Flowers and Weeds (May #4)
Title / Prompt: Flowers and Weeds (May #4)
Character: Alastor Moody
Pairings: Penny/Moody (what, you were expecting something else?)
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 674
Rating: PGish for conversations with dead people
Disclaimer: JRK owns.
He wonders sometimes if it would be easier to forget things if he could actually close his eyes. For most people, sleeping with one eye open is just a phrase, just an idea. For Alastor Moody it is reality. One eye can close and see only darkness, but the other stares straight through his eyelid.
It watches the room grow slowly lighter on the nights when he doesn't sleep. Nights when memories play like a filmstrip in his head, and nothing he can do- nothing he can ever do- will shut them out.
Too many battlefields, too many wounds. Too much blood, and too many friends who didn't walk away. Too many gravesites, which as the years pass he seems to be the only one who visits.
He supposes that, at least, makes a morbid kind of sense.
Everyone else who would have mourned these people is already dead.
When he visits these graves he can no longer speak. It seems all of his words were used up years ago, and he has nothing but his sorrows to give them.
The first time Penelope asks if she can accompany him, surprise at her question makes him hesitate. Yes, she probably would have liked his friends quite a bit if they had lived long enough for her to meet them. But when half of the Order, who did know them, don't take the time to visit anymore, he has to wonder...
"Why?" he asks at last. Not a denial, or even a criticism, only a question.
"Because this is important to you. Because I wish I could have known them. Because..." She sighs. "I worry about you. But if you'd rather I didn't-"
Moody shakes his head. "No. I don't... If you really want to..."
"I do," she says, and he nods.
She brings flowers to the cemetery- real flowers, picked from the back garden, not conjured ones. This surprises him- he hasn't brought anything but his presence here since the funerals.
"They say it's all the same," Penny explains softly to Marlene McKinnon's grave, "but I can always smell the difference. Conjured roses especially. I don't know why." She lays the roses before the gravestone. "I suppose the purebloods would tell me that's Muggleborn nonsense, but-"
"Depends on the pureblood, love," Moody tells her. He rests a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently.
She kneels at the gravesites for a time, laying flowers and clearing away weeds. When she is done, Moody holds out a hand to help her to her feet.
"Thank you," he says softly.
She squeezes his hand, then lets go. "Would you like a moment?"
Moody nods. "Yeah."
"I'll wait by the brooms, then."
"Watch your back. I won't be but a minute."
She has her wand out, her face set in determined lines. "Take your time. No one wants to mess with me right now."
He gives her a faint smile, and watches as she turns away.
He leaves Marlene McKinnon, moves on to Lily and James Potter. Penelope hadn't had to do much work here; Harry and Lupin have clearly been by recently.
"It's getting bad out there," Moody says, a hand resting on James's headstone. "Again. You've got more new neighbors than I'd like- but I guess you already know that." He sighs, then glances over his shoulder. "That was Penny- Penelope. She's one of us now, and I wish we had more like her. We need her. I need her. She's my girl, my everything. Flowers were her idea, though I see you're not lacking." He sighs, covering his face with his hands. Not that this blinds him to much of anything. "I think you would have liked her." He lifts his hand from the grave marker. "Wards are still holding, I see, though someone's been testing them again. Wonder who that could be. Idiots..."
It's only as he is leaving to rejoin her that he realizes- he's found his voice here again.
"Hey," she says when he reaches her. "You ready?"
"Yeah. Let's go home."
Character: Alastor Moody
Pairings: Penny/Moody (what, you were expecting something else?)
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 674
Rating: PGish for conversations with dead people
Disclaimer: JRK owns.
He wonders sometimes if it would be easier to forget things if he could actually close his eyes. For most people, sleeping with one eye open is just a phrase, just an idea. For Alastor Moody it is reality. One eye can close and see only darkness, but the other stares straight through his eyelid.
It watches the room grow slowly lighter on the nights when he doesn't sleep. Nights when memories play like a filmstrip in his head, and nothing he can do- nothing he can ever do- will shut them out.
Too many battlefields, too many wounds. Too much blood, and too many friends who didn't walk away. Too many gravesites, which as the years pass he seems to be the only one who visits.
He supposes that, at least, makes a morbid kind of sense.
Everyone else who would have mourned these people is already dead.
When he visits these graves he can no longer speak. It seems all of his words were used up years ago, and he has nothing but his sorrows to give them.
The first time Penelope asks if she can accompany him, surprise at her question makes him hesitate. Yes, she probably would have liked his friends quite a bit if they had lived long enough for her to meet them. But when half of the Order, who did know them, don't take the time to visit anymore, he has to wonder...
"Why?" he asks at last. Not a denial, or even a criticism, only a question.
"Because this is important to you. Because I wish I could have known them. Because..." She sighs. "I worry about you. But if you'd rather I didn't-"
Moody shakes his head. "No. I don't... If you really want to..."
"I do," she says, and he nods.
She brings flowers to the cemetery- real flowers, picked from the back garden, not conjured ones. This surprises him- he hasn't brought anything but his presence here since the funerals.
"They say it's all the same," Penny explains softly to Marlene McKinnon's grave, "but I can always smell the difference. Conjured roses especially. I don't know why." She lays the roses before the gravestone. "I suppose the purebloods would tell me that's Muggleborn nonsense, but-"
"Depends on the pureblood, love," Moody tells her. He rests a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently.
She kneels at the gravesites for a time, laying flowers and clearing away weeds. When she is done, Moody holds out a hand to help her to her feet.
"Thank you," he says softly.
She squeezes his hand, then lets go. "Would you like a moment?"
Moody nods. "Yeah."
"I'll wait by the brooms, then."
"Watch your back. I won't be but a minute."
She has her wand out, her face set in determined lines. "Take your time. No one wants to mess with me right now."
He gives her a faint smile, and watches as she turns away.
He leaves Marlene McKinnon, moves on to Lily and James Potter. Penelope hadn't had to do much work here; Harry and Lupin have clearly been by recently.
"It's getting bad out there," Moody says, a hand resting on James's headstone. "Again. You've got more new neighbors than I'd like- but I guess you already know that." He sighs, then glances over his shoulder. "That was Penny- Penelope. She's one of us now, and I wish we had more like her. We need her. I need her. She's my girl, my everything. Flowers were her idea, though I see you're not lacking." He sighs, covering his face with his hands. Not that this blinds him to much of anything. "I think you would have liked her." He lifts his hand from the grave marker. "Wards are still holding, I see, though someone's been testing them again. Wonder who that could be. Idiots..."
It's only as he is leaving to rejoin her that he realizes- he's found his voice here again.
"Hey," she says when he reaches her. "You ready?"
"Yeah. Let's go home."