Everybody keeps saying I'll survive. I'll heal, with time. My lover, my mate, my beloved, my Sirius is gone, and all they can say is that I'll survive. They don't understand. I lost you once for thirteen years and it nearly killed me. And this time, there's not going to be a miraculous escape. You don't escape from coffins. And it's hard to suddenly show up for a heated reunion with your lifelong lover when your body is in more pieces than a Muggle jigsaw puzzle.

Years ago, when you were an Auror and it seemed even you couldn't shine enough to drive out the dark, I told you I didn't want to be your widow. I told you I loved you, that all my life's happiness was wrapped up in you and that I didn't think I could survive without you.

I was wrong. I know that now. I could survive. I could live for years. I am a werewolf, after all. Barring silver or Avada Kedavra, there's no telling how long I could live.

If I wanted to. Truth is, though, I don't. I have no desire to live without you. I should try, I suppose. For Harry, who shocked me at the funeral by crying on my shoulder and telling me he loved me. For Minerva, who's been trying to get me to agree to teach again. For Peter, the first friend we lost to Voldemort's darkness. For his memory. For James' memory. For Lily's. And for yours.

Your memory. Oh God, I remember you. Every moment of my life spent in your company. I remember silent laughter bubbling up at me in strange, pale eyes from under a fringe of black hair. I remember the press of your hand as you helped me up from the ground, where I'd landed after we ran into each other - literally! - in Diagon Alley, our first meeting. I remember you leaning into my ear, informing me in a fierce whisper that werewolf or not I was still your friend and if I tried to run away you would run after me, no matter what. I remember that same rough, passionate whisper, accompanied by the slide of warm skin and the heat and light of a supernova when we kissed for the first time, when you told me you loved me. I remember making love to you all night, burying myself inside you until I thought I would never get out again, and we would be stuck like that always, literally joined at the hip, to borrow a Muggle saying. I remember hoping that I would have you forever, and thinking, with the fierce naïve passion of the young, that if I did, everything would be perfect. I remember watching, bewildered, uncomprehending, as the love and warmth and perfect trust between us faded and died. I remember hearing that James and Lily and Peter were dead, that you had done what we never thought you would, sold us all to Voldemort. My world crumbled under my feet, crumbled and blew away. I cried so hard that night, I cried for all of us, even, especially, you, my Sirius. I remember the long, lonely darkness that followed, twelve years spent thinking you had betrayed us in the worst possible way. And I remember in the Shack, when proof of your innocence was at last before me, and I was once again holding you in my arms.

That was the last time I saw you alive.

I'm told you were coming to see me when the Death Eaters took you. That Albus had asked you to lay low with me for a while. We were supposed to be reunited. I should be holding you right now, telling you I loved you still, telling you I could never stop. But instead I'm standing at your grave, with a vial of silver filings in one hand, come to tell you that I'll see you soon.

I can't go on without you, Sirius. I thought I could, once, but knowing the truth of what happened…knowing how you died, protecting Harry, refusing to tell the Death Eaters anything that could hurt him…Snape told us, in great detail, exactly what happened to you. I think the slimy bastard enjoyed the look on my face and I know he enjoyed the look on Harry's. Harry cried into my robes, great, gulping sobs, wailing that it was his fault. I thought my heart would break listening to him cry your name like that. That boy loves you so much, Sirius. He told me, between crying jags, that he wishes he'd told you. I assured him that you know. I didn't tell him that I would be sure to tell you, when I saw you again.

The silver will be painful, as your death was. I'll swallow it all, every grain, and it will burn from the moment it passes my lips, burn like fire, like Cruciatus. I won't scream, because I'll be unable to. The silver will consume me, burn me alive. There will be no body to find. Nobody will be forced to identify my remains, as I was forced to identify yours. I say remains, not body, because what remained of you could not be said to count as a proper body. It hurt me so to see you, torn apart so viciously, mangled so badly that I was forced to sniff, to seek out your smell, because I could not believe that what I was looking at was my Sirius. I wasn't certain. It didn't look like you. It didn't look anything like you.

Snape swears he couldn't have stopped it. I don't know whether I believe him. I know Harry doesn't. He's said as much. To me, to Dumbledore, but not to anybody else. Dumbledore hasn't told us what he thinks. I almost pity Snape if Harry finds out he could have stopped it and didn't. He really is James' son.

The sun is coming up. I wanted to watch it, one last time, before I died. It is as beautiful as any sunrise I've ever seen. It is the last thing I will ever see. Goodbye, Sirius, my love. I'll see you soon.