swim || remus lupin

breezeblocks

The same three thoughts tore me back to consciousness.

I was gonna kill him.

I'm just like her.

He didn't even have his wand.

"I'm so sorry," the boy said. "Fuck, Syd, I'm so sorry."

But that's not who I was looking for.

"Where is he?" I slurred.

Remus was kneeling beside me and had both hands cupping my face as he repeated his sentences; "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry."

I tried to sit up, but the room swayed back and forth around my head like a pendulum and I collapsed into Remus's lap.

"Where... Where's Theo?"

"He's gone," said James, who was standing on the other side of the room with Lily and Sirius. "He got away."

"What?!" - I tried to sit up again but Remus steadied me and I puffed out a sigh as my head fell back down. - "How could you let him get away?"

"It wasn't exactly a choice," Sirius huffed, smoothing out his shirt angrily.

"He's bloody strong, that one," noted James. "Took out all four of us."

"Five," I corrected. "He took out all five of us."

"No," Lily said slowly. "Just the four of us... He wouldn't touch you."

"Then who-"

"I'm so sorry."

I finally looked up at Remus's face. It was pale and looked thinner, like after the moons. He had a few terrified tears streaming down his cheeks and falling over mine, but I didn't care.

"You stunned me?" I asked.

"You were gonna kill him" Remus whispered, and my heart stopped beating.

I was gonna kill him.

I'm just like her.

I nodded carefully, suddenly feeling stiff as a corpse, and cleared my throat a little. I tore away from Remus's falling and fearful eyes and looked out to the room around us.

It was trashed, to be blunt. Drawers from the bureaus had been ripped away and their contents littered the floor; there were holes and burn marks in the walls, which I now realized were decorated with pastel zoo animals; the only window had been shattered, it's glass falling to coat the carpet as well; in the corner there was a rocking chair tipped on its side, which I now realized was beside a crib; and on the back wall, no more than three steps from the door, lay a dead body.

"Can we get out of here," I asked quietly, forcing my eyes away from Theresa - not that it mattered; the image of her would be forever etched into my brain.

Remus nodded and his fingers brushed comfortingly across my cheeks as he turned to face the rest of our friends. I couldn't hear anything he was saying, though, all I could see was the way Theresa's arm was thrown underneath her unnaturally. And the way her brown curls were sprawled across her face. And the way her legs were crooked across the floor. And the way her chest refused to rise with breath.