AN: to be honest, though not strictly in accordance with her world, I owe my conception of these characters largely to the brilliant works of Jewel5. It's like a fanfic of a fanfic! FIC-CEPTION.
Also everything is JKs. Obviously.
"…at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices, 'To Harry Potter, the boy who lived!'"
Remus Lupin sat quietly in his corner of the Hogs Head, or at least this is what it would have looked like to the revellers that currently filled the musty old pub. Though he appeared quite calm, inside his head, thoughts were swirling, raging for attention. Voldemort was dead. Or gone. Or whatever. Remus couldn't muster the joy that swept through the rest of the wizarding world at this very moment. He couldn't feel the joy, because he knew something that very few people did yet, and it was killing him. He was one of the few people that knew Sirius Black had been secret keeper for Lily and James. Lily and James were now dead. It was simple logic really.
He hadn't stayed at home, because he didn't want to be found right now. Not by anyone. He had toyed briefly with the idea of fetching Peter, but hadn't even been able to muster that much.
Sirius.
Two of the people he was closest to in the world now lay cold and lifeless, because of Sirius. He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he had betrayed them.
Because it had to be betrayal. Sirius may have been a great many things, but weak was not one of them, the Death Eaters would never have been able to torture a location out of him. It must have been willing.
He took a deep, burning swig of his cheap firewhisky. Tonight he would not celebrate. He would not be glad that Voldemort was defeated, he had lost three friends today, and he didn't know what, or even how to feel. Part of him wanted to take off, track Sirius down and make him pay for what he'd done, and another simply refused to believe he had done anything at all. There was no other explanation, so what he felt most of all was broken.
And Harry. Harry who would now never grow up knowing his loving, brilliant parents, never know the joy of all the marauder's together. He had gone to Dumbledore when he had heard, and offered to raise Harry, but the ministry had rejected him out of hand. A werewolf was no fit guardian for a child. The worst of it was that they were right.
Harry had lost his family, and Remus felt like he had as well. He looked down into his nearly empty glass, and with a grim resolution toasted, 'to Harry,'
Alastor Moody sat at his desk in the now empty auror office. One lone light in a dark room. He had sent everyone home hours ago, the paperwork could wait, and they more than deserved the break after these long, long years of terror and loss. Let them have their moments of happiness where they could get them.
Moody couldn't find it. Happiness; that sense of a burden lifting.
Perhaps it was because of all he'd lost. Not that anyone was had gone without loss in this long war. But Moody took it personally. For every auror killed on the front lines he felt personally responsible. He was not sure if that was a weight he could ever throw off, or should. If he'd just taught them better, or maybe even been there to help…
All the ones that he had trained, bright eager young faces. They had had so much life and energy. It was they that deserved to be sitting here now, flooded with relief and finally being able to stop fighting, not he. He was old, weathered beyond his years. This life should have been theirs, not his.
So for those that were dead, beyond his reach, he let the others make the most of this brief joy. He knew it was brief, it always was. So the Dark Lord was defeated they said, he didn't believe that for a second. Even on the off chance that he was, there was always some new evil, and new victims. Victims like the damned Potter boy and Lily, who he had taken a shine to when she interned. Now they were dead, just like the others.
Tomorrow would begin the arduous task of tracking down the rest of the Death Eaters, who would doubtless try to worm their way out of it now that their lord and master was defeated.
But that was tomorrow, and tonight he drank for those that had survived, against the odds. Survived to live out messy, human lives.
'To Harry Potter,' the muttered to the dark, 'the boy who lived.'
Frank and Alice Longbottom sat together at the kitchen table of their small London flat. They were both quiet, and Neville was finally asleep.
'I know I should feel happier than this,' Alice said quietly.
'Probably,' said Frank. He knew what she meant though. It was all very well for everyone to celebrate, but he just didn't have the energy. He was relieved, certainly, but he was having a hard time feeling joyful when half of his friends were dead.
Frank got up to make a pot of tea.
'Maybe something stronger? It's not as though we are on call tonight.' Alice called. She felt strange, like she had been running full tilt and come to an abrupt stop. All this momentum and nowhere to put it.
'It could have been us you know, remember what Dumbledore said about Voldemort and that prophecy?'
'I know,' said Frank heavily, 'It's awful, I'm so glad we're free of it now, but it feels so wrong to be glad of something that means Lily and James are dead.'
'There's nothing we could have done differently,' but she agreed.
Frank handed her a bottle of butterbeer, and she held it up to his, 'to Harry Potter,' she began, 'the boy who lived,' they finished together.
Mary Cattermole padded quietly down to the kitchen to fix herself a drink. Reg was asleep, and whilst she was pretty sure he could sleep through a firestorm, she didn't want to risk it.
She poured out a generous dollop of their good firewhisky, and took it to the bench. She was having trouble sleeping.
She and Reg had spent the night out celebrating, well the other may have been celebrating, she knew that she was running. She was avoiding the truths that had been chasing her since she had heard.
But now that she was home, she felt a vast weight settle back down onto her. You-know-who was gone, yes, but that didn't bring back any of her friends, and it certainly didn't make up for losing Lily. Sweet bright Lily who had been so very shy in their first year, and then grown to be one of the fiercest and kind witches she had yet to meet.
It was probably a fair trade, she mused, if you were somebody else, someone who didn't know her. But Mary was just too selfish to be able to see it that way.
Maybe in twenty years time, she would think of today without a stab of pain.
At least the little boy had survived. Harry was barely a year old, to lose both his parents… She shuddered. She supposed Sirius would raise him. That would be funny to see, though hopefully Remus would look in on them too, just to impart some sanity from time to time.
She could see the sky lightening to an iron grey out of the front window and sighed. She really ought to try and sleep.
She finished her glass in one gulp, and thought, 'Thankyou Harry.'
Sirius Black sat with his back to a large oak in the Forest of Dean. He was holding a tattered piece of parchment in his hands and trying to concoct a variation of the charm they had used on the map to locate Wormtail.
He wished there had been time to get a message to Moony, but he just couldn't risk losing Peter's trail. Oh well, Remus would get over it eventually, though he was probably beside himself right now. Surely he would know better than to assume that he, Sirius would ever betray Lily and James.
There was nothing he could do about it right now, it would right itself in the end.
He knew he had about ten minutes for the charm to do its thing, so he hunted around in the pocket of his robes until his hands met something cold and hard. He almost smiled as he pulled out his flask.
Sirius was extremely focused on his hunt. He had to be really. The alternative was to think about all that had transpired.
Some godfather her was turning out to be, he thought wryly, drinking and chasing though forests after murders in the dead of night. He would put it all right though, he would raise Harry for James and Lily, take care of him. Just not yet. Not until he had found Peter and made him pay dearly for all that he had taken from the world.
If Peter was very, very lucky, then Sirius might turn him over to the authorities. He wouldn't have considered it, but if he was going to look after Harry, he really ought to clear his name.
James was gone, Lily was gone and Peter had betrayed them. As if they hadn't all lost enough in this war, and as if he had been so stupid as to trust fucking Peter Pettigrew with the lives of his two best friends. He had to make Peter pay, for the betrayal and their deaths, but he also had to pay because until he did, Sirius would never be able to quell the guilt that raged within him. It had been his idea that they change. He thought he had been too obvious a target, too easy to figure out, but who would ever suspect meek little Peter.
Who indeed.
He swilled his flask, it was nearly empty.
He held it up to the night, 'For Harry,' he said aloud.
The boy who lived they were calling him. Sirius was going to have to make sure it didn't go to his head.
GAH so glad to finally have that down on paper (so to speak) it's been kicking around my head for a while now. Tell me what you think!