Chapter Thirteen: Through the Bones of the Living

The first sorrow of autumn
is the slow goodbye
Of the garden who stands so long in the evening -
A brown poppy head,
The stalk of a lily,
And still cannot go.

The second sorrow
Is the empty feet
Of a pheasant who hangs from a hook with his brothers.
The woodland of gold
Is folded in feathers
With its head ( Read more... )

All right... here it is.  Sorry for the length of time between chapters.

Warning:  This chapter does contain slash.

Chapter Twelve:  After a Thousand Reversals

"Much like a force of planets and stars and black holes: this is love. 
I can remember the days of love's first, unruly birth,

moving inside of me, some gravitational ocean, 
some unnamed ( Read more... )

Chapter Eleven: That a Ghost May Him Haunt

"Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery
But baby, right now,

It's just about you and me.

You can run, you can hide
Just like Bonnie and Clyde.

Reach for the sky,
Ain't never gonna die."
- Social Distortion, Reach for the Sky

The library is enough to stop Remus in his tracks.

"Sirius," he asks after a ( Read more... )

Chapter Ten: Or Their Stretched Purpose Slacken

“Who murdered all these?
These living dead, that root in his nerves and his blood...

Is he the archive of their accusations?
Or their ghostly purpose, their pining vengeance...
...their unforgiven prisoner?”
-Ted Hughes, Crow's Nerve Fails

Molly has a routine. She doesn't quite think of it that way, but ( Read more... )

Chapter Nine: The Wounded Air Roared In

“...walking in the dark and the wind over broken earth
halfmade foundations and unfinished
drainage trenches and the spaced out
circles of glaring light
marking streets that were to be
walking with you but so far from you....”
-Denise Levertov, From the Roof

For a moment, all Remus can do is look helplessly at ( Read more... )

When We That Wore the Myrtle
first year backstory for destruction where you stand
by auberus

"When we that wore the myrtle wear the dust,
And years of darkness cover up our eyes,
And all our arrogant laughter and sweet lust
Keep counsel with the scruples of the wise..."
    -Edna St. Vincent Millay

Minerva:

In all her years, Minerva had never expected to ( Read more... )

Chapter Eight: Whose Part Was to be Gladness

“And as its going often at love's breaking,
The ghost of first days came again to us,
The silver willow through window then stretched in
The silver beauty of her gentle branches.
The bird began to sing the song of light and pleasure
To us, who fear to lift looks from the earth,
Who are so lofty, bitter ( Read more... )

Chapter Seven: Between the Dawn and the Day

"I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the school-boy's brain;
The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain.
And the voice of that fitful song
Sings on, and is never still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are ( Read more... )

Chapter Six: And All Their Sorrows in Your Face

“Pos de chantar m'es prez talentz
Farai un vers don sui dolenz:
Mais non serai obedienz
En Peitau ni en Lemozi.

Qu'era m'en irai en eisil
En gran paor, en grand peril,
En guerra laissarai mon fil
E faran li mal siei vezi”
    -Guillaume IX, Duke of Aquitaine

The shriek of the Manor's alarms tearing ( Read more... )

Chapter Five: Down the Gray Sky

"S'io credesse che mia riposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per cio che giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo."

-Dante, Inferno

Remus has been to the Longbottoms' before, of course. There had been Order ( Read more... )