you've won the battle (but you lost the war) (Harry Potter)
Title: you've won the battle (but you lost the war)
Fandom: Harry Potter
Warnings: Character death.
Wordcount: 1,022
Summary: Remus goes to a funeral and then goes back to war.
Notes: I wrote this over about two hours thanks to Bloc Party's "Signs" and balphas. I'm still confused as to how it happened.
you've won the battle (but you lost the war)
It's a small gathering of them in the cemetery, beneath the oak trees, crunching what brown leaves have not gone soggy with rain. The cold wind blows right through thin black suits and black quilted cloaks, and the worn scarf hardly puts up much of a struggle. Remus' nice black shoes squelch in the mud and bits of leaf stick to the sides of them. His fingers are stiff and slow with cold. His breath mists in front of him. Everyone has been staring at him all the while, since he arrived. Maybe they're surprised that he is mourning just as much as the rest of them. Maybe they didn't even expect him to come.
Peter is the only one who never meets his eyes.
There is no reason for them to all stand here, as the priest closes his book and folds up his hands, as the shovel slides against the tree it was leaned on and hits the ground. The fresh-dug earth smells of rain and growth and a little like spring, but this is November and Remus is never going to be able garden again without smelling it. They should turn and go. Remus is waiting for them to leave, but no one seems to want to go.
The crunch behind him is Dumbledore. No one else is going to talk to him. Remus is ready for the hand that descends upon his shoulder, so he doesn't jump.
"I'm blaming myself," he says instead, before Dumbledore can tell him not to.
"You can stop that now," snaps Minerva McGonagall instead, and when Remus looks back she's there, just behind him, all in a black only somewhat less faded than Remus', hat untrimmed. Either he never noticed how threadbare his teachers were, or he's missed a lot, being on the run so long.
"He was the obvious choice," Remus tells her anyway. In a way, she's a better listener than Dumbledore. She at least can be trusted to be honest. "Too obvious. I should have volunteered."
"Thinking like that's not going to fix anything," she says, short and snippy, but her hand is steadying on his shoulder.
Remus turns his head to face her and smiles his best. It breaks all across his face and falls in cracked pieces around his feet as he replies, "Can anything, though?"
When the cemetery is bare and empty, Remus walks up the headstone itself. He thinks of insulting it, but settles on spitting instead, the most juvenile form of expressing anger and affection he knows. When he turns to go, the cold and the lump in his throat have locked his mouth shut tight, so silently he walks away.
The problem with moving on is that the world conspires against him. Remus doesn't remember seeing so many silver-tipped owl ears delivering mail, nor motorcycle jackets, nor overgrown heads of black hair before. The world keeps turning and the war keeps ravaging it, but it's not Death Eaters that have Remus on his toes anymore. It's the familiarity of someone's laugh from down the street. The creak in the hall that could be someone walking around. The pop of apparition in a place no one else would think to go. Remus pushes open his bedroom door but finds Peter there instead, wringing his hands.
"Can I come in?" he asks.
Remus wants to let him in, no questions asked. It's not for his own sake that he performs the spells, asks the questions, but Remus doesn't want to see anyone else buried. Peter passes everything, anyway. He walks in and slumps on the sofa.
"Tea?" Remus asks, and Peter doesn't even talk, just nods.
Peter takes his black, no sugar even, and holds the empty teacup so tight Remus expects it to break. "I need your help," he says, staring down at the teastained porcelain.
Remus doesn't want to help. He'd rather curl against the wall and let the shock of grief completely paralyse him, but he's not doing that. He's putting on old sweaters and battered corduroy pants, going about his day. He's preparing for the next full moon. He's listening to Peter.
"You're going to hate me," Peter says. It sounds nothing like a warning. "I don't need you to like me, though. I just need you to help me."
Remus puts two and two together. He finishes his tea. Says, "Where do you want me to hide you?"
Remus is keeping secrets now, some his, some not. Remus is spending all his time running, and on full moons isn't even building good relations with the others of his kind. Only running. He runs across Europe and into Russia, crosses the Balkans, hides in the expanse of empty land where Grindelwald laid his traps. Dumbledore sends him eagles, not owls, and brief coded messages, the barest update on the war. Once he says that Harry has learnt his first word. Remus cries for the first time since the war began.
He meets a small man one day, dark of hair and familiar of face, but everyone looks like Sirius these days. Remus is not prepared when the man introduces himself as Regulus Black, and maybe that's why he isn't asked for his own name in return.
"I need to get rid of this," Regulus says, furtive, frightened; he pulls something from the inside of his jacket and thrusts it, still closed inside his fist, at Remus. "It might get you killed."
"I'll take it," Remus sighs, and opens his hand underneath Regulus'. When the pendant and chain hit his skin, he closes his hand. Regulus sags, strings cut, free.
"Do you know my brother?" Regulus asks after a moment. "You look..."
"No," Remus says. By semantics, he could be telling the truth.
Remus gets a letter in Israel, dust in his eyes, and reads that Neville Longbottom survived the impossible and that the war has been won. He pulls the locket free from his neck and closes it in his fist. In the end, he only throws the letter into the Dead Sea. There is the future to think about, after all.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Warnings: Character death.
Wordcount: 1,022
Summary: Remus goes to a funeral and then goes back to war.
Notes: I wrote this over about two hours thanks to Bloc Party's "Signs" and balphas. I'm still confused as to how it happened.
you've won the battle (but you lost the war)
It's a small gathering of them in the cemetery, beneath the oak trees, crunching what brown leaves have not gone soggy with rain. The cold wind blows right through thin black suits and black quilted cloaks, and the worn scarf hardly puts up much of a struggle. Remus' nice black shoes squelch in the mud and bits of leaf stick to the sides of them. His fingers are stiff and slow with cold. His breath mists in front of him. Everyone has been staring at him all the while, since he arrived. Maybe they're surprised that he is mourning just as much as the rest of them. Maybe they didn't even expect him to come.
Peter is the only one who never meets his eyes.
There is no reason for them to all stand here, as the priest closes his book and folds up his hands, as the shovel slides against the tree it was leaned on and hits the ground. The fresh-dug earth smells of rain and growth and a little like spring, but this is November and Remus is never going to be able garden again without smelling it. They should turn and go. Remus is waiting for them to leave, but no one seems to want to go.
The crunch behind him is Dumbledore. No one else is going to talk to him. Remus is ready for the hand that descends upon his shoulder, so he doesn't jump.
"I'm blaming myself," he says instead, before Dumbledore can tell him not to.
"You can stop that now," snaps Minerva McGonagall instead, and when Remus looks back she's there, just behind him, all in a black only somewhat less faded than Remus', hat untrimmed. Either he never noticed how threadbare his teachers were, or he's missed a lot, being on the run so long.
"He was the obvious choice," Remus tells her anyway. In a way, she's a better listener than Dumbledore. She at least can be trusted to be honest. "Too obvious. I should have volunteered."
"Thinking like that's not going to fix anything," she says, short and snippy, but her hand is steadying on his shoulder.
Remus turns his head to face her and smiles his best. It breaks all across his face and falls in cracked pieces around his feet as he replies, "Can anything, though?"
When the cemetery is bare and empty, Remus walks up the headstone itself. He thinks of insulting it, but settles on spitting instead, the most juvenile form of expressing anger and affection he knows. When he turns to go, the cold and the lump in his throat have locked his mouth shut tight, so silently he walks away.
The problem with moving on is that the world conspires against him. Remus doesn't remember seeing so many silver-tipped owl ears delivering mail, nor motorcycle jackets, nor overgrown heads of black hair before. The world keeps turning and the war keeps ravaging it, but it's not Death Eaters that have Remus on his toes anymore. It's the familiarity of someone's laugh from down the street. The creak in the hall that could be someone walking around. The pop of apparition in a place no one else would think to go. Remus pushes open his bedroom door but finds Peter there instead, wringing his hands.
"Can I come in?" he asks.
Remus wants to let him in, no questions asked. It's not for his own sake that he performs the spells, asks the questions, but Remus doesn't want to see anyone else buried. Peter passes everything, anyway. He walks in and slumps on the sofa.
"Tea?" Remus asks, and Peter doesn't even talk, just nods.
Peter takes his black, no sugar even, and holds the empty teacup so tight Remus expects it to break. "I need your help," he says, staring down at the teastained porcelain.
Remus doesn't want to help. He'd rather curl against the wall and let the shock of grief completely paralyse him, but he's not doing that. He's putting on old sweaters and battered corduroy pants, going about his day. He's preparing for the next full moon. He's listening to Peter.
"You're going to hate me," Peter says. It sounds nothing like a warning. "I don't need you to like me, though. I just need you to help me."
Remus puts two and two together. He finishes his tea. Says, "Where do you want me to hide you?"
Remus is keeping secrets now, some his, some not. Remus is spending all his time running, and on full moons isn't even building good relations with the others of his kind. Only running. He runs across Europe and into Russia, crosses the Balkans, hides in the expanse of empty land where Grindelwald laid his traps. Dumbledore sends him eagles, not owls, and brief coded messages, the barest update on the war. Once he says that Harry has learnt his first word. Remus cries for the first time since the war began.
He meets a small man one day, dark of hair and familiar of face, but everyone looks like Sirius these days. Remus is not prepared when the man introduces himself as Regulus Black, and maybe that's why he isn't asked for his own name in return.
"I need to get rid of this," Regulus says, furtive, frightened; he pulls something from the inside of his jacket and thrusts it, still closed inside his fist, at Remus. "It might get you killed."
"I'll take it," Remus sighs, and opens his hand underneath Regulus'. When the pendant and chain hit his skin, he closes his hand. Regulus sags, strings cut, free.
"Do you know my brother?" Regulus asks after a moment. "You look..."
"No," Remus says. By semantics, he could be telling the truth.
Remus gets a letter in Israel, dust in his eyes, and reads that Neville Longbottom survived the impossible and that the war has been won. He pulls the locket free from his neck and closes it in his fist. In the end, he only throws the letter into the Dead Sea. There is the future to think about, after all.