***
As the months ticked by after Lavinia's brief and rather awkward conversation with Severus, things started becoming more normal. Sort of. Most days, Lavinia fought for that normal. She clung to it with the desperation of a drowning woman because when the normal slipped, when her facade fell or cracked for even the briefest of moments... it was like she was right back there. Still sitting on the couch in the living room. Waiting. Like time hadn't passed. Like the truth hadn't come out. Like he would still come home. Come back to her.
And then reality set back in. And it hurt just as much as it had that day. Just as much as the first time. It shouldn't have. Shew knew that. She should have moved on. Like Severus had started moving on. Like Remus had started moving on. But she didn't know how. And when the mask slipped and that normal she so clung to fell away... Somehow, she hadn't processed it all. Somehow some stupid part of her heart was still waiting. Was still hoping. Was still certain he could come home.
But he wouldn't. Because he had left.
And some days, it didn't matter. Some days she was strong enough to just... move on. To keep going. Because some days she knew that she still had something left. Despite everything that was gone, there was still something here for her to work with. To grow off of. And some days, that was enough. Some days, she truly believed that she too could move on.
But other days... well other days were like today. And today... Today the cliff was high and the sea breeze was sharp and salty in Lavinia's face as she stood there, arms wrapped around herself, mere inches from the edge, watching the waves crash on the jagged stones at the cliff base far below her. The sound of them was a wild thing, a rush and sweep as their spray lifted on the wind. The violence of it was almost repelling to her today. Because there was no violence in her today. There was nothing in her today. It was all just... empty.
Of course, if she was honest, it wasn't just today. Today she didn't have the energy to pretend, but truthfully... Well. She had been empty for a very long time now. One year, to be precise. Twelve months. Three hundred and sixty five days. Exactly.
Because one year ago today, they had died.
One year ago today, he had left.
And one year ago today, Lavinia had realized that all those forevers they had promised hadn't meant much of anything at all. She hadn't meant much of anything at all. And she knew that was selfish. Knew that was such a narrow and naive view of what Sirius had done, but on days like this she didn't care. On days like this, she woke up and the bed was too empty and too cold and there was an open space where he should have been. On days like this the ring on her finger made her want to scream. Want to find him in whatever cell he now rotted in and shout in his face that how could he. How could he leave her behind? How could he think revenge was more important than all the promises they had made? All the love he'd said he'd had?
How could he?
And then of course, the guilt sunk in. Because that was foolish of her. Silly. Selfish. He had been hurting, she knew that. He had been in pain and grieving and he had run without thinking and she knew that. But he hadn't run to her. For all that he always told her, over and over again to run to him. For all that he had promised again and again that there were no arms he'd rather fall into. No comfort he'd rather have. When it had mattered, when it had been put to the test... he had not run to her.
He hadn't even come home to her.
And it was selfish of her to focus on that. To not consider everything else that had happened. To not forgive him when she knew she should have.
But on days like this, all Lavinia really wanted was to be just a little bit selfish. Just for a little while. She wanted to not have to understand him. To not have to forgive him. She wanted it to be okay that she hurt and she hated him for it. She wanted it to be okay that she raged at him for leaving. Because he had left. And that was on him. Regardless of circumstances, regardless of all of it, he had left. And that had been his choice. And she wanted to blame him and hate him and hurt and not feel guilty about it.
It was never quite possible, though. The guilt always came back. Because this whole mess had started with her trusting Peter. With her telling Sirius to as well. And because when all was said and done, she did understand him. And it would have been so much easier not to. It would have been so much easier not to feel anything at all.
Most of the time, of course, she succeeded at that. Or rather, on a selective few points she had succeeded. She hadn't felt anything when Rowle had been locked up. She hadn't felt anything when the Order's death toll had mounted. She hadn't even felt anything when she'd gotten that letter from Eloise about her. Because it didn't matter. None of it mattered. Nothing in the world seemed to matter anymore because they were gone. They were all gone. And on days like this, the truth of that rent her apart and nothing else in the world mattered in the slightest. Nothing could possibly puncture this hollow that somehow hurt. This nothing that was so much worse than aching. This screaming in the silence in her core.
And she wanted it to stop. She wanted the hollow to stop hurting. She wanted the nothing to just be nothing. She wanted the silence to stop screaming. She wanted everything to stop.
Which was why she was here. Standing on a cliff edge, taking a step forward so her toes brushed the edge and her heart lodged itself in her throat, shouting and screaming and begging in some primordial survival instinct.
It needn't have bothered, really, but... But standing there, staring down at the waves, Lavinia let herself imagine it. For just one moment. One blissful, selfish, horrifying moment. She let herself think she would jump. Let herself imagine stepping off this cliff. Let herself imagine the freefall, the moment of freedom and fear and regret. She let herself imagine her bones breaking on those rocks with the waves. And then... nothing. Sweet relief. No more pain. No more guilt. No more hollow. She would just be... gone. Gone like James was gone. Gone like Lily was gone. Disappeared into wherever it was that came after death, where Sirius would be soon. Where she would never have to hurt again.
But the moment was just a moment. Just a dream. A moment of foolish, wild, selfish hope. And nothing more.
Because she wouldn't step off that cliff. She wouldn't go. Because...
"Vin?" Remus's voice was soft and scared, but Lavinia didn't move even as that all too familiar grief and guilt pooled in her core again.
She wouldn't jump because of that. Because of him. Because she remembered what he had almost said that day just under a year ago.
I can't lose another friend.
He had broken himself off, but Lavinia had read the subtext. And she wasn't an idiot. Remus couldn't lose another friend. So she needed to be there. Needed to stay strong. Needed to weather this storm because just he was all she had left, she was all he had left. And if she could be enough for him... well then she would be. No matter how much she wished and dreamed. No matter how much she hurt.
"Vin, come inside," Remus murmured, again pulling Lavinia from her thoughts, though his voice was much closer this time and there was an almost resigned note in it that Lavinia hadn't heard the first time. It was fair though. This was not the first time he had found her like this. Standing on an edge. Waiting. Waiting for time to reverse. For her friends to come back from the dead. For someone else to come along who could help Remus because she didn't know how. Because there were days when it took everything she had just to breathe and being there for him... She loved him and she wasn't about to stop but... but in some quiet selfish part of her heart, she knew she didn't want to do this. What she wanted was to walk off the edge of the Earth. What she wanted was to disappear into a place where she didn't exist anymore. Where this pain, this void, this everything didn't exist anymore.
She couldn't, though, which she hated.
But, Merlin, she wanted to.
And she hated that too.
Because she had kept telling herself she could move on. She had kept promising herself she would try. She had said that Bertie's word's had made a difference. That seeing Severus and knowing he had moved on had made a difference. And yet... here she was. Again.
The funny thing really, was that there were those days when she thought she was managing. When she went about her life and it felt normal without her having to cling to it. Days when she felt... fine. When she didn't even think of the void in her chest. But all it took was one thought before her brain had even come fully awake. One bleary reach across the bed to find emptiness and it all came crashing down. Other days, it was a glance at the wrong photograph at the wrong moment. Or his name almost making it to her lips. Some stupid, tiny little thing and the world came crashing down around her ears and that void seemed to balloon and swallow her whole.
And when that happened, all those assurances, all those words and realizations and promises she'd made herself... they all meant nothing. Because when that happened, she couldn't breathe for the pain of it and it didn't seem to matter that it had been a year. A full damn year. And yet it still hurt just as much.
"Vin are you listening at all?" Remus asked now and out of the corner of her eye Lavinia saw him inching closer, approaching her hesitantly, like the height scared him. Or perhaps, she thought, he knew just what was going through her head right now and that was what terrified him.
"I'll come in in a moment," Lavinia whispered eventually. And she would. She just... wanted to stay here for just a little while longer. Wanted to stand here and be selfish and not have it matter. Just for now. Just this afternoon. Just... just for a moment.
And maybe Remus knew that because he sighed and nodded vaguely. But he didn't leave. Perhaps because he didn't want to leave her alone out here. Or perhaps because standing here he realized just how lovely the waves were in the moments before they crashed. Just how enticing the drop was.
It was probably, as Lavinia realized mere moments later, the first option, because after a beat of silence, Remus sighed again and shook his head. "Still?" he asked quietly, a hopeless edge to the words that clanged on something sensitive in Lavinia's core. She ignored it. Pushed it away into that void. One more thing for it to swallow. One more thing that she told herself didn't matter.
She also didn't answer the question. Because he knew the answer. If he thought to ask that question in the first place, then he knew. He just wished he didn't.
"Vin," Remus started again and again there was that hopelessness, that catch to his voice that made Lavinia's insides twist so horribly. That made the pain double down and made her wish all the harder that she could just... go. Leap. Make it end. But if she felt pain at this, then so did he. And he was supposed to get better. She was supposed to help him get better.
So she sighed and dropped her gaze from the waves to her feet. "I'm fine, Remus," she lied softly. "I'll be in in a moment."
Remus sighed as well and nodded. But he still didn't move and Lavinia glanced at him, wishing he would go. Wishing he would leave her to just one more moment when she didn't have to think about it. Didn't have to worry about her pain touching him and making it worse. Didn't have to do anything at all.
Which was stupid and she knew it. Because Remus would have told her to feel whatever the hell it was that she felt. To not push it down. To not worry about him because he didn't want her to suffer, especially not on his account.
And he was right. She knew he was right. But she still didn't want to hurt him. She had hurt him enough. Was hurting him right now and sometimes it felt like she didn't know how to stop. Like the pain was a writhing thing inside of her that lashed out and wrapped itself around all the people that she loved and dragged them down with her.
Indeed, as if she needed confirmation, the next words out of Remus's mouth were a miserable, desperate whisper that made Lavinia's insides go sick and cold.
"If it wasn't for me would you even hesitate?" he asked, his voice breaking slightly. Because of course, he knew the answer to that. They both did.
So Lavinia just dropped her arms and turned around, walking silently back to the house. Because of course, Remus was there. And with him there... she did far more than just hesitate. But without him...
Lavinia sighed and shook her head, like she could dislodge the thought. Like she could pretend that the end of that sentence didn't matter when she knew - when they both knew - that it very much did.