Title: Have Heart
Rating: T+, will most likely go to M in later chapters
Genres: AU
Categories: angst, humor, hurt/comfort, romance, friendship
Warnings: language, sexual situations, violence
Disclaimer: I am claiming no ownership to trademarked things. Everything belongs to J. K. Rowling except for any original characters of mine I have thrown in. This is purely for entertainment purposes only. The title of this piece comes from a lyric in the below-included song. I feel like this song best exemplifies all of the relationships that are going to be present in this story.
Summary: The Marauders are freshly out of Hogwarts and struggling through early adulthood and the impending war. A close look at what I think the first Order of the Phoenix was like. Lots of Severus Snape, as well. Longer summary: Eyrn Alaceus was friends with the Marauding crowd in Hogwarts and was in their graduating class, as well. She was in a different House, so she wasn't extremely close with them like they were with one another, all of them being Gryffindors and all. They grow closer when they become more involved with the Order in the summer after their seventh year. Eryn goes back to Hogwarts to teach. She is a Seer and Legilimens and develops an interesting relation with Snape from compromising information they gather from each others' minds. Eyrn leaves Hogwarts at the end of the year and becomes more active in missions, specifically with Remus, who finds it hard to financially support himself because of his condition.
[Author's Note: This first part was difficult to write. There are A LOT of things I want to do with this story. I feel like it's going to be a long project. I just need to know if it sparks anyone's interest.]
"Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you, dear.
Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice..."
-Snow Patrol, Run
1979
Eryn Alcaeus watched the rain from her office window. The damp grey outside dimmed the room more than the light from burning candles could keep up with brightening. She turned her attention to the useless wax that had built up on the base of the long white candlesticks and thought about her friends. What were they doing right now? She looked down at the scroll she was grading and cast the looming pile beside her a baleful glance. Becoming a professor straight out of graduating Hogwarts was a dream come true to many. It connotated an instant job and a secured place to live. No worries, unlike her fellows who left school the same time as her.
Eryn sighed.
Muggle Studies was one of her favorite courses when she was a student adorned in Hufflepuff gear and sitting eagerly in the front row of the class. She was excited when Dumbledore allowed her to make slight changes with the curriculum of the course, seeing as how she was Muggle-born. There were a few Muggle topics taught in Muggle schools that she believed everyone should know (provided they elected for her optional course, that is). Her father was a professor himself, albeit at a Muggle college. His speciality was Philosophy and Eryn found herself liking that far better than some of the dullest subjects taught within the walls of this castle flowing with sorcery.
This week's assignment had been on Muggle's Secular Morality and Ethics. It went over better with the students that she assumed it would have. She thought about how the remaining half of the course would be taken over as Muggle Popular Culture (music, art, and literature) and how that compared to the Wizarding World's. She allowed herself to be proud of her cleverness for a moment.
But, still.
But still, guilt washed over her in waves. Her arms turned to goose pimples and she looked once more out into the cold and damp and visible darkness. Her friends, or some of them, didn't luck out with such a cushy job.
They were out there somewhere, being the Aurors they were. They were out there putting their lives on the line for the Order. Eyrn was a member of the Order, as well, but she couldn't help feel useless sitting in her office with papers to grade. The main reason as to why she was appointed the open teaching position was so she could keep what fellow members of the Order who taught at Hogwarts well-informed of the Aurors's and mission-goers' activities. She was the Order's Relayer of Information.
"Pfft. More like secretary." She went to scribbling a low grade on a studen't essay. "Right, Icarus?"
Icarus, the phoenix she rescued from Greece as an exchange over the summer of her third year, squawked from his swing-perch hanging from the high-ceiling room.
"Thanks," she murmured. She went back to scratching at parchment with her quill. Icarus had given up the smoky grey and burgundy feather for it the evening before a Burning Day.
She lay the quill down on her desk. The dark indigo ink dripped thick drops onto her white trainer, unnoticed. She looked at the window again and Saw Sirius crawling in the middle of a cracked and slowly crowding street. His enchanted motorbike lay in a wreckage of rubble and heated smoke. She Saw scuffs on his face and his face screaming. Blood and a twisted sadness. He was screaming for someone that wasn't coming. No. He was screaming at someone that wasn't listening. And then he was gone.
The dull thap, thap of ink messing her shoed toes brought her back.
Eyrn pushed the remaining ungraded essays to the side and pulled an empty piece of parchment toward her writing hand.
S.B,
When you get this, please respond immediately. My friend, I am Seeing things about you once more. The visions still aren't clear, I'm afraid to say. I just need to know you are all right and that I am not creating prophesies. Also, I have not heard from J.P or the others. I would like to know how they're doing. And mostly R.L because it's about that time again and I don't know how he's fairing with these lengthy missions without much time for rest. I hope to see everyone soon.
Your friend,
E.A
She fastened the scroll to Icarus's leg. "I need you to find Sirius, darling one. As soon as possible. Beat the wind, if you must."
Icarus rubbed his heavily feathered head affectionately against her arm and took off out the window once she opened the only window in the room.