sam_storyteller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-15 08:50 am
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-15 08:50 am
Entry tags:
Harry Potter Shortfic: G-Rated
These are all rated G, though they may contain a variety of 'ships. There are spoilers through OotP.
One Of A Kind
"Can you really look like anyone?" Harry asked, the summer after his fifth year.
"With practice," Tonks answered. "It's not looking like a person that's the hard part. That's just..." she winced, and her nose shrank to a pert, pixieish snub. "That's just a trick, really. You can do the same with charms."
"So why is being a metamorphmagus special?" Harry asked.
"Because we're also mimics," she answered. "The key to being someone else is understanding their minds, their movements. Their voices. I don't understand you enough to imitate you, for example. I'd be wretched."
She grinned and touseled his hair. "You're one of a kind, Harry."
For the first time ever, Harry actually felt proud of that.
Teach Us
"Harry, you showed him?"
Fred stood in the doorway of Grimmauld Place, looking furious. The Marauder's Map was spread on a table and Harry and Remus had been looking at it, heads together, when they were interrupted.
"It's all right, Fred. I caught him with it," Remus answered. "I was just showing him some tricks you never found out about."
"What does he mean?" George asked, pushing past Fred into the room. "Never found out about? How'd you find them then, if you're so clever?"
"Didn't Harry tell you?" Remus asked.
"He's Moony," Harry said. Fred and George looked at each other.
"You?" they asked in unison. Remus gave them a beatific smile.
"Would you lads like to sit in? You might learn something," he said gravely. Fred and George gave him the look usually reserved for new varieties of exploding breakfast pastry, and sat at his feet like disciples.
"Teach us," Fred said.
Second Generation
Ginny was drying dishes when it happened; standing at the window, watching for James' return. Harry, who'd been sitting lazily at the table, jumped when she shouted.
"James!" she shrieked, and ran for the yard.
When Harry caught up he found his wife staring at their son, being investigated by an enormous black dog, sniffing James' dark hair.
"James, come away," he ordered.
"It's okay, dad," James beamed. "He's magic."
Harry stared at the dog, whose pale eyes fixed on his face.
Then where the dog had been, was a ragged man.
"Sirius?" Harry asked.
"I knew he was magic," James pronounced.
Train
It was unusually sunny, all things considered; normally the ride to Hogwarts was punctuated by storms. Instead, the window-blinds in the compartment were open, and sunlight streamed through -- turning Peter's hair gold, picking out coppery highlights in Remus'. James, long legs propped on a trunk they were using as a footrest, was reading "So You Want To Play Professional Quidditch". Their robes were piled carelessly next to him, and topped by a heaping helping of sweets and pasties from the snack cart.
Sirius, curled up on the seat between Remus and Peter, panted a little, and Peter idly offered him a bit of peppermint, which he crunched up in Padfoot's jaws easily, enjoying the candy all the more for his doggy senses. Remus, he thought, was probably asleep, and it was safe to rest his head on the boy's thigh, where it was most comfortable.
He froze for a minute when he felt Remus shift, but it was only to move slightly closer. Fingers stroked the short, bristling fur on his head, then dropped a little to scratch him in that itchy place just behind his ears.
Padfoot heaved an enormous, satisfied sigh, and heard Peter and James laugh.
***
Remus was warm, for the first time in ages; it always seemed difficult, when he was away from Hogwarts, to feel anything but slightly-too-cold. But the sunlight filling their train compartment was soaking into his clothing, into his skin the way rain often did; he felt filled up with sunlight, and sleepy.
A weight on his thigh made him wake a little from his dozing, and he moved instinctively to accomodate the big, squarish doggy head; it had been a hard summer for Sirius, and he deserved the freedom to be Padfoot for a while. Remus liked the feel of Padfoot's fur under his fingers, especially just over his eyes, where it was short and spiky. He felt Padfoot's throat vibrate in an unheard whine, and moved his fingers back, to scratch him behind the ears.
When Padfoot sighed happily, James and Peter both burst out laughing. Remus felt responsible, somehow, for their laughter, and joy welled up inside him; he had made his friends happy, which was really all he ever wanted out of life.
The Bookshelf
The Bookshelf: G
It worried Jupiter Black.
It wasn't natural, liking books. Boys were supposed to like Quidditch, Muggle-baiting, and hunting on the country estate. Instead, Sirius -- who should have been showing his younger brother how to catch fish and hex Muggles -- would just as soon spend an afternoon reading spellbooks. And not even useful ones.
It had changed, a bit, when Sirius started Hogwarts; he got at least three letters a semester complaining of death-and-law-defying behaviour, and always sent the boy a treat as encouragement.
The whole thing came to a head when the boy had done nothing all summer except read, even Muggle books, and had given one of them to Regulus, too. They had a furious row about it, and the next day Jupiter went into Sirius' room and destroyed his bookshelf, burning everything in it. Sirius threw himself on his father with a viciousness which surprised everyone, and by the time they pulled him off, he'd clawed him bloody.
They never found out how he escaped the basement cell they locked him in, but by the time his father was sufficiently recovered to thrash him as he deserved, Sirius was gone.
***
"We didn't know who to call," Miriam Potter said. "Clearly his family was out of the question."
"You did well," replied Andromeda Tonks. "I hope Sirius hasn't been a bother."
"Not in the least," Miriam smiled fondly. Andromeda, sitting at the kitchen table, could see Nymphadora through the window, playing in the Potters' gladiolis. Her cousin brooded on the step, tousel-haired James Potter nearby.
"He won't eat," Miriam added. "He...says he's having trouble reading, can't see the words. We're happy to care for him, but I'm worried."
"He's better off here."
"No doubt, but what's to be done?"
Andromeda watched Nymphadora flop down next to Sirius, digging in her backpack for a book. She held it up, imploringly, and Sirius looked at it as if he'd never seen one before. James nudged him, and Nymphadora turned to the bookmark. Sirius closed the book; James and Nymphadora forced it open again.
She heard him begin to read, haltingly, as if he were just learning how. Nymphadora turned her face up to his, adoringly.
"Take him a sandwich, in half an hour," Andromeda advised. "In the meantime, you must give me the recipe for these biscuits..."
Not-Godfather
Nobody would believe what Neville remembered, but it was true. It wasn't a flash and a pain in his head like Harry had, but it meant no less to him.
"I'm leaving England," said the brown-haired man. "I've sold my things."
"Understandable," said Gran, properly.
"I knew Frank and Alice..." here he faltered. "They wanted to make me his godfather, but I wouldn't let them -- you're better for the boy."
"Undoubtedly."
"I haven't much cash, but I thought..." he held out a package. "May I...give him this?"
His gran, he remembered, had been about to say no, when the brown-haired man said "Please."
Neville was not allowed to bring the train to school with him, but he brought the small locomotive, and kept it in his pocket; it made him feel safe. When he saw Professor Lupin, third year, he didn't recognise him -- until he saw his smile when Neville was caught toying with the engine one morning, during breakfast. Then he remembered why the voice in his ear had sounded so reassuring, the first day of class, and why he instinctively trusted his not-godfather, when he'd cast some of his best hexes.
***
Remus was furious, arriving home; furious at Britain, the world, the Wizarding world especially, and Neville Longbottom's grandmother in particular. He had gone to see the boy because his parents were locked up in St. Mungo's, and she had sat there and made tea and reprimanded the lad for tearing the paper off the gift Remus had brought him, because Remus had known not only Dead James and Lily and Dead Peter and Horrible Murderer Sirius but Insane Frank and Alice and if he lost anyone else he was going to go mad --
He threw his keys on the table, leaving the door open. Damn them all, for leaving him here, damn the lycanthropy that kept him from holding a steady job or taking Neville from that horrible old woman, damn himself for not knowing --
The crash terrified him, and he realised he'd hurled a china cat once given to him by Sirius as a joke into the glass-fronted bookshelf in his living room, shattering both.
He sank down to the floor, willing this unwanted hatred out of his body physically, pressing both fists into his stomach.
He had never desired the full moon before.
Ferret
Remus scratched his head, staring at the small creature in the cage.
"I don't know, Harry," he said finally. "It's a bit small, isn't it? I mean, what about your father? Or even Sirius?"
Harry shook his head resolutely. "Small is good. I couldn't...not a dog. Not after Sirius. And a stag's too big."
"Yes, it was rather noticeable," Remus murmured in agreement. "Are you sure about this? It's not easy, you know. Took James and Sirius three years, nearly. I'm not going to be much help."
"I'm sure," Harry answered. "I want to be an animagus. Professor McGonagall's going to help, too."
"Can I ask why this particular creature?" Remus inquired, as Harry purchased the ferret whose fur he would need for the Animagus transformation. Harry grinned.
"Cos I can't wait to see what Draco does when a ferret starts following him everywhere," he replied.
***
"I only need one ingredient," Harry pestered, following Snape through the Potions classroom. "I know you know where to get it."
"Powdered clotnail is illegal in this country," Snape replied sharply.
"Other registered animagi have used it!"
"It wasn't illegal, thirty years ago, and no legal animagus has since completed the spell."
"You know where I can get some," Harry insisted.
"Why should I help you destroy yourself when I've spent six years preventing it? This isn't a game! People have died!"
Harry gave him a dull look. "So you won't allow me the one thing I need, to finish. The catalyst."
Snape growled. "If you bring ruin upon yourself by inspecting the second jar to the left, over my bookshelf, I cannot be held responsible."
Four days later, a black ferret came nosing into Snape's office, and climbed the wooden desk, curling itself up warily near his inkpot.
Snape sighed. "Potter, if you continue to exceed my expectations thus, you may even one day make something of yourself."
He ignored the smug squeak when he stroked the sleek furry head, before returning to his work.
Minister
It was so quiet, these days.
Not that it had been less quiet, during Voldemort's second rise, but there had been an urgency which was now replaced by serene silence. They had buried the dead; the Death Eaters had taken worse injury, but the Order had, he felt, lost more. Sirius first, and so many others --
Remus was well used to surviving.
And this was not so bad a survival; a pension from the Ministry, small but sufficient, and a comfortable flat, enough food to eat, heat in the winter.
He had his habits, too, like tea. It was the ritual that counted; loose-leaf in a strainer, kettle on the stove, heated by gas and not magic. His overlarge mug, honey in the bottom, hot water poured over the strainer, stirred and sipped, adjusted as needed.
The Prophet arrived through his kitchen window, flung by a delivery owl, and he picked it up, unfolding it as he held the tea to his lips to sip.
He read the headline, and for the first and last time in his life did a tremendous spit-take, spilling tea all over himself.
SEVERUS SNAPE APPOINTED NEW MINISTER OF MAGIC, it read.
Minister II
Severus Snape sat back in the lush leather chair of the Minister of Magic, steepled his fingers, and smiled smugly.
He was a Slytherin, and above all, Slytherins were ambitious. Slytherins delighted in being victorious over other ambitious Slytherins, which was why this moment was so delicious.
Lucius and Draco Malfoy stood before him in chains.
"The pair of you have been found guilty of serial murder, Muggle-torture, and matricide," he said, meeting Draco's defiant gaze. "All done by fair and impartial jury."
They didn't speak.
"You have been sentenced to imprisonment in Azkaban, which I may say is not what it once was, considering the destruction of the Dementors."
"I'd rather die," Draco snarled.
"Would you?" Snape asked. "Then we, Draco, are in agreement."
Lucius lifted his head, slowly.
"Must I beg for my son's life?" he asked hoarsely. "Now that you have the power you wished for, Severus?"
Snape shook his head. "Power, Lucius? Your master had power." He put his hands palm-down on his desk. "But you will remember for the rest of your days that I control every element of your existence."
"Why are we here?" Lucius asked. Snape smiled again, and didn't reply.
The Toast
"Last one standing," Sirius used to say, in the darker days of the last war. Morbid humour was his specialty, and that saying always made the other three grin; they'd raise their glasses and toast to the luck of the last one standing if they didn't all make it out alive.
It was dark here, far away from the rest of the mad grapple that was going on in Diagon Alley, closer to a riot than an epic Final Battle.
Remus raised his wand. Peter had lost his in the shadows somewhere.
"Last one standing," he said, and then, "Avada Kedavra."
Cherry Blossom
Come walking with me," Professor Lupin said. "I want to show you something."
Harry came obediently down the stairs, where he'd stopped when his name was called. They were the only ones in the hall; he'd left dinner late, and Professor Lupin hadn't been at dinner at all.
"I'm told walking is good for me," Professor Lupin said, as he limped, cane-in-hand, down the dirt path. "I try to do it as often as I can, but it is...difficult to do as we are told, sometimes."
Harry followed him in silence, grasping for questions to ask or comments to make. He wanted Professor Lupin to think he was smart, as smart as his father, and he wanted Professor Lupin to like him, but sometimes he didn't know how to say it.
Lupin stopped on the trail, just before a bend that the students weren't supposed to follow, and turned awkwardly, unsteadily.
"Give me your arm, Harry, and close your eyes," he said gently.
"Why?" Harry asked.
"I need to know if you're ready for your Patronus lessons. If you're willing to trust me. Give me your arm."
Harry obeyed, shutting his eyes against the gloomy glow of the forest. He could feel Professor Lupin leading him down the path, the one less-trod because it was forbidden, and listened to the murmured directions -- mind the dip there, step over the stray rock, don't stumble on the gravel patch.
Finally, they stopped.
"Well done, Harry. You can look now."
Harry opened his eyes on a world of white, blossom petals blowing across a clearing in the forest, and an early-blooming cherry tree at the centre of it.
"Perpetual bloom," Professor Lupin said. "It was planted and charmed centuries ago."
Harry moved forward, touching a blossom, which fell away from the tree on contact.
"Your father found it," Lupin continued, and Harry glanced back at him. "It was his favourite place to study."
Harry saw his professor swallow, and looked away. In this place, stretching to touch a blossom, with his father's dark hair, it must be a great sacrifice for his professor.
It was hard, he knew, to see green eyes in James Potter's face.
The Wake
"Most wakes, the bar's in one corner and the body's in the other."
Harry glanced up from the drinks table, where nobody was monitoring even what Ginny drank, and saw Remus, leaning over to collect a pint glass and a bottle of butterbeer.
"I was all for a casket," Remus continued, "But Dumbledore felt it would be morbid."
"Wouldn't it?" Harry asked.
"A concrete symbol of loss? No, I think it would be apt. No body, no casket, no headstone, no healing. At least with your parents there were bodies."
Harry sucked in an involuntary breath. Remus studied him.
"Sixteen's a very trying time," he said finally. "Would you prefer I treat you like a child, Harry, or like a man?"
Harry looked away. "Which do you think I am?"
"I'm speaking to you as a man. Do me the same favour, and answer my question."
Harry nodded. "I'd rather you treated me like a grown-up."
"Then come with me."
Nobody noticed Remus and Harry slipping out the back-door of the house on Grimmauld Place, or if they did, nobody stopped them. Remus led him across the small back garden, and to Harry's surprise, put his hands in two gaps in the fence and scaled it easily.
"Come on then," he said, and Harry followed as Remus dropped to the other side.
There was a sort of alley here, between the back fence of the Grimmauld Place house and the back fence of the garden which faced it. Remus pointed to a handful of score-marks high in the boards; SAPB, RJL, JHP, PMP, and in small letters below JHP, both sets of initials surrounded by a heart, LME.
"We used to meet Sirius back here for a smoke some summers, when his family got to be too much. I couldn't go on the grounds -- they were warded against werewolves for a long time. That's your father, and there's Lily; Peter, of course, Sirius -- Sirius Aedelbert Pur Black -- and me."
As Harry drew closer, he could see there were scratches through his parents' names, through PMP.
"As they died I scratched their names out," Remus said softly.
A penknife, blade open, appeared in his palm, and he held it out to Harry.
"No body, no marker, no casket, no closure," Remus said. "And you have a life ahead of you, Harry."
Harry paused and studied his old teacher's face, then took the knife from his palm.
Class Reunion
"Do you realise," Remus Lupin said at dinner one night, as though it were nothing at all to be saying this in front of the whole school even if only Severus could hear, "That we're the only men left of our year's houses?"
"Nonsense," Severus grunted. "There must've been -- "
"Six Gryffindors, five Slytherin. Three of yours dead in the war, two of mine likewise. A heart attack, a suicide, and a broomstick fall."
Severus considered. He didn't care if this was Lupin's way of reaching out; he did not want to be reached-out-to.
"There's always Black," he said.
Remus didn't speak again.
Italy
"Where will you go when it's over?" Regulus asked him once, after they were out of school and before everything went to merry hell. "Would you like to go live somewhere away from here?"
"I can't afford to," Snape had replied from the desk where he was writing his report for Dumbledore. He was out, or would be soon, out of the hell that was this job, this calling; he could bring Regulus away from the Death Eaters with him when he left. It was unsafe even now; Regulus was too loud, too opinionated, too highly-bred to simply follow orders.
"I'll take you somewhere, I've scads of money," Regulus answered. "Italy. I'll take you to Italy. You'll like it; it's warm there."
Severus stood on the shores, facing the sea, and said as he buried Regulus' Hogwarts signet ring in the sand, "Ti ho portato qui, dopo tutto."
Just Like
He found the book in the library while he was looking for school year-books, and it was like finding chocolate while looking for a box of raisins.
Draco cracked open the textbook, scrawled all over the cover with "Property of Sirius Black Esq." and "Fecking hands off, Snivellus" and similarly crude threats. There were one or two hexes but nothing a clever third-year who really did like Defence Against the Dark Arts couldn't break.
He'd wanted to find out all he could about Sirius as soon as he'd first heard of him when Lucius mentioned the prison-break and Narcissa began to rant about her cousin. Draco devoured the little ratty textbook whole, every note in the margins, every thumbprint-smear on old ink, every scrap of parchment bookmark, some with obscure notes like Moony is a Wanker - Fuck You Sirius Am Not, some with strange spells he'd never seen before on them.
His cousin, Sirius Black, Voldemort's right hand. Draco had dreams about him, aspired to be like him, the only man to seriously screw Muggle-lovers and get out of Azkaban. Christmas holiday he wished he could find Black and make him take him away somewhere, the two of them on a spree together. It would beat his family's chilly silences, anyway.
Draco didn't believe Sirius doublecrossed Voldemort; Draco believed Sirius Black was a hero. Draco wanted to kill Potter for being his godson when he, Draco Malfoy, Sirius' own cousin's son and the next in line for the Black fortunes after him -- he should have that honoured place! Him, Draco Malfoy, someone who admired and wanted to be like Sirius Black!
He slept with the book under his pillow at night, and dreamed great dreams of one day being
just
like
Sirius
Black.
Second Test
"And will it work?"
For all his research, the young Healer hadn't bothered to answer that question while discussing the procedure.
"It should," he said hesitantly. Remus Lupin's unusually keen eyes pinned him to his chair.
"Should or will?"
"Will, if I'm the one doing it."
Lupin looked down again at the testing information, the Muggle chemical reports, the Healer records. Augustus Pye waited while he read each page delicately, as though what Pye had told him needed to be verified. Perhaps it did; certainly Pye couldn't be the first person to try and sell a werewolf snake-oil.
"I worry about these numbers," Lupin said. "The thaumatic drop."
"Yes, but I think that can be accounted for."
"Do you? Have you studied the Harris report?"
Pye blinked. "You've read the Harris report?"
"I've read everything there is to read on werewolves, Augustus," Remus said. "Including things I oughtn't to have. So you think the risk is negligible?"
"I wouldn't say negligible," Pye said honestly. "But I do think it's an even chance."
Lupin laughed softly. "An even chance."
"I think the reward is worth the risk."
"Losing my magic to lose my lycanthropy?" Lupin raised an eyebrow. "That's a lot to say for someone who's not a werewolf."
"Anymore."
Remus looked up sharply. Pye smiled.
"You didn't think I'd make you the first test subject, did you?" he asked, rolling up one sleeve. A wide crescent-shaped scar criscrossed the inside of his forearm.
Lupin stacked the papers neatly and thoughtfully, and sighed.
"All right, Augustus," he said quietly. "Tomorrow at sunset?"
"I'll be there," Pye agreed with a grin.
A Question of Paternity
"It's not true."
Dumbledore frowned. "I'm afraid it is. I cannot fault the House Elves for not speaking sooner; they were bound to secrecy."
The dark-haired man winced. "I don't believe it. I won't."
"You look a great deal like your father," Dumbledore continued. "But you must understand that he wasn't blood-related to the Snapes. I doubt we'll discover why he was given to the Snapes and not kept by -- "
"Don't say it."
"The documentation is here," Dumbledore tapped the scroll. "By rights, you are a son of the house."
"I am Severus...Black?"
Inheritance
It came as no surprise to Lupin, as it had to Sirius, that Mrs. Black's will left everything to her son.
After all, the resurrected Voldemort rewarded those who went to Azkaban, those who had suffered. In the horrible days after Voldemort's fall, Sirius' parents had publicly declared that they were proud of their son, for doing what he believed in, for standing up against repressive Ministry orders. They had welcomed him very nearly posthumously back into the fold. They rewarded their boy for his...innocence.
Sirius found it all very ironic. His parents, finally, were proud of their son.
Defence Professor
"What do I get him for Christmas?" Sirius asked.
Remus shrugged. "He's your godson."
"What does he like, you suppose?"
Remus pondered. "Dark Arts," he said. "He liked Defence. And now he's teaching it and all."
"What does a Defence professor need?" Sirius asked.
"His head examined," Remus replied reservedly.
One Of A Kind
"Can you really look like anyone?" Harry asked, the summer after his fifth year.
"With practice," Tonks answered. "It's not looking like a person that's the hard part. That's just..." she winced, and her nose shrank to a pert, pixieish snub. "That's just a trick, really. You can do the same with charms."
"So why is being a metamorphmagus special?" Harry asked.
"Because we're also mimics," she answered. "The key to being someone else is understanding their minds, their movements. Their voices. I don't understand you enough to imitate you, for example. I'd be wretched."
She grinned and touseled his hair. "You're one of a kind, Harry."
For the first time ever, Harry actually felt proud of that.
Teach Us
"Harry, you showed him?"
Fred stood in the doorway of Grimmauld Place, looking furious. The Marauder's Map was spread on a table and Harry and Remus had been looking at it, heads together, when they were interrupted.
"It's all right, Fred. I caught him with it," Remus answered. "I was just showing him some tricks you never found out about."
"What does he mean?" George asked, pushing past Fred into the room. "Never found out about? How'd you find them then, if you're so clever?"
"Didn't Harry tell you?" Remus asked.
"He's Moony," Harry said. Fred and George looked at each other.
"You?" they asked in unison. Remus gave them a beatific smile.
"Would you lads like to sit in? You might learn something," he said gravely. Fred and George gave him the look usually reserved for new varieties of exploding breakfast pastry, and sat at his feet like disciples.
"Teach us," Fred said.
Second Generation
Ginny was drying dishes when it happened; standing at the window, watching for James' return. Harry, who'd been sitting lazily at the table, jumped when she shouted.
"James!" she shrieked, and ran for the yard.
When Harry caught up he found his wife staring at their son, being investigated by an enormous black dog, sniffing James' dark hair.
"James, come away," he ordered.
"It's okay, dad," James beamed. "He's magic."
Harry stared at the dog, whose pale eyes fixed on his face.
Then where the dog had been, was a ragged man.
"Sirius?" Harry asked.
"I knew he was magic," James pronounced.
Train
It was unusually sunny, all things considered; normally the ride to Hogwarts was punctuated by storms. Instead, the window-blinds in the compartment were open, and sunlight streamed through -- turning Peter's hair gold, picking out coppery highlights in Remus'. James, long legs propped on a trunk they were using as a footrest, was reading "So You Want To Play Professional Quidditch". Their robes were piled carelessly next to him, and topped by a heaping helping of sweets and pasties from the snack cart.
Sirius, curled up on the seat between Remus and Peter, panted a little, and Peter idly offered him a bit of peppermint, which he crunched up in Padfoot's jaws easily, enjoying the candy all the more for his doggy senses. Remus, he thought, was probably asleep, and it was safe to rest his head on the boy's thigh, where it was most comfortable.
He froze for a minute when he felt Remus shift, but it was only to move slightly closer. Fingers stroked the short, bristling fur on his head, then dropped a little to scratch him in that itchy place just behind his ears.
Padfoot heaved an enormous, satisfied sigh, and heard Peter and James laugh.
***
Remus was warm, for the first time in ages; it always seemed difficult, when he was away from Hogwarts, to feel anything but slightly-too-cold. But the sunlight filling their train compartment was soaking into his clothing, into his skin the way rain often did; he felt filled up with sunlight, and sleepy.
A weight on his thigh made him wake a little from his dozing, and he moved instinctively to accomodate the big, squarish doggy head; it had been a hard summer for Sirius, and he deserved the freedom to be Padfoot for a while. Remus liked the feel of Padfoot's fur under his fingers, especially just over his eyes, where it was short and spiky. He felt Padfoot's throat vibrate in an unheard whine, and moved his fingers back, to scratch him behind the ears.
When Padfoot sighed happily, James and Peter both burst out laughing. Remus felt responsible, somehow, for their laughter, and joy welled up inside him; he had made his friends happy, which was really all he ever wanted out of life.
The Bookshelf
The Bookshelf: G
It worried Jupiter Black.
It wasn't natural, liking books. Boys were supposed to like Quidditch, Muggle-baiting, and hunting on the country estate. Instead, Sirius -- who should have been showing his younger brother how to catch fish and hex Muggles -- would just as soon spend an afternoon reading spellbooks. And not even useful ones.
It had changed, a bit, when Sirius started Hogwarts; he got at least three letters a semester complaining of death-and-law-defying behaviour, and always sent the boy a treat as encouragement.
The whole thing came to a head when the boy had done nothing all summer except read, even Muggle books, and had given one of them to Regulus, too. They had a furious row about it, and the next day Jupiter went into Sirius' room and destroyed his bookshelf, burning everything in it. Sirius threw himself on his father with a viciousness which surprised everyone, and by the time they pulled him off, he'd clawed him bloody.
They never found out how he escaped the basement cell they locked him in, but by the time his father was sufficiently recovered to thrash him as he deserved, Sirius was gone.
***
"We didn't know who to call," Miriam Potter said. "Clearly his family was out of the question."
"You did well," replied Andromeda Tonks. "I hope Sirius hasn't been a bother."
"Not in the least," Miriam smiled fondly. Andromeda, sitting at the kitchen table, could see Nymphadora through the window, playing in the Potters' gladiolis. Her cousin brooded on the step, tousel-haired James Potter nearby.
"He won't eat," Miriam added. "He...says he's having trouble reading, can't see the words. We're happy to care for him, but I'm worried."
"He's better off here."
"No doubt, but what's to be done?"
Andromeda watched Nymphadora flop down next to Sirius, digging in her backpack for a book. She held it up, imploringly, and Sirius looked at it as if he'd never seen one before. James nudged him, and Nymphadora turned to the bookmark. Sirius closed the book; James and Nymphadora forced it open again.
She heard him begin to read, haltingly, as if he were just learning how. Nymphadora turned her face up to his, adoringly.
"Take him a sandwich, in half an hour," Andromeda advised. "In the meantime, you must give me the recipe for these biscuits..."
Not-Godfather
Nobody would believe what Neville remembered, but it was true. It wasn't a flash and a pain in his head like Harry had, but it meant no less to him.
"I'm leaving England," said the brown-haired man. "I've sold my things."
"Understandable," said Gran, properly.
"I knew Frank and Alice..." here he faltered. "They wanted to make me his godfather, but I wouldn't let them -- you're better for the boy."
"Undoubtedly."
"I haven't much cash, but I thought..." he held out a package. "May I...give him this?"
His gran, he remembered, had been about to say no, when the brown-haired man said "Please."
Neville was not allowed to bring the train to school with him, but he brought the small locomotive, and kept it in his pocket; it made him feel safe. When he saw Professor Lupin, third year, he didn't recognise him -- until he saw his smile when Neville was caught toying with the engine one morning, during breakfast. Then he remembered why the voice in his ear had sounded so reassuring, the first day of class, and why he instinctively trusted his not-godfather, when he'd cast some of his best hexes.
***
Remus was furious, arriving home; furious at Britain, the world, the Wizarding world especially, and Neville Longbottom's grandmother in particular. He had gone to see the boy because his parents were locked up in St. Mungo's, and she had sat there and made tea and reprimanded the lad for tearing the paper off the gift Remus had brought him, because Remus had known not only Dead James and Lily and Dead Peter and Horrible Murderer Sirius but Insane Frank and Alice and if he lost anyone else he was going to go mad --
He threw his keys on the table, leaving the door open. Damn them all, for leaving him here, damn the lycanthropy that kept him from holding a steady job or taking Neville from that horrible old woman, damn himself for not knowing --
The crash terrified him, and he realised he'd hurled a china cat once given to him by Sirius as a joke into the glass-fronted bookshelf in his living room, shattering both.
He sank down to the floor, willing this unwanted hatred out of his body physically, pressing both fists into his stomach.
He had never desired the full moon before.
Ferret
Remus scratched his head, staring at the small creature in the cage.
"I don't know, Harry," he said finally. "It's a bit small, isn't it? I mean, what about your father? Or even Sirius?"
Harry shook his head resolutely. "Small is good. I couldn't...not a dog. Not after Sirius. And a stag's too big."
"Yes, it was rather noticeable," Remus murmured in agreement. "Are you sure about this? It's not easy, you know. Took James and Sirius three years, nearly. I'm not going to be much help."
"I'm sure," Harry answered. "I want to be an animagus. Professor McGonagall's going to help, too."
"Can I ask why this particular creature?" Remus inquired, as Harry purchased the ferret whose fur he would need for the Animagus transformation. Harry grinned.
"Cos I can't wait to see what Draco does when a ferret starts following him everywhere," he replied.
***
"I only need one ingredient," Harry pestered, following Snape through the Potions classroom. "I know you know where to get it."
"Powdered clotnail is illegal in this country," Snape replied sharply.
"Other registered animagi have used it!"
"It wasn't illegal, thirty years ago, and no legal animagus has since completed the spell."
"You know where I can get some," Harry insisted.
"Why should I help you destroy yourself when I've spent six years preventing it? This isn't a game! People have died!"
Harry gave him a dull look. "So you won't allow me the one thing I need, to finish. The catalyst."
Snape growled. "If you bring ruin upon yourself by inspecting the second jar to the left, over my bookshelf, I cannot be held responsible."
Four days later, a black ferret came nosing into Snape's office, and climbed the wooden desk, curling itself up warily near his inkpot.
Snape sighed. "Potter, if you continue to exceed my expectations thus, you may even one day make something of yourself."
He ignored the smug squeak when he stroked the sleek furry head, before returning to his work.
Minister
It was so quiet, these days.
Not that it had been less quiet, during Voldemort's second rise, but there had been an urgency which was now replaced by serene silence. They had buried the dead; the Death Eaters had taken worse injury, but the Order had, he felt, lost more. Sirius first, and so many others --
Remus was well used to surviving.
And this was not so bad a survival; a pension from the Ministry, small but sufficient, and a comfortable flat, enough food to eat, heat in the winter.
He had his habits, too, like tea. It was the ritual that counted; loose-leaf in a strainer, kettle on the stove, heated by gas and not magic. His overlarge mug, honey in the bottom, hot water poured over the strainer, stirred and sipped, adjusted as needed.
The Prophet arrived through his kitchen window, flung by a delivery owl, and he picked it up, unfolding it as he held the tea to his lips to sip.
He read the headline, and for the first and last time in his life did a tremendous spit-take, spilling tea all over himself.
SEVERUS SNAPE APPOINTED NEW MINISTER OF MAGIC, it read.
Minister II
Severus Snape sat back in the lush leather chair of the Minister of Magic, steepled his fingers, and smiled smugly.
He was a Slytherin, and above all, Slytherins were ambitious. Slytherins delighted in being victorious over other ambitious Slytherins, which was why this moment was so delicious.
Lucius and Draco Malfoy stood before him in chains.
"The pair of you have been found guilty of serial murder, Muggle-torture, and matricide," he said, meeting Draco's defiant gaze. "All done by fair and impartial jury."
They didn't speak.
"You have been sentenced to imprisonment in Azkaban, which I may say is not what it once was, considering the destruction of the Dementors."
"I'd rather die," Draco snarled.
"Would you?" Snape asked. "Then we, Draco, are in agreement."
Lucius lifted his head, slowly.
"Must I beg for my son's life?" he asked hoarsely. "Now that you have the power you wished for, Severus?"
Snape shook his head. "Power, Lucius? Your master had power." He put his hands palm-down on his desk. "But you will remember for the rest of your days that I control every element of your existence."
"Why are we here?" Lucius asked. Snape smiled again, and didn't reply.
The Toast
"Last one standing," Sirius used to say, in the darker days of the last war. Morbid humour was his specialty, and that saying always made the other three grin; they'd raise their glasses and toast to the luck of the last one standing if they didn't all make it out alive.
It was dark here, far away from the rest of the mad grapple that was going on in Diagon Alley, closer to a riot than an epic Final Battle.
Remus raised his wand. Peter had lost his in the shadows somewhere.
"Last one standing," he said, and then, "Avada Kedavra."
Cherry Blossom
Come walking with me," Professor Lupin said. "I want to show you something."
Harry came obediently down the stairs, where he'd stopped when his name was called. They were the only ones in the hall; he'd left dinner late, and Professor Lupin hadn't been at dinner at all.
"I'm told walking is good for me," Professor Lupin said, as he limped, cane-in-hand, down the dirt path. "I try to do it as often as I can, but it is...difficult to do as we are told, sometimes."
Harry followed him in silence, grasping for questions to ask or comments to make. He wanted Professor Lupin to think he was smart, as smart as his father, and he wanted Professor Lupin to like him, but sometimes he didn't know how to say it.
Lupin stopped on the trail, just before a bend that the students weren't supposed to follow, and turned awkwardly, unsteadily.
"Give me your arm, Harry, and close your eyes," he said gently.
"Why?" Harry asked.
"I need to know if you're ready for your Patronus lessons. If you're willing to trust me. Give me your arm."
Harry obeyed, shutting his eyes against the gloomy glow of the forest. He could feel Professor Lupin leading him down the path, the one less-trod because it was forbidden, and listened to the murmured directions -- mind the dip there, step over the stray rock, don't stumble on the gravel patch.
Finally, they stopped.
"Well done, Harry. You can look now."
Harry opened his eyes on a world of white, blossom petals blowing across a clearing in the forest, and an early-blooming cherry tree at the centre of it.
"Perpetual bloom," Professor Lupin said. "It was planted and charmed centuries ago."
Harry moved forward, touching a blossom, which fell away from the tree on contact.
"Your father found it," Lupin continued, and Harry glanced back at him. "It was his favourite place to study."
Harry saw his professor swallow, and looked away. In this place, stretching to touch a blossom, with his father's dark hair, it must be a great sacrifice for his professor.
It was hard, he knew, to see green eyes in James Potter's face.
The Wake
"Most wakes, the bar's in one corner and the body's in the other."
Harry glanced up from the drinks table, where nobody was monitoring even what Ginny drank, and saw Remus, leaning over to collect a pint glass and a bottle of butterbeer.
"I was all for a casket," Remus continued, "But Dumbledore felt it would be morbid."
"Wouldn't it?" Harry asked.
"A concrete symbol of loss? No, I think it would be apt. No body, no casket, no headstone, no healing. At least with your parents there were bodies."
Harry sucked in an involuntary breath. Remus studied him.
"Sixteen's a very trying time," he said finally. "Would you prefer I treat you like a child, Harry, or like a man?"
Harry looked away. "Which do you think I am?"
"I'm speaking to you as a man. Do me the same favour, and answer my question."
Harry nodded. "I'd rather you treated me like a grown-up."
"Then come with me."
Nobody noticed Remus and Harry slipping out the back-door of the house on Grimmauld Place, or if they did, nobody stopped them. Remus led him across the small back garden, and to Harry's surprise, put his hands in two gaps in the fence and scaled it easily.
"Come on then," he said, and Harry followed as Remus dropped to the other side.
There was a sort of alley here, between the back fence of the Grimmauld Place house and the back fence of the garden which faced it. Remus pointed to a handful of score-marks high in the boards; SAPB, RJL, JHP, PMP, and in small letters below JHP, both sets of initials surrounded by a heart, LME.
"We used to meet Sirius back here for a smoke some summers, when his family got to be too much. I couldn't go on the grounds -- they were warded against werewolves for a long time. That's your father, and there's Lily; Peter, of course, Sirius -- Sirius Aedelbert Pur Black -- and me."
As Harry drew closer, he could see there were scratches through his parents' names, through PMP.
"As they died I scratched their names out," Remus said softly.
A penknife, blade open, appeared in his palm, and he held it out to Harry.
"No body, no marker, no casket, no closure," Remus said. "And you have a life ahead of you, Harry."
Harry paused and studied his old teacher's face, then took the knife from his palm.
Class Reunion
"Do you realise," Remus Lupin said at dinner one night, as though it were nothing at all to be saying this in front of the whole school even if only Severus could hear, "That we're the only men left of our year's houses?"
"Nonsense," Severus grunted. "There must've been -- "
"Six Gryffindors, five Slytherin. Three of yours dead in the war, two of mine likewise. A heart attack, a suicide, and a broomstick fall."
Severus considered. He didn't care if this was Lupin's way of reaching out; he did not want to be reached-out-to.
"There's always Black," he said.
Remus didn't speak again.
Italy
"Where will you go when it's over?" Regulus asked him once, after they were out of school and before everything went to merry hell. "Would you like to go live somewhere away from here?"
"I can't afford to," Snape had replied from the desk where he was writing his report for Dumbledore. He was out, or would be soon, out of the hell that was this job, this calling; he could bring Regulus away from the Death Eaters with him when he left. It was unsafe even now; Regulus was too loud, too opinionated, too highly-bred to simply follow orders.
"I'll take you somewhere, I've scads of money," Regulus answered. "Italy. I'll take you to Italy. You'll like it; it's warm there."
Severus stood on the shores, facing the sea, and said as he buried Regulus' Hogwarts signet ring in the sand, "Ti ho portato qui, dopo tutto."
Just Like
He found the book in the library while he was looking for school year-books, and it was like finding chocolate while looking for a box of raisins.
Draco cracked open the textbook, scrawled all over the cover with "Property of Sirius Black Esq." and "Fecking hands off, Snivellus" and similarly crude threats. There were one or two hexes but nothing a clever third-year who really did like Defence Against the Dark Arts couldn't break.
He'd wanted to find out all he could about Sirius as soon as he'd first heard of him when Lucius mentioned the prison-break and Narcissa began to rant about her cousin. Draco devoured the little ratty textbook whole, every note in the margins, every thumbprint-smear on old ink, every scrap of parchment bookmark, some with obscure notes like Moony is a Wanker - Fuck You Sirius Am Not, some with strange spells he'd never seen before on them.
His cousin, Sirius Black, Voldemort's right hand. Draco had dreams about him, aspired to be like him, the only man to seriously screw Muggle-lovers and get out of Azkaban. Christmas holiday he wished he could find Black and make him take him away somewhere, the two of them on a spree together. It would beat his family's chilly silences, anyway.
Draco didn't believe Sirius doublecrossed Voldemort; Draco believed Sirius Black was a hero. Draco wanted to kill Potter for being his godson when he, Draco Malfoy, Sirius' own cousin's son and the next in line for the Black fortunes after him -- he should have that honoured place! Him, Draco Malfoy, someone who admired and wanted to be like Sirius Black!
He slept with the book under his pillow at night, and dreamed great dreams of one day being
just
like
Sirius
Black.
Second Test
"And will it work?"
For all his research, the young Healer hadn't bothered to answer that question while discussing the procedure.
"It should," he said hesitantly. Remus Lupin's unusually keen eyes pinned him to his chair.
"Should or will?"
"Will, if I'm the one doing it."
Lupin looked down again at the testing information, the Muggle chemical reports, the Healer records. Augustus Pye waited while he read each page delicately, as though what Pye had told him needed to be verified. Perhaps it did; certainly Pye couldn't be the first person to try and sell a werewolf snake-oil.
"I worry about these numbers," Lupin said. "The thaumatic drop."
"Yes, but I think that can be accounted for."
"Do you? Have you studied the Harris report?"
Pye blinked. "You've read the Harris report?"
"I've read everything there is to read on werewolves, Augustus," Remus said. "Including things I oughtn't to have. So you think the risk is negligible?"
"I wouldn't say negligible," Pye said honestly. "But I do think it's an even chance."
Lupin laughed softly. "An even chance."
"I think the reward is worth the risk."
"Losing my magic to lose my lycanthropy?" Lupin raised an eyebrow. "That's a lot to say for someone who's not a werewolf."
"Anymore."
Remus looked up sharply. Pye smiled.
"You didn't think I'd make you the first test subject, did you?" he asked, rolling up one sleeve. A wide crescent-shaped scar criscrossed the inside of his forearm.
Lupin stacked the papers neatly and thoughtfully, and sighed.
"All right, Augustus," he said quietly. "Tomorrow at sunset?"
"I'll be there," Pye agreed with a grin.
A Question of Paternity
"It's not true."
Dumbledore frowned. "I'm afraid it is. I cannot fault the House Elves for not speaking sooner; they were bound to secrecy."
The dark-haired man winced. "I don't believe it. I won't."
"You look a great deal like your father," Dumbledore continued. "But you must understand that he wasn't blood-related to the Snapes. I doubt we'll discover why he was given to the Snapes and not kept by -- "
"Don't say it."
"The documentation is here," Dumbledore tapped the scroll. "By rights, you are a son of the house."
"I am Severus...Black?"
Inheritance
It came as no surprise to Lupin, as it had to Sirius, that Mrs. Black's will left everything to her son.
After all, the resurrected Voldemort rewarded those who went to Azkaban, those who had suffered. In the horrible days after Voldemort's fall, Sirius' parents had publicly declared that they were proud of their son, for doing what he believed in, for standing up against repressive Ministry orders. They had welcomed him very nearly posthumously back into the fold. They rewarded their boy for his...innocence.
Sirius found it all very ironic. His parents, finally, were proud of their son.
Defence Professor
"What do I get him for Christmas?" Sirius asked.
Remus shrugged. "He's your godson."
"What does he like, you suppose?"
Remus pondered. "Dark Arts," he said. "He liked Defence. And now he's teaching it and all."
"What does a Defence professor need?" Sirius asked.
"His head examined," Remus replied reservedly.
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Second Generation, Minister I/II, A Question of Paternity - all of these really caught my fancy and one wishes, in vain of course, that they were the opening paragraphs to full-blown stories. *sigh* I'll get over it.
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Train and Class Reunion struck me particularly. And The Toast was nicely sharp.
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(Anonymous) 2010-10-17 01:57 pm (UTC)(link)Minister/Minister II: unexpected, great. I hadn't thought about anything like this, really; I liked it.
Ferret: sweet in a weird way. And Snape's so... Snape, I guess.
Not-Godfather: oh, pooooooooor Nev. He'd been much better if he'd had his not-godfather.
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Sorry I've been spamming your comments. I've got nothing better to do than tell people things they mostly already know. :P