Death Be Not Proud
Dizmius A. Cheers to John Donne, for my use of the first line of his sonnet to death, the line continues as follows: ..Though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.
A/N: Spoilers for Book 5, yes! simply as this follows off from the ending there.. Remember Azkaban's not in the hold of the Dementors anymore, that's important. SO um. yes.. RIP Sirius, my lovely, lovely luscious Sirius. Beware of the time framing I use. I have it all listed above each time-swap in my story, but you shall get to grips with it in your own time as necessary, yey ( This is basically it: In book five it somewhere states Lucius Malfoy is 41. I'm going to have him as older than harry's parents etc by about 3 or so years, meaning he's older than Severus but they'd have been at school at the same time. Harry was born 1980, the year in book five is 96ish. 96 - 41 = 55, so Malfoy was born in 1955, graduating from Hogwarts in 1973. So lets say harry's parents generation graduated in 1976/7, when they were 18, making them about 38/9 ish now. They were in their mid twenties when James and Lily died. (
~*~ Late July, 1996
Remus and Dumbledore sat in a darkening room with various photographs and empty goblets strewn around the tables and spilling onto the floor. All of them a memory of a time gone by, all of them of Sirius Black.
"I just don't know where to begin." Remus held his head in his hands, his eyes had dark circles around them, being just after the full moon, and from an obvious lack of sleep. "There's so much to say, and so much I can't say in front of prying ears."
"Forget about who will be there and who will be attending simply to implicate others and slander his name further, focus on what is true, that is the most anybody could give." Dumbledore said quietly. "Perhaps Harry would like to be involved, Sirius was his Godfather after all, and. I cannot push from my mind the sight of his face, the agony in his eyes, maybe this would help."
"No." Remus said a little hastily, "No, you can't." Realising this sounded selfish he took a deep breath and carefully placed a photograph of Sirius' 16th birthday back on the table. "He's distraught enough as it is. Making him stand up in front of everyone. Everyone he's ever known to say something meaningful about the father figure he never had enough time to get to know as well as he liked, when all he wants to do is pretend this has never happened and Sirius is back at Grimmauld Place. That would be torture to place upon an already burdened mind."
Dumbledore watched Remus with concerned eyes, "Are you able to do it by yourself? Remus, you only have to ask for help and it will be given."
"No, that's. that's kind of you to offer, but no. I can do this, I must do this for Sirius. He would have done the same for me, I simply don't know where to begin."
~*~
March, 1974
"Summer is miles and miles away, and that means so are the OWLs, what are you starting to revise for?" Sirius laughed and gave Remus' pile of revision books a hearty shove, "Me and James are going to Honeydukes to grab some supplies, you up for it Moony?"
Remus smiled weakly, looking down to the mess of notes and books Sirius had made, and then up at Sirius' face where the glow of a new adventure was making his eyes sparkle and his smiling face beam with excitement.
"We found a new tunnel whilst you were all busy with this History of Magic rubbish." Sirius bounced on his heels, "Goes right down to the cellar of Honeydukes, absolutely perfect throughout. no danger of it collapsing or anything."
Remus frowned "You can't just take things from Honeydukes cellar, that's theft."
Sirius grinned "We're going to leave a note, and the money attached in a little bag or something, Prongs has it all worked out, its foolproof and conscience proof. Great fun."
Remus sighed and decided he'd leave the books for later, prefect or no prefect, chocolate and the delights of the cellars of Honeydukes when the next Hogsmeade weekend was a month away during a full moon was too overpowering and soon enough Remus found himself following Sirius and James through a cramped and rather damp tunnel that didn't seem to have a foreseeable end point.
"This is unbelievable." James poked Sirius' shoulder to grab his attention as they pushed their way up through the trapdoor and into a room filled with boxes of fizzing whizbees and chocolate by the box-load. "Do you remember what flavour of chocolate Lily likes best? She told me yesterday, but that Hufflepuff seeker was literally inches away from being blasted all the way to Azkaban by that bludger from whats his name in Ravenclaw."
"Stuart Penny." Remus helpfully added.
"Yeah, Penny." Sirius nodded knowledgably, "Git who tries to de-broom every seeker he can lay his bat on. Except for that time when Malfoy was on the team last year, and he hexed off Penny's arm. For a Slytherin, that showed good promise for sabotage."
"And he spent the next month under a wand probation, remember?" Remus smirked, "After every lesson, Malfoy had to hand in his wand to the teacher for safekeeping."
"Never seen the bloke look so annoyed. Acted like he owned the place." James snorted, then looked mullish for a moment before stopping and turning to Sirius "Isn't he after your cousin?"
"Which one? Bellatrix got married to Lestrange last year, Narcissa most likely, they just about look the same, but then again I wouldn't know, I wasn't invited to the wedding or any family function since they took off my name from the family tree." Sirius kicked a stray box of acid pops, "Cheers for letting me stay at yours Prongs, I appreciate it you know."
"No problem Paddy." James threw a chunk of cockroach cluster over Remus' head to Sirius "Hey, lets put this in Snivellus' pockets in Arithmancy tomorrow, then Moony can charm them to become cockroaches again, that'd be great."
Sirius grinned, "You know what'll happen don't you." he pursed his lips and swept back his hair, mimicking Lily Evans, "James Potter! You disgust me, I'm not going to date you if you keep on showing your manly and humorous side to Snivellus, it's totally wrong and I don't care if its hilarious and everyone thinks you're cute."
"Shut up!" James threw a fizzing whizbee at Sirius, which exploded in a cloud of sherbet over his hair.
"Now you look like you've you dandruff. bright pink dandruff." Remus smiled happily, "You never know, it might be a hit with the girls."
"You think it's worth a try?" Sirius looked around for a mirror, and unable to find one, struck a pose in front of James and Remus, "Hey girls, like the new hair-do? It's hot off the Diagon Alley fashion week."
"Diagon Alley has a fashion week?" Remus asked, laughing at Sirius prancing about, his hair a sticky mess and a bar of chocolate in his hand.
"I don't know, it probably does." James shrugged, "You're asking the right fashionista though, so tell us Sirius, what IS hot off the Diagon Alley fashion week this year?"
Remus and James never got to hear if it did or not, as they were interrupted by a loud screaming coming from upstairs in the main shop and above the shop in the Honeydukes' living residence. "Intruders! I HEARD them! They're in the store!!! Quickly! Get your wand! Stun them!!"
Sirius struggled to fish out some knuts and sickles from his pockets and displayed them on the top of a closed box of meringue goblin's toes, scurrying around with Remus and James to pick up what they had dropped and get back down to the tunnel.
"Open this door!!! Why did you put so many charms on it!! OPEN IT!!"
"It's not MY fault I like the store to be SECURE"
"NOW WE WASTE TIME GETTING IN!"
"SHUT UP YOU POMPOUS LITTLE GASBAG! CANT YOU SEE IM BUSY HERE???"
Sirius pushed Remus and James down the trapdoor, laughing loudly at the commotion behind the store room doors, he slid down the trapdoor himself and closed it tightly after him.
"Now. THAT was funny."
They walked back, musing over what else there could be in the Honydukes cellar.
"A party perhaps?" James suggested casually as they sneaked out of the tunnel and back into Hogwarts, their robes bulging under the weight of hidden sweets and chocolate. "A Gryffindor party."
"A pre-OWLs party?" Remus tucked in the remaining chocolate frogs into his pockets.
"MOONY!" Sirius groaned, "You're obsessed!!"
"I want to do well, yes."
"But you're obsessed!" Sirius repeated, rolling his eyes, "You will do fine, more perhaps than anybody else due to the mountains of work you do for everything, all neatly planned out and everything."
My god I've been running all over the castle looking for you." Peter Pettigrew puffed, lolloping after Remus Sirius and James, "You have to see this! Outside, look outside the window. Really funny."
Sirius pushed past Peter dropping a few lollies as he lunged towards a window and peered out. Peter bent down and grabbed the fallen sweets,
"Where'd you get these!? You went somewhere without me!?" Peter whined
"Well yeah, but you can come next time, I mean it wasn't like we were gone ages, and I mean. we couldn't find you!" James shifted uncomfortably before peering over Sirius's head and suddenly breaking out into a run for the stairs to get outside. "I don't believe it! Bitch fight!"
Remus followed as Sirius pelted down the stairs after James, "This is great! Lily and Desdemona at each others throats! Girl fight!" Sirius yelled back at Remus, "We can give out refreshments to the crowd!!"
Down by the lake a small crowd had indeed gathered to watch the fiery redhead and the pale black haired girl form Slytherin battle it out over something that had evidently cascaded way out of hand.
"I hope she falls into the lake," Sirius gestured towards Desdemona, "Excellent weather for a little swim. Don't you think?"
"Look!" James grinned, "It's Snivellus!" He pointed across the crowd to a group of Slytherins clearly vouching for Desdemonda who had just swung a very muggle-like slap at Lily.
"You know, for someone who prides herself so much on her pureblood anti- muggle stance on life, that was horribly out of character." Remus observed, as Lily ducked a second swing and returned a slap of her own, sending Desdemona sprawling over the grass.
"WOO LILY!" James cheered, "You show that Slytherin scum who's boss!"
Remus noticed Sirius had sped off into the crowd, distributing sweets to the Gryffindor onlookers. "What's happened?" he asked a short Ravenclaw beside him in the group.
"Oh, well, you see. I didn't see much, this big guy was standing in front of me and I couldn't see. I only heard them arguing over a potions essay that Desdemona had supposedly spoilt of Lily's. it went a bit crazy when Desdemona accused Lily of being a lying mudblood. I mean, isn't that horrible?"
Remus nodded absently, watching as Sirius made his way across to where Severus Snape was watching, glad for once, that the focus of the jeering and hatred wasn't on him.
~*~
Late July, 1996
"Perhaps a written speech would be too. I don't know. too trite for this, I. I want it to mean something, something memorable for everyone." Remus wrung his hands in frustration. "Do you know what?" He suddenly stood up and crumpled the bits of parchment where he'd tried to write the beginnings of his speech, and threw them into the wastepaper basket in the corner of the room, "I'm going to stop this ridiculous search for words. I'm going to go with what seems appropriate at the time. I'm bored of being good old prepared Remus."
"It's kept you alive, Remus, remember that." Dumbledore quietly observed, "But there's nothing that can counter spontaneity." He sighed, "Be watchful of your audience, and. good luck"
Remus nodded, staring vacantly out of the window towards the forbidden forest beyond Hagrid's hut. He had never believed he would have outlived his most cherished friends, being a werewolf and all, but it seemed that he had. And once again it was Remus who was left to pick up the shattered pieces.
TBC
Dizmius A. Cheers to John Donne, for my use of the first line of his sonnet to death, the line continues as follows: ..Though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.
A/N: Spoilers for Book 5, yes! simply as this follows off from the ending there.. Remember Azkaban's not in the hold of the Dementors anymore, that's important. SO um. yes.. RIP Sirius, my lovely, lovely luscious Sirius. Beware of the time framing I use. I have it all listed above each time-swap in my story, but you shall get to grips with it in your own time as necessary, yey ( This is basically it: In book five it somewhere states Lucius Malfoy is 41. I'm going to have him as older than harry's parents etc by about 3 or so years, meaning he's older than Severus but they'd have been at school at the same time. Harry was born 1980, the year in book five is 96ish. 96 - 41 = 55, so Malfoy was born in 1955, graduating from Hogwarts in 1973. So lets say harry's parents generation graduated in 1976/7, when they were 18, making them about 38/9 ish now. They were in their mid twenties when James and Lily died. (
~*~ Late July, 1996
Remus and Dumbledore sat in a darkening room with various photographs and empty goblets strewn around the tables and spilling onto the floor. All of them a memory of a time gone by, all of them of Sirius Black.
"I just don't know where to begin." Remus held his head in his hands, his eyes had dark circles around them, being just after the full moon, and from an obvious lack of sleep. "There's so much to say, and so much I can't say in front of prying ears."
"Forget about who will be there and who will be attending simply to implicate others and slander his name further, focus on what is true, that is the most anybody could give." Dumbledore said quietly. "Perhaps Harry would like to be involved, Sirius was his Godfather after all, and. I cannot push from my mind the sight of his face, the agony in his eyes, maybe this would help."
"No." Remus said a little hastily, "No, you can't." Realising this sounded selfish he took a deep breath and carefully placed a photograph of Sirius' 16th birthday back on the table. "He's distraught enough as it is. Making him stand up in front of everyone. Everyone he's ever known to say something meaningful about the father figure he never had enough time to get to know as well as he liked, when all he wants to do is pretend this has never happened and Sirius is back at Grimmauld Place. That would be torture to place upon an already burdened mind."
Dumbledore watched Remus with concerned eyes, "Are you able to do it by yourself? Remus, you only have to ask for help and it will be given."
"No, that's. that's kind of you to offer, but no. I can do this, I must do this for Sirius. He would have done the same for me, I simply don't know where to begin."
~*~
March, 1974
"Summer is miles and miles away, and that means so are the OWLs, what are you starting to revise for?" Sirius laughed and gave Remus' pile of revision books a hearty shove, "Me and James are going to Honeydukes to grab some supplies, you up for it Moony?"
Remus smiled weakly, looking down to the mess of notes and books Sirius had made, and then up at Sirius' face where the glow of a new adventure was making his eyes sparkle and his smiling face beam with excitement.
"We found a new tunnel whilst you were all busy with this History of Magic rubbish." Sirius bounced on his heels, "Goes right down to the cellar of Honeydukes, absolutely perfect throughout. no danger of it collapsing or anything."
Remus frowned "You can't just take things from Honeydukes cellar, that's theft."
Sirius grinned "We're going to leave a note, and the money attached in a little bag or something, Prongs has it all worked out, its foolproof and conscience proof. Great fun."
Remus sighed and decided he'd leave the books for later, prefect or no prefect, chocolate and the delights of the cellars of Honeydukes when the next Hogsmeade weekend was a month away during a full moon was too overpowering and soon enough Remus found himself following Sirius and James through a cramped and rather damp tunnel that didn't seem to have a foreseeable end point.
"This is unbelievable." James poked Sirius' shoulder to grab his attention as they pushed their way up through the trapdoor and into a room filled with boxes of fizzing whizbees and chocolate by the box-load. "Do you remember what flavour of chocolate Lily likes best? She told me yesterday, but that Hufflepuff seeker was literally inches away from being blasted all the way to Azkaban by that bludger from whats his name in Ravenclaw."
"Stuart Penny." Remus helpfully added.
"Yeah, Penny." Sirius nodded knowledgably, "Git who tries to de-broom every seeker he can lay his bat on. Except for that time when Malfoy was on the team last year, and he hexed off Penny's arm. For a Slytherin, that showed good promise for sabotage."
"And he spent the next month under a wand probation, remember?" Remus smirked, "After every lesson, Malfoy had to hand in his wand to the teacher for safekeeping."
"Never seen the bloke look so annoyed. Acted like he owned the place." James snorted, then looked mullish for a moment before stopping and turning to Sirius "Isn't he after your cousin?"
"Which one? Bellatrix got married to Lestrange last year, Narcissa most likely, they just about look the same, but then again I wouldn't know, I wasn't invited to the wedding or any family function since they took off my name from the family tree." Sirius kicked a stray box of acid pops, "Cheers for letting me stay at yours Prongs, I appreciate it you know."
"No problem Paddy." James threw a chunk of cockroach cluster over Remus' head to Sirius "Hey, lets put this in Snivellus' pockets in Arithmancy tomorrow, then Moony can charm them to become cockroaches again, that'd be great."
Sirius grinned, "You know what'll happen don't you." he pursed his lips and swept back his hair, mimicking Lily Evans, "James Potter! You disgust me, I'm not going to date you if you keep on showing your manly and humorous side to Snivellus, it's totally wrong and I don't care if its hilarious and everyone thinks you're cute."
"Shut up!" James threw a fizzing whizbee at Sirius, which exploded in a cloud of sherbet over his hair.
"Now you look like you've you dandruff. bright pink dandruff." Remus smiled happily, "You never know, it might be a hit with the girls."
"You think it's worth a try?" Sirius looked around for a mirror, and unable to find one, struck a pose in front of James and Remus, "Hey girls, like the new hair-do? It's hot off the Diagon Alley fashion week."
"Diagon Alley has a fashion week?" Remus asked, laughing at Sirius prancing about, his hair a sticky mess and a bar of chocolate in his hand.
"I don't know, it probably does." James shrugged, "You're asking the right fashionista though, so tell us Sirius, what IS hot off the Diagon Alley fashion week this year?"
Remus and James never got to hear if it did or not, as they were interrupted by a loud screaming coming from upstairs in the main shop and above the shop in the Honeydukes' living residence. "Intruders! I HEARD them! They're in the store!!! Quickly! Get your wand! Stun them!!"
Sirius struggled to fish out some knuts and sickles from his pockets and displayed them on the top of a closed box of meringue goblin's toes, scurrying around with Remus and James to pick up what they had dropped and get back down to the tunnel.
"Open this door!!! Why did you put so many charms on it!! OPEN IT!!"
"It's not MY fault I like the store to be SECURE"
"NOW WE WASTE TIME GETTING IN!"
"SHUT UP YOU POMPOUS LITTLE GASBAG! CANT YOU SEE IM BUSY HERE???"
Sirius pushed Remus and James down the trapdoor, laughing loudly at the commotion behind the store room doors, he slid down the trapdoor himself and closed it tightly after him.
"Now. THAT was funny."
They walked back, musing over what else there could be in the Honydukes cellar.
"A party perhaps?" James suggested casually as they sneaked out of the tunnel and back into Hogwarts, their robes bulging under the weight of hidden sweets and chocolate. "A Gryffindor party."
"A pre-OWLs party?" Remus tucked in the remaining chocolate frogs into his pockets.
"MOONY!" Sirius groaned, "You're obsessed!!"
"I want to do well, yes."
"But you're obsessed!" Sirius repeated, rolling his eyes, "You will do fine, more perhaps than anybody else due to the mountains of work you do for everything, all neatly planned out and everything."
My god I've been running all over the castle looking for you." Peter Pettigrew puffed, lolloping after Remus Sirius and James, "You have to see this! Outside, look outside the window. Really funny."
Sirius pushed past Peter dropping a few lollies as he lunged towards a window and peered out. Peter bent down and grabbed the fallen sweets,
"Where'd you get these!? You went somewhere without me!?" Peter whined
"Well yeah, but you can come next time, I mean it wasn't like we were gone ages, and I mean. we couldn't find you!" James shifted uncomfortably before peering over Sirius's head and suddenly breaking out into a run for the stairs to get outside. "I don't believe it! Bitch fight!"
Remus followed as Sirius pelted down the stairs after James, "This is great! Lily and Desdemona at each others throats! Girl fight!" Sirius yelled back at Remus, "We can give out refreshments to the crowd!!"
Down by the lake a small crowd had indeed gathered to watch the fiery redhead and the pale black haired girl form Slytherin battle it out over something that had evidently cascaded way out of hand.
"I hope she falls into the lake," Sirius gestured towards Desdemona, "Excellent weather for a little swim. Don't you think?"
"Look!" James grinned, "It's Snivellus!" He pointed across the crowd to a group of Slytherins clearly vouching for Desdemonda who had just swung a very muggle-like slap at Lily.
"You know, for someone who prides herself so much on her pureblood anti- muggle stance on life, that was horribly out of character." Remus observed, as Lily ducked a second swing and returned a slap of her own, sending Desdemona sprawling over the grass.
"WOO LILY!" James cheered, "You show that Slytherin scum who's boss!"
Remus noticed Sirius had sped off into the crowd, distributing sweets to the Gryffindor onlookers. "What's happened?" he asked a short Ravenclaw beside him in the group.
"Oh, well, you see. I didn't see much, this big guy was standing in front of me and I couldn't see. I only heard them arguing over a potions essay that Desdemona had supposedly spoilt of Lily's. it went a bit crazy when Desdemona accused Lily of being a lying mudblood. I mean, isn't that horrible?"
Remus nodded absently, watching as Sirius made his way across to where Severus Snape was watching, glad for once, that the focus of the jeering and hatred wasn't on him.
~*~
Late July, 1996
"Perhaps a written speech would be too. I don't know. too trite for this, I. I want it to mean something, something memorable for everyone." Remus wrung his hands in frustration. "Do you know what?" He suddenly stood up and crumpled the bits of parchment where he'd tried to write the beginnings of his speech, and threw them into the wastepaper basket in the corner of the room, "I'm going to stop this ridiculous search for words. I'm going to go with what seems appropriate at the time. I'm bored of being good old prepared Remus."
"It's kept you alive, Remus, remember that." Dumbledore quietly observed, "But there's nothing that can counter spontaneity." He sighed, "Be watchful of your audience, and. good luck"
Remus nodded, staring vacantly out of the window towards the forbidden forest beyond Hagrid's hut. He had never believed he would have outlived his most cherished friends, being a werewolf and all, but it seemed that he had. And once again it was Remus who was left to pick up the shattered pieces.
TBC