Spoken in the Night (the pain of living)
Written for the LJ community dogdaysofsummer in 2009, and Knack-verse compliant. Am in the process of uploading all of my work, since I hosted it all at UR.
ooo
"Voldemort," Sirius whispers in the dark, drumming his fingers restlessly on the kitchen table.
Seconds tick past, the refrigerator humming noisily, and he tries again. "Mudblood," he hisses, rolling the word around in his mouth experimentally. "Death Eaters."
A faint pop! And then the light flips on. "Sirius? What are you still doing up?" It's Remus talking, with James and Lily right behind him, back from the closest pub. Oddly enough, none of them seem to be more than slightly tipsy.
Lily gives him a concerned look. "Are you feeling better?" She strides forward and places a hand on his forehead, then draws it away, looking puzzled. "That fever shouldn't have worn off so quickly."
Sirius smiles weakly. "You dismiss your own ability at potions, Evans. A couple of hours of sleep, and I woke up all better, see?"
Her concerned look (the "Healer face," Sirius calls it) doesn't waver. "You should go back to sleep, though, just in case."
He dismisses her. "Nah. Couldn't sleep more. Where's Pete?"
"Hopefully, getting laid at McKinnon's flat."
"Really." Sirius raises an eyebrow, even as Lily asks him why he's up past two in the morning anyway. In response, he says, "Thought I'd wait up for you guys, of course."
"That's sweet," James remarks wryly, sliding into a seat at the table and pulling Lily on top of him, so that she lands in a bundle of arms and legs. Judging from her face, though, she doesn't seem to mind.
He murmurs something into her ear, and she giggles. Sirius watches, from lack of better things to do, thinking about what might have happened if they'd come sooner, if they'd heard what he'd been saying.
Remus puts the kettle to boil (of course he does!) before sitting down on Sirius' other side, close enough that their knees touch, pressing into one another. He props an elbow on one hand and says quietly, "What were you doing when we came in?"
He doesn't want to tell him, so he grins wickedly. "Wanking, of course." He doesn't miss the way Remus' eyes darken, a slight golden tinge to the dark brown. Even as a sort-of invalid, he has that effect on Remus Lupin, and it pleases him to no end.
"Sirius," Remus says, and Sirius knows he's failed to distract him. Remus can be remarkably…tenacious about some things.
Sirius blows a long breath out through his mouth, watching as his fringe lifts off his face for a split-second. Then, quietly, he says, "Regulus contacted me today."
"And that's what compelled you to talk to yourself in the dark? Something about Death Eaters, mhmm?"
Sirius has no idea why Remus is pushing this issue, but he feels a need to explain himself. Out of the corner of his eye he sees that Lily and James have stilled, their eyes on him. He sighs, feeling the weight of his little brother's letter in his pocket, and for a moment, he's unsure if he should share this. "He's….he wanted to tell me that it's official. He's one of Them now."
A silence falls upon them all, as Sirius clams up and James and Lily exchange looks, her arms around his neck. And then the kettle is whistling and the pall vanishes, disrupted by the mundane act of making tea. Remus gets up and retrieves the kettle, glad of something to do; he pours hot water into four cups and places tea bags into each of them. By now, he knows all of their favorites: chamomile for Lily, peppermint for Sirius, orange rooibus for James, and white lavender for himself. He sits down with their mugs just in time to watch Lily breathe, "I'm so sorry, Sirius," laying a comforting hand on Sirius'.
Remus slides their mugs to each of them, mute, barely acknowledging their nods of thanks. He's more concerned with Sirius, who looks as deathly pale as he did this morning when he called in sick to work. I didn't even know that Sirius and Regulus talked at all, Remus thinks, wondering what else he doesn't know, what other things Sirius might have kept from him.
"It's okay," Sirius says, his fingers still drumming. And, inside, he knows that he couldn't have been there for Regulus, that Regulus made his own choices.
It still hurts, though.
"I'm just sick of all this crap!" he finally cries, and the others are only mildly surprised by his outburst. "This stupid shite of a war!" And then the words are pouring out of him, the words he has thought but never said. "Stupid fucking Voldemort and his stupid Death Eaters and now my brother is one of them and why do they have to go calling other people Mudbloods anyway?" His chest is heaving and he can feel the tears pricking his eyes and the way that Remus' hand, having found its way to Sirius' knee, is now making small, soothing circles on his trousers.
Nobody says anything for another minute, and then Lily responds suddenly with, "At least you can say his name."
They all look at her, and she nods and continues. "At St. Mungo's, we've been treating all these injuries that are definitely caused by Voldemort and his merry band of followers, but not one of my patients blame Voldemort. It's always just 'You-Know-Who' and 'the Dark Lord' and what does that even mean, anyway?" She looks at them all defiantly and Sirius suddenly realizes how small she is, curled up on James' lap, her fiery hair spilling everywhere, the one bright spot in this whole kitchen. "Dumbledore's always going on at Order meetings about "Fear of the name increases fear of the thing itself," but why hasn't the general public come to its senses?"
Sirius is glad that it can be Lily who says this, the one Muggleborn among them all, the only one who ought to be truly afraid. James and Sirius are blood traitors, sure, but in the end, they're still protected by the supposed purity of their blood (although Sirius is sure that his great-grandmother Hesper Gamp was Muggleborn). And Remus, as a supposed Dark creature (only after Voldemort declared them as such, really, and Greyback's reputation certainly didn't help things), could always be a turncoat. (The spy in the Order, a faint voice whispers in his ear, but he quashes that without a second thought.)
Lily is still railing, her cheeks stained pink and her emerald green eyes very, very bright (okay, maybe she's more than slightly tipsy, but she's remarkably articulate). Sirius doesn't miss the way that James is holding her protectively, or the way that Remus' hand clenches around Sirius' knee (Sirius lays a hand on top of Remus', pushing Regulus and his daft choices out of his mind, because he doesn't know what to do about them). "I mean, in the end, it's just a stupid sodding name anyway, and we oughtn't to be afraid of it. This war has just given us daft new words for our vocabulary."
"We might have to give Voldemort more credit than that, love." James looks tense – Sirius has seen those hard lines around his best mate's mouth before. "I mean, he's managed to terrorize the entire wizarding world in only a few short years. He's been backing up his words with actions."
"As much as I want to dismiss You-Know – I mean, Voldemort, as a non-entity, it simply can't be done." Remus takes a sip from his cup, the steam rising up around his face. "All we can do is fight, yeah?" The battered clock in the living room chimes three, and the boy-who-is-sometimes-a-wolf winces, saying something absurdly mundane in the late hour. "I've got work at eight tomorrow, as do you lot. Best get to sleep, yeah?"
And then everybody is in motion, rising and mumbling and sticking their mugs of half-drunk tea in the already overcrowded sink (Remus knows he'll end up doing all the dishes in the morning before work). "G'night," Lily calls out, half-dragging James to his bedroom, leaving Remus and Sirius in the kitchen together.
Remus looks at Sirius, wondering what to say but at a loss of words. And then Sirius is flipping off the light switch, letting the darkness shroud them both. Remus stands stock-still, listening to the sounds in their flat and in the world outside, wondering –
Sirius takes his hand, and in that instant, Remus knows that it's all right, that even if they can't win this war they have to fight anyway, have to try and make a stand. They're not just fighting for blood rights, he thinks. They're fighting to change the meanings of words.
As for Sirius, well, before he lets Remus lead him out of the kitchen, he looks back at that empty darkness, and whispers one word, releasing it into the dark:
"Voldemort."
Nothing happens, and Sirius allows himself a small smile.
It's just a word, after all.