Fic: Survival Value
Jan. 17th, 2016 11:59 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
shimotsuki.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
rt_moreloveAuthor: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shimotsuki
Title: Survival Value
Rating & Warnings: PG / no warnings
Word Count: 1590 words
Prompt(s): #17, ‘Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.’ —C.S Lewis; and #44, Masquerade
Summary: Remus spends Hallowe’en with Greyback’s pack, and makes a few discoveries in spite of himself.
Notes: This is the kernel of one of the two remaining chapters I still need to flesh out for the HBP part of Kaleidoscope. (It's getting there!) Matthias Malkin is an OC who appears elsewhere in that series, but this story stands alone.
Also: What a wonderful event this has been! It's great to see so many participants, old and new. Lots more Remus/Tonks love in the world now. :)
Survival Value
Remus woke early, hungry and shivering, huddled under the two shabby blankets that were never quite enough against the damp grey chill of dawn.
He rubbed a hand over his face and extricated himself creakily from his bedroll, folding the blankets into a tidy pile. He straightened his rumpled clothing and pulled on his boots. Then he crept, as quietly as muscles still a little stiff from the last transformation would allow, across what had been the living room of the derelict house he now called home, stepping carefully around eight or ten sleeping werewolves. This was the driest room in the house—the roof over the bedrooms upstairs tended to leak in a heavy rain—so this was where they slept.
Once outside, Remus picked up a pair of plastic buckets that sat near the ashes of the cooking fire and went down to fill them in the river. It wasn’t raining today (small mercies), but the sky was thick with clouds. Sunrise was nothing but a faint reddish glow to the southeast.
He hauled the heavy buckets back up the short slope, managing not to slosh very much water over his shabby robes or leaky boots in the process, and set them in their usual place. Then he stood for a moment, nudging with his foot at a charred stick of firewood that had fallen out of the half of an oil drum they used as a fireplace. Normally, when he was the first one up, he would take one of the precious hoard of stolen matches and a handful of kindling and work to get the fire started for the day. It was his habit to make himself as useful as possible around the camp—that was infinitely preferable to spending his days stealing things from the town that sat a few miles down the river.
Today, though, he just couldn’t stay in the camp any longer. He couldn’t face the prospect of the thin veneer of small talk that did nothing to conceal the hostility and suspicion with which almost everyone still regarded him, even after three months. Even at this end of the camp, furthest away from Greyback’s inner circle.
Not today.
To the rest of the pack, today was a handful of days after the October moon.
To Remus, who had a calendar and a lunar chart pasted inside the cover of the Muggle notebook he kept in his rucksack, today was Hallowe’en.
~ * ~
Remus found a spot along the river, upstream from the camp, where he could settle among the spreading roots of an enormous oak, lean back against the trunk, and watch the swirling current. He pulled an apple and a chunk of stale bread from his pocket and ate them slowly, not because he had any actual appetite, but because it was the only way to pacify the sharp pains that were starting to gnaw at his stomach. When he had finished, he tossed the apple core into the water and watched it bob along until the a bend in the river hid it from view. Then he settled his muffler more securely around his neck, pulled his sleeves down over his hands, and huddled into his robes.
Leaves and sticks and bits of bark floated past, fetching up against rocks or sliding into tiny whirlpools. The sound of the rushing water gave him something to listen to that wasn’t inside his own head.
That was why he was here.
~ * ~
After a time, Remus realised that he had caught up one end of his muffler in his hands and was slowly, mindlessly smoothing his fingers over the rough lumpy wool.
Nymphadora’s muffler. The one she had made for him.
He frowned, and made himself tuck it back under the collar of his robes.
He had to stop this.
~ * ~
“Oi. Lupin.”
Remus blinked and looked up. Matthias Malkin was coming along the path from the camp with a few rabbit snares slung over one shoulder.
“Hullo, Malkin,” he said. The voice inside his head snarled: Am I to have no peace? Not even today? But he smiled, blandly, and reached into his pocket again for a scrap of cloth in which he’d tied up a useful bit of fishing line, complete with a hook and an only slightly bedraggled lure, that he’d untangled from a bush along the river a few weeks ago. “Thought I’d come out here and see if I could catch something.”
Malkin stood for a moment, looking down at Remus. Then he dropped his snares in a heap along the path and folded his tall frame into another pocket among the roots of the oak.
Remus liked Malkin well enough. He was reserved, but not hostile. He did venture forth on occasion to “find”—the local euphemism for “steal”—things in town, but he was more likely to spend his days snaring rabbits or birds in the wood. And he seemed just as interested in keeping his distance from Greyback as Remus certainly was.
Remus had even hoped, in the beginning, that Malkin might become his first ally in the pack. But it had proved much more difficult than he had expected to get Malkin alone, so that he could try to get some sense of the younger man’s perspective on Death Eaters and the coming conflict. All of which made the present moment an invaluable opportunity to try to make some manner of progress on his actual mission for the Order.
If only it hadn’t been today.
Remus wrapped the scrap of cloth around his hand and wound the end of the fishing line around that. With his other hand he tossed the hook and lure into the river, letting it drift downstream. He thought, for a moment, of long summer days spent fishing with his father when he was very small, but then he gave his head a small sharp shake. Focus, Lupin. The job at hand was to start a conversation with Malkin.
But Malkin got there first.
“You knew the Potters, didn’t you,” he said. “The ones the Dark Lord killed.”
Remus froze, and the Hallowe’en images he had been trying so hard all week to suppress began to unroll across his memory, after all. Finding out—only after the fireworks had started all up and down the country—that James and Lily were dead, that Sirius had gone after Peter. Staring in horror at the ruins of the cottage in Godric’s Hollow that used to be filled to bursting with laughter—James’s and Lily’s, and Sirius’s, and Remus’s own (though not Peter’s, so much, toward the end, and they hadn’t noticed), and even baby Harry’s squeals. The funeral, with warm bright Lily lying so pale and cold, and restless James so still and quiet, and nothing could have been more wrong—
“Yes,” he said, his voice gone hoarse. “I did.”
“I thought so,” said Malkin, and there was actual sympathy in the dark-blue eyes. “I remember you and Potter being thick at Hogwarts.”
Remus pulled in the line and tossed the dripping lure out into the river again. It would, of course, work much better with an actual fishing rod.
“You’ve been different, since the moon,” said Malkin. “Keeping to yourself more.”
Remus looked up, sharply. Had Malkin been studying him, all the while he’d been studying Malkin?
“I know it was this time of year that the Dark Lord fell,” Malkin went on. “I was—wondering. If that was why.”
Remus eyed him carefully. Malkin had been a Slytherin, and he said “Dark Lord.” Was he a sympathiser?
“It’s difficult,” was all he said. “To lose good friends.”
Pain slammed at him, hard, in the gut, making him draw a harsh breath. But it wasn’t the pain he had been bracing for.
Because he suddenly understood, for the first time, that as much as he mourned for James and Lily—as acutely as he felt the fresh, raw, needless loss of Sirius—
—nothing hurt as much as missing Nymphadora.
And that was because she, at least, was not dead. She was in Hogsmeade, patrolling for dementors, carrying out surveillance missions for the Order.
If he went to her this very minute, and took her in his arms, she would be warm and eager, and she would kiss him—Merlin, he would taste her sweet kiss again, right now—
But instead, he had to live out the rest of his life knowing that he must never seek out what he wanted the most. Even though Nymphadora would give it to him in a heartbeat, if he asked her for it.
Because then she would be the one to pay for his selfishness. For the rest of her life.
“And that’s why you’re here,” said Malkin.
Remus blinked.
“Because you’ve nowhere else to go anymore. That’s what you told us when you came.” Malkin smiled, a little bitterly. “Most of us here can say that, you know. My father disowned me when I was bitten, about five years ago.” He looked out over the river. “I wouldn’t have chosen to follow Greyback, myself, but I didn’t have a lot of other options.”
Remus took a deep, slow breath. Pain or no pain, the Order needed him here, to do this.
“I’d be interested,” he said, “to think about other options.”
He pulled the fishing line in again. Still nothing.
But he cast the lure out once more, scattering drops of water that sparkled like diamonds in a sudden shaft of sunlight.
~ fin ~
.
shimotsukiTitle: Survival Value
Rating & Warnings: PG / no warnings
Word Count: 1590 words
Prompt(s): #17, ‘Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.’ —C.S Lewis; and #44, Masquerade
Summary: Remus spends Hallowe’en with Greyback’s pack, and makes a few discoveries in spite of himself.
Notes: This is the kernel of one of the two remaining chapters I still need to flesh out for the HBP part of Kaleidoscope. (It's getting there!) Matthias Malkin is an OC who appears elsewhere in that series, but this story stands alone.
Also: What a wonderful event this has been! It's great to see so many participants, old and new. Lots more Remus/Tonks love in the world now. :)
Remus woke early, hungry and shivering, huddled under the two shabby blankets that were never quite enough against the damp grey chill of dawn.
He rubbed a hand over his face and extricated himself creakily from his bedroll, folding the blankets into a tidy pile. He straightened his rumpled clothing and pulled on his boots. Then he crept, as quietly as muscles still a little stiff from the last transformation would allow, across what had been the living room of the derelict house he now called home, stepping carefully around eight or ten sleeping werewolves. This was the driest room in the house—the roof over the bedrooms upstairs tended to leak in a heavy rain—so this was where they slept.
Once outside, Remus picked up a pair of plastic buckets that sat near the ashes of the cooking fire and went down to fill them in the river. It wasn’t raining today (small mercies), but the sky was thick with clouds. Sunrise was nothing but a faint reddish glow to the southeast.
He hauled the heavy buckets back up the short slope, managing not to slosh very much water over his shabby robes or leaky boots in the process, and set them in their usual place. Then he stood for a moment, nudging with his foot at a charred stick of firewood that had fallen out of the half of an oil drum they used as a fireplace. Normally, when he was the first one up, he would take one of the precious hoard of stolen matches and a handful of kindling and work to get the fire started for the day. It was his habit to make himself as useful as possible around the camp—that was infinitely preferable to spending his days stealing things from the town that sat a few miles down the river.
Today, though, he just couldn’t stay in the camp any longer. He couldn’t face the prospect of the thin veneer of small talk that did nothing to conceal the hostility and suspicion with which almost everyone still regarded him, even after three months. Even at this end of the camp, furthest away from Greyback’s inner circle.
Not today.
To the rest of the pack, today was a handful of days after the October moon.
To Remus, who had a calendar and a lunar chart pasted inside the cover of the Muggle notebook he kept in his rucksack, today was Hallowe’en.
Remus found a spot along the river, upstream from the camp, where he could settle among the spreading roots of an enormous oak, lean back against the trunk, and watch the swirling current. He pulled an apple and a chunk of stale bread from his pocket and ate them slowly, not because he had any actual appetite, but because it was the only way to pacify the sharp pains that were starting to gnaw at his stomach. When he had finished, he tossed the apple core into the water and watched it bob along until the a bend in the river hid it from view. Then he settled his muffler more securely around his neck, pulled his sleeves down over his hands, and huddled into his robes.
Leaves and sticks and bits of bark floated past, fetching up against rocks or sliding into tiny whirlpools. The sound of the rushing water gave him something to listen to that wasn’t inside his own head.
That was why he was here.
After a time, Remus realised that he had caught up one end of his muffler in his hands and was slowly, mindlessly smoothing his fingers over the rough lumpy wool.
Nymphadora’s muffler. The one she had made for him.
He frowned, and made himself tuck it back under the collar of his robes.
He had to stop this.
“Oi. Lupin.”
Remus blinked and looked up. Matthias Malkin was coming along the path from the camp with a few rabbit snares slung over one shoulder.
“Hullo, Malkin,” he said. The voice inside his head snarled: Am I to have no peace? Not even today? But he smiled, blandly, and reached into his pocket again for a scrap of cloth in which he’d tied up a useful bit of fishing line, complete with a hook and an only slightly bedraggled lure, that he’d untangled from a bush along the river a few weeks ago. “Thought I’d come out here and see if I could catch something.”
Malkin stood for a moment, looking down at Remus. Then he dropped his snares in a heap along the path and folded his tall frame into another pocket among the roots of the oak.
Remus liked Malkin well enough. He was reserved, but not hostile. He did venture forth on occasion to “find”—the local euphemism for “steal”—things in town, but he was more likely to spend his days snaring rabbits or birds in the wood. And he seemed just as interested in keeping his distance from Greyback as Remus certainly was.
Remus had even hoped, in the beginning, that Malkin might become his first ally in the pack. But it had proved much more difficult than he had expected to get Malkin alone, so that he could try to get some sense of the younger man’s perspective on Death Eaters and the coming conflict. All of which made the present moment an invaluable opportunity to try to make some manner of progress on his actual mission for the Order.
If only it hadn’t been today.
Remus wrapped the scrap of cloth around his hand and wound the end of the fishing line around that. With his other hand he tossed the hook and lure into the river, letting it drift downstream. He thought, for a moment, of long summer days spent fishing with his father when he was very small, but then he gave his head a small sharp shake. Focus, Lupin. The job at hand was to start a conversation with Malkin.
But Malkin got there first.
“You knew the Potters, didn’t you,” he said. “The ones the Dark Lord killed.”
Remus froze, and the Hallowe’en images he had been trying so hard all week to suppress began to unroll across his memory, after all. Finding out—only after the fireworks had started all up and down the country—that James and Lily were dead, that Sirius had gone after Peter. Staring in horror at the ruins of the cottage in Godric’s Hollow that used to be filled to bursting with laughter—James’s and Lily’s, and Sirius’s, and Remus’s own (though not Peter’s, so much, toward the end, and they hadn’t noticed), and even baby Harry’s squeals. The funeral, with warm bright Lily lying so pale and cold, and restless James so still and quiet, and nothing could have been more wrong—
“Yes,” he said, his voice gone hoarse. “I did.”
“I thought so,” said Malkin, and there was actual sympathy in the dark-blue eyes. “I remember you and Potter being thick at Hogwarts.”
Remus pulled in the line and tossed the dripping lure out into the river again. It would, of course, work much better with an actual fishing rod.
“You’ve been different, since the moon,” said Malkin. “Keeping to yourself more.”
Remus looked up, sharply. Had Malkin been studying him, all the while he’d been studying Malkin?
“I know it was this time of year that the Dark Lord fell,” Malkin went on. “I was—wondering. If that was why.”
Remus eyed him carefully. Malkin had been a Slytherin, and he said “Dark Lord.” Was he a sympathiser?
“It’s difficult,” was all he said. “To lose good friends.”
Pain slammed at him, hard, in the gut, making him draw a harsh breath. But it wasn’t the pain he had been bracing for.
Because he suddenly understood, for the first time, that as much as he mourned for James and Lily—as acutely as he felt the fresh, raw, needless loss of Sirius—
—nothing hurt as much as missing Nymphadora.
And that was because she, at least, was not dead. She was in Hogsmeade, patrolling for dementors, carrying out surveillance missions for the Order.
If he went to her this very minute, and took her in his arms, she would be warm and eager, and she would kiss him—Merlin, he would taste her sweet kiss again, right now—
But instead, he had to live out the rest of his life knowing that he must never seek out what he wanted the most. Even though Nymphadora would give it to him in a heartbeat, if he asked her for it.
Because then she would be the one to pay for his selfishness. For the rest of her life.
“And that’s why you’re here,” said Malkin.
Remus blinked.
“Because you’ve nowhere else to go anymore. That’s what you told us when you came.” Malkin smiled, a little bitterly. “Most of us here can say that, you know. My father disowned me when I was bitten, about five years ago.” He looked out over the river. “I wouldn’t have chosen to follow Greyback, myself, but I didn’t have a lot of other options.”
Remus took a deep, slow breath. Pain or no pain, the Order needed him here, to do this.
“I’d be interested,” he said, “to think about other options.”
He pulled the fishing line in again. Still nothing.
But he cast the lure out once more, scattering drops of water that sparkled like diamonds in a sudden shaft of sunlight.
.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}