La Lutte (Chapter Two)
Title: Town Called Malice
Author: RavanaSnape
Series: La Lutte (03/15)
Era: Post-HBP
Warning: Spoilers up to and including HBP
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The song featured is the property of The Jam and in no way mine.
Summary: Hogsmeade has become a ghost town.
Better stop dreaming of the quiet life -
cos it's the one we'll never know
And quit running for that runaway bus -
cos those rosey days are few
And - stop apologising for the things you've never done,
Cos time is short and life is cruel -
but it's up to us to change
This town called malice.
Rows and rows of disused milk floats
stand dying in the dairy yard
And a hundred lonely housewives clutch empty milk
bottles to their hearts
Hanging out their old love letters on the line to dry
It's enough to make you stop believing when tears come
fast and furious
In a town called malice.
The streets resembled those of Margate during the Muggle World War. Hestia Peggot watched silently from her living room window and the even more silent road stared back at her. They were gone; she thought she was the last remaining witch in the place. The school had been evacuated in October - right before Hallo’een and That Night. The night the witches and wizards of Hogsmeade shivered in their beds as they were assailed, right left and centre by every apparition He Who Must Not Be Named could conjure. The next morning those remaining - who had not died of fright or other nasties - began packing and leaving quietly, in twos and threes. Safety in numbers. By November the Knight Bus refused to stop within a five mile radius and even the Hogs Head had been forced to close due to lack of business. She still had her vegetable garden though, and Transfiguration had always been her strong point. Hope had waned to the point of non-existence; few believed that the Boy Who Lived would help them now, not after his spectacular vanishing act over the summer.
Struggle after struggle - year after year
The atmosphere's a fine blend of ice -
I'm almost stone cold dead
In a town called malice.
Dementors freely roamed the lanes and boggarts had begun to crop up in the more deserted areas. She strengthened the wards on her house and garden each evening and each morning and it was only barely sufficient. But she’d be damned if she’d give into that monster. She remembered Tom Riddle - few did, Albus had been one, before… well, before. She remembered a quiet, intense young man who had been impressed by her wand work and even more so by her relations, Pureblood Slytherins all. She snorted; age was withering her brain more than her body if she was going to be dawdling on memories like a love-struck teenager. It was depressing though, the sight of an empty town and the chill… the frigid cold that even the most effective and well-cast warming charms could not keep out.
A whole street's belief in Sunday's roast beef
gets dashed against the Co-op
To either cut down on beer or the kids new gear
It's a big decision in a town called malice.
She had no idea where the refugees had gone - she had no patience for deserters. She liked to think that Riddle remembered her, the girl she had once been. Maybe that was why the creatures made no real effort to break through her wards. Although it could also have been protection afforded by the silent, foreboding presence of the castle on the hill. The whole world heard His scream of rage when he arrived, in a carriage drawn by manticores, of all things, and found himself unable to breach either the gates or the wards. She never would have thought that McGonagall would’ve had it in her, to invent wards that Himself couldn’t cross, but there you were - even Gryffindors could be full of surprises. She reckoned she would have two weeks at most, before the ground froze up beyond the help of magic, and then two further months before supplies ran out. When that happened, damn it all, she was going out with a bang and she didn’t care how Gryffindor it made her sound. She would tear down those streets and fill them with the sort of curses that would make even poor young Severus Snape blush, tricks that those Weasleys would pale at and enough magic that she would rival a hellfiend. Hestia had hope, however foolish, that one day Hogsmeade would cease to be a town of the dead, and live again… even with her blood spilt on the cobbles.
The ghost of a steam train - echoes down my track
It's at the moment bound for nowhere -
just going round and round
Playground kids and creaking swings -
lost laughter in the breeze
I could go on for hours and I probably will -
but I'd sooner put some joy back
In this town called malice.
Next part
Author: RavanaSnape
Series: La Lutte (03/15)
Era: Post-HBP
Warning: Spoilers up to and including HBP
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The song featured is the property of The Jam and in no way mine.
Summary: Hogsmeade has become a ghost town.
Better stop dreaming of the quiet life -
cos it's the one we'll never know
And quit running for that runaway bus -
cos those rosey days are few
And - stop apologising for the things you've never done,
Cos time is short and life is cruel -
but it's up to us to change
This town called malice.
Rows and rows of disused milk floats
stand dying in the dairy yard
And a hundred lonely housewives clutch empty milk
bottles to their hearts
Hanging out their old love letters on the line to dry
It's enough to make you stop believing when tears come
fast and furious
In a town called malice.
The streets resembled those of Margate during the Muggle World War. Hestia Peggot watched silently from her living room window and the even more silent road stared back at her. They were gone; she thought she was the last remaining witch in the place. The school had been evacuated in October - right before Hallo’een and That Night. The night the witches and wizards of Hogsmeade shivered in their beds as they were assailed, right left and centre by every apparition He Who Must Not Be Named could conjure. The next morning those remaining - who had not died of fright or other nasties - began packing and leaving quietly, in twos and threes. Safety in numbers. By November the Knight Bus refused to stop within a five mile radius and even the Hogs Head had been forced to close due to lack of business. She still had her vegetable garden though, and Transfiguration had always been her strong point. Hope had waned to the point of non-existence; few believed that the Boy Who Lived would help them now, not after his spectacular vanishing act over the summer.
Struggle after struggle - year after year
The atmosphere's a fine blend of ice -
I'm almost stone cold dead
In a town called malice.
Dementors freely roamed the lanes and boggarts had begun to crop up in the more deserted areas. She strengthened the wards on her house and garden each evening and each morning and it was only barely sufficient. But she’d be damned if she’d give into that monster. She remembered Tom Riddle - few did, Albus had been one, before… well, before. She remembered a quiet, intense young man who had been impressed by her wand work and even more so by her relations, Pureblood Slytherins all. She snorted; age was withering her brain more than her body if she was going to be dawdling on memories like a love-struck teenager. It was depressing though, the sight of an empty town and the chill… the frigid cold that even the most effective and well-cast warming charms could not keep out.
A whole street's belief in Sunday's roast beef
gets dashed against the Co-op
To either cut down on beer or the kids new gear
It's a big decision in a town called malice.
She had no idea where the refugees had gone - she had no patience for deserters. She liked to think that Riddle remembered her, the girl she had once been. Maybe that was why the creatures made no real effort to break through her wards. Although it could also have been protection afforded by the silent, foreboding presence of the castle on the hill. The whole world heard His scream of rage when he arrived, in a carriage drawn by manticores, of all things, and found himself unable to breach either the gates or the wards. She never would have thought that McGonagall would’ve had it in her, to invent wards that Himself couldn’t cross, but there you were - even Gryffindors could be full of surprises. She reckoned she would have two weeks at most, before the ground froze up beyond the help of magic, and then two further months before supplies ran out. When that happened, damn it all, she was going out with a bang and she didn’t care how Gryffindor it made her sound. She would tear down those streets and fill them with the sort of curses that would make even poor young Severus Snape blush, tricks that those Weasleys would pale at and enough magic that she would rival a hellfiend. Hestia had hope, however foolish, that one day Hogsmeade would cease to be a town of the dead, and live again… even with her blood spilt on the cobbles.
The ghost of a steam train - echoes down my track
It's at the moment bound for nowhere -
just going round and round
Playground kids and creaking swings -
lost laughter in the breeze
I could go on for hours and I probably will -
but I'd sooner put some joy back
In this town called malice.
Next part