Gift drabbles delivery , part 2/2
Here are the last three holiday drabbles. Again, not really drabbles, but longer. And unbetaed.
For starbuckx:
Paper Moon
(Remus Lupin, G, 150 words. A/N: This turned out angstier than I meant. My only defence is that Lupin is so beautiful when he suffers.)
Remus Lupin learned long ago to live with what he is, with what it means: not denying his monsters, but putting them on display and pretending they do not bother him.
When he shapes a translucent sickle of waxing moon out of bone-pale paper and attaches it to his window, its function is not decorative but psychological. It forces him to concentrate on the immediate, never-waning threat under his own skin. Without this reminder he might find himself grieving too much, over words unspoken, over chances untaken, over lives lost, over Sirius.
Especially over Sirius.
“I may still fear you,” he tells the paper moon, “but it’s tamed fear. You have no power over me.”
Silence stretches thick and sticky fingers over the empty fields outside the window, to the ends of the earth, and neither the living nor the dead pass through it tonight.
Only thin, sharp-edged moonlight does.
*
For secant:
Preparation
(Mary Malone, Balthamos, G, 275 words)
Mary Malone doesn’t believe in angels any longer and says as much when she first sees one.
“What you do or do not believe hardly matters now,” replies the angel. “As you can see I am perfectly real.”
Mary informs the angel she isn’t in the mood to revise her faith, or rather the lack of it; she exchanged religion for science long ago and has never looked back.
“I have not come to discuss your issues,” says the angel (somewhat testily, thinks Mary). “I was only sent to deliver a message, even if that is not my usual function.”
“What if I will not listen to you?” asks Mary, and is rewarded with the experience of seeing an angel shrug.
“What you do with the message is not within my power. But there is a reason it was sent to you. You will need to face its content one day, whether you want it or not,” says the angel. “Here it is: he will mend multiple worlds with the knife he carries, but only because you have shown her the way out of the garden.”
The message makes no sense whatsoever to Mary, but she asks, “What is the reason?”
“Preparation. Now, if you excuse me, I have more pressing matters to attend to.” And the angel is gone, a wrinkle of light against the darkness behind Mary’s window.
When Mary wakes up, she is relieved to be able to write the encounter off as a dream. But somewhere deep down something is nagging at her, suggesting that she may have been left to rely on the one thing she no longer has: faith.
*
For dead_damien:
Requirements
(Sirius Black/Severus Snape -- sort of; G, 481 words. A/N: These two were difficult. They didn't want anything to do with each other. I threatened, bribed and blackmailed them, but they still refused. In the end I told them they were so not getting away with it, and this is what happened.)
Severus Snape looked surprised and not a little annoyed.
“What the hell are you doing here, Black, if I may ask?”
Sirius Black was no less surprised and, if it were possible, even more annoyed.
“I’ve no idea. You tell me. Didn’t you fetch me?”
“I most certainly did not,” Snape said acidly.
“Perhaps I got bored at Grimmauld Place and apparated just to entertain myself, then.” Sirius’s voice found the taunting edge he knew Snape had always hated. “Although if I’d known I’d find you here, I’d have thought twice.”
“We both know perfectly well it is not possible to apparate on the Hogwarts grounds, nor is it possible for you to think twice. If this is some demonstration of that twisted sense of humour of yours --”
Sirius, who had been looking around in the room said, “What’s that?”
Snape turned his head.
“Looks like a metal-frame bed to me.”
And it was. A large metal-frame bed. With dark-green satin sheets. And plenty of… playthings on the red bedside table.
“Sni… Severus?” said Sirius, less confidently.
“Yes?”
“I think we should leave.”
Snape smirked.
“Such sharpness of mind. But as much as I hate to say this, for once I agree with you.”
Sirius looked around again.
“Why is there no door?”
Snape was beginning to look positively unpleased compared to his usual self, and that was saying something.
“Do you know where we are, Black?”
Sirius didn’t.
“This is the room of requirement. It adapts to the needs of whoever comes in.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? How did I end up here? With you?”
“Well, unless you have some unspoken desires I’m not aware of, for I assure you I have none, the only possible explanation is that the room makes mistakes sometimes.”
“I guess there must be eddies in the time-space continuum as well,” Sirius muttered.
“I appreciate proper articulation, Black.”
“Forget it. How the hell are we going to get out?”
Snape’s expression was miserable and venomous at once.
“I would rather not think about the answer to that.”
“Why?”
“Because the room of requirement is just that. It responds to people’s needs, but it also requires them to make use of what they’re being provided with. Or it will not co-operate.”
“Are you saying that we must…?” Sirius nodded towards the bed.
“I’m afraid so.”
Sirius sat down on the floor and swept some hair off his face, then grunted,
“Fuck.”
“To quote myself, for once I agree with you.”
Describing the silence that followed as ‘uncomfortable’ wouldn’t have begun to do an iota of the tiniest hint of justice to an echo of an inkling of a whiff of it far away in some other world.
“Let me know when you’re ready,” Sirius finally said.
“Likewise.”
The quiet that fell into the room of requirement was thick and very, very, very persistent.
For starbuckx:
Paper Moon
(Remus Lupin, G, 150 words. A/N: This turned out angstier than I meant. My only defence is that Lupin is so beautiful when he suffers.)
Remus Lupin learned long ago to live with what he is, with what it means: not denying his monsters, but putting them on display and pretending they do not bother him.
When he shapes a translucent sickle of waxing moon out of bone-pale paper and attaches it to his window, its function is not decorative but psychological. It forces him to concentrate on the immediate, never-waning threat under his own skin. Without this reminder he might find himself grieving too much, over words unspoken, over chances untaken, over lives lost, over Sirius.
Especially over Sirius.
“I may still fear you,” he tells the paper moon, “but it’s tamed fear. You have no power over me.”
Silence stretches thick and sticky fingers over the empty fields outside the window, to the ends of the earth, and neither the living nor the dead pass through it tonight.
Only thin, sharp-edged moonlight does.
*
For secant:
Preparation
(Mary Malone, Balthamos, G, 275 words)
Mary Malone doesn’t believe in angels any longer and says as much when she first sees one.
“What you do or do not believe hardly matters now,” replies the angel. “As you can see I am perfectly real.”
Mary informs the angel she isn’t in the mood to revise her faith, or rather the lack of it; she exchanged religion for science long ago and has never looked back.
“I have not come to discuss your issues,” says the angel (somewhat testily, thinks Mary). “I was only sent to deliver a message, even if that is not my usual function.”
“What if I will not listen to you?” asks Mary, and is rewarded with the experience of seeing an angel shrug.
“What you do with the message is not within my power. But there is a reason it was sent to you. You will need to face its content one day, whether you want it or not,” says the angel. “Here it is: he will mend multiple worlds with the knife he carries, but only because you have shown her the way out of the garden.”
The message makes no sense whatsoever to Mary, but she asks, “What is the reason?”
“Preparation. Now, if you excuse me, I have more pressing matters to attend to.” And the angel is gone, a wrinkle of light against the darkness behind Mary’s window.
When Mary wakes up, she is relieved to be able to write the encounter off as a dream. But somewhere deep down something is nagging at her, suggesting that she may have been left to rely on the one thing she no longer has: faith.
*
For dead_damien:
Requirements
(Sirius Black/Severus Snape -- sort of; G, 481 words. A/N: These two were difficult. They didn't want anything to do with each other. I threatened, bribed and blackmailed them, but they still refused. In the end I told them they were so not getting away with it, and this is what happened.)
Severus Snape looked surprised and not a little annoyed.
“What the hell are you doing here, Black, if I may ask?”
Sirius Black was no less surprised and, if it were possible, even more annoyed.
“I’ve no idea. You tell me. Didn’t you fetch me?”
“I most certainly did not,” Snape said acidly.
“Perhaps I got bored at Grimmauld Place and apparated just to entertain myself, then.” Sirius’s voice found the taunting edge he knew Snape had always hated. “Although if I’d known I’d find you here, I’d have thought twice.”
“We both know perfectly well it is not possible to apparate on the Hogwarts grounds, nor is it possible for you to think twice. If this is some demonstration of that twisted sense of humour of yours --”
Sirius, who had been looking around in the room said, “What’s that?”
Snape turned his head.
“Looks like a metal-frame bed to me.”
And it was. A large metal-frame bed. With dark-green satin sheets. And plenty of… playthings on the red bedside table.
“Sni… Severus?” said Sirius, less confidently.
“Yes?”
“I think we should leave.”
Snape smirked.
“Such sharpness of mind. But as much as I hate to say this, for once I agree with you.”
Sirius looked around again.
“Why is there no door?”
Snape was beginning to look positively unpleased compared to his usual self, and that was saying something.
“Do you know where we are, Black?”
Sirius didn’t.
“This is the room of requirement. It adapts to the needs of whoever comes in.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? How did I end up here? With you?”
“Well, unless you have some unspoken desires I’m not aware of, for I assure you I have none, the only possible explanation is that the room makes mistakes sometimes.”
“I guess there must be eddies in the time-space continuum as well,” Sirius muttered.
“I appreciate proper articulation, Black.”
“Forget it. How the hell are we going to get out?”
Snape’s expression was miserable and venomous at once.
“I would rather not think about the answer to that.”
“Why?”
“Because the room of requirement is just that. It responds to people’s needs, but it also requires them to make use of what they’re being provided with. Or it will not co-operate.”
“Are you saying that we must…?” Sirius nodded towards the bed.
“I’m afraid so.”
Sirius sat down on the floor and swept some hair off his face, then grunted,
“Fuck.”
“To quote myself, for once I agree with you.”
Describing the silence that followed as ‘uncomfortable’ wouldn’t have begun to do an iota of the tiniest hint of justice to an echo of an inkling of a whiff of it far away in some other world.
“Let me know when you’re ready,” Sirius finally said.
“Likewise.”
The quiet that fell into the room of requirement was thick and very, very, very persistent.