Altogether Something Else Again
Title: Altogether Something Else Again
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Rufus Scrimgeour
Rating: G
Other: Title and cut-text taken from Geoffrey Hill's Speech! Speech!, and swear-to-Christ, this vague concept came while reading a book on the battle of Verdun. Which is fun, because that doesn't make a huge connection, unless... Right. Anyway. Used for fanfic100 (010 - Years) and the February 10th challenge ("it's gotta happen sometime") in 30_hath. Hurrah.
Years passed one after another, and he has grown used to the dusty dank pub with its blessed silence. Aside from the occasional scuffle-he stays out of most, thought not quite all, of these-it is free of disturbance. He is left to his corner, left to his own by choice and will, and solitude has taken on a cherished import.
He feigns only vague disguise, a cloak sufficient for his means. Less and less now he uses the hood. When others chance to observe at length, they undoubtedly recognize the man he was and in part still is; he bears himself as ever before, straight, orderly, and bloodshot eyes still gleam an unmistakable yellow. Indeed, they notice him at times. The eyes, the confidence, and a defiance that has not broken. Yet they say nothing; the eyes compels them to silence, if all else fails. If they know him as before, they say nothing. Knowing him now, they observe a mostly-silent sentinel.
Those whom he speaks to hear little of what was, though the fictions offered may seem valid enough and are at least engaging. At times he takes news from others. More rarely still, he pries at their thoughts on what has passed. When they do answer, he appears interested, inflamed, and finally distant, after which he slips away, perhaps for days before returning. It has become his accustomed manner.
Other times and other tales may stir his apparent interest, if only briefly. Always he guards his words, speaking in carefully measured phrases-these seem somehow rehearsed-even when incensed. His voice, so often calm, grows shaking only in addressing those times gone by. There are no specifics given. He hints instead, speaks of others and distant issues. Even these seem somehow too close, yielding the sudden unsteady tones. If he does not pull back soon after, he simply falls into silence again and is left to drift for hours.
Still other conversations reveal an unnatural strain in his voice. There is a tension, a pulling between dialects and syllables wrestling over the very feel of words and turning ever more toward sounds familiar to the local men. The progression-he might at one time have called it regression-is scarcely noticeable, as if following a natural inclination. From time to time he frowns at this. A certain displeasure with the change flickers across his faces before he continues on, feigns to forget.
They do not pry into the past, and he is glad of it. Were they to try, he might well freeze or betray some sense of what it had meant. Worse, perhaps, he may have been unable to convey the whole of the overwhelming account. He felt no desire to share any part of it; the whole would be entirely incomprehensible. He harbored no urge to vindicate himself or to explain away his actions, so oft pondered.
For his comprehension alone do the answers arrange themselves, the means and the matter telling all that he may consider. Alone, he sees the scene very well, a panorama designed well before he had stepped to meet its forms. Alone, he understands the why and the irrefragable cycle that had directed him, unknown until the coming of the triumph and then accepted as was necessary.
He had been bound to return to this land, a fact unchanging and mindless of the effort expended to break from it. The call of return had lain in wait for years until it offered the sole option. At that moment it had taken its moment to guide him, a reluctant son at first, but soon to understand the welcome, almost to warm to the return. Here, at least, he finds a sense of freedom.
So it follows in years, and so he finds his mild comfort both in silence and in scattered speech, fingers wrapped around the coolness of some solid glass.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Rufus Scrimgeour
Rating: G
Other: Title and cut-text taken from Geoffrey Hill's Speech! Speech!, and swear-to-Christ, this vague concept came while reading a book on the battle of Verdun. Which is fun, because that doesn't make a huge connection, unless... Right. Anyway. Used for fanfic100 (010 - Years) and the February 10th challenge ("it's gotta happen sometime") in 30_hath. Hurrah.
Years passed one after another, and he has grown used to the dusty dank pub with its blessed silence. Aside from the occasional scuffle-he stays out of most, thought not quite all, of these-it is free of disturbance. He is left to his corner, left to his own by choice and will, and solitude has taken on a cherished import.
He feigns only vague disguise, a cloak sufficient for his means. Less and less now he uses the hood. When others chance to observe at length, they undoubtedly recognize the man he was and in part still is; he bears himself as ever before, straight, orderly, and bloodshot eyes still gleam an unmistakable yellow. Indeed, they notice him at times. The eyes, the confidence, and a defiance that has not broken. Yet they say nothing; the eyes compels them to silence, if all else fails. If they know him as before, they say nothing. Knowing him now, they observe a mostly-silent sentinel.
Those whom he speaks to hear little of what was, though the fictions offered may seem valid enough and are at least engaging. At times he takes news from others. More rarely still, he pries at their thoughts on what has passed. When they do answer, he appears interested, inflamed, and finally distant, after which he slips away, perhaps for days before returning. It has become his accustomed manner.
Other times and other tales may stir his apparent interest, if only briefly. Always he guards his words, speaking in carefully measured phrases-these seem somehow rehearsed-even when incensed. His voice, so often calm, grows shaking only in addressing those times gone by. There are no specifics given. He hints instead, speaks of others and distant issues. Even these seem somehow too close, yielding the sudden unsteady tones. If he does not pull back soon after, he simply falls into silence again and is left to drift for hours.
Still other conversations reveal an unnatural strain in his voice. There is a tension, a pulling between dialects and syllables wrestling over the very feel of words and turning ever more toward sounds familiar to the local men. The progression-he might at one time have called it regression-is scarcely noticeable, as if following a natural inclination. From time to time he frowns at this. A certain displeasure with the change flickers across his faces before he continues on, feigns to forget.
They do not pry into the past, and he is glad of it. Were they to try, he might well freeze or betray some sense of what it had meant. Worse, perhaps, he may have been unable to convey the whole of the overwhelming account. He felt no desire to share any part of it; the whole would be entirely incomprehensible. He harbored no urge to vindicate himself or to explain away his actions, so oft pondered.
For his comprehension alone do the answers arrange themselves, the means and the matter telling all that he may consider. Alone, he sees the scene very well, a panorama designed well before he had stepped to meet its forms. Alone, he understands the why and the irrefragable cycle that had directed him, unknown until the coming of the triumph and then accepted as was necessary.
He had been bound to return to this land, a fact unchanging and mindless of the effort expended to break from it. The call of return had lain in wait for years until it offered the sole option. At that moment it had taken its moment to guide him, a reluctant son at first, but soon to understand the welcome, almost to warm to the return. Here, at least, he finds a sense of freedom.
So it follows in years, and so he finds his mild comfort both in silence and in scattered speech, fingers wrapped around the coolness of some solid glass.