FIC: "Silent Night" for waxrose
Title: Silent Night
Character: Minvera McGonagall
Rating: PG
Words: 1,463
Summary: The rain won't stop, and they haven't seen Potter for seventeen days
A/N: Written for waxrose, who wanted wartime fic; something quiet and harsh. Hope this suits!
Silent Night
::
i.
The quiet is both painful and endless, and the horizon edging the steel-grey sky is tinged with a familiar green.
Minerva wishes she could sleep.
The Order no longer has a hideout. It has a hovel on the wrong side of London with two broken windows that offer a view of the adjacent brick wall and nineteen people packed into three rooms like Muggle sardines. Familiarity breeds contempt. Silence runs thick. The air is heavy with dust and sweat, and Minerva is tired of Transfigured food.
A book is open in Granger's lap, but Minerva doesn't think she sees the words. The Weasley girl's hair clouds her freckled face like a fiery shroud. Minerva catches a flicker in her brother's eyes that remind her of Sirius Black before the fall, and she wonders how long it will be before the Order starts to turn on each other.
ii.
Using a teacup and spoon as a makeshift mortal and pestle, Lovegood protects herself with her father's stories. She grinds together juniper, fennel and solomon's seal, says that sprinkling it around the doors and windows will protect them all from evil.
The strange, sharp smell reminds Minerva of Ollivander's shop. He's simply disappeared -- like so many others -- and as Luna tells her the mixture would be more potent with Erumpet fur, Minerva tries to remember the day she was fitted for her wand.
Willow. Unicorn hair. Nine and five-eighths inches.
It's worn with use, shiny-smooth and moulded to fit her fingers, and sixty-some years ago, it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. She thinks of the things she's done with it recently (Sectuscempra, Imperio, Crucio), and tucks it inside her sleeve.
iii.
The rain won't stop, and they haven't seen Potter in seventeen days.
iv.
No one thought to bring a calendar the day they fled, not even clever, practical Granger. They invaded this tiny flat in February, and that should make it April, but it's hard to tell. The sky remains a stubborn grey, and it never changes, except when the sun they can't see dips below the horizon that's not quite there and everything fades to black.
Minerva thinks it's Thursday, because Remus comes to make his report on Thursdays.
She Transfigures water from the tap into tea and calls a meeting of the Order. She knows words are nothing but wind, but she's tired of the silence, and she no longer finds comfort in the sound of her own voice.
v.
Diagon Alley is strange and foreign after so many weeks on the other side of London. Dark magic coats the walls of the shops, hangs in the air like a sinister cloud. The stars have been reduced to faint glimmers, and Minerva can't find the moon.
The Dark Mark looms over an apothecary three cobblestones away from the passage to Knocturn, and Minerva thinks of Snape. The opened cupboards and empty shelves suggest they came for supplies, but as she crouches behind an overturned table she knows they just wanted to kill.
She casts spells the children shouldn't have had to learn, spells she thought she'd never have to use again. Her wand explodes with blue and purple and red, but not green, not green. She's never had to cross that line, and she hopes she never will.
She counts the Order when they return, unable to breath until she reaches nineteen. Minerva would make twenty, but she never remembers to count herself.
vi.
She blames Albus, because Albus had a choice.
vii.
Hufflepuff's cup sits on the rickety kitchen table like an offering on an altar. Potter simply left it there one day. It's been there ever since; no one can bring themself to move it, and the other bits and bats give it a wide berth.
Twenty-two days, Minerva thinks. Her tea is cold and tastes strongly of lake water. The cup watches her like some mute, golden idol. It seems tarnished in the poor light, and it's covered a thin layer of dust.
viii.
Remus talks endlessly of werewolves.
(It's probably-Thursday again, already)
Greyback disappeared the day Hogsmeade burned. His pack scattered across the island in the weeks that followed, but Minerva should have know it was too much to hope for. Remus' has heard rumours of increased activity in the south of Wales, and he reports with a wooden voice that a new leader has cropped up in Greyback's place -- a female roughly Remus' age who's inherited Greyback's fanaticism and flair for propaganda.
Tonk's hair flickers from pink to brown, and sighing, Minerva closes her eyes.
"Go," she says quietly. "Go, if you think it'll do any good."
ix.
The Inferi are the worst when it's someone they once knew.
x.
The ambush in Dovetown ends in their favour. The Order returns tired and rain-soaked, and Minerva counts them as they file in the door.
Eighteen.
She counts again, comes up a man short, and strangled breath dies in the back of her throat. An icy chill sweeps over her skin, and then Longbottom remembers he's wearing Harry's cloak.
Nineteen.
(She would make twenty)
They haven't lost anyone since Emmeline Vance. They almost lost Arthur once and Kingsley twice, but they've been lucky. It's always been almost, and it's never almost been one of the students.
She doesn't think of Cedric.
(Kill the spare)
She never grieved for Cedric, because Cedric's ghost belongs to Potter.
xi.
"The Ministry is falling apart."
Arthur sounds like a child. Minerva can't remember a time when the Ministry wasn't falling apart. She purses her lips, and heavy shadows mask the brick wall outside the window, marking the decent of evening.
"The Order is falling apart," she replies. Once, they fought a war. Now, they're simply trying to survive.
Arthur ducks his head. He carefully avoids Minerva's eyes and fiddles with the edge of his napkin. Last time, Arthur had six small children and one on the way. This time, his children and grown and scattered. Minerva doesn't have children at all, doesn't know which is worse.
"We'll make it," Minerva says. A polite lie, and Arthur's tight smile suggests he knows it.
xii.
The owl from Diggle says Draco Malfoy is dead, but Minerva can't bring herself to care.
xiii.
James and Lily were the hardest. Wedged between Kingsley and Tonks in the shell of a Death Eater safe-house, she'd thanked God between rounds of Incendio that Potter hadn't been there to watch his parents die again.
A stilted wind creeps through the night air, and the Order lurks in the shadows like the very people they despise. Swooping, an owl hoots. Remus' wand explodes. The spell hits the warehouse with the force of a cannon, but the wall crumbles with the slow, delicacy of a sandcastle.
When the smoke clears, Minerva blinks at the pale, impassive face of Regulus Black.
His dead, grey eyes are a slap in the face. Not because he looks like Sirius, because he doesn't -- not the Sirius who escaped from Azkaban, or the Sirius who fell through the Veil.
She thinks of an argument they had in his sixth year over the mark he received on a Transfiguration essay, and the spell she needs curls around her tongue like a snake. His theory had been well-voiced and sound, but she'd assigned fourteen inches and he'd only submitted twelve.
"Minerva," Remus hisses. His voice his hoarse. His fingers twist in her sleeve, and Minerva knows he's as dead in the water as she is.
Two inches short, and now he's (un)dead. She'd chastised Sirius for the very same thing the year before (the year he ran away from home).
Sirius had had his friends.
"Incendio."
Regulus had never stood a chance.
xiv.
Thirty-three days, if Minerva still knows how to count, and she can sense Hufflepuff's silent judgement from where it rests three inches from her wrist.
"I didn't send him away," she tells the cup tersely.
Thankfully, Hufflepuff doesn't reply, and Minerva returns to her letter to Charlie Weasley. Lovegood made the ink (gall nuts, copperas, and gum arabic mixed with rain water) because Diagon Alley is no longer safe. It's a black just this side of blue, and splotches if Minerva writes too fast.
Dragons haven't been used as a weapon since before the Founders. It can't come to that. It can't. The destruction would be so complete it wouldn't matter who wins. It wouldn't matter, because there'd be nothing left to come home to.
xv.
"Avada Kedavra."
Snape doesn't make a sound.
FIN
Character: Minvera McGonagall
Rating: PG
Words: 1,463
Summary: The rain won't stop, and they haven't seen Potter for seventeen days
A/N: Written for waxrose, who wanted wartime fic; something quiet and harsh. Hope this suits!
Silent Night
::
i.
The quiet is both painful and endless, and the horizon edging the steel-grey sky is tinged with a familiar green.
Minerva wishes she could sleep.
The Order no longer has a hideout. It has a hovel on the wrong side of London with two broken windows that offer a view of the adjacent brick wall and nineteen people packed into three rooms like Muggle sardines. Familiarity breeds contempt. Silence runs thick. The air is heavy with dust and sweat, and Minerva is tired of Transfigured food.
A book is open in Granger's lap, but Minerva doesn't think she sees the words. The Weasley girl's hair clouds her freckled face like a fiery shroud. Minerva catches a flicker in her brother's eyes that remind her of Sirius Black before the fall, and she wonders how long it will be before the Order starts to turn on each other.
ii.
Using a teacup and spoon as a makeshift mortal and pestle, Lovegood protects herself with her father's stories. She grinds together juniper, fennel and solomon's seal, says that sprinkling it around the doors and windows will protect them all from evil.
The strange, sharp smell reminds Minerva of Ollivander's shop. He's simply disappeared -- like so many others -- and as Luna tells her the mixture would be more potent with Erumpet fur, Minerva tries to remember the day she was fitted for her wand.
Willow. Unicorn hair. Nine and five-eighths inches.
It's worn with use, shiny-smooth and moulded to fit her fingers, and sixty-some years ago, it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. She thinks of the things she's done with it recently (Sectuscempra, Imperio, Crucio), and tucks it inside her sleeve.
iii.
The rain won't stop, and they haven't seen Potter in seventeen days.
iv.
No one thought to bring a calendar the day they fled, not even clever, practical Granger. They invaded this tiny flat in February, and that should make it April, but it's hard to tell. The sky remains a stubborn grey, and it never changes, except when the sun they can't see dips below the horizon that's not quite there and everything fades to black.
Minerva thinks it's Thursday, because Remus comes to make his report on Thursdays.
She Transfigures water from the tap into tea and calls a meeting of the Order. She knows words are nothing but wind, but she's tired of the silence, and she no longer finds comfort in the sound of her own voice.
v.
Diagon Alley is strange and foreign after so many weeks on the other side of London. Dark magic coats the walls of the shops, hangs in the air like a sinister cloud. The stars have been reduced to faint glimmers, and Minerva can't find the moon.
The Dark Mark looms over an apothecary three cobblestones away from the passage to Knocturn, and Minerva thinks of Snape. The opened cupboards and empty shelves suggest they came for supplies, but as she crouches behind an overturned table she knows they just wanted to kill.
She casts spells the children shouldn't have had to learn, spells she thought she'd never have to use again. Her wand explodes with blue and purple and red, but not green, not green. She's never had to cross that line, and she hopes she never will.
She counts the Order when they return, unable to breath until she reaches nineteen. Minerva would make twenty, but she never remembers to count herself.
vi.
She blames Albus, because Albus had a choice.
vii.
Hufflepuff's cup sits on the rickety kitchen table like an offering on an altar. Potter simply left it there one day. It's been there ever since; no one can bring themself to move it, and the other bits and bats give it a wide berth.
Twenty-two days, Minerva thinks. Her tea is cold and tastes strongly of lake water. The cup watches her like some mute, golden idol. It seems tarnished in the poor light, and it's covered a thin layer of dust.
viii.
Remus talks endlessly of werewolves.
(It's probably-Thursday again, already)
Greyback disappeared the day Hogsmeade burned. His pack scattered across the island in the weeks that followed, but Minerva should have know it was too much to hope for. Remus' has heard rumours of increased activity in the south of Wales, and he reports with a wooden voice that a new leader has cropped up in Greyback's place -- a female roughly Remus' age who's inherited Greyback's fanaticism and flair for propaganda.
Tonk's hair flickers from pink to brown, and sighing, Minerva closes her eyes.
"Go," she says quietly. "Go, if you think it'll do any good."
ix.
The Inferi are the worst when it's someone they once knew.
x.
The ambush in Dovetown ends in their favour. The Order returns tired and rain-soaked, and Minerva counts them as they file in the door.
Eighteen.
She counts again, comes up a man short, and strangled breath dies in the back of her throat. An icy chill sweeps over her skin, and then Longbottom remembers he's wearing Harry's cloak.
Nineteen.
(She would make twenty)
They haven't lost anyone since Emmeline Vance. They almost lost Arthur once and Kingsley twice, but they've been lucky. It's always been almost, and it's never almost been one of the students.
She doesn't think of Cedric.
(Kill the spare)
She never grieved for Cedric, because Cedric's ghost belongs to Potter.
xi.
"The Ministry is falling apart."
Arthur sounds like a child. Minerva can't remember a time when the Ministry wasn't falling apart. She purses her lips, and heavy shadows mask the brick wall outside the window, marking the decent of evening.
"The Order is falling apart," she replies. Once, they fought a war. Now, they're simply trying to survive.
Arthur ducks his head. He carefully avoids Minerva's eyes and fiddles with the edge of his napkin. Last time, Arthur had six small children and one on the way. This time, his children and grown and scattered. Minerva doesn't have children at all, doesn't know which is worse.
"We'll make it," Minerva says. A polite lie, and Arthur's tight smile suggests he knows it.
xii.
The owl from Diggle says Draco Malfoy is dead, but Minerva can't bring herself to care.
xiii.
James and Lily were the hardest. Wedged between Kingsley and Tonks in the shell of a Death Eater safe-house, she'd thanked God between rounds of Incendio that Potter hadn't been there to watch his parents die again.
A stilted wind creeps through the night air, and the Order lurks in the shadows like the very people they despise. Swooping, an owl hoots. Remus' wand explodes. The spell hits the warehouse with the force of a cannon, but the wall crumbles with the slow, delicacy of a sandcastle.
When the smoke clears, Minerva blinks at the pale, impassive face of Regulus Black.
His dead, grey eyes are a slap in the face. Not because he looks like Sirius, because he doesn't -- not the Sirius who escaped from Azkaban, or the Sirius who fell through the Veil.
She thinks of an argument they had in his sixth year over the mark he received on a Transfiguration essay, and the spell she needs curls around her tongue like a snake. His theory had been well-voiced and sound, but she'd assigned fourteen inches and he'd only submitted twelve.
"Minerva," Remus hisses. His voice his hoarse. His fingers twist in her sleeve, and Minerva knows he's as dead in the water as she is.
Two inches short, and now he's (un)dead. She'd chastised Sirius for the very same thing the year before (the year he ran away from home).
Sirius had had his friends.
"Incendio."
Regulus had never stood a chance.
xiv.
Thirty-three days, if Minerva still knows how to count, and she can sense Hufflepuff's silent judgement from where it rests three inches from her wrist.
"I didn't send him away," she tells the cup tersely.
Thankfully, Hufflepuff doesn't reply, and Minerva returns to her letter to Charlie Weasley. Lovegood made the ink (gall nuts, copperas, and gum arabic mixed with rain water) because Diagon Alley is no longer safe. It's a black just this side of blue, and splotches if Minerva writes too fast.
Dragons haven't been used as a weapon since before the Founders. It can't come to that. It can't. The destruction would be so complete it wouldn't matter who wins. It wouldn't matter, because there'd be nothing left to come home to.
xv.
"Avada Kedavra."
Snape doesn't make a sound.
FIN