#snape's one of the few deaths we see where it's actually painful and not magical | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

castexpectopatronum · 3 years

Text

Liquid Amber - Part III [Remus Lupin x Reader Imagine]

Summary: You had been crushing on Remus Lupin for an eternity when you finally decided to ask him out. However, things do not go as planned and you remain wondering just what exactly is going on with this boy.

notes: reupload because the original got deleated

trigger warnings: none

word count: 1.9k

Masterlist

What was Remus Lupin hiding?

The question was burning inside of you ever since your encounter in the corridor a few days ago. And even though you knew that it was none of your business, you still were determined to find out.

Concerning this matter, it was fortunate you fancied Remus as that made you far more observant of him. Whenever you could, you shot glances at him, during meals and classes, and paid special attention to his behaviour. You did notice that he seemed rather sick, he looked pale and peaky and he seemed to be growing weaker by each day.

Then, he disappeared. When you stepped into the Transfiguration classroom one day, already late, only to find his seat empty, a deep frown appeared on your face. His friends, James, Sirius and Peter, were there, but unusually quiet and had black shadows under their eyes. Peter even fell asleep during the lesson; his soft snores filled the classroom until Sirius nudged him with his ellbow causing Peter to almost fall from his chair. You observed them carefully while pretending to listen to Professor McGonagall’s lecture. Perhaps the Marauders had pulled off an all-nighter of some sort but that still didn’t explain Remus’ absence. Maybe he had a hangover – although you failed to imagine Remus as some kind of party animal.

Remembering how sickly he had looked the day before, you decided to check the Hospital Wing for him and bring Remus some chocolate bars from Honeyduke’s which you knew he loved.

However, when you entered the Hospital Wing, you found that it was already occupied. James, Sirius and Peter were huddled around a bed at the far corner of the room, hiding the person lying in it from your view. The expression upon their faces turned into one of surprise once they spotted you, mirroring your own.

“Sorry,” you said, taken aback by their presence – although now that you thought about it, you should have expected it. “I didn’t know you were here. I was just looking for Remus.”

The three of them exchanged looks, as if they knew something you didn’t, and stood up.

“No problem, we just wanted to leave, anyway,” Sirius said. Next moment, he groaned all of a sudden, leaving you to raise your eyebrows in surprise. James bent down to whisper something in Remus’ ear who looked rather alarmed. He replied something in a hushed voice but James simply gave him a crooked grin, patted him gently on the shoulder and barely gave Sirius and Peter the chance to say their goodbyes before he pushed them towards the door. Playing with your sleeves, you observed them with furrowed eyebrows.

“Y’know, if it’s not a good time, I can come back tomorrow or-”

“Nonsense, the time is perfect,” James interrupted.

“Just make sure to be gentle with him,” said Peter in a concerned voice. “He’s been through a lot.”

Your frown deepened. “What do you mean?”

“Just a nasty flu, tha’s all,” said Sirius quickly, shooting Peter a warning glance. “Nothing to worry about. Give it a few days and he’ll be as good as new.” He turned to his friends. “C’mon, we best be going.” They shot you one last glance and Peter flashed a smile, then the door closed behind them, the sound echoing in the room, leaving you and Remus alone in the Hospital Wing.

You turned around to him and chuckled nervously. “Well, that did not quite go as I expected.”

Remus didn’t laugh. He didn’t smile. He didn’t give any indication whatsoever that he was happy to see you. He simply stared at you, his eyes shining like liquid amber.

“What are you doing here?”

“I missed you in class today. Here.” You placed the chocolate bars on the nightstand next to his bed. “A little something to cheer you up. Thought you could use it.”

Remus nodded weakly. “Thank you,” he muttered and watched you sit down on a chair.

You smiled sheepishly. “So, the flu, eh?”

Remus shrugged and pulled the blanket up to his chin. “Happens to the best of us.”

You took in his appearence with furrowed eyebrows. Remus was whiter than the bedsheets, his face was hallow, and his eyes, usually so attentive and full of warmth, were now dull. Dark bags circling them, and he looked very thin and weak. You doubted he even had the strength to get up.

“How are you feeling?”

Remus turned his head away from you and looked up at the ceiling. “I’m fine.”

You cocked your head. “And Dumbledore isn’t two-hundred years old.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “I don’t think he’s quite that old.”

“How would you know? Do you know when he was born?”

“No wizard gets that old.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Dumbledore did. The man is ancient.”

This finally evoqued a smile from him which you couldn’t help but return. But he remained silent.

“You don’t really have the flu, do you?”

Remus’ head spun around, and although he hid it quickly and put on a neutral expression, you did not miss the flash of panic in his eyes.

“Of course I have the flu. What else should I have?”

“Remus, you’re as white as a ghost. The flu is terrible but it doesn’t make you look as if you’re on the brink of death.”

The moment the words left your mouth, you knew you had hit a nerve. Remus’ jaw clenched and his eyes suddenly turned colder. He turned his head to stare at the ceiling, avoiding the worried yet piercing look in your eyes.

“It’s a nasty one.”

You snorted. “Sure. Don’t try and fool me, Remus. I know a flu when I see it and whatever it is that you have, it’s not that.”

He didn’t respond.

You sighed, regretting the harsh tone in your voice. “Listen, Remus... You don’t have to tell me what you have or why you get sick so often. But... I just want you to know that I’m there for you if you ever do want to talk about it. And whatever it is – I can’t imagine it could change my opinion on you.” You gave your best to give him an encouraging smile and stood up. “You should eat some chocolate. You’ll feel better afterwards.”

You knew he wouldn’t answer but still lingered for several moments to a least give him the opportunity to. When your conviction proved to be right, however, you gave him one last half-hearted smile and left the Hospital Wing.

A part of you had hoped that after this incident Remus and you would grow closer but instead Remus was more determined than ever to avoid you. Every time you passed him in the hallway, you felt a painful sting in your heart. However, the original issue of Remus refusing to go out with you became less and less important to you although your crush on him grew stronger by each day.

Your academic success was quite average but you weren’t stupid – to you there was no doubt that Remus’s illness was the cause of all this trouble, also considering he often looked pale and sickly. Every time you saw him looking particularly weak, your wish to help him grew even more urgent than before but you could only help him with his condition if you knew what it was – and trying to get Remus to open up about his sickness was about as effective as convincing James of writing a love letter to Snape.

It was two months of this slow torture and several stupid theories later that you realised Remus’s sickness was not only a frequent but also regular occurence. As far as you remembered, he seemed to be getting sick every once a month.

A deep frown appeared on your face and you turned around in your seat to look at Remus who was taking notes on Professor Flitwick’s words. His face was pale again with dark bags circling his eyes. A strange cut peaked out from under his shirt collor.

As if he had felt your intent gaze, Remus suddenly lifted his head. For one moment, is amber eyes burned into yours, then his intense expression turned into one of guilt and he quickly looked back down at his notes.

That day you merely picked at your food, your thoughts far away. Your friend watched in concern as you ripped a breadroll into tiny little pieces without eating any of it, staring absent-mindedly onto the wooden table.

“(Y/N), are you alright?”

Startled, you looked up, halting in your motion. “Yeah, I uh...” You hesitated, looking at the breah crumbs in your hand. “Actually, I still got something to do, uh...” Pushing your plate away, you stood up from the dining table, your friend watching you in confusion. “I’ll catch you up later,” you promised and left the Great Hall before your friend had even opened their mouth to protest.

The library was dead quiet as every student was at dinner which was very much to your liking. That way you could follow your suspicions without having to worry about anybody asking unwanted questions.

Pensively, you let your fingers brush over the back of the old books until you finally pulled one out, feeling the weight of it in your hands. You viewed the cover thoughtfully for a moment before you tucked it under your arm and continued to collect more books.

Half an hour later, you carried a great stash of books out of the library, carefully transporting them the long way to your common room as they didn’t all fit into your bag.

“What the hell is that?” your friend asked incredulously as you entered your dorm room and let the books fall onto your bed where they scattered all over your blanket.

“Books,” you answered.

Your friend raised their eyebrows. „Really,“ they said blankly. „Good thing you explained that, I had no idea.“ You threw them an half-annoyed, half-amused glance as they strolled over to your bedside and viewed the book titles.

“Magical Diseases and Epidemics,” they read aloud, “Dragon Pox or Measles? An Encyclopedia on Magical Maladies.” They raised their head to look at you, their eyebrows raised so high they almost disappeared in their hairline. “Are you sick?”

“No,” you said, shaking your head, and started stacking the books on the nightstand, pushing your friend aside as you did. “It’s ... a new hobby.”

“A hobby?”

“Yes. That’s what you call an enjoyable freetime activity.”

“I didn’t know purulent dragon pox were an enjoyable free time activity.”

You threw her an annoyed glance as you put another book on the growing stack. “It’s an interesting topic as I have realised.”

“And you had to skip dinner to get those books?”

“Yes,” you said, avoiding your friend’s eyes.

You knew they didn’t believe a single thing you said but thankfully, they didn’t further inquire. Instead, they rolled their eyes and let themselves fall onto their own bed. “I always knew you were weird,” they said. “Just make sure you don’t actually get sick. I don’t fancy getting dragon pox.”

“No one is going to get dragon pox,” you replied, but a small smile was tugging at your lips. The two of you walked down to your common room to do your homework which, although you had quite some trouble concentrating on, you hurried to finish, so you could get back to your books.

Remus Lupin had a problem and you were determined to find out what it was.

#remus lupin #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin imagine #remus lupin imagines #liquid amber #part iii #marauders era imagine #marauders imagine

67 notes · View notes

random-imagines-blog · 3 years

Text

Never Say Die {Severus Snape x Reader Oneshot}

Requested by: Anonymous Wordcount: 2626 Summary: Sometimes being in close proximity to a person for an extended period of time can bring out strong feelings.

The world had just become a scarier place. The great man, Dumbledore himself, was falling to his death from the tower of the school that he had run for decades. And you were standing behind the man that had his wand still drawn, and had whispered the killing spell. You breathed out as it was done, the task that the dark lord had sent your brother to do, that he had failed. You reached for him, for Draco, pulling him close and down the stairs as the others ran towards the window to make sure that Dumbledore was truly dead. Bellatrix yelled, and a light shot out of her wand. The Dark Mark, no doubt, filling up the sky. The mission was complete, but you feared for Draco. It was supposed to have come from his wand. You hurried down the stairs, hand on his shoulder, and Severus was close behind you. The murderer of the greatest man, and the biggest hope that the world had of defeating Lord Voldemort, gone from this earth. Your heart was down in your stomach, and you felt more and more sick with every step that you took. But you had to carry on.

“Hurry, hurry,” You hissed, pushing your brother along, his bright silver hair, the same hair you had, creating a beacon in the darkness. He went, nearly tripping, until you made it to the bottom of the stairs, and crashed through the doors. You had to get out of here before people saw. You had to make your escape before the three of you were killed for what you had just done - but maybe you deserved it, you thought. Maybe you should be grabbed by these professors that you had adored over the years, and face the consequences for your actions.

Clad in black, the three of you ran from the school. The other deatheaters, the ones that were truly terrifying, would be chasing soon. The death mark was above the school, you didn’t need to turn your head as you fled to see it. You could feel it. It was burning on your arm, like it was on Draco’s, like it was on Severus’s.

As soon as you were beyond the perimeter of the school, before the aurors and the ministry would report to deal with the death of Dumbledore and attempt to find out how the death eaters had gotten in, you teleported with the two. Severus had set up a safe house for you three to cool down after the murder. Reporting straight to Lord Voldemort now was too risky. And staying at the school was out of the question.

The house was dark, dingy, but livable. A mutter of lumos and you were able to see your way around, and light up the place. It was small, two bedrooms, but it was the best that you could come up with given the short notice and the secrecy. You were just planning on sharing with Draco, but he went running into one of the bedrooms, and locked the door behind him. You sighed and sat down on the couch, supposing you would take that. You were exhausted, and your heart hurt more than anything. Severus sat beside you, rubbing his temples with his fingertips.

“You did what you had to do, Severus,” You said, your voice just barely above a whisper. “And you saved my brother’s life - thank you.”

He looked over at you, his face looking worn and aged, more so than you had remembered when you had merely been his pupil, years ago. He hadn’t looked as old then, nor as tired. Things have been hard since the war had started back up, and it was taking its toll on everyone. You weren’t exactly the fresh faced blonde that you had been during your school days. He didn’t say anything to you, only looked, and then nodded. You laid your head down on the back of the couch, and fell asleep surprisingly easily after the rush of the night. The emotions that you were feeling were still welling up, and you needed that escape, even for a few hours.

You three continued to hide out together over the next couple of days. When you had woken up after that first night, you had found that you were in the second bedroom, where you did not remember falling asleep. Severus, as you had found out, had carried you there himself after you had passed out on the couch. He then had taken the place he forced you to vacate. It turned into a thing between the two of you. Whoever fell asleep first would get moved. You had to use magic, not being as strong as he was, but the premise stood. You ended up tucking each other in every night.

You noticed many things about him while staying at the safe house, and the big one was how guilty he felt over what he had done. Killing Dumbledore was a huge step for him, and he was taking it hard. Your brother was as well, not really leaving the room that he had claimed as his own, except to use the bathroom and when you forced him to eat. But Severus was taking it especially hard, which confirmed your suspicions. That your Lord, the Dark Lord, was not his true one, just as he was not yours. It was nothing that you could say aloud, for even invoking such a conversation was dangerous, but you wanted to make sure that he knew you felt the same.

He spent a lot of time on the sofa, staring blankly ahead, or picking one of the books off the teetering shelf and scanning through it. “Severus,” You cleared your throat, putting the bags of muggle fast food on the table. You were the one who usually made the runs for it, since it was easier for you to disguise yourself than it was for these two. Severus would draw a lot of attention upon himself just for walking down the street. He set the book down beside the greasy bags and looked up at you, that pain still in his eyes. It broke your heart to see it there. “Are you going to be alright?”

He looked a little puzzled at your question. But then he slowly nodded and went for the bag of food. It still seemed unfamiliar to him. He couldn’t figure out how to open the cardboard container with the burger in it without spilling it everywhere. He ended up resorting to a spell to get it to open. Before he could do that today, you opened it for him, and put it in front of him. “Thank you,” He muttered.

“You’re welcome,” You said. You knocked on Draco’s door to let him know that you had brought food, and you barely got a grunt in response. You sighed and sat down on the sofa next to Severus, sliding your own bag over. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with the two of you.”

“Excuse me?” Severus asked, in his deep voice.

You looked at him, square in those dark eyes of his. This was the first honest to God eye contact that you had with him since Dumbledore’s death, and you weren’t going to waste the opportunity. “You heard me. I’m upset about what happened to, and it’s shite that it went down that way but sulking around isn’t going to solve anything. Do you think the Order are just staring at walls, or do you think they’re working on a plan?”

“It is too late, the Order has lost,” Severus said, thin-lipped. You shook your head at him, not believing that for a second.

“Has anyone tried to tell them that?” You asked. “I guarantee you they are not sitting on couches, doing nothing at all. We’re part of this, Severus. And - and I would rather continue on my mission and fight against evil even if that means that I get caught and killed for being a traitor. Draco doesn’t get that, but I know that you are old enough to. So come on, snap out of this, we have to do something.”

“I’m due back at the school,” Severus admitted to me. “I got my mission while you were out.”

“Back to - what do they expect for you to do there?”

“Run it.” He said, sighing. It was such a sad noise to come from such a man. While you were his pupil, you had idolized him. Sure, he was always a bit of a grumpy old prat but he was brilliant. And he was powerful. After a long minute, you scooched closer to him and rested your head against his shoulder.

“Then we’ll come with you,” You whispered. “Any of the students who go back aren’t going to trust you. You’re going to need help watching your back.”

“We’ll have to wait and see what the Dark Lo-”

“I told you, I’m coming with you - and Draco is probably going to be sent back to the school anyway. I’ll talk to the Dark Lord myself about it if I have to.”

“Why?” Severus asked, his eyebrows furrowing. Seeing him like that, with a McDonalds burger in his hands, and a confused expression was enough to make you start to sigh.

“Because we’re in this together. You and me,” You told him. A thick silence hung in the air, and it remained uninterrupted, even as Severus put his food down, and tentatively, like he had never done such a motion before, put his hand on your knee.

“Thank you,” He said, and you could tell that these were words that he didn’t use very often. You moved your head away to face him, and your lips lightly brushed against his. You hadn’t realized that he was leaning in so close. And you didn’t actually hate the feeling.

Your lips tingled as they caught his again. He had frozen once he registered what had happened, but then slowly, achingly so, his lips moved against yours into something that could only be called a kiss. It was short, but it was definitely sweet, and when you moved back away from it, he still had that furrowed brow.

It was only then that the silence was interrupted by an owl fluttering against one of the darkened windows. Your orders had finally arrived. You would be going back to Hogwarts.

You finally felt like you could breathe, despite the dust that was still in the air from the fallen down walls, and the scent of blood and death. There was great loss here, but it was over, and Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, The Dark Lord, You-Know-Who, whatever you wanted to call him, was gone.

Your mother, father and brother had run from the scene, to hide from the Ministry, until they would claim that they were under the imperius curse or something similar. But as you had shown from your frustration at being cooped up, you were not the run and hide type of person. You walked among the wounded and the injured, looking for one face in particular, and ran to his side when you finally saw him.

“He’s in pretty rough shape,” McGonagall said from behind you. You didn’t turn to face her, but you nodded, seeing it for yourself. He wasn’t conscious, but he was breathing, his chest still rising up and down. He had deep marks in his neck where Nagini had bitten him. The rumor was that he had died for a second, before something made him fight against it, and cause his heart to start beating again. But that second of death was enough for Voldemort to wield the Elder Wand. But he was defeated, it was all in the past, and you were going to look toward the future.

“I’ll take care of him,” You said, brushing a black lock out of his face. “I promise.”

You were cleared by the Ministry after an Inquiry. You were not pretending to have been under the Imperius Curse, but many Hogwarts students, those that survived the war, spoke up on your behalf. While you were there, watching over Draco and over Severus, you had been working on keeping them safe. You smuggled out letters to their parents that they could not send because the Owlry was under observation. And you worked on getting the younger students somewhere safe, and setting barrier charms around them so that the destruction could not come close. You weren’t going to get a medal for your service or anything, but at least you had your freedom. The ministry would be watching your upcoming career closely, however, for any signs of slipping into the dark arts. They had nothing to fear from you, and you would prove that to them. For now, you were just at a Malfoy safe house that hadn’t been seized, and were nursing Severus back to health.

He was still on bedrest, but he was eating, and drinking, and reading again. So essentially back to the mopey Severus that you had gotten to know while you were in hiding. You brought him in a sandwich today, one that you made yourself. He showed a lot of distaste over fast food, so you were getting none of that. Just real food for him.

“Miss Malfoy,” Severus said, setting his book down on the bed as you walked inside. You raised your eyebrow at the formality, and set the food down on the little propped up tray you had for him to help him eat better.

“You could just call me by my first name now. I’m not calling you Professor Snape, or even Mister Snape.”

“Ahh - I suppose not,” Severus said. You sat on the edge of the bed, leaning in to tuck a napkin into the collar of his shirt. “Y/N,” He said, instead.

“Yes, Severus?”

He cleared his throat, something that I rarely heard him do before. “I loved once.”

“Harry’s mother, I know,” You said with a nod. You had heard the rumors before. And it was quite tragic, having unrequited love, as you had been finding out recently. Severus nodded back in return, his food going untouched.

“And I have held onto that ... always.” Another long pause. You sat there, watching him, waiting for him to find the words for whatever it was that he wanted to say, because it couldn’t be just that. It would hurt too much if that was it. “I don’t talk about emotions.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“But I want to,” He looked like he was having a very rough time getting these words out, so you stayed quiet, sitting next to him. “I suppose that I am trying to say that I care about you.”

“You suppose?” You asked, then realized that it was the wrong thing to say. He looked a little wounded, like you were making fun, though that wasn’t your intention. “Severus, I love you. And if you’re trying to say it back, just say it.”

“I ... love you.” He said. You smiled, leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth. You didn’t want to overwhelm him right now, though that was all that you wanted to do. Push that tray away, straddle him and -

Deep breath. “And I you,” You told him again. “Now eat, please, I don’t want to spend anymore time worrying about you.”

#Severus Snape #Severus Snape x reader #Severus Snape oneshot #Harry Potter #Harry Potter oneshot #request #oneshot #one shot #x reader #severuss

115 notes · View notes

slytherinsnekxvii · 3 years

Text

let's talk about lily evans. she's an interesting character—or rather, the case surrounding her character is quite interesting.

i honestly don't know if i can say i dislike her. by all means, she should be a fan favourite, and she is... but for some rather intriguing reasons.

for one thing, due to the fact she's hardly expanded on in the series, certain parts of the fandom have been forced to either take the few qualities that she displays canonically and amplify them to the extreme (eg. immediate righteous anger at the slightest hint of injustice in fic) or create an entirely new personality (eg. no, i didn't actually disapprove of your pranks, it was just sexual tension). of course, the option of creating a new personality is much more tempting when you can just add amplified canon traits on the side.

for another, her relationship with james sometimes seems likes it's being weaponized against snape and his fans. i've seen arguments that go like "haha, snape just wanted to fuck lily, but james got her in the end anyway, sucks to be you", and not only does it entirely reduce her to an object, it feels like they don't even care about the relationship, the dynamics or the characters. she's basically a plot device.

and thirdly, half of her characterisation in fic is to be a peter stand-in. we don't like the rat man, so let's take the pretty girl and put her in place of the guy who was canonically a member of the marauders, even up until he was named secret keeper. suddenly, she's a prankster and an enabler.

but, snek, you may say, all of that is fanon lily, tho. you just explained that people seem to like her because they just put any personality they want into her as long as she's at least vaguely a good person. you would be right.

let's look at canon lily. she's described as the brightest witch of her age, most everyone speaks favourably of her. in fact, the only people we see actively disliking/being upset with her are petunia, out of jealousy and the invasion of privacy concerning her letter, severus, who lashed out and used a slur that also applied to him in a moment of serious distress and apologised after, and well, pureblood supremacists by virtue of her being muggleborn. interestingly enough, even this dislike manages to develop everyone's character more than it does her own.

as a teenage girl myself, let's look at her actions as a teenage girl. not necessarily in chronological order because I'm writing this at 2am and my memory is already mediocre at best.

1. she's done well enough in school to be considered trustworthy and responsible enough to be a prefect.

okay, i can respect that. a good few of the prefects at my school were really just appointed based on how much the teachers liked you, but at hogwarts, there's so few of them that they must put at least a little effort into it, so i'll move on.

2. she does not press for details when informed that her best friend's life needed to be saved by someone who has been publicly tormenting him for years

now, see, there's no reason why she needs to play therapist. it's not her job, she's just a girl, and we know that snape wasn't supposed to talk about the incident, so he would've been stuck if she had asked for an explanation. however, i also feel like she doesn't seem particularly concerned about his wellbeing, and when he brings up his concerns about lupin, rather than ask for proof, she dismisses it. which, fair enough, i would hate to listen to someone talk about the same thing over and over and over, but, i also feel like the fixation on a theory like that would be cause for concern.

3. she dismisses the actions of a group known to play tricks that harm people and have specifically been tormenting her best friend on the basis that they don't use dark magic

first, i'm going to establish what i usually assume dark magic refers to. aside from jinxes, hexes and curses, i also include anything that produces an effect similar to any of the unforgivables (takes away your life, your free will or your ability to feel safe in your own body, such as when you're in excruciating pain), and magic that would require a sacrifice of some sort.

when snape tries to point out the danger in what the marauders do, she insists that they don't use dark magic. and they don't... but they do use illegal magic. she then argues against the company that snape keeps, which, again, to be fair, is justified considering mulciber's done something to mary macdonald... it's also not a particularly realistic ask. snape probably shares a dorm with these guys, and he's a poor half-blood so he's already on the outs. as far as he knows, any dissent will be met with him getting hexed in his sleep. but, i digress.

given that the marauders have been shown to be doing extremely dangerous with little regards to anyone's safety, and actively tormenting her best friend, i disagree with her choice here. on the other hand, she's made her own friends in gryffindor and perhaps she sees a nicer side of them that we don't get to. she's justified in her actions, but i still disagree.

4. she intervenes when her best friend is hung upside down by a spell of his own invention at the wands of the people who have tormenting him for years

she does object to the marauders' treatment of him, and she does try to get them to let him down. if i were in her position, i would absolutely do the same. i respect the decision to stand up for her friend.

5. she does not seriously attempt to help him or punish the marauders

i do not respect how she handled it. at any point, she could have drawn her wand. but, snek, you say, perhaps she didn't want to get involved physically. she wanted to follow the rules. in that case, at any point, she could taken points, assigned detention, or sent someone to get a member of staff. she does none of those things and i viscerally disagree. if we were ever friends and someone tried to hurt you, i can assure you that i would try to at least see to it that they'd be punished, even if it wasn't immediate or by my own hand. lily, however, chooses to argue rather than take action.

6. she smiles when severus gets hung upside down

chances are, it was more than likely an involuntary reaction, like laughing when your friend has fallen over. however, the fact that it was intentionally written in seems like it's mean to be an indicator that the friendship was already falling apart.

7. she comments on her best friend's poverty and uses a name that's been used to make fun of him after he calls her a slur that also applies to him

she was 100% within her rights to be upset by being called a slur. it is never okay to use slurs. the only situation in which a slur could possibly ever be appropriate would be if you were an oppressed group attempting to reclaim said slur which is not at all what snape was doing here. he was experiencing cruelty, being humiliated, publicly, for no reason beyond existing and he was in distress, choking on soap and upside down. it was damaging to his pride, especially when james suggests that he needs lily to fight his battles for him (paraphrasing) which is an emasculating statement to make, especially to a teenage boy. so, snape lashes out with the most hurtful word he could think of, which happened to be a slur that also applies to him. lily was 100% justified in being upset about this, and she retaliated in kind. she was very much allowed to say what she said. i understand that she was hurt and angry and i respect that, especially as i can't guarantee that i would not have been just as upset in that situation.

8. even when the threat of sexual harassment is made, she still does nothing

i get it, at this point, she's hurt, she's mad, she wants him to suffer since she's a teenage girl and teenage girls hold grudges like it's nobody's business, but... i definitely couldn't just stand by and watch it happen. she basically just let them go through with it.

9. she does not accept her best friend's apology for calling her a slur that also applies to him, effectively burying the friendship

she is, by no means, obligated to continue being friends with him. however, if i were in that position, and the apology was sincere, i would take the friend back.

10. she goes on to date and eventually marry the guy who bullied her former best friend for his entire school life

no. i disagree. but, snek, you say, james changed. no. he didn't. we know, that at this point, james was still going after snape behind lily's back. you can say that she didn't know, but that means that she would have allowed james to lie to her and that doesn't sit right with me bc a relationship built on lies is a relationship that is going to fall apart, especially when your partner has been disappointed by your actions before. you can say that she did know, and that proves that she simply didn't take her responsibilities as head girl seriously enough to stop the head boy from harassing people when she explicitly told him not to. the point is, no. there is no way that this would have worked out as a long term relationship. james is too comfortable lying to her. i can't even say she was justified. there is no circumstance where i personally see this as okay for anybody involved.

alright, so, essentially teenage lily was justified in (most of) her actions, even if i find them questionable.

adult lily dies at 21, while saving her son, but her death also helps save the wizarding world. good job. she, as expected, did what any good mother would.

and that's canon lily.

my thoughts: she's a perfect example of why writing tips are so adamant on making sure people try to show and not tell. we were told that lily is meant to be good and pure and lovely, but the author never bothered to actually prove that, so what we're left with a dissonance between what we see and what we know.

as a result, i still don't know if i truly dislike her. her actions are justified, but they don't match with what we've been told, and we don't have any other information to go off of. at best, i can say for certain that i disagree with many of her choices, despite understanding why she would have made them (except for marrying james potter, uggghh, the only good thing to come out of that was harry and the saving of the wizarding world by extension, ig).

thanks for reading all that, btw! hope it made sense :)

#meta #lily evans #lily evans potter #anti lily evans?#just to be sure #james potter #severus snape #harry potter #thoughts #my opinion #not sure what i should tag this as #im tired and have to get up for work in like #five hours lol #anti jily #im sorry but i really can't do jily

123 notes · View notes

potterverse-united · 3 years

Text

In Loving Memory

A fanfic in which Snape and Harry actually talk it out a little and start to understand each other...

Rating: G / K

Summary: Harry has never really liked Halloween... for obvious reasons. A certain professor isn't really a fan either. Perhaps some healing is in the cards for both of them, after a trip out to a small village in southwest England. Takes place in second year, but it could honestly be any year at Hogwarts.

Read on AO3 Read on Fanfiction.net

A/N: I haven't written fanfic in forever, but I just watched every single Harry Potter movie in one day a couple days ago, and it sent me into a relapse of my 13 year old self's Harry Potter obsession (not to mention that I now live in Orlando and have been to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter like 6 times in the last couple weeks). Oh man if my roommates ever find this they're gonna know exactly who wrote this…

O-O /*

With a flick of his wand, Snape slammed the door to his office shut, locking it beyond the hope of any student's best alohomora charm. He set out at a brisk pace toward the castle's entrance, glad to be escaping the merry cheers and shouts emanating from the Halloween celebration taking place in the Great Hall and, frankly, all throughout the castle.

As he turned a corner, he nearly tripped over a pair of legs and a stack of books. Idiotic, really. You would think that students would have the common sense not to sit where they could easily become a tripping hazard, but Severus had learned not to be surprised when 'common sense' was absent at Hogwarts.

A Ravenclaw, he expected. They were book smart, sure, but other than that, they could be incredibly dense, clumsy, and shortsighted. Or maybe Granger, though he imagined she was probably off getting roped into trouble with Potter and Weasley, perhaps with Hagrid and some illegal creature involved.

He had not expected the scrawny boy with round glasses and a lightning bolt scar on his forehead to be sitting in this dark hallway, far removed from the rest of the student body.

"Potter, I figured you'd be milling about and enjoying the festivities with your rowdy little friends," Snape spoke with a sneer. "What's a second year Gryffindor like yourself doing inside on Halloween night?"

Harry looked up, caught off guard by his professor who seemed to be wearing a heavier traveling cloak and carrying a crate full of items he couldn't quite see.

"I was, sir. I just… Well, Halloween isn't exactly my favorite night, professor."

Snape's head tilted back, eyes piercing through Harry's as if assessing the veracity of his excuse before, unbelievably, softening.

"I see," he answered. The potions professor pressed his lips together, the corners of his mouth slumping downward slightly, almost imperceptibly. "I'm not too fond of it myself." He shuffled the items awkwardly in his arms, turning to walk away.

"Are you going somewhere, professor?" Harry asked. After what had happened the previous Halloween, Harry wasn't sure it was the best idea for professors to leave the students unprotected, but Snape must have a good reason if he was. At Harry's words, he froze.

"As a matter of fact, I am," he answered in his drawling voice, turning back to look at his student. "I have business outside of the castle."

Harry nodded and shifted his attention back to the Transfiguration assignment he had been working on, expecting that his professor's patience for such an idle conversation had long since worn off.

Snape, however, continued to stare at the young boy, seeming to consider his next words very carefully.

"Perhaps you'd like to accompany me, Potter. My destination happens to be one that you may wish to visit."

"Sir?" Harry sat, confused.

Any hesitation Snape had shown at his initial offer was quickly covered by what could only be described as impatient certainty. "Come along, Potter. Unless you'd rather stay here staring at a blank roll of parchment?"

Blinking in surprise, Harry promptly gathered his things and trailed after the flowing cape of Severus Snape, down the hall and out of the castle.

O-O /*

Harry had to walk twice as fast as he usually did to keep up with the deceptively fast stride of his professor. They traveled down the lane a while, Snape charging ahead without so much as a glance back at the castle where students' delighted screams and laughs could be heard from half a mile away.

"I could help carry that for you, sir," Harry offered, seeing his professor struggle with the bulky items in his arms.

Snape's instinctive refusal died on his lips as he glanced down and met the wide, truthful eyes of Harry Potter. Eyes that could only remind him why he was bothering to drag the kid along with him on his yearly pilgrimage in the first place.

He nodded jerkily, not used to accepting help from anyone, much less the son of James Potter.

"Hold this," he said, transferring a large wreath of white flowers from the top of his overflowing box into Harry's awaiting arms.

Harry eyed the wreath curiously. Whatever he had expected the professor to be carrying, this certainly wasn't it.

"Where is it that we're going, professor?" he asked, shaking off the momentary confusion that had held him back from where Snape was walking ahead of him.

Snape made no move to meet Harry's eyes as he responded. "We are walking to the edge of the castle grounds, from which point we will apparate to a village in the southwest of England."

"Southwest England? Am I allowed that far from Hogwarts during the school year?" Harry asked curiously, wondering now if this was some ploy to trick him into breaking some serious school rules and getting sent home.

Snape's lip curled in a slight smirk at Potter's uncertainty. "As long as you stay with me, the headmaster can have no objection," his answer came, with an air of finality.

O-O /*

Apparation proved to be tougher to stomach than Harry was expecting, but his lack of an appetite at the Halloween feast served him well in that regard. Snape's firm grip on his arm helped stabilize him as their feet met the slightly damp soil of a small, sleepy town.

"What is this place?" Harry asked, turning his head like an owl to take in his new surroundings.

His professor looked down at him, a flash of concern and… something else behind his dark, inky eyes before it was easily masked by practiced impassivity. His gaze turned to the town in front of them.

"Godric's Hollow," he answered, seeming to lose himself in the line of small cottages and the old church standing silent in the middle. His voice was quiet, even softer than his usual reserved intonation, and there was a faraway look in his eye, like he was seeing more than Harry could see in front of him. "It is the birthplace of Godric Gryffindor, the invention of the Golden Snitch, and…" Snape paused, glancing down at the boy. "You."

Harry sucked in a shuddering breath.

"So that means…"

Snape gave a small nod, breathing out a sigh.

"Yes. This is where it happened."

Harry's knees suddenly felt like jelly. Snape must have recognized this, as he placed a firm, guiding hand on Harry's shoulder and led him through the quiet, leaf-covered street without another word.

As they neared the back of the church, Snape began to speak. "I had assumed you would have been brought here to visit by now. Twelve years of age, surely someone would have shown you where you're from." A kind of sadness formed in Harry's eyes, and Snape had to look away. "From your reaction, I can see I was incorrect in that assumption."

Harry nodded.

Severus clenched his fist, suppressing quiet rage at Petunia Evans who, looking back now, Snape should have realized would be unlikely to share fond memories of her sister with her nephew.

As they walked, Harry couldn't help looking at the streets, dimly lit with a warm yellow light. Bedroom lights in the small houses flickered out one by one, and he imagined that in each one, loving parents were kissing their children goodnight as they drifted off into content sleep.

This is where he would have grown up. A peaceful, happy life. A mum and a dad.

If, if, if.

Harry had long since learned that such thoughts only brought pain, but on the anniversary of their deaths, it was harder to push back those feelings. A deep sense of melancholy settled itself in his heart, pressing inward. Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes before the brisk autumn breeze blew across his face and dried them all up.

So lost in his musings was Harry, that he didn't even notice where Professor Snape had led them to.

The man stood, unmoving, gazing over rows and rows of tombstones in a fenced-in cemetery next to the church. Harry came up alongside him and felt his breath catch in his throat.

"Would you like to visit their grave, Harry?" Snape all but whispered, calling his student by his given name for the first time, possibly ever.

The boy looked up in shock, realizing now what was before him.

"You mean they're in there?" he asked, though perhaps he should not be so surprised.

Snape's lips twitched in what was his attempt at a comforting smile. He gave a nod. "Come, I'll take you to them."

O-O /*

Harry walked in a daze as Snape led him through the meandering rows of graves. Graves of magical and muggle folk alike. Eventually, the professor came to a stop in front of an unremarkable tombstone, though the names engraved on it held more weight than any of the muggle residents of this village would ever understand.

It seemed there were others who had already been to visit, as flowers and letters adorned the site, no doubt thanking the couple for their heroic sacrifice and continuing to mourn their tragic end.

Somehow, it had never occurred to Harry that his parents were buried somewhere. That he could go to a place and stand not a meter away from where they lay in rest. Until now, all they had been were names and a story. A few shared memories, but other than that, nothing but words. Knowing that they were once here, physically present, made the loss seem all that much more profound. And for the first time, Harry could imagine what it would feel like to be wrapped in his mother's arms, for his dad to ruffle his hair playfully. They were real, even if they weren't here anymore. They were real.

Harry swallowed back the emotion, bringing himself back into the present. At some point, Snape had knelt to the ground and was now brushing leaves and dirt off the top of the tombstone. He turned his head, nodding to Harry. "Come, Harry, help me with these flowers."

Cold, muddy water seeped through the knees of Harry's trousers, but he couldn't bring himself to care as he sank to the ground and held the white floral wreath limply in his hands. There was something about being here, doing something to honor his family, that soothed the pain in his heart.

Snape set out a bundle of white calla lilies, tied up with a small black bow, and motioned for Harry to hand him the wreath. After adjusting it to his liking, he stood and admired his work.

Harry was at a loss for words. Following his professor's example, he stood and gazed down at their names once more.

James and Lily Potter.

He could understand, now, why he had been invited along on this trip. In fact, he was incredibly grateful beyond words for such an opportunity. He had never expected for something like this to give him closure, much less for it to come from Snape.

But there Snape was, silently paying his respects to his mother, and Harry couldn't even theorize as to why.

"Sir, I—I don't understand…" Harry spoke, breaking the somber silence that had settled on the graveyard.

Severus didn't need to guess what Harry was wondering about. It was only natural for him to want to know.

Though Severus would infinitely have preferred to keep his connection with Harry's mother a secret, he knew it would not have been fair to Harry. After all, he had had so much time, comparatively, with her, and Harry so little. Though certainly her son deserved it far more than he ever did. The world could be cruel.

And Severus could not deny his part in that cruelty all those years ago. It was his fault that Voldemort sought out Lily and James. His fault that Harry wound up an orphan. It filled him with immense discomfort now to be standing there, guilt heavy on his shoulders, with the one person who suffered most from what happened that night.

"You are, no doubt, wondering why I would come here, to this graveyard," he spoke, nodding at the tombstone and leaving no room for denial.

Harry looked to his professor, awaiting an explanation.

Snape stared straight ahead at the engraved names, taking in a deep, unsteady breath. "Your mother Lily was my very best friend in our first years at Hogwarts. My only friend." His look was somber. "It only seems right to come here and pay my respects when I can."

For a moment, Harry swore he couldn't breathe.

Snape, of all people? Aside from learning last year that it had been Snape trying to protect him and protect the Stone, the potions professor was notorious for not having a kind or gentle bone in his body. He was impatient. Unnecessarily harsh on his students. Hateful. Every thing he had seen tonight, however, called every preconception of the man's character into question.

"F-friends, sir?"

A humorless smirk crossed Snape's features as he looked down at the young child. "Yes, I suppose my dealings with you would make such a thought unimaginable. Unfortunately, your father and I never got along." Now that was an understatement. "Once again, my assumptions of you may have been too hasty. I was foolish to believe your aunt would outgrow her childish contempt for the wizarding world."

"You knew Aunt Petunia?" Harry asked incredulously, finding this whole situation more and more unbelievable by the second.

Snape let out a disdainful laugh. "Perhaps one day you will know the whole story, Potter. But for now, I'll say that if your aunt treats you at all like how she treated Lily when we were children, then your mother would be rolling in her grave."

Harry pursed his lips. He was still not used to people caring what his home life was like, but he supposed that his parents would wish it a little better than it was with his aunt and uncle.

The belltower on the church rang out across the dampened street, chiming half past 11 o'clock at night. Snape bent down to collect the letters that rested against the stone, shuffling them into a neat pile and placing them in a wooden box.

"Here," he said, handing the box to Harry. "I believe these ought to belong to you."

Harry felt his eyes again welling up with tears as he accepted the gift. "T-thank you, professor," he stammered, clutching the box tight.

"There's a lot more where that came from, believe me," Snape commented as he packed up the boxes he had brought. For the first time, Harry was seeing a different side of Severus Snape. He was witty in his remarks—when he wasn't trying to be cruel. He could almost imagine the boy he once was, who held his mother's friendship.

"More, sir?"

Snape nodded as if it were obvious. "More than a decade's worth, now. The rest are in the possession of the headmaster, though I suspect he will return them to you if you should ask."

Harry wanted to speak, but no words would come out. It was overwhelming, everything that had happened in the course of a couple hours. Being here, now, he had a backdrop in which he could imagine his life before. A mental picture of what had happened. It somehow filled a gaping hole in his heart that he hadn't realized was there, while tearing it to pieces at the same time.

"I'll be at the gate, when you are ready," Snape announced, stepping away from the gravestone. Before Harry could argue, he was gone, and Harry turned back to the engraved names of his mother and father, alone with them for the first time since that night eleven years ago.

"Hello," he said, awkwardly, not sure what one was supposed to say to his deceased parents. "I guess I want to say thanks," he continued, "for, you know, saving me." A chilly breeze swept past the grave, causing Harry to shiver. He wiped the dampness from his face, sniffling softly. "I wish you were here."

There he sat for several more minutes, allowing the tears to fall as they may, before heading back to the entrance of the cemetery.

O-O /*

Snape watched from afar as the boy sat alone by the grave. He looked so small against the backdrop of large tombstones and overgrown trees. Much too small to have experienced all the pain which he had in his short life.

He sighed. For ten years he had carried on this tradition – returning to Godric's Hollow on this most miserable of nights. Never forgetting the night eleven years ago that had changed his life forever. He considered it in some ways a form of penance, self-punishment for his stupid, thoughtless actions that brought about the death of the one person he truly cared for. It was about reliving the pain, allowing himself to feel it deeply, in his bones.

But now…

Seeing Harry here, his first time in the village since that fateful night…

Perhaps it was about healing. Growth. Like Albus' blasted phoenix metaphors, perhaps it was the beginning of a new chapter in the aftermath of what had happened.

It was time he passed on the tradition. Gave it to its rightful owner, the son of Lily and James Potter.

Oh, yes, he would still visit her grave. But it was time he stopped this selfishness. There was one who needed these visits more than he did. And it was the boy he had sworn to protect. He couldn't change what he had done, but he could change what happened next.

Healing – yes.

It was about time that everyone start to heal.

O-O /*

Just a little reminder down here to leave a comment and reblog!

I could be convinced to write a follow up chapter with Harry seeing his old house for the first time, just saying 👀

#harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #severus snape #severus snape fanfiction #godric's hollow #lily potter #james potter #jily

9 notes · View notes

masterthespianduchovny · 3 years

Text

Instead of joining the Death Eaters to impress Lily (🙄), Snape makes a different choice. AU. Voldemort falls for some reason (because I don’t care to get into it. Lol)

————

“You know, we have to look after our own,” Lucius said, gesturing to the waiter to refresh his drink. “The Death Eaters are a family. We all share the same blood. We look after each other. We care for each other. Mudbloods aren’t like us. They’re unnatural, their magic isn’t by blood. We can’t continue to allow Mudbloods to taint our...”

Severus semi zoned out as Lucius spoke. As he sipped his butter beer, he nodded at the right parts while he stared intently at his bar companion.

He’d never say it out loud, but his view of the Death Eaters was tainted.

Initially, their pitch allures him (them, always with their pitches), but overtime he became disillusioned with them as he was with Hogwarts.

Hogwarts was supposed to be refuge, a place where he belonged unlike his original home. However, in many ways, it’s been worse than his time back at home. Being magical didn’t make a difference here where literally everyone else was magical. Well, not everyone. They weren’t going to bond over their abilities when they grew up in this life.

It was only special to muggleborns and those raised in the muggle world.

The wizarding world was just like the muggle world, except they had magic.

Severus didn’t belong or fit in in either world.

He was drawn to the Death Eaters not because he necessarily believed in blood purity, it didn’t make sense to him as a half blood, but rather, he identified with their rebellion of this bullshit system. Granted, he allowed his hatred of his father to fuel his initial identification with the death eaters, however, he knew he didn’t hate muggleborns.

Although Lily is a muggleborn, it was more than that. None of it made sense to Severus. Muggleborns seemed to be scapegoats for whatever Voldemort had planned. Their powers weren’t unnatural nor have they done anything or note lately to have a movement mobilize against them for their alleged wrongdoings.

Severus didn’t give a shit either way, except he could see the bullshit for what it was.

Their rebellion was a ploy for power. Most of his life, Severus sought power, but he didn’t want it this way: empty promises and bullshit claims of family and protecting our own.

When the worst of the bullying happened via Potter and his crew, where were the Death Eaters and Death Eater trainees? Although Severus hadn’t been open about what was going on, he was bullied frequently enough that someone should’ve stepped in on his behalf.

The only one who did was Lily and even then...

Severus finished his drink and ordered another.

All people ever did was lie, use, and ignore those who weren’t useful to them.

Dumbledore and the good side did it. The Death Eaters were doing it. Muggles and Wizards were one in the same.

After Severus called Lily a Mudblood publicly, the Death Eaters increased their recruitment efforts.

As appealing as their words sounded, Severus couldn’t help but wonder “where was the retaliation on his behalf?”

Did they not attach James because he was pureblood? Does it matter if he attacked someone they considered one of their own? Would they have attacked a muggleborn if they were the ones to hold Severus in the air and do what they did?

Severus also wondered how could he tell them the truth. He didn’t call lily a mudblood because he hated muggleborns—apart of his identity was that he came from both worlds—he called a mudblood because he was angry. And humiliated. And defenseless. He wanted her to feel his pain. Rather than actually defend him, she was always bargaining.

Severus knew she had a liking towards the potter fellow no matter how much she tried to hide it. She knew what James did to him and still fancied him! Probably not publicly, but Severus wasn’t blind. She had a crush on his bully!

Lily cut ties with him, and then shortly after their 7th year started, she took up with Potter because he “changed.”

Severus has been hexed enough this year to disprove that notion, but lily believed what she wanted to believe. He didn’t hate her for it, but he was disappointed that the one person he loved and who loved him in her own way could easily be persuaded by lies.

It was clear how much the Death Eaters wanted him. Their pursuit the least from subtle and desperation rolling off of them. Severus doubted that they wanted him specifically, it was about the numbers. Gathering up hopeless, disillusioned, and angry people.

But he was no one puppet.

Just because he was being ignored by one side doesn’t mean he was going to let the other side use him.

Where were they?

Neither side has defended or protected him!

Neither side cared if he lived or died, they just wanted to boost their numbers for some bullshit war where only one side was upfront about how they thought less of muggles.

“I hope to see you there,” Lucius said. He got up and patted Severus on the back.

They wanted Severus to take the dark mark after graduation. A few months away.

Giving him time and space to think about it.

He was almost killed. Publicly bullied. One side I’m threatened him into silence and the other side ignore him, except when exploiting his pain to join their cause. Lily disowned him and their friendship and was dating his bully.

Why was he here?

What was left for him at Hogwarts?

None of these professors could teach him what he couldn’t teach himself. All he learned here was that people only gave a fuck about you when you fit into a neat and tidy box that they approved of.

Severus left the pub and made his way to the castle grounds, straight to his quarters.

Quietly, he packed up his valuables and left what he didn’t need.

He wasn’t going back to the muggle world, but he also wasn’t going to stay at Hogwarts.

He was going to create his own path, fuck the lot of them.

If that meant living on the edge of society, so be it. He was used to being alone and fending fir himself. How would doing it officially be any different?

Severus didn’t leave a note, he didn’t say goodbye to anyone because there was no one to say goodbye to.

A week later, Dumbledore and the heads of houses concluded that Severus ran away. Lamenting the loss of such a bright pupil.

Severus, on the other hand, lamented the loss of no one. He embraced the shedded expectations of others and trying to fit in.

He tightened his grip on the piece of paper in his hands.

It wasn’t until he left Hogwarts that Severus realized he needed money. As he sold discarded items around the neighborhood and items his parents wouldn’t notice was missing, Severus formulated the bare bones of a plan.

He handed the conductor his ticket to Norway.

No one knew him there and there was so much to learn. Many great Masters lived there.

He was going to be great too.

#Severus Snape #pro snape #snapedom #excuse the writing and characterization #I need to write the fic I want to exist #a creation of my own making #that's the name of this series

23 notes · View notes

saudadeonly · 3 years

Text

burn my heart out: rewrite the history pages (Chapter 4)

Read on ao3. Part 8, consisting of 4 chapters.

Death Eater!Sirius Black AU

Lord Voldemort wages war on Hogwarts but he is unaware of the years-worth of battle fought against him.

(or, several instalments following the Battle of Hogwarts with Sirius Black standing on the wrong side)

In which the House of Black tailors the tapestry of fate.

Word count: 6425

___

James’s knees have gone out from under him, the words streaming out of his mouth far, far away from English or any spells known to man; they’re his mother’s prayers, ancient and further away than the possibility of their survival. It’s only thanks to Marlene’s quick swish of her wand that James doesn’t end up on the floor and remains upright, half-standing, half-floating instead, but the book he was holding isn’t afforded the same luxury. It falls to the ground and slams open, revealing familiar handwriting curved over the pages, covered by an ever-moving picture of James, Lily and Harry; James pressing a kiss to Harry’s wild hair, Harry grinning and Lily’s mouth pressed to Harry’s chubby hand, all of them swaddled in thick, winter-coming clothes. Remus used to read pages-long letters in that handwriting; it’s burned to the back of his eyelids and the words the letters used to convey are the first ones he remembers when he wakes up. He doesn’t know how the picture he took got into the hands that loop their letters this way.

“James,” Remus whispers, stepping in close to take on James’s weight. He doesn’t dare look at the book or the picture again. “James,” he repeats, louder this time, as he presses his fingertips to the sweep of James’s ribs, where he was always sensitive, “we have to go, we have to –”

He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. He doesn’t know how to help them get out of this one. Lily and Harry were supposed to be safe. He saw them out as far as he could and kept them protected as far as the Invisibility cloak would allow him to. It was his idea to use the passage underneath the Whomping Willow, even if Lily said that they shouldn’t, but there was nowhere else to go. If it was his idea that got them captured – or worse, by now – he will never forgive himself.

“Yeah,” James says anyway, nodding as he rights his glasses on his drained face, “yeah, let’s go.”

They rush out of the Great Hall, the two of them and others Remus cannot, for the life of him, think of right now, and they go down the corridor, through the side door of the Entrance Hall and out into the torch-lit courtyard. There is a shadow that passes behind the colonnade on the side but Remus sees the group of dark-robed figures next and he can’t look away.

Lily struggled. She is still struggling even with a stream of blood from her temple down the side of her face but her efforts are futile against the strength of the woman holding her against her chest. Aubrie Rostami, he remembers with vivid clarity, the young leader of a werewolf pack he talked to on Dumbledore’s orders. A lifetime ago but she told him his, as well as the other side’s, efforts were in vain and he believed her. Now, with Lily’s wand tucked into the belt around her narrow hips, his naivety about her words adds insult to injury.

“You have come to watch,” Voldemort says, a cruel smile playing at his lips. Beside him, Harry is caught in the arms of a masked Death Eater, who doesn’t seem to be struggling with keeping him in place. Harry has his Padfoot plushie hugged to his chest and probably doesn’t sense the danger drawing down over him. “I hoped you might.” He swishes his wand.

It’s too unexpected to counter, too sudden to make a grab for their wands – they all go up in the air, suspended in it but still able to move until Voldemort points his wand at them again and adds, almost lazily, “Immobulus.”

A desperate sound escapes Lily. “James,” she says, an apology, a plea, as Aubrie drags her little ways to the side, toward the tattered part of the group, leaving Greyback the only werewolf not standing with the Death Eaters. “James, I –”

“It’s okay, Lily,” James says, tears in his eyes. “It’s alright, I love you, I love you.”

“Touching,” Voldemort sneers. “Unfortunately, we have other things to do than to listen to you desperate lovebirds.”

“Please,” Lily says, tears running through the dirt streaked across her cheeks, voice strained through the pressure across her neck, “please, not Harry, take me instead, please.”

She must have said it a thousand times over during their walk up to the castle, begged each one of the cold, hidden faces for the life of her son; it doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking.

The Death Eaters don’t stir. They all have their masks on, except for Bellatrix who has covered her face with manic delight instead and Narcissa with her bright head bowed at the very back, but Remus doesn’t see the one he’s always looking for. If Sirius, even masked, were among them, Remus would know him by the easy way he moves, the way his spells cut cold and precise to the others’ wicked delight. It is for the better, perhaps, that Sirius is not here; Remus wouldn’t be able to stand knowing that when faced with the choice himself Sirius would easily give Harry’s life away.

Bellatrix is the only one that reacts. “My lord,” she murmurs as she turns to Voldemort with gleaming eyes, “if the Mudblood wishes so –”

“You’re right, Bellatrix,” he says, gaze flicking towards Lily as he runs the tip of his finger down the length of his wand. “There’s no harm in a little entertainment before we go on to the next part and Nagini has not properly eaten.” His eyes, red as blood, slide to Aubrie, the Death Eaters behind him chuckling. “You,” he snaps. “Bring the Mudblood here.” A scornful glance at Lily, his face cold. “Don’t worry, I will be more merciful than I was with your dear Severus.”

Remus’s stomach turns at the remark. Snape’s body turned up months ago, mangled and tortured beyond recognition, with scores down his face and sides, his bones broken a hundred times over; it is not a high bar of mercy to clear.

“No,” James shouts, his body straining against the magical restraints, to no avail. “No, don’t hurt them, please!”

Aubrie glances at the colonnade across from her then looks back at Voldemort and nods, her expression steeled. Remus follows her gaze but there is nothing there but dust and shadows, dancing with the flickering lights.

Aubrie tightens her grip on Lily, then, when they take a step forward, stumbles over the ground and ends up pushing Lily away from her, far away from the reach of her or the other werewolves’ arms, nearly to the foot of the staircase of the side entrance, where Hogwarts’ students, pale-faced, are now beginning to gather. Lily gasps out a breath, two, and stays, heaving, on the ground.

“You imbecile!” Bellatrix screams, pointing her want at Aubrie. “Do you half-breeds know how to do anything right?”

Aubrie smiles, guilelessly, at her. “Oops,” she says, tucking her hands behind her back, the lines around her eyes and mouth cut in marble. “Stupid werewolf, me.”

Bellatrix exclaims, the curse flashing out of her wand too familiar to warrant any kind of actual words. Except a purple curse slashes through its trajectory, away from Aubrie, and the combined force of the two spells slams into a wide pillar to the side, sending up a flurry of dust and debris.

Among the surprised exclaims that break out, Bellatrix looks toward the source of the second spell and finds, as the rest of them do, a masked Sirius Black strolling out from behind the columns on the opposite side. “I would appreciate it, Bella,” he drawls, hands in his pockets, “if you didn’t break an alliance I worked for months to obtain.”

“Sirius,” James gasps out, the sound more relief than anything else if it weren’t for the hope filling it up, “Sirius, you have to –”

“Silencio,” Sirius says, flicking his wand at James, whose mouth remains open around the non-existent words and eyes wide. Marlene a few paces behind him is pressing her mouth into a pained frown. Remus doesn’t want to know what she was about to tell him back in the Great Hall or how many more seeds of hope that would now be crushed she would have planted with it.

“Sirius,” Voldemort drawls with a tilt of his head, eyes narrowed, “how wonderful of you to join us.”

Sirius, positioning himself next to Aubrie, dips his head into a quick, precursory bow. “The Hogwarts grounds are vast, my lord,” he answers, his voice muffled enough it betrays no emotion. It doesn’t make sense, any of it, his book in James’s hands or his name in James’s mouth, inflected like an orison, because there was nothing he had to gain from it if this is the side he’s chosen now. Remus has never understood him but he never thought he’d let them get so close to the brink. Not ever and especially not after they saw each other in Hogsmeade, when Remus thought a line had clearly been drawn: not Harry.

Voldemort’s face doesn’t clear but he inclines his head and moves his gaze to Aubrie. Sirius’s hand reaches behind her, to where exactly Remus can’t really see but Aubrie tilts her chin up.

Before Voldemort can exact his fury over Aubrie, however, there’s a rustle among the students and they part to the side to let a tall, thin figure steps past. His blond hair reflects reddish in the torchlight as he pauses only for a second by then moves forward. Lily pulls herself to her feet with the help of a student’s extended hand instead but when she tries to follow after, an invisible wall seems to stop her.

“Barty,” Voldemort says, echoing the name murmured among the students, teeth bared the tiniest bit in an appropriation of a smile, cold as death. “You should have been back long ago.”

Barty Crouch moves toward the crowd of Death Eaters with a sort of fluidity Remus wouldn’t expect of someone who was just addressed in such a displeased tone by Voldemort. His robes are ripped at the top of his left sleeve and his leg is dusted with white so he might have an excuse but still, Remus can’t imagine he’d be that confident. He bows before Voldemort but his eyes flick toward the glowing sphere Voldemort’s snake is floating in. “Forgive me, my lord,” he says. “I got held up.”

Voldemort considers him and the robes lying out of place. “No matter now,” he answers, waving him off, “if you found it.”

“I did, my lord,” Barty says as he straightens and pulls a pouch out of his pocket. The Death Eaters around Voldemort quiet as Barty pulls the top of the pouch open and fishes out a mangled, dull silver piece that Remus recognises to have been some sort of tiara once. “I took the liberty of taking care of it.”

There is a second of stunned silence, the tiara’s remains falling off the tip of Barty’s finger as he reaches behind him and pulls a silver dagger out instead. He turns his wrist, the torchlight glinting along the blade, flashing poison-green, and chucks it directly at Nagini.

The dagger flies through the air, its trajectory straight, and Remus knows he’s witnessing something important, something monumental, like a dice roll moments before a jackpot or bankruptcy, like a ship on top of a wave before it breaks; he holds his breath, the air in his lungs stilling before it rushes out of his lungs as the dagger hits the sphere. It bounces off and clatters to the ground, only inches away from the broken tiara. Nagini curls inside the sphere with gleaming eyes, her tongue slipping out her mouth, unharmed.

Voldemort yells, wand lashing out, and Barty flies back, arms flailing around, his shout not as surprised as it should be. Except it’s not Barty that skids across the ground several feet away; his hair has bled into black, his skin tanned and when he looks up, a wheezing sound escaping him, his features have angled into the face of Regulus Black. It takes Remus a second to recognise the sound as laughter, breathless as it is, out of sync with the sharp, emotionless face he last saw. Linsy told them but, even now, Remus doesn’t quite believe it, cannot reconcile the dawning of Regulus’s death with the man that just took a hit at Voldemort.

Across the courtyard, Sirius is indiscernible under the mask, the knot of his Adam’s apple bobbing the only sign he’s even noticed. His hands are buried deep in his pockets. Otis Shah, the leader of another werewolf pack Remus talked to what seems like years ago now, pushes to the front and keeps his steady eyes on Sirius.

“You.” Voldemort’s skin has gone paler than possible, eyes wide. Even Bellatrix is silent, left out from the stream of murmurs that rises up among the Death Eaters. “You’re dead.”

“I guess not.”

There is a short scream of pain when Voldemort points his wand at Narcissa. “Bring me that,” he orders, gesturing to the pouch fallen from Regulus’s hands. “Restrain him, Bellatrix.”

Bellatrix obeys while Narcissa steps forward, straight-backed, but picks up the pouch with unsure fingers. It seems that an aeon passes before her soft-footed steps bring her close enough to Voldemort to hand it over. As soon as she’s done so, she slinks back to Lucius’s side, her eyes passing between Regulus’s face and Sirius’s motionless form, the silver mask secured over his expression nearly the same shade as her cheeks.

The courtyard stands still as Voldemort pulls out several charred objects: a leather-bound book, a golden goblet, a ring. A moment of silence passes. Then a scream tears out of Voldemort, so violent it echoes in Remus’s bones, so cruel it turns into the only thing it could have: “Crucio.”

Regulus trashes into his standstill, body convulsing of its own accord with nowhere to run and Remus cannot stand the sight of him but it’s not a pain he’d wish on him or anyone. He is Sirius’s brother but he is more than that; he is someone who grew past him, bigger than him, who turned against Voldemort, the only thing Remus has ever wanted for Sirius to do. Remus cannot bear to look at Sirius’s reaction, if there is any at all.

Regulus stills, chest heaving. “I’ll keep the locket as a keepsake,” he says hoarsely, staring up at Voldemort with deep, Black-grey eyes. Inexplicably, Remus wishes it were someone else’s eyes proclaiming their defiance, someone else’s words drawing a line of sure-fire stance.

Someone clears their throat and everyone turns to look at the source of it. In one smooth movement, Sirius pulls off his mask and flings it onto the ground. It fractures, almost exactly down the line of the constellations, silvery bits smashing around. He has his wand pointed at Voldemort in the next split second, his face forged into single-minded determination, as familiar as coming up for air after diving down to the bottom, his simple movement an act of war for itself. “Avada Kedavra.”

Not pointed at Voldemort, Remus realises belatedly but at Nagini, still caught in the glowing sphere. He can’t imagine why killing Voldemort’s pet is so important to Sirius and Regulus but he’s willing to concede their already-questionable sanity must have chipped away by now.

A large chunk of stone flies up in front of Voldemort and Nagini and explodes into green fire, the sickly light washing over the astounded faces all around. Sirius Black, the most loyal of supporters, going against Voldemort himself. An alliance built for years, thrown away on a dime for the one person Sirius has always been most protective of: Regulus.

The explosion and the astonishment give him a few precious seconds but Sirius doesn’t use them to go to Regulus. Instead, he shouts, “Now!” and fires his next spell at Bellatrix and her manic-gleaming eyes. She was the only one who didn’t stop to gawk and whose wand summoned up the chunk of stone in front of Voldemort.

The clash of their spells, a knock of wordless curses, cutting and precise, lights up the night and through it, Remus sees Otis Shah punch the Death Eater holding Harry. His fingers break with the impact but the Death Eater pitches to the side and Otis doubles down, unflinching as his bones splinter. “Run, boy!” he yells at Harry, who lands, sprawled and scraped but ultimately unharmed, on the ground.

Sirius has taken on both Bellatrix and Voldemort in that time, not sparing a glance for Regulus trying to get out of the magic binding him or the werewolves jumping the other Death Eaters, but seems to be holding his own until his wand slashes through the air a split second before Bellatrix’s, confident in its motion, infallible in its target. Bellatrix is knocked back, gasping for air as she rolls across the ground, her wand falling away from her.

“Crucio!” The word out of Sirius’s mouth revibrates with a strength that makes Voldemort’s knees go out from under him, his mouth open in a sky-slashing scream but Sirius doesn’t keep it longer than a second. Instead, his eyes go to Nagini, then to Regulus. At the very end, they follow the small figure prickling through the battle.

Harry has picked himself up and is running across the cobbled courtyard but his short legs aren’t fast enough to get him away; Greyback, throwing off another werewolf, leaps through the air and is at his heels in a matter of moments, his sharp, yellow nails brushing over the top of Harry’s black hair, the sound of his footsteps reaching up to grab at Remus’s throat.

“Harry!” Lily’s hair is a beacon in a sea of black and brown but she might as well be across the world for Harry, separated by a mountain of danger and fire that he cannot brave alone, and he dashes away from them. “No!”

Harry ends up throwing himself into Sirius’s arms instead, from where Sirius has half-braced himself to catch him, just as Greyback lunges after him and, unable to stop his momentum, slams directly into the two of them. They go tumbling back, Sirius’s body like a shield around Harry’s as he takes the brunt of both Greyback’s force and impact with the stones. Remus’s breath catches in his throat, traitorously, stupidly, not only because it’s Harry, but because it’s Sirius’s arms that are secured around him.

The movement in the courtyard stills as the three of them end up sprawled across the ground, Greyback across Sirius’s legs, Harry’s dark head tucked against Sirius’s shoulder.

Otis crosses the few feet between them and pulls Greyback off Sirius with his good hand, aiming a kick at his stomach and another one at his ribs, leaving him gasping out. The last kick, centred directly at his face, breaks his nose and makes him go still.

Sirius’s lips are moving, the words they’re shaping inaudible, and Harry is nodding reluctantly as they slowly pick themselves up, Sirius getting his knees beneath himself. He draws himself up, his hair a halo of black and dust framing his face, arms firm around Harry, a silver ring glinting on his finger. His wand lies a few feet away, snapped in half. This is how tragedies go, Remus knows, an inevitable fall from grace, a turning point; the beginning of the fifth act, a certain bitterness in the fact that there isn’t any other way this could have ended.

A sob rips out of Lily. “Harry.”

Only a meter away from Remus, but still too far away, James’s face is drained, slashed open with grief and fear. “Please,” he murmurs, the sound dragging over Remus’s skin, skimming down his spine; suddenly, he is standing back in that Muggle town, years removed, his life going to pieces around him. “Sirius, please.”

“Sirius,” Voldemort says as he gets to his feet, batting away the offered help of a Death Eater and reaches out a hand, pale and unwavering. It’s obvious what he’s about to offer: a redemption for the havoc he wreaked, a way out of his predicament. “Bring me the boy.”

Sirius looks around, the grey of his eyes bottomless, incomprehensible with the way he’s caged his heart so fully. They flit over Otis, still standing over Greyback, stop momentarily on Regulus, now motionless on the ground but with his eyes wide open, and pass over Narcissa’s pale, pinched face; they settle on the phoenix feather stretched thin between the two halves of his wand. When he looks back at Voldemort he swallows and says, “No.”

The word hangs in the air, descending slowly upon the faces of Voldemort and the Death Eaters, but it settles somewhere deep in Remus’s chest, pressing up to the shape of, That was ours, that Remus made space for so carefully in the outskirts of his heart two years ago. Harry, with James’s face and Lily’s eyes and Remus’s heart, is theirs, down to the bone; but he is Sirius’s too, his choice and his redemption.

“Give me the boy,” Voldemort says, voice a bit lower, those ruby-red eyes narrowing.

Wordlessly, Sirius nudges Harry out of his arms and behind himself, arms forming a protective brace around him as Harry clings to his back. The Death Eaters have spread out, forming a wall of bodies between the two of them and the Order and Hogwarts’ residents. Between Harry and his parents.

Sirius keeps his eyes on Voldemort but his calm and even words are only for Harry as his hands tighten on Harry’s torso. “It’s alright, pup.” He glances at Otis. “Now would be a good time to make your exit.”

“And miss all the fun?” Aubrie says loudly, grinning as she looks at Bellatrix, who’s picking up her wand off the ground, with gleaming eyes. An incline of her head and the werewolves get behind Sirius and Harry, their backs to Voldemort. Only now it becomes apparent to Remus that, trough the entirety of the battle, no werewolf looked to Voldemort for instructions. An alliance I worked for months to obtain, Sirius’s voice echoes, pushing a sudden realisation that whatever this was for Sirius it certainly wasn’t an impulsive decision if he had offered the werewolves something even Dumbledore hadn’t. “I rather think not.”

“Better future, didn’t you promise?” Otis adds, moving in line with the other werewolves. Bone sticks out from his fingers, blood pooling around. Still, the brace of his mouth is nothing but firm.

Remus’s throat burns; brave as they might be, dedicated and fierce, they will be no match for the Death Eaters once they decide to use their wands. Sirius must know it, too – that they are willing to die for this. For Harry.

“It’s waiting for you,” he says.

“Only if it’s waiting for you, too,” Aubrie shoots back. She pulls Lily’s wand from her belt and arcs it high above the heads of Death Eaters, all the way to the barrier keeping Lily and the students at bay. Lily’s fingers grapple for it.

“You, Sirius?” Voldemort asks, the soft, silky sound dragging through the air. “Not Regulus, not Severus. You.”

Sirius inclines his head. “Snape did betray you,” he says, the cadence of his voice a slow, agonising dance of death, a promise of, I won’t get out of this alive but neither will you, “but I wasn't yours to begin with.”

“Traitor!” Bellatrix hisses but the sound carries, her face white with rage, her wand pointed directly at Sirius. “I’ll kill you.”

“You can do better than that, Bella. Didn’t Aunt Walburga ever teach you?”

“No, Bellatrix.” Voldemort levels his wand at Sirius, pale hand steady. “I will do it.”

“My lord, such betrayal requires pain, he played us for fools for years –”

“He has the boy,” Voldemort cuts in smoothly, face a grimace. “I do not wish to lose more time. These dramatics have gone on long enough. Besides,” he adds slowly, “the greatest pain for him will be knowing that he leaves all the others here at my mercy.”

Sirius swallows, his eyes blinking closed for a moment, but he lifts his chin and doesn’t budge. Perhaps that’s all Sirius has left to give of himself: a last sacrifice, a declaration of love and lies and apology, laid bare on the cobblestones of Hogwarts, poured through the cracks of the ground it’s built on, raw with how final it is, fragile with the way it was for nothing at all; the act of a dying man, a reminder that even now he would rather crawl home than walk among them. Still, Remus wants to tell him, still it mattered. It will matter.

“Please,” Lily whispers, her voice hoarse. “Please, don’t – take me instead, please –”

Sirius, in his last moments, turns his eyes to Regulus, who is shaking his head in desperation, the pained sounds crawling up from his throat ripping a black, bleeding line into the meaning of devastation. “Guess even the two of us playing together wasn’t enough, huh?” he says, soft between him and his brother, something untouchable spread out in front of them, pulsing. “Désolé, Reggie.”

“This is your last chance, Sirius,” Voldemort murmurs. “No matter your motivations, you have been a good subject. See reason now and all will be forgiven.”

“Easy now, Harry,” Sirius says and Remus’s heart might rip its way out of his chest with how painfully it’s tugging, knowing that Harry is Sirius’s last thought. Harry sobs and curls closer. “It’ll be alright, little one.”

“So be it.”

The motion of Voldemort’s wand, the incantation falling from his lips, the flash of blinding green light; all of it is familiar, achingly so, and it leaves a bitter taste in the back of Remus’s mouth.

“No!” Regulus moves, breaking through the strain of magic around him, and Remus sees it as if time has slowed down; the scrambling off the ground, the desperate, rushed strides towards his brother, his hand, closing around the dip of Sirius’s shoulder, Sirius’s own hand coming up to wrap around Regulus’s fingers. Two brothers, one a Gryffindor, the other a Slytherin, different in everything but that which matters, both so brave, both so clever. Neither moving to save the other from death and take it on himself, but remaining next to each other. To die side-by-side. Together.

The light hits them – Remus can’t tell who it hits, because they are one, these brilliant boys; they are the stars they are named after, they are Blacks, with magic in every nook and cranny of their being, they are brothers, in blood and in name, in everything that they hate – and someone shouts. The world erupts in motion, rallying, wild, fierce, but Remus stays still, unable to watch, unable to look away, and wonders if he is the only one that can feel the magic, old, old magic, sizzling through the air, the taste of it pungent, its sound buzzing in his ears.

But even the Blacks, with their stories written in the stars, are mortal and when Regulus and Sirius collapse, their hands still linked, Remus thinks that the worse sound he has ever heard have to be the screams that rip out of McGonagall, out of James and Lily and Marlene. It’s not until Voldemort moves forward that Remus realises: he was screaming too.

There is no time to let the action sink in, however. The werewolves have surged forward, a tide of beaten bodies and broken spines, fighting for a future that may never come, their edge of surprise lost – the first retaliating spells cut a quarter of them down. The students follow their lead, firing off spells at random but their magic is nowhere near enough to get any of them to Harry.

“Fools,” Voldemort says and waves his wand as he steps past Sirius and Regulus’s limp bodies, towards Harry, who still stands, petrified, next to the safety Sirius tried to preserve for him. Nagini drops down from her sphere and curves her body after him. “Goes to show that even the greatest bloodlines can be tainted.”

Bellatrix points her wand at Sirius and says, “Crucio!” and Sirius’s body flails through the air, silent as only dead men can be. Her triumphant laugh echoes around the courtyard, drowns out all the other sounds in it, followed by a chorus of others’ as the werewolves continue to fall.

Only one doesn’t follow her lead and through the carnage, Remus catches sight of the blonde head bending down behind Bellatrix, the trembling hand that closes around the handle of the dagger that Regulus, minutes away from death, threw. Narcissa Black Malfoy draws herself up, eyes trained on Nagini, now freely slithering across the ground a pace behind Voldemort, toward Sirius and Regulus’s bodies, and moves. And then the end of the world comes bathed in green light.

It begins with Lily’s scream, unearthed from the deepest parts of her chest, thrown out into the world that seeks to take her son; it continues with Narcissa’s hand coming down in a quick, steady arc, with Nagini’s body convulsing and then stilling on the blood-splashed stones; it ends with Voldemort’s wand falling from his limp fingers, his body following a moment, a blink of a second, later. His vacant eyes, like the blood spilling from Nagini’s body, receive no mercy from the dark sky.

There is a moment of utter stillness, of complete silence and then Harry’s wails shoot over the entire battle, over the werewolves that push harder, over Lily and James that break free and dive for him. Remus finds himself among the ones that raise their wands against the furious onslaught of Death Eaters, the words, wasn’t enough, huh, beating out of his chest with the knowledge that it was; it was, Sirius, it was.

“What have you done?” Bellatrix half screams, half gasps out, turning on Narcissa, raising her wand towards her sister.

Narcissa has none of Bellatrix’s strong, ferocious features but she lifts her chin in the same haughty manner, the way Sirius and Regulus did, prepared to go down if that’s what it takes. “I have lost my sisters, my cousins and my husband to him,” she says, her jaw set, as she lets the dagger fall down and grabs her wand instead, pointing it directly at Bellatrix. “I will not lose my son, too.”

“Fool,” Bellatrix spits out, slashing her wand at Narcissa, who parries it with a quickness Remus wouldn’t have expected of her. It devolves into a fierce back-and-forth but Remus is forced to look away when a curse comes flashing his way.

He ducks out of the way and sends a retaliating one, pausing only for a moment to make sure it hits home. He turns and finds Otis half-heartedly ducking out of the way of white spells. While the Death Eater isn’t focused, Remus sends a Stunning Spell his way and doesn’t wait for him to hit the ground before he spins his wand on another one.

A part of Remus doesn’t want the battle to be over because when it is, there will be no way to keep the fresh memories at bay. He is nearly lost in it, in the dodge-and-shoot rhythm, when a familiar throaty shout reaches him.

“Lily!”

Heart thrumming up to his throat, Remus turns and sees, to his and James’s horror, Lily facing off against Bellatrix and deflecting a curse that would have likely finished off Narcissa, who is pressed against a column with no wand in hand. Her stance is sure, feet spread wide apart to keep her steady, and the sheer fury carved into her face gives even Remus pause. The best duellist of their generation, back on her feet, and ready to make a lasting impression.

The spells shoot out of their wands in rapid succession, far too dangerous to disturb from either side and it makes all the others pause and watch. More than once, they have to dodge out of the way of a redirected spell. Lily's sleeve darkens with her blood; Bellatrix's leg buckles every few, unsure steps.

“Is that all you have, Mudblood?” Bellatrix taunts, with none of her previous delight; her voice is full of rage and if she had had time to think about it, Remus is certain there would be grief there as well.

Lily jumps out of the way of a red streak, hair flying, and twists her arm through the air, making her wand only a blur of light wood. The purple spell hits, right over Bellatrix’s heart and she falls much like her master did: with none of the ceremony that seemed to have been reserved for her in life, the way all mortals fall.

“No,” Lily says, pushing her hair out of the way, face stripped of all anger and slowly washed by exhaustion. She crosses the space back to James, who is kneeling with Harry, and folds herself into his arms. Remus hears her murmur, “This is all I have.”

Half-lost, he steps forward to join them but a sharp cry makes him look up instead. Fawkes has appeared in the sky, gleaming gold and red, with Dumbledore holding onto his long tail. They land in the middle of the courtyard, Fawkes unharmed and Dumbledore with a charred beard but their presence seems to be enough to make the rest of the Death Eaters concede. Lucius Malfoy, kneeling by Narcissa’s side with his fingers over her cheek, is the first one to throw his wand to the ground.

The rest of the happenings seem like peculiar snapshots to Remus: the able picking up the injured, checking the dead, Dumbledore binding the Death Eaters, Fawkes bowing low over a few bodies, the werewolves slowly coming together. He can only watch, pain spiking up every time he breathes.

When everything settles like dust, McGonagall is the first one to move, limping and with dirt-smudged robes, almost toward Dumbledore until she steps past him – to Sirius and Regulus, Remus realises with a painful tug that begins in his lungs and ends somewhere around his liver. “Sirius,” she says as she drops down beside him, her hand gentle over his slack face, painted in dramatic, torchlight-falling lines: high cheekbones, arching brows, sharp jaw. Remus’s eyes burn. He thought, for a moment, that he might get to look into his eyes again and tell him – tell him something, anything, that would have crumbled away this bitter ache; now he can’t even scream. “Sirius, I’m sorry.”

The words seem too familiar for someone so far removed from Sirius, from the pain he caused and the bridges he burned. She had her fondness for them in their school years but to be so openly mourning the death of someone she must have thought was a Death Eater less than an hour ago seems – it seems –

There’s a familiar presence in his space, a gentle hand between his shoulder blades. He faces Lily, who has Harry in her arms and is looking up at him with glassy eyes. Her lips are twisted down and her eyelashes dotted with tears, the side of her face crusted with blood. Remus draws her against him, pressing his cheek to the top of her head, and hopes her warmth makes it down to all the parts of him that have frozen over.

“Hi,” he breathes when Harry reaches for him suddenly, small fingers grabbing over his shirt. He takes him from Lily and wraps his arms around him as Harry clings to him, just like he clung to Sirius. Blood soaks his fringe, pooling around the new wound across his forehead, and Remus uses his wand to Vanish it away for the time being, then draws him tighter against himself, thankful despite everything that it isn’t this small body that’s lying among the motionless ones strewn across the courtyard. “Hi, little one.”

There’s a sob behind him and he turns to see Marlene crouched down with her hands pressed across her mouth, shaking her head. Her eyes are focused on Sirius and McGonagall but she leans into Dorcas when she kneels beside her and hugs her to her chest. It’s not unlike how she was all those years ago on a cold December night, crumpled in on herself on the floor of his small apartment, begging them to tell her it’s not true. Remus’s heart wants to go out to her but it is shackled by its own pain.

James’s approach is slow, the antithesis of a man rushing to his friend’s side, desperate to find out if his heart still beats; his steps are heavy with the knowledge that no life is waiting to greet him. He folds his knees underneath himself and reaches for Sirius’s hand, his face contorted into anguish, brown skin sallow. Remus has seen the expression on his face too many times throughout war and aimed at the face beneath his even more than that. Only Sirius, Remus think with more painful humour than he feels, could have broken their hearts over and over, years after they were supposed to let him go.

“James.” McGonagall looks up at James with big eyes, her forehead creased up. Her hand shoots out and wraps around his wrist, quick enough it makes even James look at her in surprise. If it hadn’t been such a strange day all together, Remus might have thought McGonagall to have truly lost her mind. “Tell me I’m not imagining it,” she says, voice hoarse, as she brings James’s hand to Sirius’s neck and presses his fingers there.

James lets out a low, breathless sound and bows down to press the side of his face to Sirius’s chest. “It can’t be,” he whispers.

“What is it?” Marlene asks, drawing herself up, swaying on the balls of her feet. “James, what is it?”

McGonagall lets go of James and Sirius to push herself toward Regulus and feel against his neck, too. She stays silent for a few moments, chest heaving with quick, shallow breaths. Then she faces back to them, her lips curved up into a near-smile. Her laugh comes out sudden and small, disbelieving and out of place among the downtrodden winners, but it makes something in Remus’s chest bloom up.

“They’re breathing.”

___

A/N: To the tumblr anon who asked me if they could write "so and so finds out about Sirius": please don't let the fact that this part of the story is done discourage you from writing the rest of your ideas. I'd still very much love to read them.

24 notes · View notes

snapefiction · 3 years

Text

#5. Memories - Snapemas Challenge

A/N: Day 5 of #Snapemas! I´m late but(!!!) It's still the 5th of December. I didn't proof read this one but I will tomorrow. Enjoy! :)

Idea from @deepperplexity ´s Writing Challenge ! Check her Writings and the other Snapemas posts out! :)

❤️ Please remember that English isn’t my native language and that my Writings will include Mistakes and maybe weird formed sentences. ❤️

Pairing: Severus Snape x Reader

Warnings: Cursing, mention of abuse

Word count: 2907

Y/N - Your Name, Y/L/N - Your last name, Y/H/C - your Hair colour

#5. Memories

Walking down the corridor leading from the libary towards the Great hall you didn't expect to meet anyone. It was in the middle of the night and if you wouldn't have felt asleep while studying some new books you would have been already at your chambers. Trying to find the way without any light you fell over your feet twice. You tried to be respectful to the Paintings but your niceties would break your neck if you wouldn't finally turn on your wand. The reason why you studied until you fell asleep was quiet simple. Severus Snape, the Potions Master, the Man you fell in love with a few weeks ago asked you if you'd like to have Dinner with him. Of course you said yes but regretted it moments after. What if he wanted to talk about Potions? It's been three years since you've been a student yourself and he teached it for more than 8 years now. You'd totally embarrass yourself in front of him. That's why you did some panic studying after your working day.

Reaching your chambers you quick laid down on your bed. Your head still hummed from reading about different stirring ways, ingredient preparation and correct ways to storage potions. Not being sure how much you'd remember tomorrow evening you still felt prepared and way more secure than you did a few years ago. Using a spell you invented for brushing your teeth in bed you quickly felt asleep a few moments after. Oh, magic could safe so much time of your life. You loved it.

Waking up in the Moning you instantly felt nervous. Today was the day. Around 8pm he'd pick you up at your chambers and walk you down to his where you'd eat and talk. You knew that there was no polite way out now and even if you still had the chance you wouldn't want to take it. When you First met him around a month ago at a staff meeting where Headmaster Dumbledore introduced you to the other Professors you fell in love with him. Yes, he didn't even cared about someone new joining their staff and yes he didn't even said welcome or anything at all but you still felt attached to him. He just simply wouldn't lie to be polite or to make people happy. That's it. His honesty was so refreshing fascinating that you couldn't help it but develope a thing for him. Not to mention his intelligence. He wasn't just bookmark but also life smart. Whenever you had a question about anything he'd always know the answer. He even knew a lot about Mugglestudies which impressed you a lot. Also Severus was a truly handsome man. His hooked nose may repel other people's likings but you really loved it. His whole face- the whole man was so beautiful- you couldn't stop thinking about him. Yes, he was a few years older than you are but that's the least thing that could scare you away from such an interesting human being like he was.

The time wouldn't pass. You tried everything. In class you gave everything to distract yourself from looking towards the clock hanging on the wall, you tried to organise all your papers from your desk and clean the classroom in your break and tried to think about everything but tonight. But still the clock hasn't moved as fast as you wanted it to. Getting more and more fussy your day became a real torture. You couldn't even finish your breakfast because you got too nervous and excited that your stomach rejected to digest anything. So you gave in to let your mind wander to your black haired date and about everything you still wanted to do until you'd meet him later. As you thought about which dress you should wear you almost misspelled ,Bowtruckle' while writing on the chalkboard. It was easy to see that only the thought about him could get you out of your tracks.

Finally reaching the end of your class you almost ran to your chambers. Severus would pick you up in less than two hours and you still had to shower, pick out your outfit and rethink your whole life.

Standing on front of her door only do he could wait a few seconds until the clock hit exactly 8pm he heard her fast steps crossing the room over and over again. His palms became sweaty and his mouth dry. Was he really going on a date? Could he just go out and date someone after everything he went through with Lily? After her death he swore to himself that he could never love again but- She opened her wooden creaky door. Allowing him to look at her. Her YHC Hair was laying in curls over her shoulders. Her eyelids had a golden shimmer on them and her lashes looked as beautiful and long as always. Nervously she flattened her skirt with her hands. Her Pullover carefully tucked in at the edges. He couldn't help but smile. ,,Are you ready?" Holding out his arm he waited for her to link in which she quickly accepted. Closing her door they slowly started to walk to his chambers.

The evening went by quickly. Too quickly for your liking. After you reached his chambers, he soon served dinner. Your favorite food- and it was even more delicious than you have ever tasted it before. Afterwards you sat down on his couch, he asked you questions and you answered. At first it felt a little bit forced but as soon as he reassured you with a small smile you felt the well known warmth in your heart again. He admitted that he didn't like to talk about himself which you accepted quickly. Yes, you were curious but you didn't want to push anything. After the two of you lit the cabin and he sat next to you so you could drink some fire whiskey together you knew that he wasn't a very vocal but rather physical man. Everything he couldn't say with words displayed he by laying his hand on your knee or as you put your head on his shoulder he played with your hair. His Cologne and the smell of Lavender set in your nose. Pulling up your knees on the couch as your head slowly moved on his chest he just smiled and pulled you closer. It felt like you knew him since forever and not only since a few months. Happily you had to watch out to not fall asleep on him but stay awake and remember this closeness as long as possible.

An year later..

After knocking on Severus Door you quickly hide besides the doorframe. Trying to hold back your laughter you hoped he would open up soon. The coldness of the Dungeons was almost unbearable. As the door opened and he waited for a second you quickly jumped in front of him. Huffing at your silliness he tried to hold back his smile. You didn't mind if he'd try to hold up his facade knowing how soft he was at heart.

As you pressed a small peck on his lips and slid inside you had to try hard to hide the package behind your back. ,,Sooo- what's your plan for tonight?" After he closed the door and sat down on his desk again he shrugged his shoulders. ,,I actually don't have 'a plan'." Following him you felt like he was playing tricks on you. ,,Oh come on. It's Christmas! Everyone has a plan for Christmas!" Setting the package aside you hugged him from behind. ,,Well, Christmas is just another Day as every else." Gasping you let go. ,,Severus Snape, don't you dare to tell me that you don't celebrate Christmas!" Laying his book aside knowing you obviously had other things in mind he got up. ,,If you want to celebrate it then-" Chuckling you took his hand in yours. ,,Oh boy, who broke your heart that you never celebrate anything." His benevolent Smile faded and his monotone face returned after you finished your sentence. His rosy face turned pale as snow again and you knew it was something you said that had hurt him. Turning away he silently walked towards his kitchen.

Your heart beat so hard against your rip cage that you feared it could stop beating out of fear. ,,Sev-" It was so quiet you could've heard a bug crawling if there was one. A few seconds long you tried to understand the situation before you dared to follow him. Carefully you watched each step so you wouldn't cross an invisible line laying on the ground around him. His figure was leaning on his hand which pressed against the surface of the table. His head hung low and his hair seemed darker as it covered his face. ,,I-I didn't try to hurt you. I'm sorry.. C-Can I do something for you? Do you want a tea ?" Slowly like he could bite you let your hand rest on his back and his tension eased and he let your movements happen. Your arms made their way up to his chest so you could hug him from the side. ,,We don't need to celebrate if you don't want to. We can do anything you want to."

The words slowly swept into his skin. He couldn't explain his sudden pain besides the fact that all his most painful memories seemed to haunt him down. Her Arms slowly hugged him. It eased his pain a bit but still he felt like he could break apart any second. Telling her how much tension would build up in him whenever the 24th December got closer made him fear that he could scare her away with all his worries. One day, he was sure about that, all his worries and sins would eat him up. Besides her he had no one he could talk to and be completely honest. As her hand touched his face he got pulled away from his draining thoughts. She wiped over his cheeks and cleared his face from tears. He didn't notice how his eyes began to water. His tension could make him completely blind. ,,Do you want to be alone?" ,,No, no." Clearing his voice from the hoarseness that had been laying on it he laid an arm around her. ,,Just one moment and- and I can make dinner."

You watched him placing a small kiss on your head before he used his wand to conjure everything he needs on the counter. Without saying a word you took another knife out of one of his cupboards and started to help him. Chop, chop, chop. The knives hitted the cutting boards. Sighing you looked over to him. His Figure was still crouched down. ,,If you.. if you want to talk- and I know that it´s not easy for you-“ he let down the Knife to put the Veggies he just cute in a bowl. ,,I would talk to you if I knew how to say it in sentences.“ Adding your Veggies you gave him a small smile. ,,You can drop words and I can try to build sentences out of it. Or anything that works for you is fine as long as you can get some weight off your chest.“

It took some minutes of silence but he could felt how consistent you cared he knew he could talk to you about it. He started to open up. Page by page he read you his story. The Both of you now moved over to his couch where he pulled you close to him. Then he started feeling you about how he only celebrated Christmas at the Evans House, how much he loved Lily until he met you and how much it hit him when she died, how confused he got when he met you and how much he feels unworthy of Love. You knew that he didn’t wanted to talk about it he wanted to tell about it. He needed to get it off his mind.

,,In my unimportant opinion i think that you deserve only the best. It’s okay to grief, dear.“ Severus hand continued to let his hand stride through your hair. ,,It’s important to think about Memories that worth a lot for us. It made you who you are and makes you from day to day. Even the sad Memories are important.“ You thought about everything he told you. About his abusive Father, his love to Lily, his broken self. It made him to who he is.

,,It´s not like that that I think about her everyday. Just.. from time to time - or special occasions like Christmas or her birthday, Harrys Birthday…- that’s when I get so vulnerable. But I also think about you a lot. How happy you were when I asked you out on our first date.“ Laughing you remembered how you studied the night before the date just so you could impress him with simple potion facts he surely already knew. ,,I had to drink Felix Felicius to ask you out. Merlin, I was so nervous.“ He stated and you quickly sat up straight so you could look up at him. ,,Really?“ Surprised about what he just told you you started to chuckle. If he only knew how you couldn’t sleep all night after he asked you out or how you stayed up all night after the two of you have had their first kiss. If he only knew. Blushing you connected your lips. A strange smell pulled you out of your kiss. ,,What is this?“ His eyes widened quickly. ,,Fuck, the Dinner!“

Luckily he could save your Dinner and it wasn’t completely burned. Of course, thanks to his cooking skills it was still more than just delicious. You ate so much, your stomach strikes against any more food. Nothing would fit anymore. ,,Wait!“ You stopped him in his Tracks before he could attempt to drink his Wine. ,,I got you something.“ Running over to his desk you quickly grabbed it and solemnly gave it to him. Confused his fingers began to unwrap the small package. Only to reveal a scarf. ,,I noticed how yours had some small holes and I knitted you a new one.“ Holding it up and laying it around his neck he presented you a big smile. ,,I love it.“ He said and looked over the little green details you added. ,,Thank you, Y/N.“ Again he kissed your lips thankful for the emotional closeness you two had.

A few years later...

Getting up you had to hold your Belly. The baby was kicking you again and despite that you loved being pregnant you finally couldn’t await the birth of your little baby girl. Passing the Christmas tree you stepped into the kitchen. ,,I’m sorry to bother you, love, but your daughter demands food.“ As Severus took the lasagna out of the oven he just send you a small laughter. ,,Like Mother like Daughter.“ He said before placing it on the kitchen Table before laying his Hands on your Stomach. ,,Oh, shut it. It’s not my fault that you’re a great Cook.“ Looking over to your plate you noticed a nicely wrapped Present. ,,Is this for me?“ Severus nodded as he pulled your chair out so you could sit down. ,,Kind of. Have a look.“ Unwrapping it you saw a little jar with something floating in it. With a quizzed look you tried to solve this little mystery in front of you. ,,It’s my Memory from our first date. I wanted to collect all my memories for our daughter. The next one could be her Birth or everything important with an meaning. And one day she can look at them.“ Slighty shy about his idea he hid his face behind his cup of water. ,,That´s- That’s so beautiful, I’m sure she will love it. I love the idea as well.“ Proud of his little family he took your plate to finally statisfy your hunger.

Four Years later.

,,Daddy, what’s this?“ The raven haired girl walked over to your Husband holding your little Son. ,,I give you one every time something big happens in our life i´ll take my memory and give you and Elliot one.“ Nodding she cuddled next to her father. ,,And what’s this one about?“ He kissed her small head and waited a second before explaining. ,,Well, this One is about Elliot Birth but I gave you another one about Mummy’s and Daddy’s Wedding as well. Maybe you can find it under aaaalll your presents.“ He smiled as he could see her instant motivation to open the rest of the gifts. ,,I love you, my dear.“ Slowly you gave Severus a kiss before you laid Elliot into his baby bed standing next to the Couch so he could continue sleeping and you cuddle next to your Husband. ,,I love you too. Merry Christmas, my love. Those are the best Memories.“ You could only agree with him when you leaned back and watched your young daughter unwrap her new doll. ,,Darling, can you give this one to Daddy please?“ Quickly she grabbed the Present you just pointed at only so he could open it up. ,,An Memory?“ Now he looked surprised. ,,Of our first Christmas together and how we kissed all night long after we let the Dinner burn.“ Laughing the both of you continued your Christmas Party knowing that there were a lot more Memories to come.

Taglist: @deepperplexity , @monstreviolet , @wow-life-love4

Let me know if you want to be added in my Taglist. :)

#snapemas2020 #Snapemas #snape #Severus snape #snape x reader #snape x y/n #Severus Snape x reader #severus snape x y/n #my writing #snapefiction #prosnape

53 notes · View notes

halothenthehorns · 3 years

Text

TLTNL- FIGHT AND FLIGHT

Remus wasn't fooled, he'd been watching over Harry's shoulder for just this. His eyes burned with every word that wasn't the fatal blow of Sirius' death, and still was just as much relieved they had another few moments to cling to that hope. He snapped forward and pried the book away from Harry, even as he tried to cling to it in protest.

"No, you guys shouldn't-"

"And you think you should?" Remus demanded as he matched Harry's glare. It felt like they were playing a real life version of Snape's task from so many days ago. Which was the deadly part of this? Who would it be, forced to say the words of what truly did their family in? Letting Harry get through it all by himself though would not be tolerated by a single one, and now surrounded on all sides as they all were, it would be the only chance they had to live through it.

Harry very reluctantly handed it over, and at once began pressing a trembling hand to his scar. Now he had nothing to occupy his hands, but knew their torturous pain of only having to listen as at any moment, the vision could overtake Harry again...

Harry had no clue if Hermione even had a plan as he followed just behind her and in front of Umbridge's wand. He didn't even dare ask her, for Umbridge was literally breathing on their necks.

Sirius still wished someone would offer speculation, a joke, anything! He kept hoping that somehow, any moment now, he'd drop in front of Harry with the magical story of his escape, he'd been the one to put Voldemort back in his place.

Hermione led them down past the Great Hall where the din of voices were chatting over dinner,

James made a little squeak noise. He could feel the time pressing into them in here, turning them more petrified by the second as they were forced to listen to this, and it had been even longer in Harry's time, how much longer did Sirius have!?

it seemed incredible to him there were people twenty feet away just laughing about the exams being over without a real care in the world.

Lily had been shaking nonstop for quite some time, but that caused yet another tremor for a wholly other reason. If only her sacrifice had meant something more. She felt as if she'd only bought her son a spare few years, but he just kept suffering a life that no one should ever have to live through.

Hermione was walking swiftly out onto the grounds. Umbridge asked if it was in Hagrid's place?

Hermione scathingly said he'd have accidentally set it off.

"Play to her own idiocies," Remus muttered absently, his mind really not at all on this as he felt they were only getting further away from the help Sirius so needed. Hermione should have led her down to Snape's office, maybe he'd have done something useful for once in his life and stunned this troll bogie for them and then explained the plan of how to help Sirius!

Umbridge agreed at once, the half-breed oaf, then she laughed.

Harry had the urge to turn around and seize her by the throat, but resisted.

"I don't know how," Sirius said honestly.

His scar was still paining him through all this, but it did not yet burn white-hot as he knew it would for a kill.

Sirius wanted to shake off their concern again, but it was getting harder by the moment as his own chest restricted painfully. What he would give for Harry to never have known that pain, but he didn't seem able to find that hope as easily as his friends Harry would find some way out of this for him. After all, when Voldemort wanted you dead...and even James hadn't been able to fight him off...

Umbridge impatiently asked where it was, a touch of uncertainty in her for the first time as Hermione kept walking right towards the Forbidden Forest.

"Does she only just now wonder if she's being played?" Sirius tried desperately for that chipper tone at her idiocy, but it still came out more chilling as Harry shivered, he could still hear Sirius' screams of pain.

Hermione gestured in here of course, where students couldn't come across it. Umbridge was clearly more apprehensive now, but insisted they stay ahead of her.

Harry asked could they at least have her wand if they were going first.

"If she were that stupid, killing her would hold almost no fun," James said deadpan.

Umbridge said no at once, the Ministry put a higher value on her life than his.

"Which really goes to show the Ministry's priorities, oh, no wait, we already knew they respected dung more than anything," Lily muttered.

Harry tried to catch Hermione's eye again, trying to convey waltzing into the Forest unarmed may be the stupidest thing they'd done yet.

Remus suddenly had their attention far more than anything yet. The Marauders couldn't help it, if they'd been concocting some kind of plan, they'd have initiated it somewhere in here too, an area they honestly claimed to know better than even the castle. The intrigue finally brought them off of Sirius for even a second, what was Hermione up to?

She however took no notice of him, ploughing through the thickest bushes without care, and Umbridge's shorter legs were having trouble keeping pace.

Lily honestly wondered if that could be the plan, Umbridge certainly didn't know her way well enough, she could get lost.

After ripping her robes in bramble she demanded how far in it was.

Hermione said very, with confidence that Harry didn't have. Hermione wasn't on the path leading them to Grawp,

James lost any train of thought he might have cobbled together. If Hermione did have any idea in mind, it may well have been just that, in hopes Grawp would take care of their splinter and they could get back the real problem. Either she was lost or- he couldn't think past anything but wishing more than ever this future would never come.

but the one he followed three years ago to the lair of Aragog.

"Uhoh," Remus muttered, now convinced whatever plan she may have was now nonexistent and she was scrambling as desperately as them for a way out of this.

Harry tried to warn her of this, asking if she was sure they were going the right way, but she gave him the same steely answer and ignored him as she stepped with wholly unnecessary amounts of noise while Umbridge tripped right over a tree and fell. Neither of them paused to help her up.

"There's no way I'd consider you a person if you did," James stated.

Harry instead took her moment of distraction to hiss at Hermione to keep it down, but Hermione said she wanted to be heard.

That caught them all off guard, Harry blinking slowly as he tried to get his eyes to adjust to this. He still felt more than anything that feeling for what Sirius was going through, it was impossible to erase, but he could distantly recognize something new trying to trump that, some new fear coupled with something long overdue...

They kept going until the canopy overhead took away all light, and Harry had that feeling he was being watched by unseen eyes.

The boys had felt that way many times in the forest, and though it wasn't always a bad thing, it certainly wasn't something they wanted Harry to be experiencing right now! It was only another delay, another few lines they'd have to hear of Sirius not being safe.

The next time Umbridge demanded how much farther, she was cut off by an arrow thudding into a tree just above her head.

Lily startled so bad her wand was pointed at Remus before she'd even recognized the motion. Between Sirius a breath away from not having a future in that thing and now Harry being drug around the most dangerous place for him to be wandless, she was far past her wits end with anything else to do but curse the next thing that came too close.

Remus only paused for a moment to watch her before going back to reading, unable to concentrate long enough to even check if she stowed it away. Normally the sight would have terrified him from someone so genuinely formidable, especially her in this situation, but if she wanted to take this from him when he didn't have his answer for Sirius yet she'd have to try harder than that.

They were not alone, out of nowhere the sound of hooves surrounded them on all sides, and Umbridge kept Harry in front of her as if a human shield.

Sirius' face twisted in disgust, his hands still itching to crack her head in. His godson was trying to risk his life for him, and that soiled cat litter was using him to cover her own disgusting flesh!

Harry watched the binding in Remus' hands crack dangerously, they all flashed with murder again and he worried it would be far too long before they passed off of that. As pent up and stressed as they were for Sirius and now him, it seemed a miracle if Umbridge didn't enact another break away from this place more every line. Yet that same detached part of him pleasantly informed, while giving him another sock to his temple he had no need for with the rest of his pain, that hopefully something was going to come of this. Not good, that emotion was impossible to grasp right now, but something not bad.

He got himself free of her grasp just as the fifty centaurs came into view, bows drawn and all pointed at the three of them.

James made that noise again, and Sirius desperately put his arm around his best mate. It was the only thing holding him together now, realizing that Harry and Sirius truly were both in life threatening situations, and he couldn't do anything for either of them! This all somehow grew successively worse every single day, he was literally being torn in two for his family. There was no sign of his ghost coming back this time to offer anyone anything!

They remained very still as they were surrounded, Harry ignoring Umbridge's little whimpers of terror and instead spotting Hermione's triumphant smile.

"This was her plan!" Lily shrieked, and Remus actually did recoil in fear from her now, from this life somehow Harry survived and honestly none of them had a clue how at this point. "To make the centaurs angry!"

"I, can actually see this one, a bit," Sirius whispered, his eyes still too wide but certainly there was something in his voice now holding to that. "She knows exactly how Umbridge is going to treat these guys, and they're going to go ballistic, maybe kill her if we're lucky. Yet those two are still young, innocent the centaurs have said themselves, so if they play this right, they'll walk right back out of there without her."

"I, well yes but she-" Lily still failed to truly put her heart into this even if she could see the logic. She was sick with worry for one of her boys already, but in all fairness it's not like she'd come up with an alternative, she was still reeling from what was going on with Sirius. Hermione's level headedness may be their saving grace as she tried to wave Remus on without full blown panicking.

Magorian stepped forward, and Umbridge pointed her trembling wand at him.

Remus scoffed low in his throat in disgust, easily imagining such a pathetic response from something able to fight back against her. A braver person than her would have cowed in front of a herd of angry centaurs, but after all she'd done to Harry and too many innocent children, whatever happened to her next because of this would be so sweetly deserved even Umbridge's voice couldn't manage it.

Umbridge declared herself as Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, Headmistress, and High Inquisitor of Hogwarts.

"She is no such thing!" Sirius vowed, he'd never view her as anything more than a lower life form than the mice Mrs. Norris spat out for not being edible enough.

Magorian was not impressed by her Ministry status.

Umbridge was though, trying to steady her voice as she recited their laws that under the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, an attack by half-breeds such as them on a human-

"Now she's done it," James said distantly, though he'd never been less invested in Umbridge in his life. If this had been going on any other time than when Sirius needed him...

Hermione told her not to call them that, but it went unheard as many centaurs around them roared in outrage for the slur.

"Trying to distance herself, a very good idea right now," Remus muttered, his fingers tapping restlessly against the book as he still recognized how dangerous this was for Harry. Just being a human in her presence right now was a danger, no matter their age.

Umbridge cared nothing, still going on loudly that they fell under the category of near- human intelligence-

"That's right, keep insulting them," Sirius never thought he would be encouraging Umbridge to do anything, but this was a better distraction from his own problem than he ever would have hoped to ask for. "I've always wanted to hear of dismemberment by centaurs."

but even her voice failed as Magorian shouted they considered that a great insult, their intelligence far outsripped hers!

A grey centaur demanded what she was doing in their Forest?

Umbridge was now shaking with as much fright as indignation.

"I never would have thought she could really be this dense," Lily hissed. As foul as they'd all found her, they never would have thought she'd be this stupid. Even the lowest life form must realize by now who was the dominant one in this environment.

She reminded them they only lived here because the Ministry permitted it.

"Dead." James said flatly, every single part of him praying that was the only death of this one.

An arrow flew so close to her it caught a few strands of her hair before again leveling out in a tree, now with a wild neigh echoing from all sides that left Harry unnerved.

"Now I know where your mind still is if unnerving is all you're getting from this," Remus shifted uneasily, still all to fearful Harry and Hermione would be caught in the crossfire any second, and yet hardly wanting to flip back any moment and hear of what Voldemort was doing to Sirius. This was a true torture in itself.

Umbridge shrieked at them, then shot the spell Incarcerous at the nearest one.

"Oh no, I was wrong," James conceded. "Now she's dead."

"And here we are, not even able to enjoy it," Remus muttered, his hand always on the next page, never wanting to keep going until the precious words arrived Sirius had escaped.

Ropes flew from her wand and encircled him, she'd gone too far. The centaurs rushed her in a rage, Harry recognizing Bane to be the one to lift her right off the ground with one arm and lear at her. Umbridge's wand fell, and Harry's heart gave a tiny leap of hope as he reached for it, but a hoof smashed it in half.

"Honestly I don't think it was worth it," Sirius grumbled in disgust. Harry would get his wand back, no need to degrade himself into using that tarnished wood once used by a frog thicker than any pondscum.

She was dragged away kicking and screaming, her pleas meaning nothing as she vanished into the distant forest.

Remus vaguely recalled a few myths he'd heard of what centaurus did when they really wanted you dead, and honestly if even a portion of them were true he'd have felt genuine fear under any other circumstances, but now he was just wishing this had all been done in the beginning to her.

Harry rubbed at his scar, not on his forehead, but the back of his hand, his eyes actually burning hatefully for someone other than Voldemort or himself for just a moment. Umbridge's screams and pleas for help had meant nothing to him then or now.

"Was she really begging you to actually help her?" James honestly couldn't believe that one, even the Dursley's wouldn't really be so stupid!

"Yes," Harry said, his right hand clenched into a hard fist, "but I didn't bother of course, after all, I must not tell lies."*

Sirius grinned crazily at Harry, patting his knee with far too much enthusiasm for this. It all fit together rather well in his mind, he'd take on Voldemort all over again if he could get these set of circumstances to happen to Umbridge any day, they couldn't have set up a better revenge if they'd tried!

The others did not agree, but none could deny either they weren't just a bit grimly pleased something had been worth it in all this mayhem and heartbreak, though it would mean nothing if the one most important to them didn't make it through.

Screaming non-stop, her voice grew fainter and fainter until it could no longer be heard over the trampling of hooves still surrounding them.

"Not good," Lily hissed, chanting that under her breath now as she removed her nails from James and let them dig into her own palm instead, the fear twisting her innards relieving nothing. She couldn't erase the idea Harry was still in the middle of all this.

James reached over and put her hands right back inside his, the only thing stilling the shaking, he didn't care the little pinpricks of her fear pushing into him instead, it was yet another reminder, a way to distance himself from seeing this happening to Harry on one level and still seeing Sirius just beyond that in a position he'd die before allowing himself to stay in at Voldemort's feet.

Harry was yanked by another centaur grabbing the back of his neck, the centaurs now demanding what should be done with them.

One pointed out they did not hurt foals, but another reminded they'd been the ones to bring her here.

"Shit!" Lily yelped, startling in place all over again. The centaurs had been watching the whole time, they knew Hermione's hadn't been a complete ruse!

"This could still work in their favor," Remus tried desperately to placate. "She had them at wand point this whole time, if they play this right they could pin it all on Umbridge forcing them to go in there."

The one holding Harry even pointed out they weren't so young, this one was nearing manhood with a hard shake to Harry.

"There's a compliment somewhere in there," James managed softly as he watched his son, his own age, that sting always present in the back of his mind he'd never truly seen him grow up, that these centaurs had seen his son at more stages of his life than he had.

Hermione pleaded they were nothing like her, they didn't care for the Ministry, they'd only come in here so they could drive her off.

"Gah, she was doing so good for a moment!" Remus found a new shade of pale all his own in fear for that line.

"How did she manage to say the worst possible thing," Sirius groaned miserably, now realizing their earlier fears had been preemptive, Hermione may have earned herself a death sentence along with Umbridge for that one alone.

Harry at once knew she'd said the wrong thing, as the one holding her stamped his feet in fury, telling Ronan they were no better than the rest of their kind with their arrogance!

"Don't ever let them meet Sirius or they'll know that's true." Lily tried to say that in her normal voice she always spoke to him with, it was easier on her heart for just a second to look him in the eyes and as always give a poke at him.

Sirius responded as always, flashing her a grin, but it was still lost on the others, as Lily only managed to remind them they'd give anything for Sirius to be in this with Harry rather than where he was.

Demanding of her she just expected them to do their work like obedient ponies?

Hermione pleaded she'd only been hoping they'd help, but she was going from bad to worse.

"I fear we've reached past the point where words help," James managed to get out, no longer able to support his own weight and would have long since fallen over if he wasn't already down. He could feel he was about to be reduced to tears any moment now, because even looking at Harry and knowing he made it out alive, he still hadn't stopped rubbing his scar this whole time. This still wasn't the biggest fear of his night, and there was only one thing worse than fearing for Hermione's life right now.

The centaur holding Harry reared up in outrage, actually taking Harry's feet off the ground for a moment as he shouted in anger they would not permit these ones to leave, boasting about the centaurs doing their bidding!

Sirius hadn't thought it possible to be more frightened for Harry than he was moments ago, still knowing his pup could slip back into Voldemort's mind any moment when this fight between them ended, but somehow he'd certainly found a way to go past that into another level of fear. What did those centaurs do to him before someone came along to the rescue!

It seemed decided they'd join the woman!

Lily retched, one hand finally leaving her husbands now to tangle with Harry's as well, fingers twisted so tight nothing could have pulled them from her.

Centaurs were an ancient race who would not let this stand, they were superior, they-

Whatever else they were went unheard.

James spluttered something that might have been relief for this finally being cut off, though this only meant his worry for Sirius went right back up to the top now that Harry was free.

Suddenly the two were dropped, all hands back on weapons as a new rumbling shook the forest.

"A proper warrior," Remus muttered without surprise, the centaurs were clearly trained to recognize threat over arrogance, something Umbridge was now being taught.

Harry hurried so he was crouched over Hermione protectively as Grawp poked his face in.

"You said what now?" Sirius squeaked.

"I-" Remus' voice failed as he couldn't repeat that one. According to Harry they hadn't been anywhere near where Grawp was tied up, so how was he, why...

Harry grew impatient with their surprise even as he felt his own pitiful relief for the save he didn't feel he deserved. He was almost angry for the rescue, like he knew he'd deserved to stay in that forest and the centaurs punishment would still be better than the rest of this memory. He couldn't just let himself sit around with that or he'd explode, but Harry's trying to keep going only spurred Remus back into fully grasping this. He certainly hadn't forgotten as his knee stayed tight pressed to Sirius, that stupid annoying voice of his always near the back of his ear, and he filed whatever emotions he had for anything else away for later.

He gazed down, unimpressed at the herd as his dull eyes traveled over them as if searching for something he'd dropped, there were broken ropes trailing his ankles.

Sirius was still making some noise with his throat like he was trying to attempt speech. They'd hardly forgotten about Grawp, but this never would have crossed anyone's mind! How had he even gotten loose? A giant was actually walking freely around their forest! He could no longer decide if it was fear, or indignation keeping him listening.

Clearly not finding what he was looking for, he said Hagger.

Remus couldn't help but falter from surprise again. He didn't know any words in Giant, but he honestly didn't feel that's what Grawp wanted either, that didn't exactly sound like he was asking for directions back to his mountain now he'd gotten himself free.

The centaurs remained tight in their fighting stance as Grawp repeated this with insistence.

Lily covered her mouth in surprise, wondering at that all of a sudden, and how he hadn't been able to say Hermione's name quite right either, but surely he wouldn't...

Grawp stooped, looking more closely than ever, still saying Hagger.

Hermione gasped as she whispered to Harry he was trying to say Hagrid.

"But, why would he?" James demanded, feeling woozy from too many things going on, and now he could add his son being crushed by a giant again to that list even if it was by accident.

"I think he actually grew to care for Hagrid," Lily hummed, so constantly near tears of late from her eyes constantly flickering to Sirius this almost set her off again.

"I, wow, I did not see that coming," Remus muttered, though admittedly touched for Hagrid, imagining the big guys face if he'd seen his brother now.

Grawp spotted them among the sea of colors, and rumbled Hermy in recognition.

"Now we know Hermione was right," Sirius blinked spastically, though a laugh was still too far gone for him.

"Bless Hagrid," Lily said with a hard catch in her throat, she couldn't imagine what would have happened to her Hare Bear if their game keeper wasn't the way he was.

Hermione shook in surprise as Grawp demanded where Hagger was.

"We all want Hagrid back," Harry muttered, he'd actually stopped rubbing at his head for a moment to gaze at the book with longing before turning wretched eyes to Sirius. There were a lot of things in his life he wished he'd had back, Grawp should consider himself lucky Hagrid really was just, inconvenienced right now.

Unsatisfied with her lack of answer, Grawp's hand reached out for Hermione, and Harry tensed ready for a fight, prepared to bite, kick or do anything he could to keep him off of her.

They all twitched with unease, that fight or flight instinct wanting to kick in here more every moment, none were crazy enough to think they could fight off a giant. Even with the confidence now Grawp wouldn't really do them harm, it was not a pleasant thing to be thinking of Harry so casually tossed over Group's shoulders when he realized he'd caught the wrong person.

He didn't get that far, he'd shoved a centaur right off it's feet and batted him away trying to reach for her, and this was what they'd been waiting on, as fifty arrows were shot right into Grawps face.

Lily gasped, the urge to vomit becoming more every moment. Now she could easily imagine this horrific scene, and both sides so furious, and their son still caught in the middle of it all.

Grawp roared, bringing his hands up to take the shafts out, but only digging the points in deeper. He began thundering around chasing the centaurs, who all scattered and fled.

Harry and Hermione were left, shaking with fright as Hermione whispered if he'd kill them all.

Harry said he wouldn't be too fussed if so.

"I, can not, believe that just happened," Sirius shook his head slowly. How did Harry's life keep getting crazier by the hour!? They still hadn't even gotten to the part where Harry was going to go kamikaze up to the Ministry for him!

He was not paying attention to anything around him anymore, as his scar gave another twinge of pain and a thrill of terror possessed him as he realized how much time they'd wasted.

James wasn't sure how many times his heart could stop beating before he keeled over, but he was sure he was close by now. He could feel that time too, like Sirius' heartbeats were even now being numbered!

They were even further than before from rescuing Sirius, and Harry turned with fury on Hermione for this, demanding what now?

"Ah Harry, don't take it out on her," Sirius said. He felt so faint, getting a first hand account of his own death, not able to tell Harry for one moment what he was doing was wrong for trying to stop it, but at the same time there was almost a relief, a calmness in him Harry had never put himself in danger for his sake, again.

"Thought that was my line," Harry muttered, his eyes still holding a dead look that continued to horrify them more than anything, as if nothing he'd yet done had even made a difference, Sirius' fate was already sealed. They couldn't believe that though, they wouldn't!

Hermione reminded they'd go back to the castle, and Harry shouted at her by the time they managed that Sirius would already be dead, kicking at a tree in temper.

Remus felt a hollow laugh, watching that reaction alone, afraid to look at Harry and see his eyes again. If that was the worst reaction Harry had, this whole ordeal really could be bearable, please let that be the worst thing Harry do!

Hermione insisted it was the only thing, they couldn't do anything without their wands and they still didn't have a way to get to the Ministry.

A voice behind them agreed they'd just been wondering that. They turned to find their friends they'd left in Umbridge's office coming towards them, all looking worse for wear as if having been in a fight, but also looking quite pleased with themselves.

"Well, at least someone's been productive," Harry seethed hatefully, never having felt more useless in his life than he did in this moment, still wishing he'd chased Grawp down or those centaurs. He couldn't understand where his mind was coming from with this, it just couldn't be true there really was no out for Sirius, he must be misunderstanding something!

Harry asked how they'd gotten away, and Ron explained they'd all let off some stunners at once, a disarming charm on one, and Neville did quite the Impedimenta jinx. Ginny's was the best, she did a Bat Bogey Hex on Malfoy, he was still covered with the things when they'd left.

There was some long lost part of James he couldn't find right now where he and his friends should have been laughing at that, congratulating little Ginny and how far she'd come.

"I think Harry more meant how'd they got their wands back," Sirius said, clearly finding this the most interesting thing to think about right now no matter how much anyone else disagreed.

"I'm wondering if it was Luna," Lily offered, still fighting off the urge to keep screaming now that the kids were back to just trying to figure out what to do, at least before they'd felt the movement! "Her complacency, could have caused a sneak attack, got their wands away to start this."

"Prongs, I really can see why you fell for such a devious woman, concocting that idea. I'm sorry I didn't appreciate that more in school." Sirius told him pleasantly.

James shook his head from side to side with that tight feeling still restricting his heart from truly smiling back, but Sirius could always drag him back to this world no matter how lost in thought he'd get. "Guess I should be rather glad, don't need you pining after her as well, she had enough blokes doing that."

Lily swatted them both good naturedly while Sirius rolled his eyes.

Ron concluded they'd seen them heading into the Forest from the office so they'd followed.

"And they just managed to find them in that great big-"

"Shh," Lily shushed Sirius before he could interrupt again, she was going to go ballistic if she didn't hear of Harry on the move soon, they could feel now more than ever Sirius was running out of whatever time he had.

Ron asked what they'd done with Umbridge, and Harry briefly explained the centaurs and Grawp. Luna asked who Grawp was, and Ron informed Hagrid's little brother.

"Great, now we're all caught up!" James said through gritted teeth, this had been the longest hour of his life, and he never would have thought anything could trump the moment Peter had betrayed him, and he'd never hoped something else would!

Harry testily cut in Sirius was still alive for now, but they had to come up with a solution before that changed. They all fell silent, all clearly growing scared of this insurmountable problem.

"Go back to the school!" Remus seemed aghast that wasn't Harry's first thought. "Make damn sure Snape got the message! Hell, Umbridge's fireplace is open now! Go back and use that!" He stopped quickly though, as his practically shouting these things was doing nothing but making Harry more miserable by the second. They could all feel how much he was blaming himself for this, and Remus would never want to feel as if he were making that worse. He honestly believed he wouldn't have been any more clear headed in the moment, more than likely standing around and panicking just like Harry in trying to understand what he could do to help, so he just kept himself going, any answer would be better than watching the poor kid beat himself up over this.

Luna said they'd fly as if that were the most obvious thing in the world.

'Oh yes, running off to get brooms is the most logical thing,' Remus couldn't help that mocking thought which he firmly kept to himself as it was no more helpful than last time, he just wanted to be on the move already even with his Padfoot right here by his side.

Harry irritably said that was no help, Ron was the only one who had a broom that wasn't being guarded. Ginny pointed out she had one-

Harry corrected that wasn't the point, she was too-

Ginny said fiercely she was three years older than him when he'd first faced Voldemort.

"She's got you there though," Sirius managed a real chuckle.

"She's going to get herself killed!" Harry hissed, somehow his panic climbing even worse than before and he hadn't thought that was possible, but now the reality his friends were in danger really was pushing him farther than ever. His temple gave an extra hard throb, he could feel that pain and panic climbing every second, soon he wouldn't be able to tell past from present and he'd go darting out of this place himself to go rescue a Sirius right next to him.

Neville jumped in to remind they'd been in the DA to fight Voldemort, or had that all been some game?

"I think Neville really deserves something there," Lily said softly as she watched Harry bury his face in his hands with resignation. "He has the least understanding of what's going on, he doesn't even know who Sirius is. Even if he has put the name to the one in the papers, that makes this all the more unbelievable of the lad."

"Yeah, great, he's a bloody saint," Harry got out around a tight throat, pushing his glasses off his face for a moment to rub at bloodshot eyes, but quickly fixing that so he would never have to stop looking at Sirius for a moment longer than he had to. His mother was right, they all were, he was more grateful and longing in his life for the worst moment in his life just for those friends he no longer had at his side even with his family he had now.

Harry exchanged a look with Ron, both thinking the same. If they'd been able to pick members from the DA, it would not have been these three.

"Who would you have picked?" Sirius scrutinized that one oddly. "Cho? Zacharia? Collin? I never heard better options than the ones you've got."

"They're the ones asking to be there," James agreed, blinking fast to try and push that cursed vision from Harry's mind out of his for just one moment, it wasn't working.

Harry was still trembling worse than ever, wanting to go and save Sirius already, but now feeling as if he understood that anger at himself, if any of his friends got hurt because they'd gone with him...

Harry said through gritted teeth none of this mattered as they still didn't have a way to get there, though Luna cut in to simply again remind they were going to fly.

"She can keep saying that all she likes, it doesn't mean an Occarumpent is going to appear!" Remus ground out.

He hardly noticed the odd looks he was being given and jerked his head back up to glare at Sirius as he interrupted to ask what that even was.

"An occamy and an erumpent, keep up Sirius."

Sirius raised his hands in surrender, he hadn't been expecting Moony to be mocking Luna's weird creature ideas right now.

Ron said it must be nice if she could sprout wings at will, but none of them did!

Luna reminded there were other ways to fly, and Ron demanded if she was going to summon a Kacky Snorgle to her?

Luna corrected Crumple-Horned Snorkacks couldn't fly,

"Yes, because that was the part she caught on," Remus rolled his eyes heavily, feeling the pressure more than anyone he'd wasted all of his breath on things that weren't getting Sirius away from danger.

but they could, and Hagrid had said they were very good at finding places.

Harry turned to see Luna gesturing at two Thestrals looking on at them curiously from the shadows.

"Oh," they all muttered in genuine surprise. Only one of their members had been able to see those things in their day, and for the first time they wondered how often he'd seen those in the Forest without even mentioning it to them. This still held nothing to their honest thought this was the most ridiculous and long winded way Harry could use to get there! Yet berating him over it would do nothing but make them all feel even worse, they just wished someone other than Luna had offered up an idea, which was more than likely where Moony's ire with her currently was.

Harry went towards them at once with glee, and he watched them toss their reptilian heads wondering how he'd ever found them ugly.

"You can still find things ugly and useful," Lily said primly with a sideways look at Sirius, who openly ignored that one, there were some things even he wouldn't joke about, and now wasn't the time for those kinds of jokes on her part.

Ron was looking slightly to the left of where the Thestral now was, confirming it was those mad horse things you couldn't see unless you'd seen someone snuff it.

"Lest Ron's as lovely as ever," Lily muttered, more for herself that time as Sirius' eyes did brighten with humor at that one.

Hermione asked how many there were, and when he said two, she said they needed at least three.

"She could just ride on the back of one of the boys, they're tough things," James grumped, if this was how they were going to travel, he wanted this to be done with!

Luna corrected six, and Harry snapped fine, but unless they found more Thestrals this was still-

Ginny pointed out more would come, squinting more above where the Thestral was,

"Credit for trying?" Remus said snippily, well aware he was clutching the last page of his chapter and only more problems had been added to this already paralyzing situation!

as Harry and Hermione were still covered in droplets of Grawp's blood from when he'd been shot in the face, the two reeked of it and that's probably what had drawn these here in the first place.

"Why does Ginny know that?" Sirius muttered in surprise, she wouldn't have had this lesson yet.

"Luna clearly knows a lot about them, maybe she's had a chat with Hagrid about them and told Ginny about them," James forced himself to look Sirius in the face as the two sat around and just discussed something for a moment, even though both faces were more sickly pale than any full moon had ever done to them. They should have had the most practice worrying about their friends, and yet nothing could prepare them for what this all felt like.

Harry tried to seize the idea he and Ron would go ahead then, and Hermione could stay back to attract more- but Hermione protested this at once, and Luna said it wasn't necessary as she spotted six more arriving, noting they must really stink.

"No more picking on her either Moony, I like her," Sirius muttered, an actual smile trying to twist away his grimace for his situation for the girls bluntness.

"Well that seems to leave only you, I'm sure I'll have plenty more to complain of," Remus huffed.

Harry snapped fine, time to get on then.

Remus gave a tense sigh, somehow his hands fisting harder than ever as he eyed Lily who was now watching him expectantly. Another one down, and it hadn't happened yet. Maybe, if they just kept getting through more of these, it wouldn't at all...

HPHPHPHP

*No one should deny movie Harry's zinger really was brilliant and I regret nothing putting it in here.

#The LIfe that Never LIved #HP #Harry Potter #fanfiction #reading the books #Marauders #Remus Lupin #Sirius Black #James Potter #Lily Potter

2 notes · View notes

ihopuhopwehop · 3 years

Text

Sirius Fic based on “Maniac” by Conan Gray 🥺🥺 maybe read and review🥺

Tw: angst, mentions of abuse/trauma, talks about the prank

Ps. Lmk if I should make a tag list:) AO3

Sirius scrubbed his eyes fiercely as he walked dejectedly down the hall towards McGonagall’s office.

Whispers followed him every where he went, though they were ten-fold this time around because no body else actually knew the extent of what happened.

Some called him psychopathic.

Thinking he had done something similar to what his family members did. That he’d finally gotten the dark mark and now James, Remus, and Peter refused to associate with him because of it.

Some told him to stop being so dramatic.

That whatever it was, they’d fix it soon. James, Remus, and Peter couldn’t stay mad at him for long. They were brothers.

Surely they’d work it out.

At least that’s what they told him. He wasn’t so sure what bonds of blood or love meant to anyone anymore.

He was the perfect example.

Their friendship had been magic.

Supporting each other no matter what it was. Being there for each other. Helping him heal himself after his father sliced him. Sitting with him while he tried to forget his nightmares. Comforting Remus after the full moon, seeing who could eat the most chocolate frogs. Saving the cheese danishes for Peter. And researching new brooms for James to try out.

Now it was tragic.

Because he chose to make it that way.

At first he tried to convince himself it wasn’t his fault. That if only Snape hadn’t done what he did. If only Snape hadn’t been nosing around Remus. Lurking and searching for their secrets.

But really he was the one to go manic.

He was just so angry. So explosively angry.

Everywhere he looked Snape was there.

Whispering to his innocent, little brother.

Pointing out Remus’ scars to fellow Death Eaters.

Calling James a blood-traitor.

Harassing mud—that word. Muggleborns.

He had had it with Snivellus. So he decided to do something about it.

He didn’t think...no couldn’t think of any other option that would work better than scaring Snape. Threatening him with the knowledge Snape so callously desired.

He didn’t think about how the monster at the end of the tunnel would turn into a living human being that would have to live with the consequences of Sirius’ actions.

All he could think about was that Snape had it coming. And he knew just what to give him.

And then it all went wrong.

Suddenly, James wasn’t supporting this decision.

James was yelling at him. Cursing at him. Demanding Sirius tell James just what he had done.

Suddenly, James wasn’t on his side.

And Sirius pushed him away. Tried to explain why he had done it, but all he got was James telling him he needed to get help.

But Sirius didn’t know who to ask for help, if not his brother.

Back to the present, Sirius was now in front of McGonagall’s office.

He released a deep, shaky breath as he knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

He slumped his shoulders as he hesitantly slipped through the door, enjoyed how the whispers behind him faded as the heavy wood clicked into place.

“Ah, Mr. Black.”

He couldn’t help the flinch. His last name was a reminder of what he did. His parents would be so proud to know Sirius was using a werewolf for his own gain.

It made Sirius sick.

And sad. Tears sprung to his eyes again, but he forced them to stay there, hating how much his eyes burned.

“Professor.” His voice was raspy from the sobbing he had done in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom.

She gestured him to sit and he mechanically did so, waiting for her to yell at him like many others had.

When she opened her mouth, he flinched again. Until,

“Have a biscuit.”

He furrowed his eyebrows. Have a biscuit? Why? What was the point?

He delicately picked one up and brought it towards his body, but didn’t dare put it in his mouth yet.

McGonagall just stared at him until he finally took a tiny bite, hoping he did what she wanted of him.

“I think it’s time we had a little chat.”

He gulped down the little bit of biscuit as he waited for her to continue.

“Tell me Sirius, how are you doing?”

That one question shouldn’t have done it.

And he tried so hard to make it not happen, but he couldn’t help it.

He broke down.

The tears he’d thought were suppressed, came rushing painfully up and his throat constricted, a lump forming.

He put a rough hand on his forehead while he leaned forward. The tears leaking out. His dirty, shoulder-length hair falling into his face.

He breathed a shaking breath before he could get a word out.

“Not—not good.” His voice broke.

Suddenly though, all of his thoughts came rushing out.

“I can’t—I can’t believe I did that. To Remus. To James. To Sn—Snape.” He exhaled forcefully, a choking sob working its way up. “I’m so much more like my family than I thought.”

He was now sobbing harder than he had in his entire life. In front of his Professor. His Professor who looked like she was trying her hardest to push her own tears down.

“Remus isn’t the monster. I am. I used his affliction against him. And the sad thing is, if James hadn’t have fought me, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But Snape deserved it.” Another wracking sob and a sniffle.

“He corrupted Regulus. My—my little brother. One of them. He hurt Remus. Made fun of his scars. Hell, he said Mary McDonald’s assault was “just a laugh” I don’t—I can’t”

He paused, running a hand down his face, “What’s wrong with me Professor? What’s—“ He took a deep inhale, trying to finally get rid of the painful lump in his throat, before he looked into his Professor’s pained eyes.

“I just wanted to help them. But I only made it worse. And now I have no one. Not James. not Remus. Not Reg—Regulus.”

He leaned back in the chair, but folded his arms around himself, waiting to see what she had to say.

She only pushed the biscuit tin towards him again, and he gratefully took one.

She then conjured some water for him to drink and Sirius thought it felt cool against his throat.

When he was finished and unsure about what to do now, McGonagall finally spoke.

“Sirius. I think you need to heal. From what I’ve heard, you’ve experienced a lot of abuse and trauma from your family. This in no way excuses what you did, and you will have consequences for your actions as Dumbledore, Slughorn, and myself deem fit, but you need help. As such, you will meet in my office weekly for the rest of the year and we will work through some things and teach you better ways to cope with your emotions, of course, if you are okay with it?”

Sirius didn’t know. He wasn’t sure what help she could give, but seeing as he no longer had friends to rely on, he figured he should at least give McGonagall a try.

So he nodded. James had said he needed help anyways. Maybe this was the help he meant.

“Can I...can I change my mind if I don’t like it?”

“Of course. Or you may request a new therapist to help you if you feel I am not the best fit for you.”

Sirius nodded again and swallowed audibly. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Thank you Sirius. You may go back to Gryffindor tower.”

Sirius didn’t miss the unspoken warning; don’t go anywhere you shouldn’t.

Sirius stood up and walked out of her office, his shoulders tensed and his eyes hurting.

He clenched his eyes shut as he made it out into the hallway, the whispers once again flaring as people noticed him.

Just at that moment, he noticed Remus walking in front of him, no doubt heading to the common room.

He debated catching up with him, but thought of the pain in Remus’ eyes when he had found out what he’d done.

He didn’t think he was ready to face him again. So he sulked back behind him and stayed as close to the wall as he could.

He let Remus get safely in the common room, waiting in the hallway a for a few minutes, before giving the password to the Fat Lady and cautiously entering the common room.

He noticed James, Remus, and Peter by the fireplace. All looking exhausted, but James smiled at something Remus said, and Sirius had to look away.

He wanted to go to their four poster but knew it was getting late and they’d be retiring soon, so instead he flopped onto the window seat, ignoring his housemates questioning looks and gossip.

He had been staring at the faint outline of the whomping willow for about ten minutes when someone sat across from him.

He lazily rolled his head to the side to see who it was and refused to let the hope that it was James or Remus show on his face.

It was Lily Evans.

She smiled at him lightly.

He wanted to roll his eyes but managed to control that impulse. Look at him go, only one session with McGonagall and he already was showing restraint.

He inwardly snorted at his joke but outwardly puffed a strand of hair out of his eyes.

“What do you want?”

“Why aren’t you sitting with them?”

He knew she was just curious but it still pissed him off.

So he scowled at her, “because I’m alone now Evans.” When she opened her mouth to ask another question, he continued, “if you’re here to ask me questions, don’t bother. I’m not in the mood.”

He turned back to the whomping willow.

He felt a tentative hand on his knee, “I’m not sure what’s happened, but...I’m here if you need to talk.” When he only continued staring at her she continued, “or you know, stare pensively out of window with you like the brooder you are, then—“ she shrugged her shoulders and it brought a twitch of his lips.

How ironic that Snivellus’ former best friend was the one there for him, “Thanks Evans. I’ll keep that in mind.”

At this, he stood and made his way up to their dormitory, hoping to be in and out of the shower before they got went to bed.

#Sirius black #James potter #the prank #lily evans #harry potter #angst #hogwarts #fanfiction #read and review #reblog #song fic #remus lupin #peter pettigrew #the marauders #sirius black #james potter #minerva mcgonagall #ao3

10 notes · View notes

mooncat457writing · 4 years

Text

AU where Harry is raised with the Malfoy’s instead of the Dursley’s

Ok, so this is based off of an idea that a friend gave me to do with the old magic Lily performed when she sacrificed herself for Harry. I’m not sure if I’ll ever turn this into an actual fic (unless someone really wants me to), but here is my headcanon. It’s a bit long, so buckle up folks.

So, we all know that Lily sacrificed herself for Harry, creating a protective charm over him so that, as long as he lived with her blood, he’d be safe. But what if it had been James, not Lily.

By the time Jily had had Harry, James’ parents were both dead and he had no siblings. Except, he sort of did. Sirius Black.

Sirius ran away to the Potters when he was 16, effectively becoming James’ brother. So, when James sacrifices himself for Harry and Lily, a bond is made. Harry would be safe as long as he lives with someone of James’ blood (well, technically adopted blood, but also the Potters and the Blacks were both old pureblood families so they’re probably related by actual blood in some way. Wizards are incestuous y’all).

But there’s a problem, Sirius is in Azkaban and Harry still needs somewhere to go to be protected.

Sirius’ biological parents are RIGHT out, and Regulus is dead, so that’s a no go. So cousins.

Well, Bellatrix Lestrange is also RIGHT out because she’s batshit crazy and also in Azkaban. There’s Andromeda, and she’d be a lovely choice. She’s a mother. But, she also has a big target on her back since she married a muggle-born. But, this is Dumbledore making the decision and although his main motivation is to keep Harry safe, he also can’t help but think that maybe this is also an opportunity for him to spy on the other side. And Sirius has one more cousin. Narcissa.

The Malfoys had managed to escape being charged with being Death Eaters, they had a lot of influence over the magical world, and they had a son that was Harry’s age. So, most likely case scenario, Dumbledore gets an excuse to spy on the Malfoys under the guise of checking up on Harry every once and a while. But there’s also a second scenario that could happen. One Dumbledore didn’t exactly plan on.

Narcissa was only a Death Eater because of her circumstances. She wanted to protect her family. Protect Draco. But now her family included Harry.

Harry and Draco become fast friends. They’re brothers. Lucius is still a racist pig and tries to impart this on both of the boys, because dammit if he’s going to have to take care of the boy that defeated the Dark Lord, maybe he can at least use him.

But this is Harry we’re talking about. He’s his mother’s son. Kind and gentle, even despite his circumstances. I mean, in canon he spent 10 years locked in a closet, and his first instinct when he meets Ron is to accept him as a friend wholeheartedly when most people would understandably be guarded AF. So the racist indoctrination doesn’t really work on Harry. And, in seeing Harry’s courage, it doesn’t work on Draco either, for the most part. He tries really hard, at least.

Fast-forward to September 1st, 1991. Narcissa drops her two boys off at Platform 9 and 3/4 (Lucius is busy doing whatever creepy things he’s doing still). Harry and Draco happen upon an empty compartment and take a seat. Moments later, Ron comes by and asks to sit. They get around to introductions and Draco realizes that Ron is a Weasley, and although his first instinct is to repeat something his father had said about the Weasley family, he bites his tongue. Ron is shocked that Harry even lives with the Malfoys, but after a train ride full of sweets and laughter, Ron and Draco both realize that maybe their parent’s perception of the other’s family is wrong.

Draco is still sorted into Slytherin. He’s excited at first to make his family proud, but then when Harry is sorted after him and into Gryffindor, he’s disappointed. It’ll be the first time that he won’t be sharing a room with his adoptive brother. But that doesn’t stop him from still being friends with Harry. And eventually Ron. And even later, Hermione. Draco makes friends with some of his fellow Slytherins, but part of it always sits wrong with him. They only want to be friends with him because of his last name. In the Slytherin common room, he’s always Malfoy. But when he gets let into the Gryffindor common room to hang out, he’s Draco. He prefers it that way.

First-year, Quirrell tries to kill Harry, although they’re all convinced it was Snape all along. Even Draco. He hates his head-of-house and sticks up for his brother often, knowing that he won’t have any consequences for it. Draco goes with the trio to protect the stone and prevent Voldemort’s return, his father be damned. He didn’t want a second war ripping apart his family.

Second-year, Lucius manages to slip Ginny a diary that would help Voldemort return. It causes a huge rift between Draco and Ron’s friendship, even though Draco had gone with them to rescue Ginny. It left Harry in a really awkward position between his brother and his best friend. And it made for a very strained third year.

Third-year, Sirius escapes from prison and is seemingly after Harry. Although Draco is not as welcome with the Gryffindors as he once was, he is still hell-bent on protecting his brother. Especially since it’s his crazy uncle that’s after him to begin with. I’m the Shrieking Shack, Draco is there and stand up with Ron to protect Harry. Sirius falters at the idea that his godson and his nephew are so close. It reminds him of him and James. The adoptive kinship. Wormtail still escapes, and Sirius is on the run, but Draco spends all of his energy trying to figure out how to set things right. There has to be a way to clear his uncle’s name. Draco spends almost the entire summer trying to figure it out. He also spends the entire summer hearing whispers of a plan to ensure the return of the Voldemort. He hears Wormtail’s name. And he comes up with a plan.

Fourth-year, Draco offers to be a spy for Dumbledore. He knows he can get information out of his parents. He wants to help. He doesn’t want a second war ripping his family apart, even if it means distancing himself from his brother temporarily to make sure that doesn’t happen. Harry is chosen for the Triwizard Tournament, which Draco realizes was the first step of the plan. He wishes that he could be there cheering on his brother, but he can’t. By the time the third task rolls around, Draco knows the full plan. He tells Dumbledore, but it’s a little too late. By the time Dumbledore reaches the graveyard, Voldemort is back, but he escapes without a trace. Fudge still tries to swear that Voldemort is back, despite both Harry’s, Dumbledore’s, and several Auror’s accounts of the events. But at least Wormtail is captured, as well as a few of the Death Eaters, including Lucius.

Sirius is cleared of all charges. In theory, Harry could go to live with him now. It was the original plan after all. Harry would be safe. Safer than he would be living under the roof of a convicted Death Eater. But Harry is hesitant to leave his brother, who also wasn’t that safe living under the Malfoy roof. Harry wants to stay, but Draco doesn’t. He takes a page out of his uncle’s book and runs away. Narcissa is heartbroken at the loss of her two boys, the real loves of her life, and she makes a decision. Her husband is in prison and her sons are off Godric knows where with her convicted murderer ex-convicted murderer cousin. If her sons could be courageous enough to stand up against Voldemort, then so could she. So, to hell with the Dark Lord.

Although it pains her to, she pretends to cut the boys out of her life. If she stayed in contact with them, the Dark Lord would see right through her subterfuge. She tells no one of her plans. At least, not yet. Not until she has the information she needs to take the Dark Lord down. She doesn’t trust Dumbledore not to make a mess of things. She needs to do this on her own.

Fifth-year, Harry and Draco are living with Sirius at Grimmauld Place, which is the safe house for the Order of the Phoenix. Umbridge infiltrates the school and makes their lives hell. Harry forms Dumbledore’s Army and Draco joins. He’s the only Slytherin there, but he doesn’t care. At the end of the year, they infiltrate the Department of Mysteries. They need to get the prophesy before Voldemort does and although Sirius hates the idea, Harry is the only one who can retrieve it. Although the Order is there to help, there’s still a huge battle with the Death Eaters that had recently escaped, Lucius included. Say what you will about Lucius, but he still hesitates when he sees Draco, fighting side by side with Harry, Sirius, and the other members of the Order, and it’s this hesitation that provides an opportunity for the Order to escape, at least mostly harm free.

Sixth-year, Dumbledore starts to groom Harry to understand his connection to Voldemort. Narcissa starts to understand the connection as well. She has done well at making herself invaluable to the Dark Lord and one night she hears him mention a bit of old magic. Horcruxes. She makes the connection that the diary her husband had slipped Ginny Weasley four years ago had to have been one. This is the bit of information that she needed. This was the information that could take him down. The information that could bring her boys back to her.

At the end of the year, Dumbledore is dead. Snape killed him, according to the Dark Lord’s plan. In the chaos, she manages to slip her son a message. She’s managed to figure out the identity of five Horcruxes. The diary, which she knew to be destroyed, the Gaunt family ring, which she suspected was also destroyed, the locket, the Hufflepuff goblet, and Ravenclaw’s diadem. She only knew the location of one, the goblet in the Lestrange family vault, but if Harry at least knows the identity of the Horcruxes, it might give him more of a fighting chance to find them. And she knows he’s going to try.

Seventh-year, Draco goes with Harry, Ron, and Hermione to find the Horcruxes. He’s there when they’re all captured and thrown into the Malfoy family dungeon, because, although his last name is Malfoy, it doesn’t mean he’s spared the fate of the others. He’s a blood traitor. It pains Narcissa to watch her two boys fight the way they are, but she reminds herself of her mission and hopes that one day they forgive her for her deceit.

The next time Narcissa sees her adoptive son is May 2, 1998, in the Forbidden Forest. Harry walks up to Voldemort with his head held high, ready to face death. She manages to keep her composure as she watches her son be brutally murdered by the Dark Lord. She manages to hold in the scream of grief as she watches him collapse onto the ground. She manages to suppress the urge to fire a killing curse at the Dark Lord herself in revenge as he asks her to go check to make sure that Harry is dead. She never once thought that she was making the wrong choice when she turned spy against him, but at that moment, as the Dark Lord asked her specifically to check the body, the body of the boy he knew she’d raised from an infant, she realized that not only had she not made the wrong choice. She’d made the right one. This bastard needed to die and die for good this time. Her breath catches in her throat as she bends over the body of her son and realizes that he was still faintly breathing. She manages to keep a straight face as she asks after her other son, whom she hadn’t seen yet in all the chaos. Once she gets confirmation of his wellbeing, leans in even further and whispers to him about one last Horcrux. The snake. Nagini. It’s a risky move, but he needs to know. The only way the Dark Lord will be defeated forever is if he’s completely vulnerable. Message received, she straightens and announces that Harry is in fact dead.

The next events take place in a blur. Harry reveals himself to be alive. The snake is killed. So is the Dark Lord. The Death Eaters are captured and sent to prison, with the exception of Narcissa. Harry offers testimony that she’d been spying all along and had passed him valuable information that contributed to Voldemort’s downfall.

In the aftermath, Narcissa is reunited with her sons and makes amends with her cousin, Sirius, Harry, tired of fighting, goes on to be a professor at Hogwarts, and Draco goes on to work at the Ministry with Hermione, desperate to try to bring some good into the wizarding world and make up for the horror that has been associated with his last name for so long.

#harry potter #harry potter au #harry potter headcanon #harry is raised with the malfoys #draco malfoy #narcissa malfoy

49 notes · View notes

silverlightqueen · 4 years

Text

Mischief Managed: Slytherin Dungeons

Across the United Kingdom, millions of children attend school every day, studying Maths, English and Science, but deep in the Scottish Highlands, a lucky thousand schoolkids get to study Potions, Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts. Whilst the rest of us learn names like Shakespeare, Avogadro and Fibonacci, they learn names like Goshawk, Bagshot and Scamander. Whilst we learn how to do algebra, how to analyse poems and how photosynthesis works, they learn how correctly use a Conjuring Spell, how to brew a Draught of Living Death and how to fly a Nimbus 2000. And naturally, school children will always find a way to misbehave, to get up to no good, to make mischief, but when you add spells, potions and magic into the mix? Let’s just say… they get up to more than just mischief. Welcome to Hogwarts.

hogwarts!au, Min Yoongi x reader - fluff, comedy

Rating: PG (profanity)

Word Count: 1.9k+

a/n: please check the masterlist before you read!! here is the third instalment of my hogwarts drabble series called Mischief Managed! I really hope y’all enjoy this, lmk what you think, I thrive off praise lmao x

silverlightqueen masterlist

Quietus (Quietening Charm)

Type: Charm

Pronunciation: KWIY-uh-tus

Description: Makes a target sound quieter. It is the countercharm to the Amplifying Charm, Sonorus

Etymology: Latin quietus, "calm" or "quiet"

Nox (Wand-Extinguishing Charm)

Type: Charm

Pronunciation: NOCKSS

Description: Extinguishes wandlight. It the countercharm for the Wand-Lighting Charm, Lumos

Etymology: Latin nox, meaning "night"

‘Merlin’s beard,’ I mutter when there’s a loud rumble of thunder, the coffee table before me shaking, and I shiver, bringing my knees up to my chest. I know it’s irrational, but storms are terrifying to me – I always fear they’re going to blow the roof right off, and take me along with it. Being down in the Slytherin dungeons isn’t as bad as, say, Gryffindor tower (losers) because at least we’re underground, and less exposed to the storm. But being in the dungeons, we’re closer to the Black Lake, and the Black Lake during a storm is even scarier than the storm itself.

The rest of the school tends to call it the Great Lake, but we Slytherins know that ‘Great’ is not enough to describe the lake, nor its inhabitants. One of the walls of the common room is made of an enchanted and reinforced glass, letting us see right into the lake, and all that live down there. It’s not a rare occurrence to see Grindylows or Selkies swimming past – some of them even stop to have a look in every now and then, and they’ve unsuccessfully tried break through the glass more than a few times. We even had the Giant Squid latch itself to the window for nearly a week. I saw Professor Snape down in the dungeons more than I ever had before during those few days, attempting to get the squid off – he even tried banging on the glass a few times when he didn’t think anyone was there.

But now? There are no creatures in view – they’re likely hiding at the bottom of the lake, out of harm’s way. Instead, the lake crashes against the glass in strong and brutal waves, the loud sloshing of the water and its collisions with the window echoing around the common room. There is no sign of the moon or stars tonight, the only light coming from the bright bolts of lightning that strike the water. The clouds are heavy and thick, and the sky is completely dark, the water raging on beneath it, rising in great angry mountains and crashing together unforgivingly. Watching the lake, I hug myself tighter as though if I let go, I’ll be dragged out amongst the waves, beneath the storm.

There’s a bright flash of lighting, quickly followed by a loud clap of thunder, the sound resonating within me, and I jump at the noise, unable to stop the gasp that slips out from between my lips. ‘Quietus,’ I hear a groggy voice let out behind me, and I jump again, turning to see Yoongi stood at the bottom of the staircase that leads up to the boys’ dorms, wand in hand. After his spell, the sound of the storm and the lake is considerably quieter, and I feel my fear dissipating, my body losing some of its tension as I loosen my grip on my legs.

‘y/n. What are you doing up?’ he yawns, bare feet padding against the cold floor as he heads over to me, arms stretched out above his head. ‘I… I’m a little scared of storms,’ I admit as he drops his wand onto the coffee table and sits down beside me, slouching back against the sofa with a chuckle. ‘I never knew that. That’s cute,’ he says with a grin, and I roll my eyes, completely distracted from the (much quieter) storm now. ‘Why are you up?’ I ask, and he glances at me amusedly before rolling his neck. The aura of sleep still surrounds him, his black locks messy and soft, his eyes blinking and unfocused, his skin radiating warmth that I can feel even from a few inches away. ‘The thunder was loud, so I thought I’d just come and do a quietening charm, and then I ran into you,’ he grins, voice husky and deep, and I nod, a little embarrassed I didn’t think of performing a quietening charm – I guess my fear made me lose my ability to think rationally.

‘If you’re scared of the storm, why would you come sit in the room where it’s loudest? And where you can actually see it?’ he asks amusedly, and I feel even more embarrassed now. ‘Sitting in my room and listening to it is scarier to me because I can’t see it. I can’t prepare myself for thunder because I can’t see the lightning, and I can’t prepare myself for the waves hitting the wall because I can’t see it coming. When I’m here, it’s like I can… brace myself?’ I say, trying to explain as best as I can, and Yoongi nods, his understanding behaviour making me feel… like I’m not stupid for being scared of storms.

‘Have you had any sleep?’ he asks as he rubs his eyes, and I shake my head. At the mention of sleep, I can feel the tiredness wash over me, and I try my best to stifle a yawn, Yoongi side-eyeing me. ‘Go to bed,’ he says, and I let out a gentle laugh, shaking my head. ‘I can’t – I won’t be able to sleep knowing what’s going on out there,’ I say, motioning to the window, and Yoongi raises an eyebrow. ‘We have Potions with Snape in around… five hours, and the storm doesn’t look like it’ll end any time soon. You really wanna tackle Potions with no sleep?’ he asks, and the prospect makes me want to cry, but I shrug. ‘I’ll be fine. I actually enjoy Potions, and I’m Snape’s favourite anyway – he won’t say anything if I have a little nap,’ I joke, and he lets out a deep chuckle.

‘Well, at least get a bit more comfy then. You’re putting me on edge sitting like that,’ he says, and I laugh as I take my arms from around my legs, relaxing my posture to sit back against the sofa with my legs curled up beside me. Yoongi adjusts his position a little too, getting more comfortable, and I turn to look at him confusedly. ‘Aren’t you gonna go back to bed?’ I ask, and he shakes his head, crossing his arms over his chest as he rests his head back on the sofa, grinning. ‘What kind of best friend would I be if I left you down here alone with the big bad storm?’ he teases, and I roll my eyes, holding my middle finger up at him as my heart warms.

‘Aren’t you cold in those skimpy pyjamas?’ he asks, motioning to my t-shirt, shorts and fluffy socks (in Slytherin colours, of course), my legs and arms completely exposed. The fire is raging strong in the fireplace, but it doesn’t radiate enough heat to keep me fully warm, and I nod, Yoongi rolling his eyes as he reaches for his wand. ‘Accio blanket,’ he murmurs, dropping his wand back onto the table again, just as a blanket (presumably from Yoongi’s room) flies through the doorway and lands on my lap. ‘Thanks,’ I say as I pull it around myself, and it’s still warm from when Yoongi must have had it in bed a few minutes ago.

‘You should’ve got one for yourself too. Aren’t you cold?’ I ask, looking him up and down. He’s dressed in a pair of loose pyjama bottoms and a thin t-shirt in Slytherin colours, arms and feet bare. ‘Move over this way, we can share,’ he says, and I shuffle closer towards him, moving the blanket so that it covers both of us. Yoongi reaches for his wand, whispering ‘Nox’, and the light above us dims completely, leaving us in the warm glow cast by the fire. We sit in a comfortable silence, both of us yawning, our bodies losing all tension as we lean on the sofa and each other, eyes drooping with tiredness.

But the position I’m sat in is uncomfortable – I struggle to fall asleep in my own bed at the best of times, so sat upright against a sofa designed for good back support (I don’t really know why – we’re at secondary school, not a care home) with my feet tucked beneath me, I’m definitely not going to fall asleep any time soon. ‘For the love of Merlin, can you stop fucking fidgeting?’ Yoongi murmurs, eyes closed, and I let out a soft laugh. ‘I’m uncomfortable,’ I reply, and he lets out a sigh. ‘For fuck’s sake, you’re such a pain in the arse, you know?’ he breathes out as he adjusts his position, bringing his legs up and lying down, his head resting on the arm of the sofa. I’m a little confused as to how this is helping me, and he lets out another sigh. ‘Lie down, stupid,’ he murmurs, and I let out a little ‘oh’ of realisation, slowly moving to lie down in the gap between Yoongi’s body and the back of the sofa.

Our legs are outstretched together and my head rests just beside his shoulder, my arms curled up at my chest, and I can feel myself beginning to drop off again, sat in this comfortable position. But after a few minutes, my arms become stiff, and I don’t want to move them and bother Yoongi again, especially considering he could be asleep in his comfy bed right now, with his own personal space. ‘y/n, you can move if you need to. I’m not going to murder you,’ he whispers amusedly, and I feel embarrassed again at him being able to sense my thoughts. ‘It’s my arms, but I haven’t got anywhere to put them,’ I whisper back, and he lets out another sigh. ‘I swear to God. It’s always something with you,’ he mutters half-heartedly, and I can’t help but laugh. He grabs one of my arms and pulls it across his own body, my limb now fully stretched out, and I feel much more comfortable already, moving my other arm behind me. ‘Thanks, Yoongi,’ I whisper after a few moments, already dozing off, and through my slumber, I hear his deep soothing voice murmur back, ‘You’re welcome, y/n.’

I awake after a couple hours of restful sleep, blinking in the light from the already lightening sky, and see that the storm has already calmed – it’s still raining, but the lake isn’t raging anymore, and I can’t hear any thunder either. I check my watch quickly, the time reading 5.28, which gives me two hours before I have to get up. I drop my arm back across Yoongi’s torso, closing my eyes again, before I realise that my head is on his chest, and my leg is also outstretched across his, as well as his arm being curved around me. And it’s nice – Yoongi would rather fight a troll than let me hug him, so I’m enjoying this rare moment of physical intimacy with him. I look up at his face, his features softened by slumber and his lips parted with a slight pout, and my heart warms at how cute he is. I get comfortable again, letting myself drift back to sleep with a smile on my face and my head on his chest.

54 notes · View notes

itsyourchoice-hp · 3 years

Text

Year 2: Staff Meeting

Cath realized on Saturday afternoon that she hadn’t seen her brother since his incident in Care of Magical Creatures class. It was strange not to see him with Harry, Ron and Hermione during lunch or study breaks. He was no doubt still sulking nursing his “injury.” Draco certainly had a talent for being dramatic.

She began packing up her schoolbag in the Common Room, deciding to go see if he was in the Great Hall doing homework. Ginny looked up from her copy of the Daily Prophet and frowned.

“Where are you off to?” she asked.

“I’m going to see if I can find Draco,” Cath replied. “We had a bit of a row when he was in the Hospital Wing and I haven’t talked to him since.”

“You two are so strange,” Ginny remarked. “We fight all the time in my family, and we are usually back to normal after about five minutes. Except Ron of course.”

“We all know he’s got a terrible temper,” George teased.

Ron reached over from the chair beside him and gave George a whack on the head with a rolled up bit of parchment.

“Case in point,” Harry grinned.

They laughed as Ron rolled his eyes. Cath stood up and departed from the group. Before she could push the portrait open to leave the Common Room, Hermione appeared at her side, grabbing her arm to stop her.

“Cath, would you er-let me know how he’s doing?” she asked in a low voice, trying to sound nonchalant.

Cath wasn’t quite sure why Hermione was acting so strange about it.

“Sure I can,” she replied. “Is everything alright?”

Hermione glanced to where Ron, Harry, Ginny, Fred and George were seated. “Draco and I sort of had a row as well. I don’t think he understands that Hagrid has the best intentions. And he sort of accused me of taking Harry’s side in it.”

“He said the same thing to me too,” Cath assured her. “He’ll come around like he always does. I’ll come find you when I’m back.

Hermione thanked her before returning to their friends and Cath left the Common Room, hoping she wouldn’t have to make conversation with Sir Cadogan on her way out. When the portrait swung open from the inside, Cath saw Neville waiting to get in, a look of frustration and dismay on his face.

“Thank Merlin,” he said when he saw Cath. “I’ve been trying to get in for nearly an hour!”

“Did you forget the password?” Cath asked him.

“No,” Neville replied. “He’s changed it again!"

“It is my duty to protect Gryffindor House at all costs! I would sooner die before I let some mangy murderer into this castle…” Sir Cadogan said, brandishing his sword and flailing it around threateningly.

Neville showed Cath the piece of parchment he had in his hand. “I’ve written down all the passwords. This is just from this past week!”

“Give him a break,” Cath said to Sir Cadogan. “Can’t you see he’s a Gryffindor? He’s got his house colours on!”

“You aren’t brave enough to face me!” he said. “Come duel me, if you really want to get inside.”

“The password is Codswallops, last time I went in,” Cath said to Neville. She looked back to Sir Cadogan, who was trying to kick his fat pony into a canter.

“Codswallops!” Neville exclaimed.

Sir Cadogan reluctantly sheathed his sword and swung open. Neville sighed in relief. “Thanks Cath,” he said. “I owe you one! I can’t forget to write that one down.”

“No problem,” she replied. She continued down the hallway and down a few flights of stairs until she reached the Great Hall. The portraits on the walls were still talking about the events last night. A few of them stopped her to ask if she had heard anything.

“I heard he has red eyes!” said a portrait of a woman hanging sheets on a clothesline to the portrait next to her, of a wizard brewing a black bubbling potion.

Cath couldn’t help but look over her shoulder every once in a while. She wanted to believe that Hogwarts was safe, but it was hard not to feel afraid when so many rumours were still circulating about Sirius Black.

Sure enough, Draco was sitting in the Great Hall at the table where Slytherins usually sat during meals, with a group of his friends around him. Cath recognized Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle right away, as Cath and Draco’s parents were longtime friends with Vincent and Gregory’s. There was also a girl sitting with them who had short black hair, pale skin and a rather snout-like nose.

Draco looked up when he saw Cath approach her.

Crabbe and Goyle, who were about as thick as they come, greeted her with an awkward wave. The girl with them looked at her as though she were a huge inconvenience.

“Cath,” Draco said. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you, actually,” she replied. She felt increasingly uncomfortable by the girl’s stare.

Draco shut his textbook and stood up. “I’ll be back,” he said to his friends.

“Don’t be gone too long,” the black haired girl said.

“Who’s she?” Cath asked once they were out of earshot.

“Pansy Parkinson,” Draco replied. “She’s in my year.”

“Sounds like she fancies you,” Cath remarked.

“What is it that you want?” Draco asked, not indulging her in small talk.

“I haven’t seen you since the hospital wing,” Cath replied. “How is your arm? It looks like you’re doing a lot better.”

Draco held his injured arm close to his side, suddenly wincing in pain. “It’s better than it was… but it still hurts a lot.”

Cath wanted so badly to taunt him, but she knew his fragile ego wouldn’t be able to handle it. “Sounds terrible,” she replied.

“Mother and Father are furious,” Draco said. “They’re meeting with Dumbledore about it tomorrow. There’s no way that stupid giant should be teaching here. They agree. I mean, bringing dangerous animals into class and then letting them attack students? It’s completely irresponsible, don’t you think?”

Cath worried for Hagrid. She knew it wasn’t his fault or his intention that a student get hurt during class. “Well, I’m sure Hagrid feels terrible that you got hurt.”

“He should,” Draco replied. “Anyways, I’m sure you’ve heard all about what happened yesterday?”

Cath nodded. “Ron said he saw the Fat Lady right after it happened. She was absolutely terrified.”

“This isn’t going to look good for Dumbledore,” Draco shook his head. “I’m sure they’re doing everything they can to keep Hogwarts’ image as clean as possible.”

“Hogwarts is safe, everyone knows that,” Cath said.

“But think about what’s happened here the past two years. Last year, with the Chamber of Secrets opening. And in our first year with Professor Quirrell,” Draco pointed out. “That’s a lot of bad press.”

“Do you think Hogwarts would get shut down?” Cath asked.

Draco shrugged. “Dunno. But I’m sure the Ministry will be putting a lot of pressure on Dumbledore to keep things safe around here.”

They were silent for a minute as they stood in the empty corridor.

“You should come watch the Quidditch practice today,” Cath said. “I’m going with Ron and Hermione.”

Draco thought for a minute before shrugging. “Maybe. I have a lot of schoolwork.”

Someone walking past them caught Cath’s attention. She looked to her right and to her surprise saw Professor Lupin, who was carrying a stack of books in his arm. He looked extremely tired and worn. A scarf was wrapped around his neck and he wore a grey knit sweater with brown trousers and well worn dress shoes.

Good afternoon, Malfoys,” he said, dipping his head courteously.

“Professor!” Cath said. “I’m so glad you’re back. Are you feeling much better?"

Professor Lupin smiled, exaggerating the lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth. “I’m feeling better every day, thank you Ms. Malfoy. If you’ll excuse me.”

He kept walking down the corridor in the direction of the staff office.

“Looks like he’s seen better days,” Draco remarked.

“I’m glad he’s back,” Cath said. “It was dreadful having Snape teach Defence.”

“Tell me about it,” Draco agreed. “Anyways, I’ve got to get back. See you later, Cath.”

“This afternoon?” Cath asked him expectantly, raising her eyebrows. She knew that once he spent time with his Gryffindor friends again, he would go right back to normal.

He paused for a moment before replying. “I’ll try to come.”

***

Minerva tapped her foot impatiently, waiting for Albus to stop indulging Professor Sprout in her gushing over the perennials she had planted this year. Nearly all of the professors had gathered in the large meeting room on the tenth floor.

It was a room that was rarely used, except for the very few times that Hogwarts was in some sort of danger. Well, now that Harry Potter attended the school it seemed that something terrible had happened every year. Not that Minerva blamed the boy at all. None of this was his fault.

Poor boy. Only thirteen years old and he had faced death and danger so many times.

Remus Lupin took a seat near Minerva, a ceramic mug of tea in his hands. It was always strange when a former student of Minerva’s went on to teach at Hogwarts. Remus and his friends had been her students when she had started her first year of teaching. After teaching James Potter and Sirius Black, there was no rowdy classroom that Minerva couldn’t have handled.

He had always been so different than those two, Remus. Of course he went along with James and Sirius’ antics, to an extent, but he was quiet, shy, very bright and studious. A real gentle soul. Working with a group of witches and wizards during the Wizard War had certainly hardened him, especially the heartbreak of losing James, Lily, Sirius and Peter.

“Good afternoon, Professor McGonagall,” Remus greeted her politely.

Minerva looked over to him and smiled, shaking her head. “You should know by now that you can call me Minerva.”

“I still haven’t gotten used to it, I suppose,” Remus said, smiling sheepishly.

Professor Dumbledore cleared his throat, and the rest of the teachers that were dwindling and wandering in quickly made their way to a seat.

Finally, Minerva thought.

A piece of parchment and a quill were enchanted to float near Albus’s head and take minutes during their meetings.

“Thank you all for attending this staff meeting,” he said, smiling around at everyone. Minerva had never seen a smile from Dumbledore that wasn’t genuine. She truly didn’t know how he did it.

“First of all, I would like to thank you all for your support during the events of last night. I realize that you had to spring into action during a potentially dangerous time, and your efforts have not gone unnoticed.

Second, I want to give a brief update of what has transpired since last night. The Fat Lady, who guards the entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room, was attacked by someone in the castle. She claims it to be Sirius Black. That night, myself and various others conducted a thorough search of the castle, as well as the grounds. We had Dementors circle the entirety of Hogwarts, but were unable to locate Sirius Black. It is my sincere belief that he is not in Hogwarts.”

There was tangible relief from everyone in the room. Minerva could see the look of absolute hatred on Severus’s face. He probably wanted nothing more than for Black, his childhood bully, to be found.

“We will continue to keep close watch,” Dumbledore continued. “I have received many letters of concern from parents, citizens, and the board of governors. But Hogwarts is not in danger. There is no cause for worry or fear. I am in contact with the Minister of Magic, who sent a team of experienced Aurors to help conduct the search last night.”

“Is it true that he’s after the Potter boy?” asked Charity Burbitch, the professor of Muggle Studies.

Minerva swallowed uncomfortably, allowing herself to steal a glance at Remus. He looked sad, his eyes slightly vacant.

“Sirius Black has indeed escaped Azkaban,” Dumbledore replied. “And I know I can say for myself, that even one night in Azkaban prison would be enough to drive me to escape. He is likely trying to live in hiding.”

Another unfortunate event happened this week. During a Care of Magical Creatures class, a student was injured by a Hippogriff. He has made a full recovery, according to Madam Pomfrey and will not suffer any permanent damage. The animals were being handled carefully and responsibly, as is to be assumed of Rubeus Hagrid. However, the board of governors has raised some concerns to me that I will handle privately.”

“So Lucius Malfoy got the minister involved,” Minerva couldn’t help herself. She did not have fond feelings for the Malfoy family, even despite all they had done to help the Potters.

“How are we going to deal with all this negative press?” Filius Flitwick asked. “First a student is attacked, and then Sirius Black is allegedly spotted in the castle.”

Dumbledore smiled. “Hogwarts is safe and always has been. Its walls and enchantments have stood the test of time. There isn’t a witch or wizard who doesn’t know that to be true.”

“The Daily Prophet can spin nearly anything,” Rolanda Hooch muttered, garnering a few chuckles from teachers.

“Going forward, students are to be in their dormitories by nine o’clock in the evening. Additionally, Dementors will be present at Quidditch practices and matches from now on. We need to ensure that we are taking all the precautionary safety measures necessary. Are there any questions?” Albus asked. the scratches of the quill scribbling on the parchment ceased as he paused. Albus looked around at the room full of teachers. “Well, I suppose that concludes things for the day.”

A few teachers left right away to get to their next classes, while others continued to talk and conspire about Sirius Black.

Remus remained in his seat, still staring at nothing with that sad forlorn look on his face. Minerva hesitated before standing up to leave.

“Remus, are you quite alright?” she asked gently.

He looked up at her as if he had only just realized where he was. He quickly put a smile on his face, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yes. Just lost in my thoughts, I suppose.”

Minerva nodded and briefly placed a hand on his shoulder before putting her cloak on and heading towards the door.

“Minerva,” Albus stopped her before she left. “The Minister has asked if I fancy meeting him for a drink at the Three Broomsticks next Saturday. Would you like to join us?”

She hoped it would be a pleasure rather than business meeting, although if the Minister for Magic was going to be there it was unlikely to be just for pleasure. “Of course,” Minerva replied.

“I do hope Madam Rosmerta has her hot apple cider ready…” Albus said with a twinkle in his eye.

Sometimes Albus’s optimism could be infuriating. The world could be falling apart around him and he would still be smiling and talking about eatings sweets. But at other times, it felt like it was the only thing keeping Hogwarts together. Minerva relied on Albus’s whimsy, his constant joy and curiosity. As if somehow it gave her permission to be the same when times were tough.

***

“Won’t you be cold?” Ginny said to Cath as they were getting dressed to watch the Quidditch practice.

Cath was wearing a warm knit jumper and a beanie, and was searching for her gloves. “I’ll be fine, Ginny.”

Ginny was putting on a thick winter jacket that looked second hand, and scarf probably knitted by her mom. “Don’t you have a coat?”

“I do, but… it’s ridiculous,” Cath said awkwardly. “My parents got it for me, but it just looks ridiculously posh.”

Ginny was quiet for a moment. “You don’t have to hide your wealth around me, you know. My family isn’t that poor.”

Cath looked up at her, feeling embarrassed. “It’s not that, it’s just… I—”

Ginny didn’t say anything. She just looked at Cath, as if expecting her to finish. It wasn’t difficult to see that the Weasley’s weren’t particularly well off. Cath had never thought any less of them for it, but Ginny was right. Cath felt uncomfortable talking about certain things around her, like vacations her family went on, presents she got for Christmas.

“I’m sorry, Gin,” Cath said.

“You’re going to be cold,” was all she said in reply.

Ginny had a point. It looked as though it were about to snow any day now. The air outside was so cold it made your cheeks sting. Winter was just around the corner.

Cath pulled her jacket out of the bottom of her dresser. It was a long black wool coat with dark green buttons. She pulled her arms through the sleeves and buttoned it all the way up as she followed Ginny out of the dormitory and down the stairs.

Ron and Hermione were already down there, and it appeared as though the two of them were arguing about something. Hermione was clutching her cat, a huge orange fluffy thing with a rather squished looking face.

“I’m telling you, Hermione, that cat has it out for Scabbers!” Ron said crossly at her, holding his pet rat.

“All cats want to chase mice and rats, Ron,” Hermione replied exasperatedly. “He would never hurt him, right Crookshanks?”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Ron scowled. “I’m putting Scabbers back upstairs before that evil monster can take another chunk of fur out of him.”

“Everything alright?” Ginny asked, raising an eyebrow.

Hermione sighed and put down Crookshanks, who jumped up onto an armchair and began purring innocently. “Ron thinks Crookshanks is trying to hunt his rat.”

Ginny shrugged. “Scabbers’ time is probably up anyways. It’s just the circle of life.”

"How long has Ron had him?” Cath asked.

"He used to be Percy’s rat, but we’ve had him for… I don’t know, twelve years?” Ginny replied.

“Twelve years?” Cath said incredulously. “Did he find the elixir of life or something?”

“He’s just lucky,” Hermione said.

“We take excellent care of him,” Ron said from the top of the stairs, still refusing to look at Hermione. “He’s lived so long because he’s had such a comfortable life.”

“Don’t get too attached,” Ginny laughed.

The four of them left the Common Room, headed for the Quidditch Pitch.

“I was hoping it would snow,” Cath said disappointedly. “Those clouds don’t look very nice.”

The sky outside was full of thick, grey rainclouds. Cath was suddenly grateful for her warm wool coat. The four walked briskly to the Quidditch pitch, where a few students sat in the stand to watch the practice.

#harry potter fanfiction #Harry Potter #wizarding world #au fic #ao3feed #AO3 fic #ao3 writer #fanfiction writer #Ginny Weasley #Hermione Granger #Ron Weasley #original character #severus snape #dramione #quarantine #writer #fanfiction

5 notes · View notes

minervahopebeyond · 4 years

Text

Blood Petals.

Hi, everyone! I’ll leave here the third chapter :) it’s longer than the other two but I hope you’ll like it.

Chapter 3: Hanahaki.

You know what the problem with him living at Grimmauld Place was? It was that he felt too comfortable. Living with Sirius and Mr. Potter was so easy. They tried to be cool all the time so they never told him to eat more or made him talk about stuff on the table because it was the ‘polite thing to do’. It had something to do with the fact that Sirius felt too mentally immature to make house rules and Mr. Potter seeing himself much younger than he actually felt, so one time they confessed him that he could pretty much do what he wanted if he promised that he wouldn’t do blood rituals in his bedroom. Draco secretly thought that it was so easy to live with them because no other Gryffindors were around so he didn’t found himself in a situation where he was supposed to act as a prat just to keep the balance of nature as it should be.

Because of the events that took place in the department of the mysteries, the Order had decided that it was safer if he didn’t go back to school for the rest of the year and he agreed of course. The rest of them had to attend as always with the promise that Umbridge was no longer the High Inquisitor at Hogwarts and that they shall not have detentions given the already very traumatizing events they had to endure.

Not for all the galleons in the world he would willingly sleep in the Slytherin dungeons until all of this blows over. If someone actually took any opinions that Draco may have into account, they would know that he didn’t want to go back to Hogwarts at all. He didn’t want to spend the last two years of his life studying for his useless N.E.W.T.S., Severus almost had a heart attack when he told him.

“I will not hear you talking as if you’ll die.”

“But I’m going to. It’s pointless for me to study and it’s pointless for me to be locked down in here. I understand if you don’t want me to be near here because they may catch me, but I can go wherever and enjoy this. It’s an opportunity.”

His godfather stared at him with a annoyed expression. Then he continued to drink his tea while reading the book on ancient blood magic that they found at Grimmauld’s library. There were no answers in that one, Draco already read it, but Severus had this insufferable little habit of ignoring everything he said.

“You are going back to school because you are a minor and under my guardianship. And I absolutely refuse to talk about how you will face a certain death if you do not tell me what exactly is the bargain about.”

“ Yeah? Well don’t hold your breath.” He ended the conversation right there and stormed off to his room, dramatic door slammed and all.

After that awful little chat with his godfather, Draco spent four days in Regulus Room. He read, watched the stars in the ceeling, sometimes he would draw too, Kreacher brought him food there... It was like his little cave and he kind of hated it and loved it at the same time. By the fifth day he was woken up by knocks on his door. He stepped out of the bed, still dizzy from sleep, as he was trying to rub his eyes, he opened the bedroom door. Sirius and Mr. Potter were in front of him with a hesitant look in their faces. What time was it, Salazar. He was so tired...

“Good morning” Sirius greeted him.

“Is it?” He responded. Mr Potter let out a soft chuckle then.

“Harry told me you were on the quidditch team.” Draco looked at his cousin confused. He wasn’t getting the point, really. “You can fly on the gardens... everything has wards, you wouldn’t be seen.”

“I don’t have a broom, clearly. I asked Severus to bring mine from school but he refused, said that it would raise suspicion.”

Their expressions deflated then. Apparently this was the only plan that they had thought of to cheer him up and Draco felt kind of guilty for no having even faked a little enthusiasm. Fuck it, he was angry with his godfather not with them. This poor people gave him a roof, no questions asked and that was more than he could say about ‘I don’t care what you think’ Severus or ‘hurt them and we are going to have a problem,Malfoy’ Potter. Really, how come that all the persons he loved were the ones that thought shit of him. Maybe it was because of his awful relationship with his father, he was too familiar with insults as a way of communication.

He grabbed a shirt that was near his bed. It was Regulus’s, like everything he used those days, because they couldn’t send his stuff to the headquarters yet. He left the pants he had on, it was kind of depressing but last night he didn’t even have the energy to put on his pijamas so he had just took off his shirt and went to sleep. He put his shoes on and joined the two man that stood there in the hallway. Mr. Potter frowned, Draco started walking downstairs to the kitchen because he wanted to avoid any comments but he heard them anyway.

“That’s it? All we had to do was knock? I told that to Padfoot ages ago”

“ Well who told you to listen to me? I just said my opinion that maybe space was best.”

He smiled to himself a little bit, sometimes Draco could hear them arguing about the most ridiculous things around the house, all focused on their own opinions, and then Mr. Potter would start laughing, then Sirius would laugh too and they forgot what the hell were they talking about before they started laughing.

When they got downstairs, Kreacher had already prepared breakfast. He pulled a chair and sat in silence, there was a copy of the daily prophet on the table so he grabbed it and started to read it as he drank his tea. Sirius was looking at him, he could feel it. It was a rather uncomfortable silence, until his cousin spoke.

“So... Snape stopped by yesterday. He was concerned, about you. Which I get, though, we were concerned too. He told us about this fight that you had, a few days ago, and I understand if you don’t want to talk to him, because...well it’s Snivellus and he’s a git, I would know, the point is-“

“ I know for a fact that you tried to kill him in your fifth year. If he is a git, what are you?” He heard Mr. Potter choke with his coffee. When he raised his eyes from the newspaper his cousin was staring at him, very pale. “I don’t care for what you did when you were a kid, neither should you care for your stupid rivalry at school. I think I could live without you talking bad about him to me. If you don’t stop insulting him, I will insult Potter in front of you which I don’t believe you would like. Trust me, I have more imagination than you two for cruel nicknames.”

And then Mr. Potter started laughing, which caused Sirius to laugh and the awkward moment disappeared.

“Sure thing, kid. I have training in not insulting Snape because of Lily, I can tutor this one until he stops with the insults.” Draco just nodded at that. Maybe if he was lucky they would have forgot about the real topic of the conversation. But he was never lucky.

“What Sirius was actually trying to say it’s that you have to talk to someone. Whether it’s your godfather or a friend or even us, you need to tell someone what the deal is so you are not alone in this.”

He wanted to die right there and then actually. That’s what he wanted. When Death offered the deal he didn’t realize that he would have to go through all of this. The questions, the meddling, to have people worried about him with hope that he would not die. The most curious thing is that Draco always believed he would die young, he didn’t know when exactly but he could feel it in the deep of his soul, carved into his bones. When Death asked for his own life he was just glad she didn’t asked him to kill himself right there, because Draco wasn’t scared of dying, he was just a coward that couldn’t take his own life. This was easier, it would just happen to him. He hesitated to tell them. On the bright side he would be relieved to talk to someone who didn’t actually cared for him all that much, not like Severus did; on the other side, once they hear what he had to get they would meddle, trying to help him or whatever, giving him hope and he didn’t need that.

“ If I tell you-“ He stopped talking when he heard Sirius do a little happy noise. This was a thirty-five year old man doing a happy noises because his fifteen year old cousin was trusting him with a secret. If he didn’t consider Sirius as family before, from then on he absolutely did. He contained himself so he would not smile before he continued. “If I tell you, you CAN’T talk to anyone about this: not Severus, not the Weasleys, and I can not express it more clearly than this: NOT POTTER.”

Sirius couldn’t contain his chuckles at that, but promptly nodded as if he sensed that the blond boy was definitely not joking. Then Draco turned to look at Mr. Potter who promessed not to tell a soul, under no circumstances, because he owed him his second chance in everything.

“Fine. The reason I don’t want to tell anyone it’s because I know they are going to try to give me hope. I know I don’t stand a chance in this, that’s why I would like to travel and live this two years as intense as I can, because there is no chance, I’m sure of it.”

They gave him a painful look and nodded, they clearly didn’t want to interrupt him and say something that would change Draco’s mind about telling them. So he just kept talking.

“I’m in love with this boy since forever, when it started I didn’t even understand what love was” Draco smiled at the memory of the butterflies that he got at Potter’s first quidditch game, he felt so weird that went to Madam Pomfrey and said he was feeling sick. The blond boy shook his head coming back to reality. “He’s straight. It’s such a cruel joke, really. She didn’t gave me a chance to live, she gave me a suicidal mission: ‘You shall have two years to get the heart you crave for, otherwise you will come to join me in my realm. The love that flourishes in your heart will take your life.’ See? It’s useless for me to do anything else than enjoy what’s left, that was her mercy in all of this.”

The silence was too painful after that, he was dying for someone to crack a joke to lighten the mood... He knew it was all very depressing but still. He had pulled his knees to his chest to use as a shield, to protect himself a little from how vulnerable he felt. Then he heard Sirius muttered a weird word he couldn’t fully understand. His cousin had a very sad look in his eyes. Mr Potter asked him what was wrong, if he could help and then Sirius spoke louder.

“It’s Hanahaki Disease. Runs in the family actually.” He said it with such pity, and even though Draco didn’t know what the hell he was talking about he wanted to punch him in the face for that tone only.

“I don’t know what that is.” And Draco didn’t like to admit when he didn’t know something. He studied everything, knew all the pureblood customs by heart, he read ancient magic books for FUN, Salazar. He should always just know things.

“It’s a very painful way to die, that’s what it is. Death didn’t even hide it, she outright said it. ‘The love that flourishes in your heart will take your life’... the love acts like a seed, eventually you will have flowers inside of you and start coughing petals, when the roots take over your lungs, they will strangle your heart to death.”

Well, Draco did not expected that, to be honest. He just blinked, frozen in place. Of course he wouldn’t just live in peace for two years and then leave. How was he so fucking naive??

“Do you know anything more? You said it was a family thing.”

Sirius nodded.

“ Yeah, A few generations back I had an Aunt that died from that. My hag of a mother used to tell me that’s what happens when you fall in love, you just die. I was so terrified to get it one day that I read all the books in the library where it was mentioned.”

Draco couldn’t help but to feel such admiration...Sirius was psychologically abused for years by this awful woman and he could still find it in himself to speak about it as it was just that: a part of his life that ended. The blond boy wished he could do the same when he talked about his father. Actually, Draco just wished he could talk about his father at all, period. His thoughts were interrupted by Mr. Potter’s voice.

“Padfoot, do you know a way to stop it? Or a treatment?”

“There is none, the cure is only one and it’s exactly what Draco has been told... Unrequited love heals when the beloved returns the feelings of the one with the disease.” He paused a little before he went on. “The only thing I can say it’s the one thing you don’t want to hear.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Just think about it, She must be fair. You could only bring James back because his death wasn’t suppose to happen... what if she really gave you fair game too?” Sirius was getting anxious, he could noticed it because of the way that the words started to come out of his mouth, fast, urgent. “You are so young. I don’t know who is it that you are in love with, if he is older or not , but if he’s at Hogwarts? Darling, he could be into guys and just doesn’t know it. Hell, he could be keeping it hidden because he’s in the closet. You know how many straight-passing bisexual guys I knew at school? Tons, I swear.”

This is what he didn’t want. He cried enough about Potter only liking girls to have someone telling him that maybe he was just confused or outright lying to everyone. Potter couldn’t lie for shit, it was one of the things he loved about him. He was so proud of him for not lying even after Umbridge’s blood quill. When Draco saw that, he knew he would never love anyone else, at least not like this, so all consuming. Funny enough he would die not loving anyone else in any way, apparently.

“I know you don’t want to hear it, kid, but it sounds as if don’t have other choice but to go for it.”

He gave Mr. Potter the most severe look he could manage before answering.

“I don’t have to do shit, actually. And even if he was, by some miracle, into guys, that does-“ His voice was cracking in the middle of the sentence, he would not cry again after this git! He would not cry again after Harry bloody Potter, and least of all in front of Potter’s father and his godfather. He tried to control his voice, to contained the tears but as he continued talking he realized he was crying and sobbing instead. “That does not mean that he could feel the same. So, if you want to be helpful I beg you to not talk to me about this again.”

He left them sitting at the table with guilty looks on their faces. Draco just ran upstairs and lock himself in Regulus Room again. He hugged himself while he tried to stop the tears but he couldn’t stop. He was just so pathetic. Maybe Sirius mother had been right all along and this was what happen when you fall in love: you die. Because even if Draco wouldn’t have gotten the stupid flower disease, this feeling of longing would had killed him. Maybe someday his heart would have just stop working because of all the times it was broken about the same stupid thing. Wouldn’t that had been better than heart strangulation, Merlin.

#drarry #fanfiction #fanfic #prongsfoot

23 notes · View notes

gascon-en-exil · 4 years

Note

I'm genuinely curious about your "Black Eagles most to least favourite" list.

Here you are.

#1: Hubert

Could there be any other? I remember back when there was a promo introducing the house retainers (well, Lorenz for the Deer) and everyone was saying that Hubert looked so obviously evil that there had to be some deeper explanation, that someone who took design cues from a two-dimensional villain like Fates’s Iago couldn’t possibly be Edelgard’s retainer. Then the game came out, and we all realized that Hubert was exactly as advertised and then some: a cold and calculating murderer and war criminal with his fingerprints all over almost every terrible thing that happens over the course of the story, as comfortable with chloroform and a razor as dark magic and down to perform unspeakable experiments on innocent civilians to turn them into war machines and then backstab his co-conspirators because he will suffer no rivals for his title of the Most Evil Man in Fòdlan. And yep, he looks like Dracula and Severus Snape had a one-night stand and their mpreg love child went to an anime convention...but when Ferdinand looks at Hubert he sees Mr. Darcy and the Phantom of the Opera and Edward Cullen/Christian Grey, and soon enough that snake in Hubert’s breeches will be singing quite the aria indeed. You do you, Ferdinand.

Ok, I’ve already rambled at length on Hubert’s bisexuality and the interesting things it reveals about both him and his two primary love interests, but I do also have to admire the sheer audacity both of Hubert as an incel/Nice Guy-flavored romantic false lead for Edelgard who never had a serious chance because of the self-insert fantasy and of the decision to follow that up with a trope-laden queer romance that perfectly counterbalances Hubert’s attraction to Edelgard and puts Ferdinand firmly in the place he was destined to occupy by choosing to side with the Empire. It’s nearly as outrageous as just how casually evil Hubert gets to be, as well as the immense potential for dark humor that lies with that. You have to bend over backwards to say that Hubert isn’t unapologetically, irredeemably evil, and if you try there will be significantly more fans just waiting to tell you that you’re wrong - myself included. He’s the Manfroy to Edelgard’s Arvis but so much than that, and I look forward to the point in the CF postgame where he effectively takes over the Empire in true evil chancellor fashion and unleashes the full extent of his horrors upon Fòdlan. He somehow got even better in the DLC too despite being absent from CS and getting no new supports, because the Abyssians in CF just can’t stop talking about his nefarious antics down there. I just can’t get enough of how good this guy is at being bad, and I love that FE gave us exactly what was advertised here.

#2: Ferdinand

Now here’s a case of the opposite, where what’s on the packaging didn’t prepare me for what was to come. If I remarked on Ferdinand at all during pre-release it was only to think that he might be part of a Christmas knight duo with Sylvain since the game looked like it wouldn’t have one of those. Early on there wasn’t much else to be said about Ferdinand; he was like Claude in that his popularity ran off a meme (except just the one rather than several), and in appearance and personality he was basically Lorenz with less ridiculous hair. But then came his supports, and his post-timeskip look, and suddenly Ferdinand blossomed into the subtext-laden fem with very bizarre taste in men - see above - that he could have only dreamed of being if he’d stuck to such well-trod ground as the Christmas knight archetype. We learn of his love for opera, his complicated relationship with his father, his worship of the hot mess diva Manuela and how he learned swordplay specifically to imitate her roles on the stage, and - yes - how some backhanded compliments and expensive gifts of tea turn him into a blushing Regency heroine. It all casts his unusually rote romances with women in a performative light (as opposed to Lorenz who is similarly performative but seems genuinely interested in the marriage market), to say nothing of his one-sided rivalry with Edelgard that brushes against jealousy over Hubert’s devotion to her more often than against romantic attraction to her, and that toys around with gendered behavior in a manner complementary to Edelgard’s own bucking of the gender status quo.

And while not to the same extent as Felix, I do appreciate that Ferdinand has two distinct arcs depending on the route - and unlike some who feel that one or the other detracts from his character as a whole I personally find that they complement each other well. In SS and if recruited to AM and VW he makes the hard choice to oppose his homeland, spending the timeskip waging a solitary battle against the Empire with his private militia and then joining back up with Byleth’s army at Garreg Mach because he knows Edelgard is in the wrong even as it pains him to depose the Adrestian emperor and leave his own status uncertain...not to mention fight Hubert, which merits a curious boss conversation as well as some extra lines in SS (plus the infamous Huge Hole™ remark that I will never stop referencing because it is hilarious) that, while not elevating Ferdibert anywhere near the level of Dimidue in terms of cross-route canon endorsement, nonetheless are suggestive of something deeper between them that exists even if they find themselves on opposite sides of a war. In CF by contrast Ferdinand gives into his craving for the title and holdings that Edelgard has just stripped from his father and embraces nationalism and his long-held ideal of what the office of the prime minister should to do as a means of justifying the Empire’s conquests. Of course in the process he also succumbs to Hubert’s, er, charms(?) and becomes the charismatic bureaucrat who is presumably saddled with the task of putting a positive spin on the Empire’s dystopian atrocities while Edelgard and Hubert do all the actual work...and Hubert does all the actual actual work, which includes a lot of murder and kidnapping and all manner of other things that he doesn’t share with his pretty lover and about which Ferdinand quickly learns not to ask. Two Jewels of the Empire, indeed.

#3-4: Edelgard and Dorothea

I go back and forth on these so I’m not going to bother putting them in a definitive order, particularly because I like them for very different reasons that are difficult to compare. For Edelgard, it would be most accurate to say that I enjoy her potential much more than her execution; she gets some meaty material to work with as a lord and as the driving antagonist of the whole game outside of CF, and while I still prefer Micaiah for female lords there’s something darkly satisfying about her need for control and domination and her utter refusal to compromise or remain stagnant...except where Byleth is concerned, and Edeleth drags her down so badly that it would be painful if I cared more about that type of strong female character. Had the game axed the self-insert obsession (even if that meant axing her bisexuality along with it) and focused on her experiences during the Insurrection as the source of her worldview and motivations I’d be inclined to like the final product far more, because that’s a hell of a lot more in line with what she actually does and conveniently also maps to the life of a real world ruler with whom I’m relatively familiar and whom history regards in appropriately ambivalent terms.

Dorothea on the other hand is someone I can relate to on a more personal level, mostly as a sex worker. She’s similar to Primrose from Octopath Traveler, both of them prostitutes and playing coy with the implications of the RPG dancer class archetype, although Primrose hits a few more of my buttons for being former nobility and being motivated by revenge. Then again, I fully understand Dorothea’s anxieties about growing old without a man to take care of her, even if she loses me (and Yuri picks up from where she leaves off) when she dips into lesbianism as an alternative option. She’s got her ups and downs for me - I love that she brings up incest kink with Caspar as opposed to this series’s usual outright incest, while I love less her strange Ferdinand supports that are suspended oddly between friendship and romance and...something else undefinable - and I don’t have much to say on her life as an opera diva except that it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that she’s been turning tricks on the side and even got a sugar daddy to pay her way into the academy. Theatre and sex work have always gone hand-in-hand like that.

#5-7: Linhardt, Caspar, and Petra

This is why I couldn’t make up a list like this for the Lions or Deer, because most of their students would be in big clumps like this. I have no strong opinions on any of these characters; they each have their moments, but not enough to elevate them to where I actively like them or drop them down into real dislike. I suppose you could say I’m disappointed by how Caspar and Linhardt are visual allusions to Ike/Soren who do absolutely nothing else with that similarity except eloping in their paired ending...which is preceded by virtually nothing in the way of real chemistry. If I enjoy them for anything in particular it’s Linhardt’s wit and Caspar’s occasional bouts of emotional vulnerability, like his mini-arc in AM where he has to deal with his feelings surrounding Randolph’s death and then later gets an apology from Dimitri for it.

Petra is awkward all around as the game dances around her delicate political situation, and I also happen to agree with the VA who (if I recall) thought the character should have some sort of accent but wasn’t allowed to do one. (If anyone is wondering, based on her last name and Brigid being an island nation I headcanon it as a Celtic-derived culture, but as with my personal reading of Dedue and Duscur I know that doesn’t play well to the fandom at large). All in all Petra feels like a more self-aware rendition of the exotic swordswoman archetype begun by Ayra in Jugdral, but there’s clearly still some work to be done on that front.

#8: Bernadetta

Ugh. With apologies to @capriciouscorvid for explaining how even unintentional disability representation can be taken as a positive, I just don’t see how Bernadetta’s character could possibly be considered a good thing when she’s so grating in almost all of her supports and most of her story and exploration presence outside of CF. All the screaming and high-pitched pronouncements of impending death get very old very quickly, and the part where she’s meant to be romantically appealing in her neediness and isolation is as lost on me as it would have been had it stemmed instead from a massive rack. Her supposedly sympathetic backstory doesn’t help much either, as it leaves me mostly with the thought that her father is an idiot because his methods obviously did not make her suitable to be a good wife. I also don’t care for how she’s one of several characters used to soften Jeritza (and that the way she does so is I think rather insulting to people with social anxiety, to liken it to a compulsion to commit murder), or even worse that people point to her Hubert support to try and say that he’s not such a bad guy and they’d be total besties just like Ferdinand and Dorothea (another pairing that doesn’t exactly scream BFFs). I mean, really....

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Black Eagles

27 notes · View notes

antihero-writings · 3 years

Text

The Boy with the Unspeakable Name (Ch7)

Fandom: Harry Potter (and the Chamber or Secrets)

Fic Summary: Tom Riddle may have won his battle with Harry in the Chamber of Secrets, but there were a few unforeseen consequences; loss of Tom's memory being the most obnoxious of them. Is it possible to stop Tom's past from becoming his future? Or is the young Tom Riddle doomed to repeat his mistakes?

(I'll put the links to chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 in a reblog!! I also have a version of this fic with all the chapters in one place!!)

Notes: Was that the fastest I've posted a next chapter, without having it written ahead of time? I think it might be!!

It definitely helped that two scenes were directly from the book XD But still, I was shocked by how fast this got done!

By the way, I realized there was something important I should probably have occur in the previous chapter, that I didn't include, so please note something will be added in at some point! I finished this chapter before I edited the last one so it's not there yet XD I'll let you know at the start of the next chapter if I edited it in.

I also realized I did not mention Fawkes hanging out in the office in other chapters XD, so I'll probably have to edit that back in too, haha!

Comments are always extremely appreciated!! And do let me know if you'd like me to add you to a tag list for this fic!!

Chapter 7:

There was the sound of Dumbledore’s chair scraping against the floor as he stood abruptly.

“Now I must apologize.” Though still solid, his voice had lost its pleasantness, now it had an edge. “Severus.” The word was sharp, “I cannot allow you to treat a student this way.”

The two stared at each other, and it was as if they were having a conversation in simple glances. Snape seemed to lose the silent argument, because he sighed and said in a clipped way, not looking at Tom.

“My apologies. I lost my composure.”

When Harry looked at Tom he saw that, behind the adult’s backs, his lips were curving into a smirk.

He wasn’t even really upset, was he? He’d have every right to be upset by a scene such as this, but in the end…he was just happy to see Snape get in trouble.

Harry and Snape had rarely, if ever, been on the same side, and the muting spell, while he admitted was necessary—(number of things flared to his tongue that he was glad he wasn’t capable of saying)—didn’t give him any fondness for him…yet it seemed for a brief moment, they were united. But he wouldn’t say he was the least bit opposed to Snape’s treatment of Riddle.

He had expected Snape to be his usual collected self, even favor Riddle the way he did Malfoy—they’d suspected on more than one occasion he was in league with Voldemort. Seeing the hatred in his eyes for Riddle made Harry take a step back, both physically and mentally.

“Thank you.” Dumbledore sat back down.

Tom said nothing, his eyes fixed on Snape, intent set in them. “You must really hate me.” He said the words like he relished the idea. “What did I do?” Tom’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve killed a girl, so there must not be much I can’t do.”

The teachers’ eyes widened, and they looked at each other.

“You didn’t kill her.” Dumbledore cleared his throat.

Tom raised an eyebrow. “I thought Harry here made that rather clear.”

“Harry thought you did. But this is magic of course. I am able to deduce from the information you have given me; it was in fact another force working through you through that diary. Destroying the diary severed your ties with that force, but also cost you your memories.”

Harry wondered what Dumbledore’s aim was. He had killed Ginny, they both confirmed it.

“How would you know this from just a bit of information?” Tom scoffed.

“Because I’ve dealt with such forces on more than one occasion—even this specific one before. This one is a particular nuisance.”

After a moment of silence Dumbledore spoke:

“Professor Snape. Will you kindly take Mr. Riddle to Madam Pomfrey?”

“Sir?”

“Well, the boy has suffered a loss of memory, he ought to stay in the hospital wing until we get all this sorted. There should be a few empty beds now that the petrified students have been cured. “Also…” he interrupted them as they turned to leave, and something sad indeed entering his gaze. “Send the Weasleys to me, will you?”

Harry’s stomach gave a painful jolt at the name.

As the two left—(rather stiffly)—Dumbledore flicked his wand, lifting the muting curse Snape had placed on Harry.

Harry drew in a great gasping breath.

“Thank you, professor.” He heaved.

“Don’t mention it, Harry. I don’t imagine that was very pleasant”

“No.” Harry replied, making faces, just glad to have use of his lips again.

“Did Professor Snape force you to drink the truth serum, Harry?”

“Actually…” he rubbed the back of his neck. “I drank it myself.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I must say, that was not an answer I was expecting. May I ask if you had a reason?”

“You told me to tell Snape every detail of what happened, but I…” he rubbed the back of his neck. “I couldn’t. Every time I tried to say something he’d interrupt, or I couldn’t get it out…it was the only way.”

“I’m sorry you had to resort to such measures, Harry. I only meant that he ought know a good potion of what happened, not every detail. I think, in fact, knowing every detail resurrected old grudges for Severus.” He looked towards the door.

“It’s alright. I won’t say it wasn’t fun to watch. …I’ve never seen Snape like that…Why does Snape have a grudge against Voldemort?”

“It is not not my place to tell you.”

“Like he’d ever tell me.” Harry scoffed, then froze, eyes wide, worried he was about to get in trouble.

Dumbledore gave a small smile, “I can see why precautions were necessary.”

Harry smiled sheepishly.

“But, no,” Dumbledore replied. “I don’t imagine he will.

“I apologize if that was rather difficult to watch. I wanted you to be here. I thought you deserved to hear our conversation.”

“Thanks.”

“Sit down, Harry.” He gestured to the chair in front of him.

He was about to sit down, but paused. He knew it was silly, but he didn’t like the idea of sitting in the chair the young Voldemort had just sat in.

Dumbledore smiled a little. “Sit.”

Slowly he lowered himself into the chair, sitting on as little of it as possible.

“First of all, Harry, I want to thank you.” He stroked the phoenix, witch had fluttered down onto his knee. “You must have shown me real loyalty down in the Chamber. Nothing but that could have called Fawkes to you.”

“…Fat lot of good it did me.” He didn’t mean to say it aloud.

“Oh, I think it did a great deal of good. Who knows how things would have gone without that. One thing I know would have gone differently is you likely would have had great deal of trouble getting out of the chamber. Fawkes is the one who flew you out, is he not?”

There was a long moment where they sat in silence, before Harry spoke:

“I couldn’t save her.”

Dumbledore looked up.

“I couldn’t save her.” He continued. “She was lying on the floor, helpless, and he was taking her life force. Next thing I knew she was dying, and he was coming back…” his voice became a pained whisper.

“It’s not your fault, Harry.” Dumbledore said earnestly. “More practiced wizards than yourself have been unable to save their friends and family from Voldemort. Her death is not on your hands.”

Harry paused, fidgeting with his hands, looking away.

“I could have killed him. When he came back he was lying on the floor unconscious…I could have…I bet most people would have. But I didn’t…I couldn’t…” he stammered, then looked up. “Why couldn’t I?!”

Dumbledore stood and sat on the desk in front of Harry. “Something people often don’t tell you, is sometimes it takes just as much courage to spare a life than to take it, often more. It may be strange to hear, but, I think it may be a very good thing that you didn’t.”

“How?”

“Let me ask you something…do you think Lord Voldemort deserves a second chance?”

Harry thought a moment; he thought of the of the man who killed his parents. Then the boy that had been before him, the one who had told him he was Voldemort, set the snake loose, and nearly killed him, and did kill—

“Honestly, professor? No, I don’t think so.”

Dumbledore nodded. “That’s very understandable. Then let me ask you something else…Do you think Tom Riddle deserves a second chance?”

Harry cocked his head to the side. “Sir?”

“Tom Riddle. Or, maybe not even Tom Riddle. I am referring to the boy who was sitting here moments ago. Not the man who killed countless. The boy who currently is nothing more than that.”

He thought harder. The boy sitting there wasn’t the same, not quite, but he still wasn’t exactly kind…. Harry himself had though Tom Riddle an ally in the diary…

“He killed Ginny.”

“Lord Voldemort killed Ginny. The boy sitting before us moments ago did not.”

“I…I don’t know.” Harry wasn’t sure why he was asking him this. “What do you think?”

“I knew Tom Riddle when he was at school. I knew him to be—while charming on the outside—clever, cunning, and manipulative. Many times I have regretted not seeing what was coming, and taking precautions, sooner. If I had seen him here today I might be inclined to say ‘no’ myself. However…the boy who stood before today may not be the same as the one I knew.”

“What do you mean? Because he lost his memory?”

“Perhaps. However…I think coming back using the diary specifically, as well as Ginny’s life force, as opposed to other means, may have had consequences he couldn’t have foreseen.”

“What do you mean sir?”

“We’ll learn in due time. Currently it is nothing more than an untested hypothesis of mine, and I don’t make it a habit of divulging those as fact.”

“So, you met Tom Riddle—before he lost his memory, I mean.” Dumbledore altered the subject. “I imagine he was most interested in you.”

Harry’s thoughts were jumbled, but something that had been nagging at him before this all started, and it presently came tumbling out of his mouth.

“Professor Dumbledore, Riddle said that I…I’m like him. Strange likenesses he said…”

“Did he now?” Said Dumbledore, looking thoughtfully under his thick silver eyebrows at Harry. “And what do you think Harry?”

“I don’t think I’m like him!” Harry said more loudly than he intended. “I mean, I’m—I’m a Gryffindor, I’m…”

But he fell silent, a lurking doubt resurfacing in his mind.

“Professor,” he started again after a moment, “the Sorting Hat told me I’d—I’d have done well in Slytherin. Everyone thought I was Slytherin’s heir for a while…because I can speak Parseltongue…”

“You can speak Parseltongue, Harry,” said Dumbledore calmly, “Because Lord Voldemort—who is the last remaining descendant of Salazar Slytherin—can speak Parseltongue. Unless I’m much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I’m sure…”

“Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?” Harry said, thunderstruck.

“It certainly seems so.”

“So I should be in Slytherin.” Harry said, looking desperately into Dumbledore’s face. “The Sorting Hat could see Slytherins power in me, and it—”

“Put you in Gryffindor.” Said Dumbledore calmly. “Listen to me, Harry. You happen to have many qualities Salazar Slytherin prized in his hand-picked students; his own very rare gift, Parseltongue, resourcefulness, determination…a certain disregard for the rules,” he added, his mustache quivering again. “Yet the Sorting Hat placed you in Gryffindor. You know why that was. Think.”

“It only put me in Gryffindor,” said Harry in a defeated voice, “Because I asked not to go in Slytherin…”

“Exactly.” Said Dumbledore, beaming once more. “Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. Did you not prove that once again today when you chose not to kill him? That took incredible bravery.” Harry sat motionless in his chair, stunned. “If you want proof, Harry, that you belong in Gryffindor, I suggest you look more closely at this.”

Dumbledore reached across Professor McGonagall’s desk, picked up the blood-stained silver sword and handed it to Harry. Dully, Harry turned it over, the rubies blazing in the firelight. And then he saw the name engraved just below the hilt.

Godric Gryffindor

“Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the Hat, Harry.” Said Dumbledore simply.

For a minute, neither of them spoke.

“Sir?”

“Mm?”

“May I…May I tell Ron and Hermione about all of this? About Tom, about…?” he trailed off.

Dumbledore took off his glasses and cleaned them. “Under most circumstances I would say yes, especially considering Ron’s position, but this one is…rather special. I’m currently of the mind that the less people know Lord Voldemort is back—in any form—the better.

“This situation is both particularly strange, and particularly delicate. You may tell them that Lord Voldemort was working through a diary to control Ginny, and that this lead to her death—that is, of course, what I will be telling the Weasleys…But I believe it is safer for everyone if they do not know he successfully managed to return to the land of the living.”

Harry looked at the ground. The thought of keeping all this to himself was almost more daunting than the fact that it had happened in the first place.

“Harry, where is Ron?”

Harry’s eyes widened. “I…left him down in the chamber…I….I don’t think he would have left if I told him he had to.”

Dumbledore’s eyes mirrored his. “Oh dear. Well we’ll certainly have to sort that out won’t we?”

“What should I do, sir?”

Dumbledore pulled open one of the drawers in Professor McGonnagall’s desk, and took out a quill and a bottle of ink. “What you need, Harry, is some food and sleep. I suggest you go back to Gryffindor tower, while I write to Azkaban—we need our game-keeper back. And I must draft an advertisement for the Daily Prophet, too,” he added thoughtfully. “We’ll be needing a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher… Dear me, we do seem to run through them, don’t we?”

“So…” Harry spoke, his gut twisting, unsure if this was the truth serum speaking, or if pained curiosity was guiding his tongue now, “Hogwarts won’t shut down?”

Dumbledore paused, looking up at him. “I imagine I’ll have to suffer through several unpleasant meetings, but I don’t think they’ll succeed at closing Hogwarts. The threat is gone, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” Harry’s voice was small. “Tom Riddle’s still around…I mean, won’t his memory come back eventually? Don’t you think he’ll be the same person when he gets his memory back?”

“You’re not saying you’d like Hogwarts to close, are you?”

“No!” Harry stood. “Of course not! I just…I…If we’re not safe…maybe it’s better…”

The thought of not coming back to Hogwarts, staying with the Dursley’s for the indeterminate future, with the knowledge that Voldemort was walking around as his sixteen your old self…

“The fact that Voldemort is back in this way makes the situation rather unorthodox, but there’s no place safer than Hogwarts. Firstly, if the school closes, I fear that would make things more dangerous on his end, rather than less. There’s no telling what he could do, released out to the world.”

“But he wouldn’t know how to do magic! Wouldn’t that—?”

“He knows magic exists, now. Knowing him, he’d do anything in his power to learn how to master it, and that could make him far more dangerous than simply teaching him. Hogwarts, while a place that will indeed teach him magic, is a place where we can more easily keep an eye on him. Not to mention the fact that Hogwarts, is, I believe, the one place Tom Riddle felt at home in the world. I think being in one of the few environments he truly felt comfortable in, will help nudge him in the right direction, don’t you?”

“The right direction? You really do think he can be reformed.”

“I am not certain. I still need to do the kind of heavy thinking one does when pouring over an unfamiliar restaurant menu in attempts to decide what to order. …But I think trying wouldn’t be remiss to try.”

Harry said nothing, questions, demands, insults, bobbing to the surface of his brain.

“We can and will certainly discuss this more after I myself have done more thinking on my own.” He said earnestly. “But at this particular moment, I don’t think it beneficial for you to continue troubling yourself. Food and sleep, Harry, I think will do you a world of good.”

Harry stayed a moment, sitting in the chair, trying to think of anything else he could ask, but he was tired of even simply thinking at this point. “Yeah, okay,” he sighed softly, before getting up and crossing to the door.

He had just reached for the handle, however, when the door burst open so violently that it bounced back off the wall.

Lucius Malfoy stood there, fury in his face. And cowering behind his legs, heavily wrapped in bandages, was Dobby.

“Good evening, Lucius,” said Dumbledore pleasantly.

Mr. Malfoy almost knocked Harry over as he swept into the room. Dobby went scurrying in after him, crouching at the hem of his cloak, a look of abject terror on his face.

The elf was carrying a stained rag with which he was attempting to finish cleaning Mr. Malfoy’s shoes. Apparently Mr. Malfoy had set out in a great hurry, for not only were his shoes half-polished, but his usually sleek hair was disheveled. Ignoring the elf bobbing apologetically around his ankles, he fixed his cold eyes upon Dumbledore.

“So!” he said “You’ve come back. The governors suspended you, but you still saw fit to return to Hogwarts.”

“Well, you see, Lucius,” said Dumbledore, smiling serenely, “the other eleven governors contacted me today. It was something like being caught in a hailstorm of owls, to tell the truth. They’d heard that Arthur Weasley’s daughter had been killed and wanted me back here at once. They seemed to think I was the best man for the job after all. Very strange tales they told me, too…Several of them seemed to think that you had threatened to curse their families if they didn’t agree to suspend me in the first place.”

Mr. Malfoy went even paler than usual, but his eyes were still slits of fury.

“So—have you stopped the attacks yet?” he sneered. “Have you caught the culprit?”

“We have,” said Dumbledore, with a smile.

“Well?” said Mr. Malfoy sharply. “Who is it?”

“The same person as last time, Lucius,” said Dumbledore. “But this time, Lord Voldemort was acting through somebody else. By means of this diary.”

He held up the mangled book, watching Mr. Malfoy closely. Harry, however, was watching Dobby.

The elf was doing something very odd. His great eyes fixed meaningfully on Harry, he kept pointing at the diary, then at Mr. Malfoy, and then hitting himself hard on the head with his fist.

“I see…” said Mr. Malfoy slowly to Dumbledore.

“A clever plan,” said Dumbledore in a level voice, still staring Mr. Malfoy straight in the eye. “Because if Harry here” —Mr. Malfoy shot Harry a swift, sharp look— “and his friend Ron hadn’t discovered this book, why—Ginny Weasley might have taken all the blame. No one would ever have been able to prove she hadn’t acted of her own free will…”

Mr. Malfoy said nothing. His face was suddenly masklike.

“And imagine,” Dumbledore went on, “what might have happened then. The Weasleys are one of our most prominent pure-blood families. Imagine the effect on Arthur Weasley and his Muggle Protection Act, if his own daughter was discovered attacking and killing Muggle-borns…Very fortunate the diary was discovered, and Riddle’s memories wiped from it. Who knows what the consequences might have been otherwise.”

Mr. Malfoy forced himself to speak.

“Very fortunate,” he said stiffly.

And still, behind his back, Dobby was pointing, first to the diary, then to Lucius Malfoy, then punching himself in the head. And Harry suddenly understood. He nodded at Dobby, and Dobby backed into a corner, now twisting his ears in punishment.

“Don’t you want to know how Ginny got hold of that diary, Mr. Malfoy?” said Harry.

Lucius Malfoy rounded on him.

“How should I know how the stupid little girl got hold of it?” he said.

Anger rose in harry at the insult

“Because you gave it to her,” his voice was tempered, “in Flourish and Blotts.

“You picked up her old Transfiguration book and slipped the diary inside it, didn’t you?”

He saw Mr. Malfoy’s white hands clench and unclench.

“Prove it,” he hissed.

“Oh, no one will be able to do that,” said Dumbledore, smiling at Harry. “Not now that Riddle has vanished from the book. On the other hand, I would advise you, Lucius, not to go giving out any more of Lord Voldemort’s old school things. If any more of them find their way into innocent hands, I think Arthur Weasley, for one, will make sure they are traced back to you…”

Lucius Malfoy stood for a moment, and Harry distinctly saw his right hand twitch as though he was longing to reach for his wand. Instead, he turned to his house-elf.

“We’re going, Dobby!”

He wrenched open the door and as the elf came hurrying up to him, he kicked him right through it. They could hear Dobby squealing with pain all the way along the corridor. Harry stood for a moment, thinking hard. Then it came to him—

“Professor Dumbledore,” he said hurriedly. “Can I give that diary back to Mr. Malfoy, please?”

“Certainly, Harry.”

Harry grabbed the diary and dashed out of the office. He could hear Dobby’s squeals of pain receding around the corner. Quickly, wondering if this plan could possibly work, Harry took off one of his shoes, pulled off his slimy, filthy sock, and stuffed the diary into it. Then he ran down the dark corridor.

He caught up with them at the top of the stairs.

“Mr. Malfoy,” he gasped, skidding to a halt, “I’ve got something for you —”

And he forced the smelly sock into Lucius Malfoy’s hand.

“What the—?”

Mr. Malfoy ripped the sock off the diary, threw it aside, then looked furiously from the ruined book to Harry.

“You’ll meet the same sticky end as your parents one of these days, Harry Potter,” he said softly. “They were meddlesome fools, too.”

He turned to go.

“Come, Dobby. I said, come.”

But Dobby didn’t move. He was holding up Harry’s disgusting, slimy sock, and looking at it as though it were a priceless treasure. “Master has given a sock,” said the elf in wonderment. “Master gave it to Dobby.”

“What’s that?” spat Mr. Malfoy. “What did you say?”

“Got a sock,” said Dobby in disbelief. “Master threw it, and Dobby caught it, and Dobby — Dobby is free.”

Lucius Malfoy stood frozen, staring at the elf.

“You’ve lost me my servant, boy!” Fury curled around his words as he lunged at harry.

But Dobby shouted, “You shall not harm Harry Potter!”

There was a loud bang, and Mr. Malfoy was thrown backward.

He crashed down the stairs, three at a time, landing in a crumpled heap on the landing below. He got up, his face livid, and pulled out his wand, but Dobby raised a long, threatening finger.

“You shall go now,” he said fiercely, pointing down at Mr. Malfoy. “You shall not touch Harry Potter. You shall go now.”

Lucius Malfoy had no choice. With a last, incensed stare at the pair of them, he swung his cloak around him and hurried out of sight.

“Harry Potter freed Dobby!” said the elf shrilly, gazing up at Harry, moonlight from the nearest window reflected in his orb-like eyes. “Harry Potter set Dobby free!”

“Least I could do, Dobby,” said Harry, grinning. “Just promise never to try and save my life again.”

The elf’s ugly brown face split suddenly into a wide, toothy smile.

“I’ve just got one question, Dobby,” said Harry as Dobby pulled on Harry’s sock with shaking hands. “You told me all this had nothing to do with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, remember? Well —”

“It was a clue, sir,” said Dobby, his eyes widening, as though this was obvious. “Was giving you a clue. The Dark Lord, before he changed his name, could be freely named, you see?”

“Right,” said Harry weakly. “Well…I’d better go.”

Dobby threw his arms around Harry’s middle and hugged him.

“Harry Potter is greater by far than Dobby knew!” he sobbed. “Farewell, Harry Potter!”

And with a final loud crack, Dobby disappeared.

He turned to Dumbledore’s office, contemplating returning to ask him a few more questions, but he saw the Weasleys entering the door.

The pit in Harry’s stomach grew teeth.

Where should he go? Ron was still down in the chamber, and he wasn’t sure either of them would want to talk anyways. Hermoine was surely awake by now…and he probably should give her a warm welcome back to awakness.

If she’d awoken yesterday he’d be ecstatic to go talk to her…but, at this particular moment, if he was being entirely honest with himself, he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk to her. She’d have a million questions for him, none of which he was particularly inclined to answer at this moment.

It came to him that he didn’t want to talk to much of anyone.

Just when he had that thought he saw Hermoine down the hall. Well, not so much saw her, as glimpsed her, then felt her arm around him.

He was expecting her to happily ask what was going on, and where Ron was, but when she pulled away—(the hug was abnormally long)—he saw tears glinting in her eyes and she said, with the air of someone who doesn’t know what else to say, “I’m so sorry, Harry.”

He gave her a quizzical look and she answered his silent question: “Professor Snape told me everything before I left the hospital wing.”

Harry highly doubted he told her everything, but, even so…What was this feeling? Was he actually feeling grateful towards Snape for the second time in the same day?

“I brought you this.” She held up the plate she was holding in her other hand. “I just thought…I wasn’t sure you’d want to go down eat with everyone else.”

“Thank you, Hermione,” and he really meant it, feeling true relief for the first time that day.

“Should we head back to Gryffindor Tower?”

He nodded.

Notes cont:

Again, that conversation about the sorting hat, and the Lucius scene, are both taken directly from the book (with a couple minimal changes), I certainly am not taking credit for writing them!!!! I just needed both those conversations/scenes to be there more for housekeeping reasons than anything else.

What does Dumbledore call Ron? Is it "Ron" "Ronald" or "Mr Weasley"? I couldn't remember. Also, what does Snape call Dumbledore? He calls him "Headmaster" right? Does that go for both when he's around students, and when he's alone with Dumbledore?

There were a couple places where I was nervous I went a little OOC, but I couldn't think what else to have them say...I hope I was okay?

4 notes · View notes