Title: Ghosts 1/1
Author: Noctalune
Date: October 23, 2005
Category: Angst/ Romance-Kinda
Pairing: Percy/Oliver
Spoilers: If you haven't read all four books, why are you wasting your time reading this? Go read the books!
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Can you feel it coming? Is there something different about this day? God must be shooting fish in a barrel. Percy wonders. (Percy/Oliver SLASH).
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns everything. I'd like to take credit for the idea, but I'm afraid it's probably not mine either.
Distribution: You can have it, I'd be flattered! Drop me a line.
Author's Notes: WARNING: Character death! SLASH!
There is nothing quite so dramatic as rain, whether it be tender droplets that accentuate a moment-
Oliver smiled his go-lucky smile, and smudged his thumb over the boy's cheekbone, leaving a bold stripe of mud on pale skin. He himself was drenched from his mop of light brown hair to the toes of his boots; mud smeared and caked on his clothing and skin.
"Gotcha," Oliver whispered. The boy smiled back.
Or the thrashing, soul-hardening sheets that barked and bit down at the Earth like so many ravenous monsters. It must've been raining cats and dogs, because every pound of every drop on his already saturated robes felt like the hounds of hell, nipping at his heels, their howling keeping him awake at night, haunting him and waiting for him from below.
"Sir?" A face much too young swam through the water and into view. "Sir, the Death Eaters have made camp on the South bank of the stream," the young man pointed, poncho held over his head with his free arm, "right over that ledge sir, there's a valley. The stupid fucks went sleeping in a valley." It took a moment for him to realize that the boy was smiling at this news. "Much too young." He thought.
"Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god…" The words felt like moths, fluttering out of his mouth more and still more. He barely felt his lips moving- hands clenched so painfully in his hair, glasses fallen on the floor. His brain was fighting against his skull, begging to burst out and squish away, and he squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn't have to see it leave- to hold back tears that were escaping through his eyelashes.
"I saw the writing." It was Oliver, standing in the doorway, back-lit by firelight that crawled shakily up the staircase from the common room. "I'm so sorry. I mean… Ginny…"
A sob choked out of his throat and fell heavily to the floor, lying there in the silence like a sin. He would've liked to say he could barely feel it when the bed sank beside him, when two arms much more muscular than his own were wrapped around his shoulders, and he'd liked to have said that he hadn't cried into Oliver's shoulder for hours and hours. But lying, even to yourself, is a bad habit.
"Wake the boys," he whispered, and the messenger jumped away from the campfire to do his bidding- it reminded him vaguely of himself, once upon a time.
Quietly, like groundhogs testing the air, auror after auror emerged from their tents, all of them looking alert. They were always alert. All of them were moving silently. No noise for the enemy to hear. No noise to attack, or to be warned by.
"Sir," Gilbert Roe gave him a snappy salute. Gilbert was an old friend of his, much more experienced, but promoted more slowly through the ranks. "What are my orders?"
He paused for a moment, soaking in the rain and studying his old friend. When had Gilly formed wrinkles? Gray hair? When had they gotten so old?
"Sit your arse down and have a sausage," He finally demanded, patting the spot on the ground next to him. He felt like he needed breakfast with Gilly. He needed to do something special this time, something different. He ignored the instincts that told him why.
"Relax, lean back!" Oliver instructed, pulling slightly on the boy's shoulder. "You've got instincts, so trust that they'll tell you if the broom starts disintegrating," Oliver smirked, looking oddly more charming than smug. That was just Oliver, though.
"Thanks," he said sarcastically, but leaned back on his broom.
"I don't want you to fall off the end!" Oliver snapped, hand flying out to steady him, pressing reassuringly on the small of his back.
The breath caught in his throat, and he stared at Oliver, trying not to overreact. Oliver stared back, equally mortified.
"Sorry," Oliver breathed, but he didn't break the look, and he didn't move his hand.
"S'okay," he said, but he wasn't paying attention. He was preoccupied with Oliver, who seemed to be moving closer, and with the hand on his back, which seemed to be exerting more pressure, and then he wasn't concentrating on anything much at all- just the feel of soft lips moving tentatively against his own.
"What should I tell them?" Gilly asked, finishing off the last soggy sausage link.
He thought for a moment, studying his wet robes- ragged and worn with wear. Too many years he'd been at this. "Tell them that we're shooting ducks," he said.
Gilly blinked, and nodded. "Are we?"
"Yes." He said.
It'd been years of together- long distance together, but still a relationship. He'd come to his senses about the ignorant Ministry, though he liked to keep that to himself. He still hadn't spoken to his father, and for some reason it was weighing heavily on his mind today. It was his first mission and he couldn't understand himself. He never had.
Around him sat fresh soldiers like himself, but instead of solemn and introspective, they seemed eager, biting at the bit, almost giddy with the thought of the coming battle. He fingered his wand nervously in his pocket, trying to recall every hex and defensive spell that he knew. He wasn't here because he wanted to fight; he was here because he was sick of doing nothing.
One-hundred-fifty-seven people stood at the lip of the ridge, every pair of eyes trained on the campfires below them. Concealment spells and camouflage robes hid their presence from the Death Eaters; the camp slept soundly and silently in their tents.
He never forgot the moment that day, when he'd first said the words. Green light rang through his eyes- scarring the brain behind them. Dreams… and the taste of Avada on his tongue.
The howl of the wind and rain was lessening. The drops were falling fat and heavy now; echoing, like the sound sentries made as they crashed before the feet of their killers.
He could barely believe how stupid this commander had to be to rest his troops in a valley. Not only a valley, but also a valley with a deep stream-his rook- ravaging through it, blocking the Death Eater's retreat on one side. With a slight movement of his wand, he saw the ghostly creeping figures on his left move to the edge of the trees, prepared to fan out down one side of the valley. One bishop in place. He moved his hand, and to his right a shimmer of specters mirrored the others- second bishop in place.
For a moment, the rain stopped. He looked up. High above him, a waning moon hung, a thin sliver barely glowing behind the rain clouds.
The moon was thin, a silver edge of glitz in the sky. It had been a week since it'd happened. No one had bothered to tell him. He still wouldn't have known if it weren't for the default funeral invitations that were sent to every soldier in the Order. There were stacks of them on his desk- unopened. He wondered if there was a division of the ministry now, devoted exclusively to writing funeral invitations. So many…
A sob choked out of his throat, clattering to the floor and lying there like a sin in the silence, but this time, there were no arms to wrap around him, and no shoulder to cry into. Oliver wasn't there, and he never would be again. Never again.
The mist cleared from his eyes, and seeped across the ground, the drippings from the leaves and needles around him more than enough to soak through his demeanor. Something was different about tonight. He could hear the hounds snapping behind him, nipping and teasing at his soul.
Silently, without pomp, he raised his right hand, and silently, without deliberation, he let it drop. He set the queen in motion. The ghosts flew.
Down the sides of the valley they seeped; rushing to the bank of the river; forming two sides of the square that was completed with the river and the bulk of the aurors soaring down from the lip of the valley. Like the unceremonious fall of a blade through flesh they fell upon a camp that awoke to chaos and screams. He wondered if a Death Eater woke differently than he did. He had very little time to think about it.
"Firm! Stand firm!" He screamed, knowing that his voice would carry to ones that needed to hear it. Tonight was different, though. Tonight was fish in a barrel. Tonight-
He turned on his heel and found the tip of a wand aimed between his eyes. He turned to duck… too slowly.
The clouds were gray and a drizzle thrummed down on the assembled. A sea of black-shrouded faces and somber eyes. He drifted at the back, unwilling to stand out.
The hounds were upon him now, their howling piercing through his mind in calm, shattering waves. The familiar glint of green was there as he watched the dogs leap for him. He felt a fresh drop of rain shatter on his cheek.
The stone was just like the one next to it, and the one on the other side. Gray. Cold. Lonely in the crowd of look-alikes. He tried hard not to touch the thing. He tried. He tried hard not to cry and shake and sob and make a fool of himself. He tried not to remember the warmth of Oliver's smile, his eyes, his arms. He tried to forget sweet words and sweet moments and sweet lips. He tried. He tried, and felt the cold seeping through.
He didn't feel the ground. He barely felt the shock of the spell as it ravaged through his system. The hounds were devouring his heart. Tearing it from his chest and squabbling over the twisted remains. There was nothing after that, for a very long time. Nothing but blackness, and maybe, just maybe, the flicker of fire a long way off. A shadow too dark to see through but too subtle to be seen. Memories.
The head count much later said one-hundred-fifty-six people had made it out of the valley alive. Dumbly, like a dog that doesn't know why it's being kicked, they took their commander, their one casualty, back to camp. Gilbert Roe wrote his epitaph.
"Percy Weasley," he murmured to the ashes of an abandoned fire, "lost in the Rain."