(Uploaded at 11:53pm , 20/03/23 , ready for a midnight read. Although this says the end, there's bonus chapters.)

REMUS' POV.
*a month later*

A knock sounded softly on my door. It was open already, I didn't move. Instead I just adjusted the buttons on the cuff of my shirt.

"Hi, hun." Lily said in just as soft of a voice, letting herself into my house and into the living room where I sat in darkness.

She walked over to me and sat down on the sofa beside me. Black dress freshly pressed and the first time she had put on makeup since the news.

The ministry contacted all "secondary associations with the victims" the week after their deaths. As if we all weren't and saw ourselves as immediate family.

It stung to know her parents were told officially before me. People who didn't give a shit about her, got to know the details before me.

They've held onto her body until now, the ministry. I wasn't able to see her during that time. It took weeks for them to process and confirm the Muggle wedding certificate I was trying to shove in their faces. By the time they accepted the documentation, I was met with an apology that it was too late to physically see her and say goodbye.

In the same trip I was pulled aside to discuss signing my name consensually under the werewolf awareness act. Absolutely no empathy or compassion whatsoever.

I went home and destroyed the house with anger. I haven't had the energy to fix it, yet.

Lily looked around, I knew she wanted to help with the upkeep. She had offered but none of it was important. I didn't care if the house was a state. I didn't care if I looked like a state. Why did it all matter?

"Where's your suit jacket, I'll grab it for you." Lily said, calmly rubbing my back.

"I'm not wearing it." I said in a dull tone.

"We have to freshen you up, sweetheart." She said kindly and considerately.

"I'm not wearing the suit I got married in, to her funeral." I sighed.

I was so tired.

I didn't want to do this.

"Oh." She said in a whisper.
"No suit jacket." She agreed.

I rested my head in my hands, rubbing my eyes and sighing. All I felt was exhaustion, other than that I was just empty. Burnt out completely. I had cried myself dry. Cried so much I felt as if the whites of my eyes had been stained pink forever.

Lily started to comb through my hair with her fingernails. Tucking random strands behind my ears and into the right places.

"You're going to stand with us." Lily said to me, now kneeling in front of my seated position. Forcing me to look at her.

"I don't want to do this, Lily." I whispered so quietly to her I questioned whether I even said anything at all.

"Neither do I." She said her supportive smile turning itself into the sadness I could see in her eyes again.

"I can't go."

"Yes you can, and you're going to be next to me and holding my hand because I need you as much as I need James, okay?" She said earnestly.

"James isn't talking to me properly yet, you know that. He doesn't want me stood with him." I said through a restricted feeling throat.

"Of course he does. We all are just...dealing with this differently. We need to put that aside for today." She said carefully, squeezing my hand reassuringly.

I nodded. Although everything in me was trying to keep me on the sofa fiddling with this uncomfortable shirt, a gut desire to avoid reality.

"You guys will make up. I know that for a fact, he's just upset but he's still never said a bad thing to me about you. I promise." Lily reassured.

"I guess." I shrugged and took a deep breath in.

"Look," she said grabbing my shoulders and giving them a firm rub.
"We're never going to leave you, me and James. We've all got to do this together. We love you and I need you today."

"I'm so tired." I tried to get out without my voice shaking. I failed.

"Me too." A single tear slipped down her face before she wiped it away.
"But we need to start saying goodbye."

I felt sick the entire walk over to the cemetery. A real sickness. Not just a stomach gurgling the wrong way, but a faintness that was warping my vision. A heaviness as if I had just discovered a new allergy felt as if was forcing my body into a sluggish state.

This all just didn't feel real. Genuinely. I haven't felt real since that night in the kitchen. I haven't even felt hunger. Just exhaustion, and I still can't sleep. I have just walked around as if reality were a dream. Everything was physically blurred around me. I couldn't figure out if I was constantly crying without feeling it, only seeing the tears in my eyes. I didn't think I was but nothing else could explain how my entire perspective has been warped completely.

I had lost myself, and I couldn't really care less to find myself again.

Suddenly I could see the graveyard and a tight knot formed aggressively in my chest. The only reason I continued to walk was because of Lily's arm linked to mine, keeping me going.

"It's okay." She kept on repeating. All though she didn't sound so sure herself.

And then we were in the graveyard. Most of the village and us three...me, James and Lily.

James turned to us.

"You missed the ceremony." He said to me. Reaching out for Lily, who moved into his chest instantly for comfort.

"I lost track of time." I lied.

I couldn't stand to go. To be in a room full of people from the village that barely knew her, or Marlene or Peter. Speaking versus from a Muggle book and a from a God she didn't believe in. We had all decided not to publicly speak at the ceremony too. We all felt as if our final words weren't finalised yet, and weren't for the ears of muggles. So what was the point?

"You didn't miss much, bunch of bible bullshit. Nothing personal." James said.
"At least you're here now."

"I didn't have a choice." I sadly smiled in an attempt of a joke, nodding towards Lily.

He actually smiled back. Knowing how persuasive she can be and I knew deep down that James had something to do with why she was knocking on my door alongside her own strength.

"Stand next to me." James suddenly said after the shared little moment. Nodding his head over to the space next to him.

I complied.

The coffins were there and I couldn't bring myself to look at them. I couldn't know that she was in that small box.

She was right there.

Probably cold.
She got cold so easily.

She was right there and I couldn't hold her.

Suddenly I started weeping. My knees failing on me, as I squatted with my head in my hands.

And then James, after little warmth for the last few weeks...sat down next to me. Wrapping his arms around me, like he was trying to hold my broken pieces together.

"She's still with you mate. She always will be." I could hear him crying too.

We stayed that way throughout the entire burial. Lily doing our throwing of the dirt and flower on the coffin for us.

That's what I thought, before I looked up once I knew people started making their ways out of the graveyard; and when James finally let me go to hold and support Lily who was sobbing besides Marlene's resting spot.

I thought Lily had done the final goodbye for Arty before I saw her.

Narcissa.

She had spread the first dirt and led the first flower.

Black veil taken off and held to her chest as she stared at the fresh dirt where her sister had been buried.

I found my way onto my feet and over to her as if there were a magnetic pull between us.

"Do I need to hug you or hurt you?" She said flatly without looking up at me. Sensing me next to her.

I couldn't reply. I didn't know how. Maybe she did deserve to hurt me, I didn't keep my promise in protecting her.

"I'm so sorry." I managed to say.

She finally looked at me. I could tell that she was assessing my face.

And then she held her hand against my cheek. Her thumb rubbing gently across it to wipe a tear stain.

"Thank you." She smiled sadly.

I looked at her questioningly. She had no reason to thank me, her tone wasn't accepting my apology.

"I'm glad she died knowing what love felt like. Real love." She tried to say without crying but quickly tore her hand from mg face and returned it back to her chest and looked down once again.

"She felt that with you first." I replied. My eyebrows furrowing together and the thickness of trying to hold back tears returning to my throat.

Suddenly she let herself go. Let down that classy demeanour of keeping it all together and thew her arms around me and just sobbed into my chest.

I sobbed back.

She kind of smelt like her.

I sunk into the scent. Resting my head on top of hers and pulling her into me.

"I tried my best." I said.

Eventually she pulled herself away and collected herself. Patting down her dress, returning the veil to her head and wiping her eyes underneath it.

"I'm sure our paths will cross again in the future. Even if it's just here visiting at the same time." She said with more composure.

I nodded. Not bothering to clean up my own tears.

"I'll give you your time with her...to say goodbye." And with that she turned and slowly walked away.

James and Lily were still nearby. Watching me for a cue that I was ready to leave with them. They could sense my hesitation, my eyes glued to them by the graveyard gates than to the space in the ground dedicated to my wife.

After a few moments where I couldn't dare to look down, James started to approach me. Lily giving him a nod and then walking off alone with a sense of newfound peace amongst her grief.

He held something, that he had pulled out of his back pocket on the journey towards me. Keeping it close to him.

"You don't have to say goodbye today." He said softly.
"You can say goodbye at any point." He reminded me.

I nodded, raising my eyebrows in disbelief at myself. Although I had the awareness of the weight of this situation, I still felt pathetic that I couldn't seem to carry it with as much grace as those around me.

"Don't you think it's bad if I don't?" I asked, seeking more reassurance.

He shook his head.

"She'd never rush you." He said with a sad smile.

I knew that he was right but I couldn't help but feel pathetic even considering walking away without properly acknowledging her resting place without tearing my eyes away from it.

Everyone else had seemed to do it. Mumble their goodbyes. Play a part in the process.

It felt awful as her husband that I haven't pulled my weight.

"You also never need to say goodbye, not completely." He said fiddling with the book that was in his hands.

I stared down at it and then back at him, confused as to why he had a slight smile at a time like this.

"Lily has been...distracting herself. I joined in too." He admitted. Starting to answer my questioning eyes.
"I guess we've been trying to find some sense of faith...what happens when we die? Do gods exist? That sort of stuff. I think she's been trying to find some peace with where Marlene might be right now."

I couldn't figure out why he was telling me this right now, was he kindly giving me something to actively distract me from the moment? Trying to promote a faith they've been following in order to grieve?

"I meant it when I said she'd always be with you." He said and handed me the book that he had folded down the page to bookmark.

I looked at the bold introduction and I understood why he was smiling now.

"Funny how things turn out." He almost laughed.

"Artemis." I whispered, tracing the name with my fingertip.

"You don't have to say goodbye today, but I think you should read it here." He suggested. And after hesitating, also wandered out of the graveyard after saying another goodbye to our shared loved ones.

I sat there at the foot of her grave, reading the entire chapter over and over until I started to feel a chill.

In Greek mythology Artemis did grow to become the goddess of the moon alongside Selene... but Artemis was always the goddess of wild animals. In her own right.

The depictions of her never captured the beauty of my Artemis, though I did like how she was always accompanied by a hunting dog or stag. As she often was in our world, too.

The ancient Greeks would say that Goddess Artemis would be protecting someone like me, especially under the full moon. She loved nature and every wild beast to have been born within it

...how lucky I am to have met her in the flesh.

How lucky I am to have seen her beauty for my very own eyes.

To have sensed her kindness towards me and protection of who I am.

To have been cared for after every full moon she never feared.

To have worshiped her.

To have loved her and felt that love back.

Somehow, this condition of mine means I'll always be someone that she'll take care of. With every stage of the moon, she was going to be with me.

She was more than how the goddess was written in the books. Depicted as the tamer of the wild, beautiful huntress and goddess of the moon.

Yet she had everything in common with a woman that had been worshipped for hundreds of years.

...and how lucky I have been to have met her in the flesh.

I never had to say goodbye to my Artemis.

THE END.

☾ Artemis: Goddess of the Moon, animals, wilderness, hunting and Archery. ☾

"I threw myself to the wolves, only to learn of the tenderness in their howl, and the loyalty in their blood." Isra Al- Thibeh

A/N: keep this in your active reading for additional chapters. Thank you so much for your dedication as readers and continuous support. I genuinely cried writing this and coming to terms that I was saying goodbye to BLACK MOON and Artemis Black. An original character that has held such a depth and fullness that I hope was accurately conveyed.

Mia Goth, has played her role as the Faceclaim for Artemis Black. Take a bow Mia, another stunning performance.