sam_storyteller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-15 08:45 am
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-15 08:45 am
Entry tags:
Harry Potter Shortfic: PG Rated
These are all rated PG; they encompass a wide variety of ships and some mature themes. Spoilers through OotP.
There's You
She found him in the library, at the far end near the windows that looked out onto the Quidditch pitch, with a small cauldron bubbling from a heating charm in front of him, and a roll of bandages next to his hand.
Severus was like a cat in many ways -- easily frighted into lashing out, solitary, and preferring to find somewhere quiet to lick his wounds. Minerva McGonagall understood the feeling all too well, so she merely did what she would have done with a cat -- sat quietly, and waited for him to make the first move.
"There was a skirmish with the Order," he said, calmly, stirring the cauldron with his left hand. His right was cut to ribbons. "I wasn't recognised. Lucius Malfoy got off one good hex before I could escape."
"You could ask Pomona."
"It's a simple salve," he said, and as if to prove his words, dipped his fingers in the cauldron and began spreading the concotion on his injured hand. She picked up the bandages.
"It's dangerous, Severus."
"No one ever said it wasn't."
She held out the bandages, and he looked perplexed for a moment, as if pondering how to one-handedly use them. Finally she smiled, and began to wrap his hand for him.
"There are others, you know, whom you can depend on."
"There's you."
She smiled as she tore the bandage and tucked the loose end away. "Yes, Severus. There is me. Go get some rest -- I'll cover this afternoon's classes."
She stood to go, allowing him to clean up the cauldron and bandages on his own, when he stopped her.
"Thank you, Minerva," he said quietly.
"You're welcome," she answered, and smiled, and left.
London
It wasn't as though he had anywhere to go.
The little ticket office at the Hogsmeade station was open, and Remus stood there with his luggage, considering. The news had already spread through the town; the ticket agent had terror in his eyes. The porter clearly wouldn't help him with his things, although he was still walking with a limp.
"How far will this take me?" he asked, dropping a handful of Sickles and Galleons onto the counter of the ticket office. The man looked as though he didn't want to touch them.
"London," came the stammered answer. Remus sighed.
Suddenly, something cold and wet poked his hand. He glanced down. A giant newfoundland dog was standing at his hip, licking his fingers.
There are airplanes in London. Ships. We could go anywhere.
There are beds in London, quiet places we could be together --
He rubbed Padfoot behind the ears.
"London, then," he said.
Understand
"I am not reformed," Snape snarled. Albus Dumbledore looked taken-aback, which was an unusual expression on the elderly wizard.
"I apologise, Severus, I merely meant -- "
"I know what you meant," Snape interrupted. "I am not interested in rehabilitating young Malfoy or anyone else. I don't understand their pain and don't wish to."
"You underwent a similar transition, however."
"No. Although it's clear you don't understand either of us," Snape replied, crossing his arms and pacing the office carpet. "This isn't about you or the Order. It never was. It was about the side which wouldn't leave the world in ruins. I like security. I like my rooms, my routines, my solitude. This isn't good versus evil. It's merely security versus anarchy."
Dumbledore was silent.
"Find idealists to handle your reformed idealists," Snape finished. "Leave me to my duties, and send me the vicious ones, the frightened ones, when they come to you. They're the ones I'll understand."
Scaredy Cat
"Neville?"
Ginny stumbled into the dark room in the upstairs at Grimmauld Place, unsure whether Neville was even here. Remus said he was lurking upstairs somewhere, but everyone was rather at loose ends; Voldemort's challenge had come and Harry had accepted, and tomorrow it would be ended, one way or another.
"I'm here, Ginny," Neville replied, and a shadow detached itself from the others, moving forward. Neville's growth spurt had turned him into a tall, gangling young man, no less clumsy than ever, but with the promise of grace in a few years of practice.
"How are you?"
"Scared."
"Nobody else is."
"I used to think that," Neville said thoughfully. "Now I just think they won't admit it."
Ginny stood still, twisting her fingers together anxiously.
"I'm scared," she admitted. Neville smiled.
"I know," he said, and leaned forward and kissed her. She stared up at him in shock.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because being scared of kissing the girl I love seems silly in the face of being scared of death," he answered.
"Love...?"
He shrugged. "You had to know sooner or later."
Ginny smiled, and leaned against his chest. One of his hands smoothed her red hair.
"Scaredy-cat," she said.
"Yes, but your scaredy-cat," he replied.
How It Feels
"Do you like it?"
Sirius was so hopeful that Christmas, so desperate to know whether he'd done something right, finally. It was a relief to tell him he had; Harry took positive joy, not only in the book he'd gotten as a gift from his godfather and his former professor, but in telling Sirius how great it was.
"I bet Remus picked it out, though," he teased, grinning as he paged through it. Sirius, sitting on the end of the sofa nearest Harry's chair, made a wry face.
"I can't like books?" he asked.
"Sure you can," Harry replied. "But you'd have given me something a lot more dangerous if you had your way. You did pick it out, didn't you, Remus?"
Remus, engrossed in his own book and sitting on the far end of the couch, glanced up. "Hmm?"
Sirius laughed and reached out, touseling the other man's already-untidy brown hair with one large, long-fingered hand. He said something, and Remus replied, but Harry didn't hear them; he was suddenly caught up in what he saw on Remus' face.
Not amusement, not even perplexed tolerance, which Harry would have expected; instead his smile was achingly open, innocent and ingenuous and...adoring. As if Sirius had invented the world and given it to Remus Lupin as a gift. It was how his father looked at his mother in the photographs in Harry's album. Raw, vulnerable love.
Whatever else had been between the two of them, whatever else still was, it didn't stand up for a heartbeat to what he saw on Remus' face.
Then Remus inclined his head a little as he said something else. He glanced at Harry, and Sirius followed his gaze.
And now it was as if, having been given the world, they couldn't wait to share it with him.
This is how it feels, Harry thought, to be loved.
Because
Because the best thing was watching him lose control.
Because everything Remus did was precise, from picking up a book to a curse he was teaching Bill. Because his eyes never strayed, he never said a word without thinking first, and his hands never drummed impatiently.
Because he could be caught off-guard, but only in an unexpected moment, if he had to react to something, like Mrs. Black's portrait, or a falling coat-tree.
Because she thought he was marvelous.
Tonks was clumsy because she liked to see him panic a little, and when she kissed him, he made a quiet, hungry noise that said he trusted her completely.
Screwup
Slytherin lost. Again.
Harry said some rather nasty things.
It wasn't unusual; he was just giving as good as he'd gotten, but it stung anyway. Maybe because Harry'd said them in front of Ginny Weasley, who had the unnerving habit of looking through a man and making him wonder if he didn't have a soul after all.
"Go on," he said, as Ginny lingered nearby. He bowed his head. "You heard Potter. I'm just a screwup, you don't want to associate with me."
"Chicks dig screwups," Ginny said, and kissed him.
She was gone before he could recover.
"Screwup," he muttered.
Smarts
"That's going to smart tomorrow."
Draco looked up from bandaging his hand, calmly. He would've sneered if it'd been a student; one didn't sneer at Professor Snape.
"Dare I ask what it was this time?" Snape said quietly.
"Charm gone wrong," Draco answered, tightly.
"You've never done well in Charms."
Draco bit the end of the bandage and tucked it under, wincing.
"I think at this point it's safe to say I've never done well in anything, have I?"
Snape tilted his head. "I thought Malfoys were above self-pity."
"Do you disagree?"
"No."
"We're certainly above others' pity," Draco answered. "Did you want something, Professor?"
"Do you understand why you are about to fail seventh year?"
"I was a stupid little shit who never did any work the first six?"
Snape's lips curved upwards. "Well done, Mister Malfoy. And that," he added, "is going to smart most of all."
France
"Why does it smell like France in here?"
Remus looked up from where he was bent over the kitchen counter, and wrinkled his nose. "How do you know how France smells?"
"What on earth are you cooking?"
"I mean, as a whole, France would probably smell sort of awful, I think most countries out there would, like dirt and rivers and lots of cigarettes..."
"Lupin."
"Baked brie, not that it's any of your business."
"Where did you learn to bake brie?"
"Bugger off, it's mine."
Snape sat down defiantly at the kitchen table. "It smells like Paris," he amended. "When I stayed there after the Dark Lord's fall."
Remus paused, and turned. Beyond him, now, Snape could see baguette, and hummus, and -- some sort of chocolate confection, apparently fresh from the chill-charmed cupboard.
"You stayed in Paris?" he asked.
"I was sent there to wait until the trials were over. Interrupted my teaching, but only for a month or two. The trials were -- "
" -- quick," Remus said, almost wistfully.
"Where did all this food come from?"
Remus smiled. "Harry. He said Sirius would have wanted me to have some of the inheritance, and I'm in charge of the trust until he's seventeen. I thought he might like some...different sort of food."
He flicked his wand at the oven, and something smelling of warm baked pastry floated out.
"You could have some, if you wanted," Remus said casually.
"I should probably make sure it's edible at all," Snape grumbled, as a plate of pastry and warm, oozing cheese was set in front of him. He picked up a fork and broke off some of it, eating carefully, mindful not to burn his tongue.
"It's not bad," he allowed. Remus smiled, and bent to slicing the baguette again. His voice was conversational, but there was that wistfulness in it again.
"I've never been to Paris," he said.
Something You Ought To Know
"There's something you ought to know."
Bent over in his chair, face in his hands, working at keeping things under control harder than he had in years, Remus Lupin was fresh from the private memorial and in no mood to play games. "If you've come to taunt me -- "
"Whatever your opinion of me may be, you ought to think better than that," Snape said, icily.
"You tried to get him killed once, and almost succeded."
"Tit for tat."
"Damn you," Remus snarled, looking up. "Damn you to hell, Severus. He was sixteen. You were thirty-three."
Snape drew himself up for a retort, but a low, wordless growl brought him back to his senses.
"Be that as it may, there is still something you should know."
"What's that? What information could possibly be so important that it would bring the great moralist Severus Snape down to the level of us fallible mortals?"
"He never suspected you. During the first war."
Remus stared at him. Snape tapped his temple.
"He was never good at hiding anything. He never had to. I am very good at hearing things, on the other hand. He never thought you were the turncoat."
"He wouldn't lie to me."
"He did. He was afraid. He would have died for your precious James Potter, but he was afraid to keep his secret. Pettigrew was too dim to be afraid, too stupid to be treacherous."
"We thought," whispered Remus. "We always thought that about him..."
"So I heard in his thoughts, his dreams."
"When he was so angry, ready to kill Peter -- " realisation began to dawn in his eyes. "It was because he hated himself for his own fear..."
"And you," Snape said, "were too precious."
Remus stared at him, open-mouthed.
"He could not have risked you," Snape said quietly. "If you believe nothing else I have ever said, you ought to believe that."
The other man bent his head again, and rubbed his knuckles against his eyes.
"And is this supposed to comfort me?" he asked softly.
Come Home To Me
He said Please come to Boston,
She said No --
Boy, won't you come home to me?
-- D.A. Loggins
"Would you go back to teaching, if you could?" Tonks asked, setting the tea in front of him. He touched the rim, thoughtfully.
"In a heartbeat," Remus answered.
She smiled. "Even if everyone knew you were a werewolf?"
"Everyone does."
"Would you come with me, if I went?"
He looked up. She gazed into her teacup.
"Dumbledore's offered me the job," she said. "But I wouldn't go unless you could come too."
"Why?" he asked. "It's not as though we're invol -- "
He never got to finish, because she kissed him.
"Oh," he said, when she was done.
"Would you come to Hogwarts, if I went?" she asked again.
"In a heartbeat," he answered.
Dragon Slayer
They came around every once in a while. More often now that he was Out, of course, since being publicly a werewolf did tend to draw attention. Still, it was never very troubling, and you met really the most interesting people.
This one was whimpering in the corner over the wrist Remus had handily snapped while avoiding the long silver dagger clenched in one hand. Remus calmly tapped the teakettle, and set out two cups.
"Milk?" he asked. The man groaned. "Do stop being a sissy, no one's ever going to respect you if you cry every time a little bone breaks. Bring it here, then, and I'll fix it."
The man looked up at him with mistrustful eyes, but held out his arm. Remus prodded it with his wand and muttered a few words.
"There you are then," he said kindly, as the bones knit. "Did you say you wanted milk?"
"Yes please," the man muttered. Remus added milk to one of the cups of tea, and lemon to the other, and sat at the table. He sipped calmly.
"Now, I'm sure we can reach an understanding. I am clearly not a danger to any village anywhere, and really if you kill me you won't get half the glory you'd get for killing something really interesting, like a rogue dragon."
"Dragons," the man grunted.
"Yes; you rarely hear epics about anyone who merely killed werewolves. Vampires get exponentially more respect, but dragons are really where it's at, I've heard," Remus said. "And I'm sure if you knew me you'd never dream of trying to murder me. I'm fairly likeable, as people go."
The man drank his tea sullenly, while Remus discussed the finer points of heroic monster-killing a la Beowulf and St. George, and then sent him on his merry way.
"Really, must they all go after werewolves?" he sighed. "Van Helsing complex, the lot of them. Slayer of Lycans indeed. Ah well..."
There's You
She found him in the library, at the far end near the windows that looked out onto the Quidditch pitch, with a small cauldron bubbling from a heating charm in front of him, and a roll of bandages next to his hand.
Severus was like a cat in many ways -- easily frighted into lashing out, solitary, and preferring to find somewhere quiet to lick his wounds. Minerva McGonagall understood the feeling all too well, so she merely did what she would have done with a cat -- sat quietly, and waited for him to make the first move.
"There was a skirmish with the Order," he said, calmly, stirring the cauldron with his left hand. His right was cut to ribbons. "I wasn't recognised. Lucius Malfoy got off one good hex before I could escape."
"You could ask Pomona."
"It's a simple salve," he said, and as if to prove his words, dipped his fingers in the cauldron and began spreading the concotion on his injured hand. She picked up the bandages.
"It's dangerous, Severus."
"No one ever said it wasn't."
She held out the bandages, and he looked perplexed for a moment, as if pondering how to one-handedly use them. Finally she smiled, and began to wrap his hand for him.
"There are others, you know, whom you can depend on."
"There's you."
She smiled as she tore the bandage and tucked the loose end away. "Yes, Severus. There is me. Go get some rest -- I'll cover this afternoon's classes."
She stood to go, allowing him to clean up the cauldron and bandages on his own, when he stopped her.
"Thank you, Minerva," he said quietly.
"You're welcome," she answered, and smiled, and left.
London
It wasn't as though he had anywhere to go.
The little ticket office at the Hogsmeade station was open, and Remus stood there with his luggage, considering. The news had already spread through the town; the ticket agent had terror in his eyes. The porter clearly wouldn't help him with his things, although he was still walking with a limp.
"How far will this take me?" he asked, dropping a handful of Sickles and Galleons onto the counter of the ticket office. The man looked as though he didn't want to touch them.
"London," came the stammered answer. Remus sighed.
Suddenly, something cold and wet poked his hand. He glanced down. A giant newfoundland dog was standing at his hip, licking his fingers.
There are airplanes in London. Ships. We could go anywhere.
There are beds in London, quiet places we could be together --
He rubbed Padfoot behind the ears.
"London, then," he said.
Understand
"I am not reformed," Snape snarled. Albus Dumbledore looked taken-aback, which was an unusual expression on the elderly wizard.
"I apologise, Severus, I merely meant -- "
"I know what you meant," Snape interrupted. "I am not interested in rehabilitating young Malfoy or anyone else. I don't understand their pain and don't wish to."
"You underwent a similar transition, however."
"No. Although it's clear you don't understand either of us," Snape replied, crossing his arms and pacing the office carpet. "This isn't about you or the Order. It never was. It was about the side which wouldn't leave the world in ruins. I like security. I like my rooms, my routines, my solitude. This isn't good versus evil. It's merely security versus anarchy."
Dumbledore was silent.
"Find idealists to handle your reformed idealists," Snape finished. "Leave me to my duties, and send me the vicious ones, the frightened ones, when they come to you. They're the ones I'll understand."
Scaredy Cat
"Neville?"
Ginny stumbled into the dark room in the upstairs at Grimmauld Place, unsure whether Neville was even here. Remus said he was lurking upstairs somewhere, but everyone was rather at loose ends; Voldemort's challenge had come and Harry had accepted, and tomorrow it would be ended, one way or another.
"I'm here, Ginny," Neville replied, and a shadow detached itself from the others, moving forward. Neville's growth spurt had turned him into a tall, gangling young man, no less clumsy than ever, but with the promise of grace in a few years of practice.
"How are you?"
"Scared."
"Nobody else is."
"I used to think that," Neville said thoughfully. "Now I just think they won't admit it."
Ginny stood still, twisting her fingers together anxiously.
"I'm scared," she admitted. Neville smiled.
"I know," he said, and leaned forward and kissed her. She stared up at him in shock.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because being scared of kissing the girl I love seems silly in the face of being scared of death," he answered.
"Love...?"
He shrugged. "You had to know sooner or later."
Ginny smiled, and leaned against his chest. One of his hands smoothed her red hair.
"Scaredy-cat," she said.
"Yes, but your scaredy-cat," he replied.
How It Feels
"Do you like it?"
Sirius was so hopeful that Christmas, so desperate to know whether he'd done something right, finally. It was a relief to tell him he had; Harry took positive joy, not only in the book he'd gotten as a gift from his godfather and his former professor, but in telling Sirius how great it was.
"I bet Remus picked it out, though," he teased, grinning as he paged through it. Sirius, sitting on the end of the sofa nearest Harry's chair, made a wry face.
"I can't like books?" he asked.
"Sure you can," Harry replied. "But you'd have given me something a lot more dangerous if you had your way. You did pick it out, didn't you, Remus?"
Remus, engrossed in his own book and sitting on the far end of the couch, glanced up. "Hmm?"
Sirius laughed and reached out, touseling the other man's already-untidy brown hair with one large, long-fingered hand. He said something, and Remus replied, but Harry didn't hear them; he was suddenly caught up in what he saw on Remus' face.
Not amusement, not even perplexed tolerance, which Harry would have expected; instead his smile was achingly open, innocent and ingenuous and...adoring. As if Sirius had invented the world and given it to Remus Lupin as a gift. It was how his father looked at his mother in the photographs in Harry's album. Raw, vulnerable love.
Whatever else had been between the two of them, whatever else still was, it didn't stand up for a heartbeat to what he saw on Remus' face.
Then Remus inclined his head a little as he said something else. He glanced at Harry, and Sirius followed his gaze.
And now it was as if, having been given the world, they couldn't wait to share it with him.
This is how it feels, Harry thought, to be loved.
Because
Because the best thing was watching him lose control.
Because everything Remus did was precise, from picking up a book to a curse he was teaching Bill. Because his eyes never strayed, he never said a word without thinking first, and his hands never drummed impatiently.
Because he could be caught off-guard, but only in an unexpected moment, if he had to react to something, like Mrs. Black's portrait, or a falling coat-tree.
Because she thought he was marvelous.
Tonks was clumsy because she liked to see him panic a little, and when she kissed him, he made a quiet, hungry noise that said he trusted her completely.
Screwup
Slytherin lost. Again.
Harry said some rather nasty things.
It wasn't unusual; he was just giving as good as he'd gotten, but it stung anyway. Maybe because Harry'd said them in front of Ginny Weasley, who had the unnerving habit of looking through a man and making him wonder if he didn't have a soul after all.
"Go on," he said, as Ginny lingered nearby. He bowed his head. "You heard Potter. I'm just a screwup, you don't want to associate with me."
"Chicks dig screwups," Ginny said, and kissed him.
She was gone before he could recover.
"Screwup," he muttered.
Smarts
"That's going to smart tomorrow."
Draco looked up from bandaging his hand, calmly. He would've sneered if it'd been a student; one didn't sneer at Professor Snape.
"Dare I ask what it was this time?" Snape said quietly.
"Charm gone wrong," Draco answered, tightly.
"You've never done well in Charms."
Draco bit the end of the bandage and tucked it under, wincing.
"I think at this point it's safe to say I've never done well in anything, have I?"
Snape tilted his head. "I thought Malfoys were above self-pity."
"Do you disagree?"
"No."
"We're certainly above others' pity," Draco answered. "Did you want something, Professor?"
"Do you understand why you are about to fail seventh year?"
"I was a stupid little shit who never did any work the first six?"
Snape's lips curved upwards. "Well done, Mister Malfoy. And that," he added, "is going to smart most of all."
France
"Why does it smell like France in here?"
Remus looked up from where he was bent over the kitchen counter, and wrinkled his nose. "How do you know how France smells?"
"What on earth are you cooking?"
"I mean, as a whole, France would probably smell sort of awful, I think most countries out there would, like dirt and rivers and lots of cigarettes..."
"Lupin."
"Baked brie, not that it's any of your business."
"Where did you learn to bake brie?"
"Bugger off, it's mine."
Snape sat down defiantly at the kitchen table. "It smells like Paris," he amended. "When I stayed there after the Dark Lord's fall."
Remus paused, and turned. Beyond him, now, Snape could see baguette, and hummus, and -- some sort of chocolate confection, apparently fresh from the chill-charmed cupboard.
"You stayed in Paris?" he asked.
"I was sent there to wait until the trials were over. Interrupted my teaching, but only for a month or two. The trials were -- "
" -- quick," Remus said, almost wistfully.
"Where did all this food come from?"
Remus smiled. "Harry. He said Sirius would have wanted me to have some of the inheritance, and I'm in charge of the trust until he's seventeen. I thought he might like some...different sort of food."
He flicked his wand at the oven, and something smelling of warm baked pastry floated out.
"You could have some, if you wanted," Remus said casually.
"I should probably make sure it's edible at all," Snape grumbled, as a plate of pastry and warm, oozing cheese was set in front of him. He picked up a fork and broke off some of it, eating carefully, mindful not to burn his tongue.
"It's not bad," he allowed. Remus smiled, and bent to slicing the baguette again. His voice was conversational, but there was that wistfulness in it again.
"I've never been to Paris," he said.
Something You Ought To Know
"There's something you ought to know."
Bent over in his chair, face in his hands, working at keeping things under control harder than he had in years, Remus Lupin was fresh from the private memorial and in no mood to play games. "If you've come to taunt me -- "
"Whatever your opinion of me may be, you ought to think better than that," Snape said, icily.
"You tried to get him killed once, and almost succeded."
"Tit for tat."
"Damn you," Remus snarled, looking up. "Damn you to hell, Severus. He was sixteen. You were thirty-three."
Snape drew himself up for a retort, but a low, wordless growl brought him back to his senses.
"Be that as it may, there is still something you should know."
"What's that? What information could possibly be so important that it would bring the great moralist Severus Snape down to the level of us fallible mortals?"
"He never suspected you. During the first war."
Remus stared at him. Snape tapped his temple.
"He was never good at hiding anything. He never had to. I am very good at hearing things, on the other hand. He never thought you were the turncoat."
"He wouldn't lie to me."
"He did. He was afraid. He would have died for your precious James Potter, but he was afraid to keep his secret. Pettigrew was too dim to be afraid, too stupid to be treacherous."
"We thought," whispered Remus. "We always thought that about him..."
"So I heard in his thoughts, his dreams."
"When he was so angry, ready to kill Peter -- " realisation began to dawn in his eyes. "It was because he hated himself for his own fear..."
"And you," Snape said, "were too precious."
Remus stared at him, open-mouthed.
"He could not have risked you," Snape said quietly. "If you believe nothing else I have ever said, you ought to believe that."
The other man bent his head again, and rubbed his knuckles against his eyes.
"And is this supposed to comfort me?" he asked softly.
Come Home To Me
He said Please come to Boston,
She said No --
Boy, won't you come home to me?
-- D.A. Loggins
"Would you go back to teaching, if you could?" Tonks asked, setting the tea in front of him. He touched the rim, thoughtfully.
"In a heartbeat," Remus answered.
She smiled. "Even if everyone knew you were a werewolf?"
"Everyone does."
"Would you come with me, if I went?"
He looked up. She gazed into her teacup.
"Dumbledore's offered me the job," she said. "But I wouldn't go unless you could come too."
"Why?" he asked. "It's not as though we're invol -- "
He never got to finish, because she kissed him.
"Oh," he said, when she was done.
"Would you come to Hogwarts, if I went?" she asked again.
"In a heartbeat," he answered.
Dragon Slayer
They came around every once in a while. More often now that he was Out, of course, since being publicly a werewolf did tend to draw attention. Still, it was never very troubling, and you met really the most interesting people.
This one was whimpering in the corner over the wrist Remus had handily snapped while avoiding the long silver dagger clenched in one hand. Remus calmly tapped the teakettle, and set out two cups.
"Milk?" he asked. The man groaned. "Do stop being a sissy, no one's ever going to respect you if you cry every time a little bone breaks. Bring it here, then, and I'll fix it."
The man looked up at him with mistrustful eyes, but held out his arm. Remus prodded it with his wand and muttered a few words.
"There you are then," he said kindly, as the bones knit. "Did you say you wanted milk?"
"Yes please," the man muttered. Remus added milk to one of the cups of tea, and lemon to the other, and sat at the table. He sipped calmly.
"Now, I'm sure we can reach an understanding. I am clearly not a danger to any village anywhere, and really if you kill me you won't get half the glory you'd get for killing something really interesting, like a rogue dragon."
"Dragons," the man grunted.
"Yes; you rarely hear epics about anyone who merely killed werewolves. Vampires get exponentially more respect, but dragons are really where it's at, I've heard," Remus said. "And I'm sure if you knew me you'd never dream of trying to murder me. I'm fairly likeable, as people go."
The man drank his tea sullenly, while Remus discussed the finer points of heroic monster-killing a la Beowulf and St. George, and then sent him on his merry way.
"Really, must they all go after werewolves?" he sighed. "Van Helsing complex, the lot of them. Slayer of Lycans indeed. Ah well..."
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(Anonymous) 2008-06-08 03:04 am (UTC)(link)Whatever else had been between the two of them, whatever else still was, it didn't stand up for a heartbeat to what he saw on Remus' face.
Then Remus inclined his head a little as he said something else. He glanced at Harry, and Sirius followed his gaze.
And now it was as if, having been given the world, they couldn't wait to share it with him.
AWW! i squee, sam. I squee.
and van helsing complex? brilliant.