He didn't want to go down this road again. He didn't know if he could. Remus had lived it. He still lived it every Merlin-forsaken day. He had to live with the choices, the consequences, the sheer and utter devastation, and he was alone. Hadn't that been what he'd been taught he always would ultimately be in life as a werewolf? Alone. You can't let anyone close to you, my love, lest you end up hurting them. His mother's sorrow-filled voice for her poor little Remus echoed in his ears at that moment and it just made him feel that much more sick about all of this. No, he wasn't the direct cause of all this, but he did feel indirectly responsible because of all the damn secrets he was forced to keep. If he could hex Albus Dumbledore, he would. But even then, Remus still should've just continued to tell him no. It was his own weak will that got him into the mess he'd found himself in when all of this went ot hell.
He caught himself wallowing in his own misery a bit and forced all of that back down. This wasn't about him. This was about James. It was about James finding out the truth and for god's sake, trying to figure out if there was something they could do should they be taken back home to prevent it.
It was Sirius' voice speaking his name in that pitiful, almost desperate tone that Remus pulled himself together as much as he could to speak again. It shouldn't fall on Sirius' shoulders to tell James. He hadn't even lived it yet. He was too young, still too full of life to have it all ripped away having to retell what Remus had unfortunately had to share with him before.
"It's a lot, James," Remus said, already sorry and it showed in his tone of voice. He wanted to hold Sirius' hand, more than he thought he ever had before. But he kept his fists at his sides. Sirius was going to have to comfort James. He needed to go to him, not stay beside Remus. "I know you aren't sure if you can trust me right now, and I understand why," he said. "But what you need to know is that I'm not.. I wasn't.." It was so much harder to tell James the truth than it had been to tell Sirius. He felt twice as ashamed, twice as guilty, maybe even more than that. "I was undercover, doing work for Dumbledore. He had me running with Greyback's pack. That's why I was missing for so long, and would come back all torn to hell. I couldn't tell you, any of you. It was too dangerous. But Voldemort was rumored to have been recruiting them for his side and Dumbledore needed to know for sure. He knew they'd let me in because of my lineage to Greyback.
"I knew if I told you, you'd both try to stop me or you'd follow me and get yourselves killed. I thought I was protecting you, even if it meant you all stopped trusting me. The problem is, there's a gap where I don't have the information to put everything together that happens between when... and when I..." He trailed off. He felt like he was going to be sick. How was he supposed to say, between when I last saw you alive, and when I had to claim your body from St. Mungo's to have you buried?
"The war ends on Halloween of 81," he said. "Something..happens, I don't know what. Sirius doesn't know because it hasn't happened yet for him. It might even be too soon for you to know. Somehow, the Fidelius charm you cast was broken. Voldemmort found you and he.." There came the tears. "You tried to protect them, Prongs. But he.. You and Lily.. He.." His voice hitched and he had to force a sob down his throat. "He cast the curse on you both. You were downstairs trying to hold him off. Lily was with Harry. She gave her life to protect him after he overpowered you. And then.. something happened, no one really knows how or why. Voldemort tried to kill Harry but the curse deflected back onto him and he vanished. Voldemort's gone, presumably dead. That's why the war ended but.. Jamie I'm so sorry.. I'm so sorry to have to tell you."