Disclaimer: all characters belong to J K Rowling and Warner brothers.
a/n This story is dedicated to Moonlight, whose story Unicorn Child was the fuel for this idea! Alternative Universe.
December
By neutral
Chapter one - a wolf and two men
*Halloween, 1981*
The faucet leaked.
Remus spread the blanket on the floor -- his bed had been shredded into a pile of woodshaves -- and laid down, stubbornly trying to ignore the steady drumming of water against the plaster. He should stand and retrieve his wand from the counter, and shut off the tap while he was at it. He could conjure himself a bed, but at that moment, nineteen hours after the last full moon, he could have cared less if he had been sleeping on moist grass.
But the thing just refused to shut up.
Remus inwardly gnashed his teeth, pulling the covers over his head. But the incessant drumming seemed to grow in volume as he ignored it. Resignedly sighing, Remus threw back the blankets and sluggishly hauled himself up.
As he dragged his feet to the kitchen, Remus found his thoughts wandering back to the times when Sirius, James, and Peter were still young and freshly graduated, when their lives were still simple. He would wake in his bed upstairs after a transformation and listen to the three ransacking the place. Even when James married, he was stubborn about coming every full moon. Then Harry was born, Voldemort made his threat, and things seemed to decay from then on.
Now, it had been nearly a month since he had seen Sirius and James. James was in hiding, Sirius was… he wasn't sure where Sirius was. Peter had visited only sparsely, but he was busy with his ministry job and Remus couldn't hold it against him.
Remus twisted the faucet with a vengeance.
Blearily scrubbing and his grainy eyes, Remus reached for the wand propped in a coffee mug, and hesitated. In the distance, his rusting grandfather clock screeched. Remus squinted at its peeling face.
The air was suddenly squeezed from his chest as if an icy hand was clenching his lungs.
The arms with the glimmering gold letters Lily and James slowly creaked past mortal peril.
Snatching his wand from its moist holder, Remus rushed to the door.
The apparation fields around Godric's Hollow had completely deteriorated; otherwise, he would never have managed to land in the middle of Lily's small flower garden. Remus tripped over a few pots of lilies as he hurried towards the home, dimly noting that he was barefoot. He laced his hand through the trees that veiled the home from sight and pushed its branches away.
And gagged at the heavy curtain of smoke that smothered his heightened senses.
This couldn't be happening… this couldn't, this couldn't…
Remus fanned at the smoke in front of his face, clenching his wand tightly. He stumbled blindly towards the house, blinking past his stinging eyes. But there was no home, no lights, nothing at all but a pile of planks that were smoking from fire…
"No…" Remus croaked weakly.
The imagine of his decaying grandfather clock flashed before his eyes… the arms with the glittering letters of Lily and James fixed stubbornly over the word deceased.
Remus stilled at the edge of the clearing, staring at the ruins of Godric's Hollow in an incomprehensible haze. He had seen this before, in his nightmares, standing unmoving as he watched his friends' home erupt in a torrent of flame. But actually smelling the smoke and feeling the prickling grass beneath his feet, Remus couldn't seem to summon any emotion but a stunned emptiness.
This couldn't be possible.
He ran forward. Frenziedly, Remus pried at the scorched bricks and wooden planks, wishing desperately that James and Lily weren't really dead, just hurt or injured under the rubble. But those clocks never lied…
They couldn't be dead, Sirius was supposed to be protecting them!
Remus coughed when the thick coat of dust wafted to his face. He fell on his knees, pushing, kicking, pulling aside the thick slabs of wood and plaster that had once made up the ceiling. It was heavy, too heavy to let anyone underneath survive the impact.
And Harry… oh god. He was just an infant! He was too young to die like this. Sirius was their secret keeper, he could never have revealed their secret unless he gave it willingly, and…
Remus' hand struck soft flesh, and his heart leaped into his throat. Empty, lifeless brown eyes, James eyes, stared at him through cracked lens. And a hand, Lily's hand, stiff and cold, hung limply through a crack in the rubble. Dead, they were dead…
Sirius… you…
And like the devil who came when called, Sirius' rattling of the motorcycle cut through the haze with knifelike crispiness. The beam of a headlight fell over him for a moment. Remus watched the bike land in a mixture of anger and shock as the familiar figure leap over its side.
"James! Lily?" a familiar voice shouted and he ran towards the ruins. Sirius sounded desperate, angry, and even… frightened?
Remus could do nothing but stand and watch numbly for a moment. Sirius had been the secret keeper, his mind screamed at him. He did this. He betrayed them! But apart of him was struggling with that knowledge, insisting that something was wrong. Sirius was loyal, compulsive and violent, but always loyal. He would never do something like this. James had trusted Sirius with his life…
The emptiness Remus felt before suddenly flooded with a scalding hatred that seemed to drown out any sense of coherent thought. Remus could feel his hands closing into two tight fists at his sides.
He… that bastard! How could he?
Before he could even consider the ramifications of attacking a dark wizard, Voldemort's servant, in a place like this without his shoes when weakened by the previous transformation, he was sprinting down the small hill towards the man. Remus had always been the calm and composed one in all matters, but… it was James and Lily! How could…?
Sirius gave a strangled shout when he was tackled from behind. Remus slammed him mercilessly against the ground, twisting Sirius' arm savagely back and pushing down with all his weight.
How could he? How could he?! Remus' mind was screaming. He was trembling violently even as he angrily wrenched Sirius' arm back.
"Bastard! Why? Why did you do it? Why?" Remus hoarsely shouted, fighting the urge to pound a fist at Sirius' head with every word.
"Remus…?" Sirius croaked out, his face muffled in the wet grass.
Something in him snapped at that oddly hopeful tone, and Remus gave into the urge to ram his fist against the traitor.
Sirius didn't even make a sound of protest. At the strike, he just slackened completely against the ground as if his bones had crumbled.
"How could you do this to them? James and Lily… I thought… I thought…" Remus bit his lip when his throat constricted painfully. "god, Sirius, how could you betray them like this?"
Sirius' shoulders tensed as he gave a strangled gasp. "I… I didn't know…"
Remus almost snarled as he dug his nails against Sirius' arm.
He hated Sirius more than anything right then. They had trusted him, and Sirius had betrayed every one of them. How long had it been he lied to them like this, with that façade of loyalty hiding that scheming mind? Remus should have seen it long ago, if he had been capable of plotting to kill ever since he was sixteen…
"How could you not know?" Remus hissed in a low growl. "You sold them out! You handed them to Voldemort! You were their secret keeper, and not try to tell me that Voldemort attacked them without confronting you first. You…"
"I didn't know! Dammit, I didn't!" Sirius struggled against Remus' hold, but all he managed was a small cry of pain when his arm was twisted. "I would never betray them! I… I didn't mean for any of this to happen!"
Sirius' words died in another gasp, and Remus noticed with a jolt of shock, that he was crying. His face was streaked with dust and dirt, but his eyes were suspiciously bright and watery. Remus loosened his grip shakily, and Sirius fell completely still.
He wanted to believe him, Remus wanted to believe him so badly. But…
"Was it the imperious?" Remus whispered softly.
Sirius suddenly tensed. All of the previous grief evaporated in an instant, contorting into a furious scowl that made Remus tighten his hold again. "It was Peter!" Sirius snarled furiously.
"Peter?" Remus breathed in confusion.
"I should have seen it! All of those excuses to leave, all of those long sleeved shirts… dammit, I should have seen it!" Sirius spluttered out, the fury seemingly clouding his mind. "He… we switched, he…"
Remus paled, his grip completely loosening from Sirius' wrist. But, it can't be true. Sirius must have been the one; he was gifted and he was dangerous. Even if he did switch, he would have told Remus, or… no… None of this could be true, Peter was too spineless to do something as ridiculous as this…
Remus sank back of the ground, letting his face fall into his hands in a futile gesture to block out the rest of the world. The weight of Sirius' accusation crashed over him instantly, and everything fell into place. "You thought… Sirius, you idiot…"
"I'm sorry," Sirius choked out. Something about his eyes told Remus that he could never say those words enough. "I was… I'm sorry."
Remus couldn't speak. He stared dazedly at Sirius, still on the ground unmoving, and then at the smoking debris beyond him. Under the fading firelight, he could see the red light of the flames dancing across James and Lily's faces. He half expected Lily to blink and James to smile, stand up and dust himself off, then stride forward to lightheartedly slap them on the back. But they were too pale, too stiff, too empty to look real.
Something was missing… something felt wrong…
"Harry!" Remus startled to his feet, running towards the ruins again.
"Is he alive?" Sirius shouted after him, sounding hopeful but fearful at the same time.
It was a hope was something too ridiculous to be true, the idea that Voldemort would attack and leave one of his prime targets unharmed. Even if Harry had been unharmed, the collapse of the roof and the fire would have killed him instantly.
"I don't know," Remus hesitantly admitted as he picked through the rumble. "I never found him, but he… I don't know."
Yellow eyes, cloaked in darkness, stared frigidly at the burning wooden planks where once stood a home. A cozy home, with warm orange lights and a steaming chimney, where he remembered hearing three distinct voices: one deep with kindness, another light with affection, and the other soft like a young cub's. A small family of them lived there once. Now they were probably buried under the rumble, dead or soon to die from the smoke and fire.
The wolf sat back and watched in satisfaction. It was good this home was burning to the ground. There were too much of them wandering these places. Perhaps in a few years, trees and grass would fill this land, and his pack could wander here again.
Those two humans would leave soon enough, once they took what they wanted. The wolf stared at the two men with a critical eye, his tail twitching impatiently. The smoke was too thick for him to sniff out their scent, but the two of them both bore a distinctly inhuman quality about them. His curiosity overcoming his suspicion for a moment, the wolf silently treaded forward.
Odd things, they were. Both canines and both not. He bared his teeth in a silent snarl.
A barely discernible wail pricked through the smoke clogged air. His ear twitched, trying to catch the sound again, but it was silent. The wolf leaped lightly from the clearing and approached the ruins with cautious steps.
There was that sound again. A bitter stench of burnt flesh filled his senses, and the wolf crinkled his nose in distaste. Human flesh. Terrible tasting creatures, they were.
A small movement caught his eye. Something under the ruins, something very small, was still alive. The wolf edged towards it in darkness. Those half-breeds were far away on the other end; they would never see him here. Gently easing away a small pile of broken glass with his nose, the wolf prodded at the small, fleshy thing.
The small hand clenched weakly.
The wolf recoiled in disgust. An infant, a human infant. A disgusting, hairless one at that, if he ignored the thick mop of black hair on its head. He bared his teeth at it to show his displeasure, but the cub was unresponsive. A thick mat of blood was caked over its shoulder where the window had fallen over it, and he could see traces of fire when the cub had been burned. It was an injured human child, completely harmless. The wolf lowered his head and pressed his nose against it lightly.
Another soft cry.
The wolf gently lapped at the bleeding skin of its back and whined. Pitiful thing. It probably wouldn't survive the night.
He nipped at the back of the cub's shirt and carefully lifted him from the glass-coated ground. Turning his back to the fire, the wolf trotted away into the night with the human child held lightly between his jaws.
*
Sort of inspired by Princess Mononoke too; after reading those movie reviews, I couldn't get this idea out of my mind. And then I read Unicorn Child, and everything just clogged my brain. I finally gave into the temptation of starting a new story. Ack! It was stupid of me, I know! But I couldn't resist! *wails* I'm so sorry. I promise I'll finish the rest of CoS and PoM before working on the rest of this.
A bit of an AU, please forgive the title. Its very abstract, and it doesn't come into play until towards the middle of the story. December is the end of the year but beginning of winter, so in the literal sense, it's the end of the beginning. I'll explain more in the next chapter where more things come into play.
please tell me what you think!
a/n This story is dedicated to Moonlight, whose story Unicorn Child was the fuel for this idea! Alternative Universe.
December
By neutral
Chapter one - a wolf and two men
*Halloween, 1981*
The faucet leaked.
Remus spread the blanket on the floor -- his bed had been shredded into a pile of woodshaves -- and laid down, stubbornly trying to ignore the steady drumming of water against the plaster. He should stand and retrieve his wand from the counter, and shut off the tap while he was at it. He could conjure himself a bed, but at that moment, nineteen hours after the last full moon, he could have cared less if he had been sleeping on moist grass.
But the thing just refused to shut up.
Remus inwardly gnashed his teeth, pulling the covers over his head. But the incessant drumming seemed to grow in volume as he ignored it. Resignedly sighing, Remus threw back the blankets and sluggishly hauled himself up.
As he dragged his feet to the kitchen, Remus found his thoughts wandering back to the times when Sirius, James, and Peter were still young and freshly graduated, when their lives were still simple. He would wake in his bed upstairs after a transformation and listen to the three ransacking the place. Even when James married, he was stubborn about coming every full moon. Then Harry was born, Voldemort made his threat, and things seemed to decay from then on.
Now, it had been nearly a month since he had seen Sirius and James. James was in hiding, Sirius was… he wasn't sure where Sirius was. Peter had visited only sparsely, but he was busy with his ministry job and Remus couldn't hold it against him.
Remus twisted the faucet with a vengeance.
Blearily scrubbing and his grainy eyes, Remus reached for the wand propped in a coffee mug, and hesitated. In the distance, his rusting grandfather clock screeched. Remus squinted at its peeling face.
The air was suddenly squeezed from his chest as if an icy hand was clenching his lungs.
The arms with the glimmering gold letters Lily and James slowly creaked past mortal peril.
Snatching his wand from its moist holder, Remus rushed to the door.
The apparation fields around Godric's Hollow had completely deteriorated; otherwise, he would never have managed to land in the middle of Lily's small flower garden. Remus tripped over a few pots of lilies as he hurried towards the home, dimly noting that he was barefoot. He laced his hand through the trees that veiled the home from sight and pushed its branches away.
And gagged at the heavy curtain of smoke that smothered his heightened senses.
This couldn't be happening… this couldn't, this couldn't…
Remus fanned at the smoke in front of his face, clenching his wand tightly. He stumbled blindly towards the house, blinking past his stinging eyes. But there was no home, no lights, nothing at all but a pile of planks that were smoking from fire…
"No…" Remus croaked weakly.
The imagine of his decaying grandfather clock flashed before his eyes… the arms with the glittering letters of Lily and James fixed stubbornly over the word deceased.
Remus stilled at the edge of the clearing, staring at the ruins of Godric's Hollow in an incomprehensible haze. He had seen this before, in his nightmares, standing unmoving as he watched his friends' home erupt in a torrent of flame. But actually smelling the smoke and feeling the prickling grass beneath his feet, Remus couldn't seem to summon any emotion but a stunned emptiness.
This couldn't be possible.
He ran forward. Frenziedly, Remus pried at the scorched bricks and wooden planks, wishing desperately that James and Lily weren't really dead, just hurt or injured under the rubble. But those clocks never lied…
They couldn't be dead, Sirius was supposed to be protecting them!
Remus coughed when the thick coat of dust wafted to his face. He fell on his knees, pushing, kicking, pulling aside the thick slabs of wood and plaster that had once made up the ceiling. It was heavy, too heavy to let anyone underneath survive the impact.
And Harry… oh god. He was just an infant! He was too young to die like this. Sirius was their secret keeper, he could never have revealed their secret unless he gave it willingly, and…
Remus' hand struck soft flesh, and his heart leaped into his throat. Empty, lifeless brown eyes, James eyes, stared at him through cracked lens. And a hand, Lily's hand, stiff and cold, hung limply through a crack in the rubble. Dead, they were dead…
Sirius… you…
And like the devil who came when called, Sirius' rattling of the motorcycle cut through the haze with knifelike crispiness. The beam of a headlight fell over him for a moment. Remus watched the bike land in a mixture of anger and shock as the familiar figure leap over its side.
"James! Lily?" a familiar voice shouted and he ran towards the ruins. Sirius sounded desperate, angry, and even… frightened?
Remus could do nothing but stand and watch numbly for a moment. Sirius had been the secret keeper, his mind screamed at him. He did this. He betrayed them! But apart of him was struggling with that knowledge, insisting that something was wrong. Sirius was loyal, compulsive and violent, but always loyal. He would never do something like this. James had trusted Sirius with his life…
The emptiness Remus felt before suddenly flooded with a scalding hatred that seemed to drown out any sense of coherent thought. Remus could feel his hands closing into two tight fists at his sides.
He… that bastard! How could he?
Before he could even consider the ramifications of attacking a dark wizard, Voldemort's servant, in a place like this without his shoes when weakened by the previous transformation, he was sprinting down the small hill towards the man. Remus had always been the calm and composed one in all matters, but… it was James and Lily! How could…?
Sirius gave a strangled shout when he was tackled from behind. Remus slammed him mercilessly against the ground, twisting Sirius' arm savagely back and pushing down with all his weight.
How could he? How could he?! Remus' mind was screaming. He was trembling violently even as he angrily wrenched Sirius' arm back.
"Bastard! Why? Why did you do it? Why?" Remus hoarsely shouted, fighting the urge to pound a fist at Sirius' head with every word.
"Remus…?" Sirius croaked out, his face muffled in the wet grass.
Something in him snapped at that oddly hopeful tone, and Remus gave into the urge to ram his fist against the traitor.
Sirius didn't even make a sound of protest. At the strike, he just slackened completely against the ground as if his bones had crumbled.
"How could you do this to them? James and Lily… I thought… I thought…" Remus bit his lip when his throat constricted painfully. "god, Sirius, how could you betray them like this?"
Sirius' shoulders tensed as he gave a strangled gasp. "I… I didn't know…"
Remus almost snarled as he dug his nails against Sirius' arm.
He hated Sirius more than anything right then. They had trusted him, and Sirius had betrayed every one of them. How long had it been he lied to them like this, with that façade of loyalty hiding that scheming mind? Remus should have seen it long ago, if he had been capable of plotting to kill ever since he was sixteen…
"How could you not know?" Remus hissed in a low growl. "You sold them out! You handed them to Voldemort! You were their secret keeper, and not try to tell me that Voldemort attacked them without confronting you first. You…"
"I didn't know! Dammit, I didn't!" Sirius struggled against Remus' hold, but all he managed was a small cry of pain when his arm was twisted. "I would never betray them! I… I didn't mean for any of this to happen!"
Sirius' words died in another gasp, and Remus noticed with a jolt of shock, that he was crying. His face was streaked with dust and dirt, but his eyes were suspiciously bright and watery. Remus loosened his grip shakily, and Sirius fell completely still.
He wanted to believe him, Remus wanted to believe him so badly. But…
"Was it the imperious?" Remus whispered softly.
Sirius suddenly tensed. All of the previous grief evaporated in an instant, contorting into a furious scowl that made Remus tighten his hold again. "It was Peter!" Sirius snarled furiously.
"Peter?" Remus breathed in confusion.
"I should have seen it! All of those excuses to leave, all of those long sleeved shirts… dammit, I should have seen it!" Sirius spluttered out, the fury seemingly clouding his mind. "He… we switched, he…"
Remus paled, his grip completely loosening from Sirius' wrist. But, it can't be true. Sirius must have been the one; he was gifted and he was dangerous. Even if he did switch, he would have told Remus, or… no… None of this could be true, Peter was too spineless to do something as ridiculous as this…
Remus sank back of the ground, letting his face fall into his hands in a futile gesture to block out the rest of the world. The weight of Sirius' accusation crashed over him instantly, and everything fell into place. "You thought… Sirius, you idiot…"
"I'm sorry," Sirius choked out. Something about his eyes told Remus that he could never say those words enough. "I was… I'm sorry."
Remus couldn't speak. He stared dazedly at Sirius, still on the ground unmoving, and then at the smoking debris beyond him. Under the fading firelight, he could see the red light of the flames dancing across James and Lily's faces. He half expected Lily to blink and James to smile, stand up and dust himself off, then stride forward to lightheartedly slap them on the back. But they were too pale, too stiff, too empty to look real.
Something was missing… something felt wrong…
"Harry!" Remus startled to his feet, running towards the ruins again.
"Is he alive?" Sirius shouted after him, sounding hopeful but fearful at the same time.
It was a hope was something too ridiculous to be true, the idea that Voldemort would attack and leave one of his prime targets unharmed. Even if Harry had been unharmed, the collapse of the roof and the fire would have killed him instantly.
"I don't know," Remus hesitantly admitted as he picked through the rumble. "I never found him, but he… I don't know."
Yellow eyes, cloaked in darkness, stared frigidly at the burning wooden planks where once stood a home. A cozy home, with warm orange lights and a steaming chimney, where he remembered hearing three distinct voices: one deep with kindness, another light with affection, and the other soft like a young cub's. A small family of them lived there once. Now they were probably buried under the rumble, dead or soon to die from the smoke and fire.
The wolf sat back and watched in satisfaction. It was good this home was burning to the ground. There were too much of them wandering these places. Perhaps in a few years, trees and grass would fill this land, and his pack could wander here again.
Those two humans would leave soon enough, once they took what they wanted. The wolf stared at the two men with a critical eye, his tail twitching impatiently. The smoke was too thick for him to sniff out their scent, but the two of them both bore a distinctly inhuman quality about them. His curiosity overcoming his suspicion for a moment, the wolf silently treaded forward.
Odd things, they were. Both canines and both not. He bared his teeth in a silent snarl.
A barely discernible wail pricked through the smoke clogged air. His ear twitched, trying to catch the sound again, but it was silent. The wolf leaped lightly from the clearing and approached the ruins with cautious steps.
There was that sound again. A bitter stench of burnt flesh filled his senses, and the wolf crinkled his nose in distaste. Human flesh. Terrible tasting creatures, they were.
A small movement caught his eye. Something under the ruins, something very small, was still alive. The wolf edged towards it in darkness. Those half-breeds were far away on the other end; they would never see him here. Gently easing away a small pile of broken glass with his nose, the wolf prodded at the small, fleshy thing.
The small hand clenched weakly.
The wolf recoiled in disgust. An infant, a human infant. A disgusting, hairless one at that, if he ignored the thick mop of black hair on its head. He bared his teeth at it to show his displeasure, but the cub was unresponsive. A thick mat of blood was caked over its shoulder where the window had fallen over it, and he could see traces of fire when the cub had been burned. It was an injured human child, completely harmless. The wolf lowered his head and pressed his nose against it lightly.
Another soft cry.
The wolf gently lapped at the bleeding skin of its back and whined. Pitiful thing. It probably wouldn't survive the night.
He nipped at the back of the cub's shirt and carefully lifted him from the glass-coated ground. Turning his back to the fire, the wolf trotted away into the night with the human child held lightly between his jaws.
*
Sort of inspired by Princess Mononoke too; after reading those movie reviews, I couldn't get this idea out of my mind. And then I read Unicorn Child, and everything just clogged my brain. I finally gave into the temptation of starting a new story. Ack! It was stupid of me, I know! But I couldn't resist! *wails* I'm so sorry. I promise I'll finish the rest of CoS and PoM before working on the rest of this.
A bit of an AU, please forgive the title. Its very abstract, and it doesn't come into play until towards the middle of the story. December is the end of the year but beginning of winter, so in the literal sense, it's the end of the beginning. I'll explain more in the next chapter where more things come into play.
please tell me what you think!