Work Text:
A shadow passed, a shadow passed, yearning, yearning
For the fool it called a home
And it whistles through the ghosts still left behind
Everything at Hogwarts was exactly as Remus had left it fifteen years ago.
The corridors still loomed over his head, beautiful but cold. The portraits still gossiped in their frames, giggling behind fans and feathers. The grounds were still sprawling. There were still Quidditch teams practicing on the pitch at all hours of the day, and there were still students huddled in groups by the black lake, pretending to study. The staircases were still numerous and dizzying. Remus had forgotten how difficult they were to climb, and wondered how he had managed to do so as a teen. The blind confidence of youth, he supposed.
There was a certain comfort in returning to the castle, a familiarity in the paths he took to get from the East wing to the West wing that eased an ache in his heart. Sometimes, Remus would simply turn his face out an open window and inhale the air just for the scent. Mossy stone, leather-bound books, parchment, ink. It was all how it had been before.
It was beautiful. And it was torturous.
Every step Remus took, he was walking alongside a ghost from the past. He rounded a corner, and there was Dorcas Meadows. Strong and sharp, she was leaning against the wall, a thick textbook tucked under her arms. Her eyes met Remus’s, and he felt his heart skip a beat from the sheer shock of seeing her.
And then Remus blinked, and Dorcas vanished as quickly as she’d appeared.
He saw the ghosts everywhere. Not real ghosts, of course. It wasn’t as if all his dead friends and acquaintances had come back to haunt the halls of Hogwarts. Only Remus could see them. Occasionally, he heard them. Marlene McKinnon was laughing in the courtyard. Regulus Black was skulking the Great Hall.
The most painful to see was Peter. Remus saw him in the corridors, scurrying over, eyes bright with some new prank idea he wanted Remus to help execute. Remus logically knew that this memory was better than the real alternative, in which all that was left of Peter was a singular finger. The memory was better than the empty coffin resting underneath a small, marble headstone. But every time that blond hair cropped into his field of view, Remus had to lock himself in his office for a good ten minutes.
Remus saw the ghosts in his students, as well. He had nearly fainted upon seeing Neville Longbottom, who had Frank’s jawline and Alice’s nose. He didn’t know how to approach the young boy, who was so timid and shy. How could Remus explain that he had known Frank and Alice, back when they were young and brave and in love. How could he look Neville in the eyes, and tell him that he had wept when reading about their attack in the newspaper, when he was left unscathed.
And then, of course, there was Harry. Harry, who looked so like James that Remus could barely look at him some days without tears pricking at the back of his eyes. Harry, who had Lily’s eyes. Harry, with a kind and open heart. Harry, who was brave and true and all the best parts of his parents.
When Remus had said he was going to speak to the conductor after the dementor attack on the Hogwarts Express, that hadn’t been a lie. Remus had simply omitted the first step, which was to dive into the nearest restroom and sob for three minutes. Great, labored sobs that left him feeling like a towel wrung out for every last drop of water.
The ghosts lingered over Remus’s shoulders like a cloak he couldn’t tear off. They flitted in and out, disappearing between one blink and the next. Their whispers were only that—whispers that left him as soon as they arrived.
Only one ghost never left.
Remus would walk into the Great Hall, and he’d feel Sirius’s arm sling over his shoulders. It lingered there throughout the entire meal. His laugh rang in Remus’s ears when he spoke with Snape, egging Remus into making a snide remark. Sirius lounged at the teacher’s desk during every lesson, laughing as Remus directed the students in fighting boggarts or working through a strategy lesson. When the students were dismissed, he smirked. “You always were the scholastic one.”
He was in every nighttime shadow, his eyebrows arched in a way that could only suggest one thing. He was in every broom closet, and Remus could feel hot breath on his neck as he passed by the locked door. He laid in bed beside Remus, pressing sweet nothings into his chest.
Sirius was by Remus’s side every hour of every day. He permeated every dream. There was no escape, and there was no relief. Remus had done his best to squash the memory of Sirius to the recesses of his mind, but Hogwarts had a way of dredging everything up, including him.
Remus had never hated Sirius more.
“You son of a bitch!" Remus screamed one night at the sky. It was autumn and the chill seeped into his bones, making them ache worse than after a full moon. He didn’t care. “How could you? How could you do that to them? To me?”
There was no relief when he collapsed onto the cold, hard ground. Remus had been searching for answers for twelve years, and there were none. Loneliness was a chasm in his chest, widening with each passing second.
Remus should have been happy. The war was well and truly over, and he had survived relatively unscathed. He had been given the chance to connect with Harry, the boy he should have fought for a long time ago. He was back at Hogwarts, for Merlin’s sake, the place where he’d made his happiest memories.
And yet, Remus had never felt further from happiness. Hogwarts was exactly how he had left it, and yet nothing like it at all. It was a hollow place with only Remus left to fill the emptiness.