Two Fives or a Ten
What do you think about when you hear the word War? Is it the gutter and the howl of the rifles? A million murdered men lying grey in the mud? When I think about war I see only the faces I used to know, now they are either dead or unrecognisable.
We were never what you might call friends, quite the opposite I suppose, I have not seen him for five years, he has been spying on Voldemort, he was there in Wales, he was there in the battle with the aurors, he saw the massacre in the ministry. He has been there since the beginning and he is still there now.
I am almost afraid when I see him standing in the doorway of the bar because I have no idea what I will say to him now. His eyes cross the nearly deserted room until they rest on me in the corner. "Lupin." His voice is cool and hollow like winter rain. "Hello Severus," We both sit down. "Beer?" I ask and he nods. We are silent while the waitress brings them over, he pours the beer slowly down the sides of our glasses. I am looking at the scars on his hands, they cross the knuckles like broken train tracks going nowhere. We raise the glasses and swallow, the coolness running down my throat. "There was another one killed last night." I look up as he speaks, "Muggle." He drains the glass, "Let's get whisky." The waitress is quick, she is wearing a perfume I think I recognise and she smiles at us as though nothing in the world is wrong.
Grey mists of silence fold awkwardly around as we wait. I try to measure the changes in him but it is impossible. He stares through me and his eyes are cold and dark and liquid as night skies. It seems as if we have decayed in the tepid morning light. "Its good whisky." I say, he half smiles but it is like a dead thing on his pallid face. I wonder what he has seen that killed him so completely. I have seen so many people changed but somehow I thought it would never happen to him. "Do you remember that night in the shrieking shack?" I ask.
"With Black and Pettigrew?" I nod. "Of course," He says, there is no expression in his voice as he continues, "It's a long time ago."
"Five years."
"Seems like forever." He speaks so softly I can barely hear him as our glasees are refilled.
He looks up and down at me as though he is trying to find something to say. In the end he leans forward. "Do you know something?" Everything apart from his voice is silent as I stare at the shadows on his face, "When someone dies of the Avada Krevada sometimes they stand there dead for a full minute before they fall down." He pauses, "Its so strange, I've seen it lots of times." He drains the glass and sets it down silently. Inside the bar it is almost empty, it feels very early, the only light comes through the high narrow windows and the waitress refills our glasses every time we look her way.
"The League is meeting tonight." I say.
"The League doesn't stand a chance." He looks as empty as I feel. "Dumbledore had no idea, he's just an old man. Truly he should just kill all the death eaters, they're all crazy, they're all scum." It's suddenly colder and I pull up my collar.
"But then he'd be no better." And my words seem to ring on the air.
"How can there ever be redemption? I could count on one hand the number who might change. He doesn't understand that you have to sacrifice something? If we carry on like this it might go on for years, he might never win." I can feel the whisky burning in my throat. His voice lowers, "Well why should I care at all now, he threw me back to hell, he knew I couldn't refuse, all those dead faces though, I see them all the time. Don't they deserve revenge?" I stare at the empty glass in my hands. "I don't know, I don't know what is for the best anymore." I stop because I don't know what else to say and order more whisky.
We have begun to break, it is nothing serious, its nothing we can't control, it comes and goes with the fear, the lying awake at night and wondering. I cannot even recognise the man I used to know. His features like Dumbledores have seen it all but he is still a young man and there is not even the ghost of a twinkle in his eyes. He starts to speak again slowly, "I could not even begin to show you what they've done. How would you ever forget it, all those glazed eyes, they don't move, they don't see. Pick up the body and it's already cold. There you are with the blood all over you. I am just as much a killer as they are because I never do a thing." I know it as I look into his ageless face, we will never be free of it now, the war might end tomorrow but those dead faces are timeless. The stupid futility of it will never be erased. I cannot answer the questions in his eyes. "Oh it's a bloody mess Snape, it's a bloody, bloody mess." He lifts up his glass,
"To the bloody war then Lupin." It killed us more than any curse could have done. The clink of glass on glass shatters across the room, with its errie, empty tables and chairs.
"Lets go somewhere else." I pause, "Somewhere with more people, it's too quiet in here." We pay the bill and walk out into the grey light. My head feels incredibly light as if I am floating along the pavement. "Lets find somewhere with lots of people and lots of whisky." He nods. The cars and the busses spread big arcs of muddy rainwater as we walk down the dead streets, we walk slowly under a carpet of clouds.
A.N. Firstly yeah I know its out of character but a lot can happen in five years…. Also I have been meaning to finish the first thing I wrote but I'm in Taiwan and the internet cafes suck because they only have word pad so I can't upload anything… and this place won't let you use floppy disks…anyway maybe I can't be bothered to type it all again in which case it'll be up in about five months when I hopefully go back to England…