The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix Part Three

LXXXIII: Pensieves R Us?!

"You lost your TEMPER more like! Your mind is perfectly fine. Or at least as close to perfectly fine as it ever was. Sirius - YOU are the one that went against what Lily and James asked of us, AND you abandoned me, your - your own husband."

Sirius let out a barking laugh. "Oh Remus... how quickly we forget."

Remus stared at Sirius.

"Who abandoned who, Remus?"

Sirius was laughing, his head thrown back, that horrible, manic type of laugh that reminded Remus of newspaper headlines he couldn't get away from - every day on the front cover of the Daily Prophet for months and months... appearing periodically when he least expected it under the fold, in columns that counted anniversaries and more recently in commentary on the search for the escaped convicted murderer... It reminded him of being haunted for thirteen years, of nights up alone and pacing, or else laying in bed, screaming into a pillow in an empty flat he could no longer afford, the clock's ticking slowly getting louder, of bright yellow eviction notices taped to the door and long nights in the bomb shelter alone with the stacked cans of mushy peas and spaghetti hoops... Of a long boat ride through choppy water and under pitch-black skies, his patronus sitting beside him, tongue lolling, a bright-white reminder of the dog that he thought he would never see again... Of guilt-ridden thoughts, thinking it would've been easier to cope with the loss if he was dead than this... wishing that he was dead... or maybe wishing that he, Remus, was instead.

"Stop it," Remus whispered, then a bit louder, "Stop it..." and when the laughing continued, he shouted it, "STOP IT, SIRIUS, PLEASE!"

Sirius's laughter died away - slowly fading off as he stared at Remus.

"How many times do I have to say I'm sorry for something that never happened?" Remus asked, his voice quiet.

"We both know it did happen."

Remus's jaw squared and he stared resolutely at Sirius.

"Also, what friend were you sharing our Map with? Let's talk about that a moment, shall we?"

Remus was thrown off by this. "What?"

"In the Shrieking Shack," Sirius said, "You mentioned looking at the Marauder's Map with a friend. Then Snape comes along talking about a cozy little scene up in your office..."

"Oh for Godric's sake, it was Tonks," Remus snapped, rolling his eyes. "You're ridiculous. You've been just sitting about, waiting to bring that back up, haven't you?"

"No it's just popped back into my head. You understand why... given the subject at hand now... betrayal and abandonment and everything that went wrong back then, yeah?"

"Sirius, I did NOT betray you, or abandon you!" and before Sirius could clap back as he always did, "Who else was going to go in and talk to the werewolves? Who else was ever capable of doing that? You? Were you going to go marching into the middle of all that and play your Alpha-Omega games, Snuffles?"

"It wasn't just the werewolves! I know that was a bloody assignment -- I know that was about the war... We were already so far gone by then that I didn't even expect you to tell me the whole truth then! We were already shattered!"

"If you bloody say what I think you're about to --"

"I SAW THE DRAWINGS, REMUS!"

"You've never listened to me when I tell you the way things were, you're too busy making assumptions and --"

Sirius stared at him.

"For crying out loud. That's it. We're settling this! I'm - I'm getting a pensieve!"