Sirius had been frightened, Harry remembered that, and he remembered
 just how odd the emotion looked on his godfather's face.  The men stood 
next to each other, side by side, and an onlooking not knowing them might
 have thought them to be blood related, so closely did their hair color 
and skin match, the former dark as ink at night, the latter pale as 
parchement, and stretched over their faces in the same stressed way.  The 
room was dark; it cast shadows on the walls that Harry couldn't see through.
  
	It was the only way that Remus seemed to gain any comfort.  And that,
 of course, was the other similarity.  Harry hadn't known his godfather nearly
 as well as he would have liked.  Childhood dreams of being swept away from 
his horrid Muggle family had failed him years ago, and he'd long since given 
up hope that Sirius would save him from them.  He'd been a month shy of his 
eighteenth birthday when Vernon had tossed him out, and Harry, lost and 
alone had made his way back to Hogwarts to find a place to stay.  
	Lupin had taken him in, and for the first time, Harry had found 
that long dreamed connection with an adult that he'd craved as a child. 
 He hadn't known what to do with it, at first, but Lupin...Remus... was 
patient, and together they had overcome the barriers that his mother's 
sister had placed into effect.  Harry loved the older man like an uncle, 
and Remus appearred to regard Harry with the warm affection he would have
 granted a child of his own.  Through Remus, Harry had learned of and known
 Sirius, who was too lost in his guilt to come forward on his own.  Even 
now, Harry was closer to the brown haired man with the streaks of grey,
 than he was with his own godfather's line face.

	They probably wouldn't even had spoken, if Remus hadn't fallen ill.

	Not for the first time, Harry wished that he knew what to do, 
staring as he did at Remus' sweat soaked face.  The man was tossing and 
mumbling in Mogwart induced slumber, the sheets tumbled about his body.  
Harry knew the short of it; Voldemort had won the allegiance of the 
werewolves, as he had in the first battle, and werewolves were pack 
animals, destined and doomed to follow the will of the majority.  

	Remus hadn't wanted to, he refused it, fighting the urges as much 
as he'd ever fought them during the full moon's reign.  When they grew 
stronger, Remus had retreated to his bedroom, bidding Harry to lock the 
door behind him, furious and frightened, and reflecting those emotions onto
 Harry.  

	He'd done what he could, really.  Harry had locked the door, and 
came when the screaming stopped, or when the sounds of precious, much loved
 possesions breaking ceased, and he cleaned the blood and tried to encorage
 Remus to eat.  Eventually, when Remus moved beyond Harry's ability to help
 or to control, and he had begun to ask for death rather than the horror 
that would be submitting to the Dark Lord's rule, Harry had called Dumbledore
 for aid.  The old man hadn't been able to help personally, which Harry hated
 as much as he understood.  It was a long war, and Dumbledore was needed in
 too many places to take a day off to help one individual, even if that one
 were Harry's only family.  So instead, Dumbledore sent Sirius, who had 
come with flashing dark eyes and his hair pulled into a functional braid.  

	He brought with him the instructions to concoct the Wolfsbane 
potion, thinking that it might help.  Unfortunately, the potion was 
beyond his or Harry's skill.  The only one who Harry had ever heard 
prepare it properly was Snape, and Snape was long since dead at the 
Dark Lord's hands.  Still, they tried, and in the trying grew to love 
each other as they could see the obvious affection each felt for their
 mutual loved one.  

	Which was why they stood now together, their lips taught and faces
 pale, watching the man they loved as brother and father writhe on the bed,
 fingers clawed and weakly slashing, and both knowing that it was hopeless,
 but both being unable to suggest that final, horrible ending.

	The next morning when Harry awoke, Remus was gone.  

	He stood in the door frame, one hand clutching at the wood, staring
 at Sirius who held the broken bonds that had contained Remus twelve hours
 before.  They looked at each other, horror struck, and Harry couldn't
 remember who had said the first word, or tossed the first accusition.
  He only knew that things had been said, things that dug into his 
subconscious, that he would never forget.

	Sirius had left first, Harry remembered that much later, when the 
screaming had stopped and the wild, uncontrolled wandless magic had finally
 died down again.  It left Harry, numb and shaken, alone in the house.  It 
already seemed a broken shell of itself; the windows broken, the woodstove 
cracked, the pictures of Harry and Remus, and of Remus' family, stood with
 their inhabitants having fled long ago.  Their empty frames proved to be 
the final straw, and Harry ran as well.  

	Hogwarts was nearly empty, depleted of students over the age of 
fifteen.  All the rest were fighting.  It was voluntary, of course, but that
 didn't stop them from faking their ages and rushing off towards death, 
either with the Order... Or not.  

	Harry left there as well, there was no place for him there.