I'm actually posting another fic. Who'd've thunk it?
A warning, to those who may come to me for puppy-love or smut: this is neither. Sorry--it had to be written; no choice in the matter. I will be posting this to starcrossedmoon shortly after I post this. If anyone knows of anywhere else people might like to have it, feel free to suggest. Thanks. :)
Title: Empty
Author: sethkyne_blue
Pairing(s): implied Sirius/Remus
Rating: R (for some language only)
Word count: 1658
Content: Angst; OotP Remus POV
Summary: Remus lives through the hours directly following Sirius’ fall through the veil.
Disclaimer: All HP characters and their universe belong to J.K. Rowling and her publishers. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author’s note(s): This is not happy. This is desolate. This is for my Mum.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to mackittenx and irish_lily for Beta-ing and general feedback.
Time stops or stands still. Any of those tired clichés. The whole world becomes that tattered curtain of rippling fabric and the surprised face that just disappeared behind it.
Harry shouts out like a wounded thing, starting forward, arms stretched towards nothing. Remus draws him back with automatic movements of his body - always was stronger than he looked - and it’s about strength now: to hold back Harry, to hold back himself, to say the words, calm and almost unbroken.
“There’s nothing you can do…It’s too late…He’s gone.”
And Harry is screaming, but all Remus can hear is the rushing static in his own ears. His mouth keeps moving and he doesn’t know quite what he’s saying: “He’s gone…He can’t come back… He can’t come back.” And it doesn’t matter really, except Remus somehow knows that the words are true.
Before long Harry has run off in murderous pursuit, face chalky with spots of bright rage burning in his cheeks. Dumbledore follows after him, the best protection the boy could be offered. Remus wonders dumbly if his own face looks at all the same as Harry’s.
There is water roaring in his head, and when Kingsley’s hand briefly squeezes his arm he’s barely aware of it. The other man moves off, a dark, silent shadow, presumably to tend to the others.
Yes. The others. Remus’ brain kicks into survival mode and he moves with seeming purpose, lifting curses, performing simple healing spells until there is nothing left to do and he is somehow once more facing the dais.
Remus finds himself suddenly, jarringly, on his knees, wand tumbling from now-nerveless fingers. His eyelids flutter strangely and he feels himself begin to shake.
Shredded fabric undulates softly in an imaginary breeze. Distant voices. Wide grey eyes.
He snaps back to awareness. The last few moments are blackness - an unspoken Obliviate. He’s still on his knees. His throat hurts and he absently wonders if he’s been screaming. Movement to his right catches his attention and he whips his head to track it with a violent jerk.
Neville. Eyes large with horrified understanding, shirt caked with blood. “Professor,” he whispers, reaching out uncertainly.
Remus shrinks back without seeming to, his face a carefully blank mask. He gets to his feet - straight and steady. A reassuring hand grips Neville’s shoulder momentarily and Remus moves towards the door.
As he reaches the hallway outside the Department of Mysteries Remus Apparates with a resounding crack. He’s somewhere - away, anywhere, it doesn’t matter - when his feet hit new ground and he is running. Dangerous. Stupid, his brain says. Never Apparate without a clear destination in mind. You could end up inside a wall or something.
For some reason this thought strikes him as immensely funny. Queer, painful laughter dribbles from his mouth and slows his legs. He recovers gradually, bent against the side of a building, gasping for air.
“Sirius.” The name comes to his lips unbidden; it’s a shock to his ears. “It’s…he’s…” Remus breathes into the grimy brick. The wall is rough and cold beneath his palms in the early dawn chill. He turns with a scrape of dirt on concrete and curls his hands into fists.
He’s not drunk and he wants to be. Needs to be. To feel his body blur and lose cohesion. To forget that he ever existed in the first place.
His wand hand goes out automatically and in a matter of seconds he hears the familiar bang and the squeal of over-taxed tyres. The purple monstrosity comes to a shuddering halt in front of him, huffing exhaust and rocking slightly as if with impatience. He boards, cramming a handful of coins into the conductor’s palm, no thought to whether they are bronze, silver or gold.
“Leaky Cauldron,” he mutters. Stan takes the hint, handing over his change without comment, and Remus folds carelessly into the nearest chair. His hands clench back into tight fists on his thighs. It is the longest ride of his life.
~*~
The first drink is hard. The first one always is - desperate, hurried, imbued with a visceral hunger. Almost like sex, Remus muses, contemplating the empty glass.
“Another.” He thumps on the bar, downs the second drink with a grimace. Tom looks carefully at him although Remus doesn’t meet his eyes. “I’ll leave the bottle,” he says, moving away quietly.
~*~
So many glassfuls have slid down his throat now that Remus has to pay particular attention when pouring. The bottle is more than half empty the next time he sets it down.
He doesn’t know what time it is. Doesn’t care. He’s been here for hours, days. No. Hours. The Cauldron does close at some point, doesn’t it? And he got here sometime in the morning before the bar was actually open. Remus hadn’t even had to explain anything. Tom took one probing glance at his face and asked him, “What’ll it be?”
No matter.
Remus blinks as he notices a small hand resting on the bar next to his own. He glances up, blinks again at the pretty, young woman looking back at him. Remus, she mouths.
His mind flashes on, Purple hair? He shakes his head slowly, focusing on the glass as he pours another drink, but doesn’t yet lift it. His hand tightens around it too hard and some of the liquid slops over the rim. Her fingers squeeze his wrist briefly and then she is gone. The glass trembles a little as Remus brings it to his lips.
~*~
The Cauldron does close. Or at least it does for sullen werewolves who’ve clearly had too much firewhiskey and haven’t enough remaining gold in their pockets.
Remus lurches into the street with a hoot of false laughter. He somehow manages to walk some distance along the echoing cobblestones before gravity catches up with him.
He stumbles, falls hard, broken pavement biting into hands and knees. He stays in this same position for some time before realising that he should actually be upright. It is the puddle - filthy city runoff - that alerts him at last.
His trouser leg slaps wetly against his shin and sticks there as he straightens. He doesn’t notice. The scarlet beads of blood on his scraped palms are suddenly the most fascinatingly exotic thing he has ever seen. He watches, swaying slightly, as the blood runs into all the tiny lines of his skin.
The world shifts crazily beneath his drunken feet and he nearly falls again, catching hold of a lightpost at the last moment. He wavers there, staring down at his ruined shirt. “Fuck.” His voice is a whiskey-roughened creak. Several buttons are missing and he has no idea when or how it happened.
Gone. The word echoes cavernously in his head.
“Fuck,” he says again weakly, hands falling blood-smeared and empty to his sides.
He walks on past a shop window. Robes for Every Occasion! Fury closes his throat. The urge to smash the plate glass with his fist and use the shards to rip-tear-shred is almost overwhelming. He forces his hands to relax, his feet to keep moving. In the next alley he passes he is quietly sick.
He spits, but the sour taste clings to his tongue. His chest feels sore when he breathes and a slow burn of panic starts as he realises he doesn’t have anywhere to go. Nowhere. Nowhere.
~*~
By the time Tonks finds him he’s slipped into a foggy doze, slumped on the gritty, cracked pavement by the mouth of the alley. He wonders absently how she found him. It’s gotten very dark, he notes, as she hauls him up by the arm and supports him with her shoulder.
“C’mon, Old Man,” she says kindly, using her teasing nickname for him, “Let’s get you home.”
Home? Remus wonders what she means by that as she drags him towards the nearest tube station.
~*~
Remus wakes with a start as Tonks urges him to his feet once again.
As they emerge from the underground Remus’ heart sinks. He knows where they are going and he supposes that it is inevitable. If there is any place that is both more and less him than Grimmauld Place, Remus doesn’t know of it. He would like to protest, but his head is throbbing and he is just too tired to come up with an alternate plan.
Miraculously, Tonks gets him up the stairs, no doubt with the aid of magic that he doesn’t bother to notice. The house is uncharacteristically quiet. He still doesn’t protest as she leads him to his bedroom (their bedroom; his bedroom) and eases him down onto the worn duvet. He lies full-length, relaxing into the mattress with no sense of comfort.
She sits for some time before feeling the need to speak. “Remus. Sirius w-”
He covers his ears, curling in on himself like a prodded insect. He doesn’t want to hear what she has to say.
“All right,” she whispers, gently pulling his hands away from his head. “I won’t talk. It’s okay.” Her fingers smooth sweaty hair back from his temples. It reminds him of his early days of lycanthropy when he was constantly ill and for some reason it prompts the hot slide of silent tears down his face.
As long as she doesn’t talk. Especially not about…Because…because he’s…Gone? No, not gone. He is everywhere. Immediate. In every breath of air Remus pulls into his aching lungs.
Gone. Impossible. How could he be gone when they’d just found each other again? Fifteen years and it’s losing him all over again, but this time there’s no redemption. There are no mistakes. This time there is no coming back.
Remus lies on the dusty bed, his reddened eyes fixed on a dark brown water stain that Sirius always said resembled a quintaped wearing a sunhat.
There is a hand in his, but it might as well be empty. It’s not the right one.
Title: Empty
Author: sethkyne_blue
Pairing(s): implied Sirius/Remus
Rating: R (for some language only)
Word count: 1658
Content: Angst; OotP Remus POV
Summary: Remus lives through the hours directly following Sirius’ fall through the veil.
Disclaimer: All HP characters and their universe belong to J.K. Rowling and her publishers. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author’s note(s): This is not happy. This is desolate. This is for my Mum.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to mackittenx and irish_lily for Beta-ing and general feedback.
Time stops or stands still. Any of those tired clichés. The whole world becomes that tattered curtain of rippling fabric and the surprised face that just disappeared behind it.
Harry shouts out like a wounded thing, starting forward, arms stretched towards nothing. Remus draws him back with automatic movements of his body - always was stronger than he looked - and it’s about strength now: to hold back Harry, to hold back himself, to say the words, calm and almost unbroken.
“There’s nothing you can do…It’s too late…He’s gone.”
And Harry is screaming, but all Remus can hear is the rushing static in his own ears. His mouth keeps moving and he doesn’t know quite what he’s saying: “He’s gone…He can’t come back… He can’t come back.” And it doesn’t matter really, except Remus somehow knows that the words are true.
Before long Harry has run off in murderous pursuit, face chalky with spots of bright rage burning in his cheeks. Dumbledore follows after him, the best protection the boy could be offered. Remus wonders dumbly if his own face looks at all the same as Harry’s.
There is water roaring in his head, and when Kingsley’s hand briefly squeezes his arm he’s barely aware of it. The other man moves off, a dark, silent shadow, presumably to tend to the others.
Yes. The others. Remus’ brain kicks into survival mode and he moves with seeming purpose, lifting curses, performing simple healing spells until there is nothing left to do and he is somehow once more facing the dais.
Remus finds himself suddenly, jarringly, on his knees, wand tumbling from now-nerveless fingers. His eyelids flutter strangely and he feels himself begin to shake.
Shredded fabric undulates softly in an imaginary breeze. Distant voices. Wide grey eyes.
He snaps back to awareness. The last few moments are blackness - an unspoken Obliviate. He’s still on his knees. His throat hurts and he absently wonders if he’s been screaming. Movement to his right catches his attention and he whips his head to track it with a violent jerk.
Neville. Eyes large with horrified understanding, shirt caked with blood. “Professor,” he whispers, reaching out uncertainly.
Remus shrinks back without seeming to, his face a carefully blank mask. He gets to his feet - straight and steady. A reassuring hand grips Neville’s shoulder momentarily and Remus moves towards the door.
As he reaches the hallway outside the Department of Mysteries Remus Apparates with a resounding crack. He’s somewhere - away, anywhere, it doesn’t matter - when his feet hit new ground and he is running. Dangerous. Stupid, his brain says. Never Apparate without a clear destination in mind. You could end up inside a wall or something.
For some reason this thought strikes him as immensely funny. Queer, painful laughter dribbles from his mouth and slows his legs. He recovers gradually, bent against the side of a building, gasping for air.
“Sirius.” The name comes to his lips unbidden; it’s a shock to his ears. “It’s…he’s…” Remus breathes into the grimy brick. The wall is rough and cold beneath his palms in the early dawn chill. He turns with a scrape of dirt on concrete and curls his hands into fists.
He’s not drunk and he wants to be. Needs to be. To feel his body blur and lose cohesion. To forget that he ever existed in the first place.
His wand hand goes out automatically and in a matter of seconds he hears the familiar bang and the squeal of over-taxed tyres. The purple monstrosity comes to a shuddering halt in front of him, huffing exhaust and rocking slightly as if with impatience. He boards, cramming a handful of coins into the conductor’s palm, no thought to whether they are bronze, silver or gold.
“Leaky Cauldron,” he mutters. Stan takes the hint, handing over his change without comment, and Remus folds carelessly into the nearest chair. His hands clench back into tight fists on his thighs. It is the longest ride of his life.
~*~
The first drink is hard. The first one always is - desperate, hurried, imbued with a visceral hunger. Almost like sex, Remus muses, contemplating the empty glass.
“Another.” He thumps on the bar, downs the second drink with a grimace. Tom looks carefully at him although Remus doesn’t meet his eyes. “I’ll leave the bottle,” he says, moving away quietly.
~*~
So many glassfuls have slid down his throat now that Remus has to pay particular attention when pouring. The bottle is more than half empty the next time he sets it down.
He doesn’t know what time it is. Doesn’t care. He’s been here for hours, days. No. Hours. The Cauldron does close at some point, doesn’t it? And he got here sometime in the morning before the bar was actually open. Remus hadn’t even had to explain anything. Tom took one probing glance at his face and asked him, “What’ll it be?”
No matter.
Remus blinks as he notices a small hand resting on the bar next to his own. He glances up, blinks again at the pretty, young woman looking back at him. Remus, she mouths.
His mind flashes on, Purple hair? He shakes his head slowly, focusing on the glass as he pours another drink, but doesn’t yet lift it. His hand tightens around it too hard and some of the liquid slops over the rim. Her fingers squeeze his wrist briefly and then she is gone. The glass trembles a little as Remus brings it to his lips.
~*~
The Cauldron does close. Or at least it does for sullen werewolves who’ve clearly had too much firewhiskey and haven’t enough remaining gold in their pockets.
Remus lurches into the street with a hoot of false laughter. He somehow manages to walk some distance along the echoing cobblestones before gravity catches up with him.
He stumbles, falls hard, broken pavement biting into hands and knees. He stays in this same position for some time before realising that he should actually be upright. It is the puddle - filthy city runoff - that alerts him at last.
His trouser leg slaps wetly against his shin and sticks there as he straightens. He doesn’t notice. The scarlet beads of blood on his scraped palms are suddenly the most fascinatingly exotic thing he has ever seen. He watches, swaying slightly, as the blood runs into all the tiny lines of his skin.
The world shifts crazily beneath his drunken feet and he nearly falls again, catching hold of a lightpost at the last moment. He wavers there, staring down at his ruined shirt. “Fuck.” His voice is a whiskey-roughened creak. Several buttons are missing and he has no idea when or how it happened.
Gone. The word echoes cavernously in his head.
“Fuck,” he says again weakly, hands falling blood-smeared and empty to his sides.
He walks on past a shop window. Robes for Every Occasion! Fury closes his throat. The urge to smash the plate glass with his fist and use the shards to rip-tear-shred is almost overwhelming. He forces his hands to relax, his feet to keep moving. In the next alley he passes he is quietly sick.
He spits, but the sour taste clings to his tongue. His chest feels sore when he breathes and a slow burn of panic starts as he realises he doesn’t have anywhere to go. Nowhere. Nowhere.
~*~
By the time Tonks finds him he’s slipped into a foggy doze, slumped on the gritty, cracked pavement by the mouth of the alley. He wonders absently how she found him. It’s gotten very dark, he notes, as she hauls him up by the arm and supports him with her shoulder.
“C’mon, Old Man,” she says kindly, using her teasing nickname for him, “Let’s get you home.”
Home? Remus wonders what she means by that as she drags him towards the nearest tube station.
~*~
Remus wakes with a start as Tonks urges him to his feet once again.
As they emerge from the underground Remus’ heart sinks. He knows where they are going and he supposes that it is inevitable. If there is any place that is both more and less him than Grimmauld Place, Remus doesn’t know of it. He would like to protest, but his head is throbbing and he is just too tired to come up with an alternate plan.
Miraculously, Tonks gets him up the stairs, no doubt with the aid of magic that he doesn’t bother to notice. The house is uncharacteristically quiet. He still doesn’t protest as she leads him to his bedroom (their bedroom; his bedroom) and eases him down onto the worn duvet. He lies full-length, relaxing into the mattress with no sense of comfort.
She sits for some time before feeling the need to speak. “Remus. Sirius w-”
He covers his ears, curling in on himself like a prodded insect. He doesn’t want to hear what she has to say.
“All right,” she whispers, gently pulling his hands away from his head. “I won’t talk. It’s okay.” Her fingers smooth sweaty hair back from his temples. It reminds him of his early days of lycanthropy when he was constantly ill and for some reason it prompts the hot slide of silent tears down his face.
As long as she doesn’t talk. Especially not about…Because…because he’s…Gone? No, not gone. He is everywhere. Immediate. In every breath of air Remus pulls into his aching lungs.
Gone. Impossible. How could he be gone when they’d just found each other again? Fifteen years and it’s losing him all over again, but this time there’s no redemption. There are no mistakes. This time there is no coming back.
Remus lies on the dusty bed, his reddened eyes fixed on a dark brown water stain that Sirius always said resembled a quintaped wearing a sunhat.
There is a hand in his, but it might as well be empty. It’s not the right one.