Author's note: Written for Aillil's birthday.

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Burnt Offering


The living room was dark, lit only by a fire flickering on the hearth and a dull lamp on a corner of the table. Remus sat down at the table, pointed his wand at the sheet of parchment already in position, and muttered a few words. Then he sat for some time, flicking a quill between his fingers, before finally bending over to write.


Dear Sirius,


We've known each other for ten years, now. When I first met you, we were eleven, and I was too grateful for your casual friendship to be anything but dazzled by the force of your personality. You and James and Peter took me under your pureblood wings, ignoring my oddities and my own suspicion that I was merely insipid, and made me one of you.


When we were twelve, thirteen and fourteen, we made a playground of Hogwarts, revelling in our power over fellow pupils and staff alike. We were boys, and the world was there to be manipulated and enjoyed.


When we were fifteen, you showed your friendship for me, and your skill, in ways I could never have imagined. You changed my life again.


When we were sixteen, you took me, coerced me, loved me, rent me into pieces, cradled me in you.


You took me, and my secret, and raised me on high beside you, a moth to your glorious flame.


When we were seventeen, you betrayed me, all of us, for a moment's revenge on an enemy who was unworthy of it. We fought bitterly, and then I forgave you.


When we were eighteen, we took on life. We danced and burned, and around us stars exploded.


When we were nineteen, we began fighting the Dark Lord in earnest, living our lives in shadow.


When we were twenty, we became uncles, gazing at Harry in bemused adulation. I bought him Hans Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, while you talked endlessly of the day when you would teach him to play Quidditch.


At twenty-one, you betrayed us all again. James. Lily. Harry. Peter. Me. Everyone else. I didn't know you after all.


And yet, you made me feel, touch, want, desire, love. Your beauty, your dark, sexy laugh, your lovely, lithe body, the thought of it twisting around mine, makes me long for you. I yearn for the Sirius I believed I knew.


And so I offer this to your memory; the memory of my Sirius, not the shell now residing in Azkaban. A burnt offering, composed of the ashes of our love, which has been my all for so many years.


My love,


Remus scratched out this last appellation, stared at the page for a moment, and then reinstated it.


My love – because it is the only word that is appropriate – I shan't write "yours always", because I cannot love the traitor I now know you to be. And so, to you as you were, with all my desolate love, I am your Remus.


Remus screwed up the paper, and threw it into the fire, watching intently as it flared briefly and then collapsed into little stars of light, before disintegrating. Then he reached absently towards the bookshelf, selected a book at random, and headed slowly towards the door.