it’s alright.” Remus didn’t blame the woman. Too many people so close to a newborn baby was just asking for trouble.
“She’s going to come see you in a few days.” When James saw Remus wasn’t up for much conversation, he gently clapped him on the shoulder and moved into the church. It was disgusting that this had to happen. He hated thinking two people like Harry and Anna had to be murdered. At least with his own parents, they had been allowed to die on their own terms. No one had forced the life out of them. He hoped the Death Eaters were caught, but he doubted it would happen. There were no witnesses to the murder and no evidence had been left behind. Dumbledore and Moody had closely inspected the place after the attack and had found nothing helpful.
There was a handful of people inside the church, the members of the Order, some of Harry’s colleagues from the Prophet, and a small group of Anna’s friends. There was not a single face in there that didn’t appear devastated or at least saddened by the event. James caught the eye of Sirius, who was quietly talking to Peter in one of the pews. The two men hastily got up and went to meet him. They would be helping carrying the caskets in, along with some of the men in the Order. When time came for that, it seemed unreal. James glanced at Remus, who was in front of him as they carried the casket containing his father. His face was obscured, but James knew he wasn’t faring well, judging by the movement of his shoulders that James knew didn’t mean he was tired from carrying the weight.
He was breathing hard for an entirely different reason.
It wasn’t long before Remus had to deliver the eulogy and he had absolutely nothing to say, nothing that he had written down, anyway. He couldn’t be like Sirius and wing it, but he knew he had to try. They were his parents and he loved them more than anyone. It shouldn’t be hard to talk about them, especially considering that everyone in this room loved and respected them. He wasn’t sure he could do it. He shakily stood up and crossed to the podium. He stared at the congregation for some time before clearing his throat with difficulty.
“I… you all know my parents… and I…” He couldn’t do this. The words were getting stuck in his throat and he felt like he was going to be sick. His stomach was churning painfully. They were all looking at him, waiting for him to say something. His parents’ bodies were just feet away from him. He couldn’t do it. He needed air. He had to breathe. “I can’t do this.” Before anyone knew what had happened, he had fled from the church.
Sirius exchanged a significant glance with James and Peter, who both nodded and Sirius got up at once. When Sirius left the building he spotted his friend out of the grass, near a tree whose trunk Remus had just kicked violently. Sirius had never seen him like this before. Even when his grandparents had died he was able to maintain some amount of composure, but this was completely different. He had never been close with his grandparents, not until the last two years of their lives. These were his parents, the people who stayed by his side throughout everything. When he became a werewolf, they didn’t abandon him; they did everything they could to make life easy for him. Now life had dealt them the worst finish possible and Sirius didn’t think their son would ever be okay about it.
Remus turned when he heard footsteps approaching him and Sirius saw that he hurried to compose himself and only managed a little. He noisily cleared his throat. “I… I shouldn’t have run out like that.”
“Dumbledore’s taken over,” Sirius explained. “Everyone’s worried about you.”
“They shouldn’t be,” Remus went on dismissively, looking away from his friend and out towards the street ahead. There was nothing of interest there, but he didn’t want anyone to see him. “I’m fine.”
Sirius couldn’t keep the harsh laugh from coming out. “You’re fine?” he repeated incredulously. “Remus, have you seen yourself lately?”
He wasn’t fine. He was as far away from that as humanly possible. Sirius knew he didn’t want to believe that his parents were dead. He knew there was a part of Remus that was blaming himself for it and Sirius hated that. This was one of his best friends and he didn’t want him beating himself up for something he couldn’t have prevented. It wasn’t right. Harry and Anna shouldn’t have been killed, but they were. Nothing in this world was going as planned and this just added to it.
“Sirius, I can handle it.”
Sirius gritted his teeth and heard the volume of his voice rise dangerously. “Like hell, you can! Your parents just died, Remus. They were killed. That’s not something a person can handle!”
“I can,” Remus insisted through gritted teeth.
“Why are you doing this to yourself? Stop blaming yourself for something that isn’t your fault!” Remus didn’t even bother to wonder how Sirius knew he was doing that. He supposed after being friends with someone for so long, there were just things you knew instantly. “They’re your parents and they wouldn’t want you to do this to yourself.”
“I’m not doing anything to myself.” There was a noticeable break in Remus’s voice, one Sirius had never heard before and it reminded him of what he had been thinking the day Harry had been born, the day Harry and Anna had been killed.
“Why aren’t you letting yourself be sad?”
“What do you mean? Of course I am.” But he wasn’t and he knew it. He was hoping he would be able to after the funeral was over. He was sad, yet he was putting on this act for everyone else. He just wanted to curl up in a ball and hide for a while, but he wasn’t being allowed to.
“I’ve known you for nearly ten years and I’ve never seen you cry. When your grandparents died, you were sad, no one could deny it, but that was it. When the Potters died, Merlin even I shed tears, but you… I don’t know, you just didn’t.”
Remus kept his back facing Sirius as he continued to stare determinedly at the street. Sirius was right. He hadn’t cried since he was a child; he had given up on it a long time ago. It did nothing to help situations and, with everything he went through as a kid, he just couldn’t bring himself to. It was something that had stuck with him throughout his teenage years and was following him into adulthood. He wasn’t unfeeling, but he just couldn’t show that particular form of emotion.
“You know I’m right,” Sirius insisted forcibly. “Why can’t you just forget what anyone may think, what you may think and just let go?” Sirius’s voice was increasing with every word he spoke. He didn’t care, though. He needed to get this through the man’s head. “You’re not doing yourself any good keeping it in. Why can’t you just-”
“I can’t, Sirius!” Remus finally shouted, fed up with everything. He had torn his gaze away from the street and brought it to his friend. Sirius could see the pain was there and how much Remus tried to keep it in.
“Why can’t you?”
“Because… I gave up on it when I was a kid. When you’re bitten by a werewolf and realise you have to go through hell every month for the rest of your life, it’s not something that helps you get through it. When any friend you had as a kid abandons you when they find out there’s something funny about you, it’s not going to bring them back. Crying is not going to bring my parents back, it won’t help them.”
“It’ll help you.”
“No, I’m not going to.”
“Why the bloody hell not?”
“Because if I do, I don’t know if I’ll stop.” That was the truth. If he began to cry, he wouldn’t stop. The shaking in his knees finally brought him to the ground where he planted his forehead in his hands, staring at the grass.
Sirius took a deep breath and sat down in front of the man, who had, for the first time, looked more like a child than he ever had. Sirius doubted the man had ever, mentally, been a child. “No one said you had to stop.”
And that was when Remus finally broke. He gave up caring if it helped bring things back or not. He just let himself cry. Sirius pulled his friend into his chest and waited until his sobs subsided, while tears of his own slid down his nose.
Somewhere with that, Remus’s parents knew just how much their son loved them, just how hard for him this was and just how much he missed them.