A/N: When one is given free rein to write songfics without fear of ridicule, why not take advantage of it? :) Inspired by Sarah McLachlin's Full of Grace. This is the extended version; the original 100-word drabble is here. I couldn't really do it justice in 100 words.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Severus Snape, and all their associates are characters belonging to J.K. Rowling. I claim no rights to them, their surroundings, or their situations. Much to my sorrow.
Aftermath
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The winter here's cold, and bitter,
It's chilled us to the bone
It was unusually cold for the first of November, and Remus shivered as he picked aimlessly through the ruins of the little house at Godric's Hollow, hoping to find something--anything--that had escaped the destruction; something he could save for little Harry.
He wasn't finding much. Whatever had caused Voldemort's spell to rebound had also set off a chain-reaction that had all but completely flattened the small structure--somehow, impossibly, leaving Harry untouched. It was a pointless endeavor, but it did provide a distraction from the pain that threatened to drag him down into dark and nightmarish places, if he thought too long or too hard about it.
James and Sirius and Peter had been home to him, just as surely as this place had been to the Potters. They'd been his Secret-Keepers, without the need of any spell--his safety net when his condition drove him out of a job or a flat, or whatever facade of normality he tried to erect. Without them, what was he to do?
He was right back where he'd started--alone. Remus Lupin, the last Marauder.
It was irrelevant, really, the temperature. He was certain he would never feel warm again.
I feel just like I'm sinking,
And I claw for solid ground
Sirius was laughing, cackling like a madman. They took him for one, hauling him away in a body bind, and who could blame them? He'd do the same thing in their place.
He couldn't stop. It was simply preposterous, too absurdly horrible. How could things have gone so cataclysmically wrong? And it was his fault, his fault, nobody else's fault but his own. The whole thing had been his idea.
Never mind that Pettigrew had fooled everyone, the treacherous, stinking rodent!--he, Sirius Black, had been James' right-hand man, the one he depended on. He bloody well ought to have known. Well and truly did he deserve to be locked away for all time.
Prongs was dead, and Lily. Remus (dear Remus, whom he'd so wrongly suspected, and for that alone he surely was damned) would be on his own now, and how would he ever manage? Sirius wondered whether Moony believed that he'd done it. Probably. He had no reason to think otherwise...
And Harry. His tiny godson. Oh, sweet Merlin's blood--what would become of little Harry?
There was nothing for it but to laugh. Otherwise he would start to scream, and keep on with it until his throat bled.
I'm pulled down by the undertow.
I never thought I could feel so low.
Oh darkness, I feel like letting go.
It was nearing dawn when Severus finally broke down, too worn out to maintain his mask of stoicism any longer. Dumbledore stood by his office window, watching helplessly as the young man's shoulders heaved in silent agony.
There was nothing he could say. The Death-Eater-turned-spy had worked so hard, had taken the most extravagant risks. All for the sake of a debt that he loathed, but would honor with his last breath, if necessary...and for love of a woman who could never have been his.
And this was what it had come to. Ash and cinders, obligations unfulfilled. The most Pyrrhic of victories.
Albus could tell him again and again that the fault was not his, but he knew it would make no difference. Severus Snape had no tolerance for failure, real or perceived--least of all his own.
Finally the boy fell quiet, his head cradled in his arms on the Headmaster's desk. The old man had never seen him weep before. And he suspected, as he conjured a blanket and let it settle gently over the painfully thin, slumped frame, that he never would again.
It's just that we stayed, too long
In the same old sickly skin
Peter Pettigrew had run for many miles in his rodent form, irrationally convinced that Moony and Padfoot were just on his tail, before exhaustion forced him to take shelter in a cold, lightless hole beneath a Muggle sidewalk.
Curled up in a small trembling ball of fur, it dawned on him slowy that he was in a very, very bad position. He'd betrayed his friends, and abandoned his supposed Death Eater comrades.
Anyone he might have run to for protection was now either dead, or as likely to kill him as look twice at him. And in his heart of hearts, he knew that he would deserve it.
He might never be able to show his human face again.
Some Gryffindor he'd turned out to be.
If all of the strength and all of the courage
Come and lift me from this place,
And far above it all, as they passed over Bristol, Harry Potter--bereft of everything, his innocence mercifully sheltering him from the magnitude of his loss--nodded off in the security of Hagrid's great arms.
Blissfully unaware of the wizards across the world who toasted the name of the Boy Who Lived; of the handful of broken souls he left behind; and of the dismal life toward which he flew, he alone slept peacefully that night.
I know I could love you much better than this
Full of grace.
Somewhere else entirely, Lily Potter was smiling, her final purpose fulfilled.
'Your mother died to save you...to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin.'
It's better this way.