kat_scratches (kat_scratches) wrote in ficbits, @ 2007-08-04 03:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | hp, pg, remus/sirius |
HP fic "Vigil" (PG)
Title: Vigil
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns all the characters. I just borrow them once in a while.
Summary: Remus, postVeil. Companion piece to "And Then There Was One"
Rating: PG
Vigil
He goes back to the house because it's the only place to which he can conceivably go.
Memories assault him from a thousand angles but they slide off him nearly as quickly as the tentative words spoken to him by his friends. By the Order. Ever courteous, ever cautious.
For he is numb.
And numb is good.
Numb means he doesn't have to feel, to think, to remember.
He lies in bed and the pillows do not smell faintly of dog, nor of firewhisky. There is no long black hair caught in the weave of the blanket. He does not see it; he does not need to, for he is numb.
For if he did chance to see that lone hair, he might remember from whose head it fell, might recall how it came to be caught there... and he might no longer be numb.
So: there is no hair caught roughly among the woolen fibres, just as there is no tumbler beside the bed, two fingerprints smudged near the rim. And in the bottom of this glass that is not there, there is also no remnant of firewhisky, nor memory of the curve of lips against the glass.
No smoky laughter echoes from the corners of the room.
There is also no black t-shirt slung carelessly over a chair on the far side of the room, no shirt not smelling faintly of hippogriff.
He closes his eyes, feigns sleep till it reluctantly comes.
He does not dream of shadowed eyes, nor of a bitter laugh sounding more like a bark.
He does not dream of great black dogs, nor running free on moonlit nights. He does not dream of stone arches, nor tattered veils, nor falling.
Even his dreams are numb.
In the wee hours of the morning, he awakens abruptly but does not automatically reach for a warmth that should be there but isn't. He remembers to be numb.
Eventually he steals down to the kitchen for a cup of tea, cradling it in hands that do not tremble. It tastes of nothing, like his dreams.
After a time, Molly comes in, ostensibly to fix breakfast. He wonders why her eyes are so red, wonders for whom she has been weeping.
"Oh, Remus," she hiccoughs, patting his shoulder awkwardly.
He does not understand her look of ragged pity and so ignores it. He does not waste time thinking about it; he is busy being numb.
As other members of the Order begin to wander in and out of the kitchen, he places his empty mug in the sink and politely excuses himself.
It's hard work, being numb, and they are distracting him, especially when they speak so cryptically of being sorry for some incident in the Department of Mysteries. He does not allow himself to think of the Department of Mysteries; it is not part of being numb.
Back in his room, he stares out the window for hours, unseeing, his fingers lazily tracing S-shapes on the dusty sill.