Disclaimer: JKR owns HP. The song is You by Tarot, and I don't own it. Nor do I own the title, which is a line from a song called We Are But Falling Leaves by Sentenced.
AN: This is one of those spur-of-a-moment brainchildren I turned out to like pretty much. The Finnish original Vain vääriä vastauksia also available (both here and in FinFanFun). Reviews make me happy. Please make me happy...
Contains some swearing. Avert thy eyes, if you are sensitive... No pairings (although if you are so inclined, I suppose this could be read as Sirius/Remus).
Scattered Fragments of Time
History would remember it as a time when a brother turned on brother, a friend betrayed friend and no one dared turn a back on a stranger. It was a time of great sacrifices and courage, but also of distrust and fear, and as such it was captured on the pages of history. Half-truths in sublime phrases as a warning to the generations to come. Something to take pride in for those who would recognise a name of a half-forgotten relative they had never known. On orders of their longwinded history teacher, the children would read from a dusty parchment of how desperate a time in their society was the First War. Every day more ancient history.
But how could they have understood? They, so young and innocent? They would learn off by heart strings of names and years for their exam, and forget every detail as soon as they saw the Sun dancing joyously on the waves of the Lake, wordlessly beckoning them to join the game. But names and dates with fading ink on a dusty parchment, tedious descriptions of something that had happened back then, so very long ago. Stories of heroes, if they were lucky, of brave warriors and of battles against evil they had won. Endless lists of the names of the fallen which they would skip in secret, knowing that they were not important. They would not be asked about in the exam.
And yet behind every single name had once stood a living and breathing human being. Beneath every occurrence was a longer tale, endless amounts of suffering hidden away by a few emotionless words.
Stories like that will not remain in history.
History will not remember the friends and families that the war tore apart, cannot guess why, does not count tears.
History will not remember a human.
x~x
I may no longer be your friend
But this much I know.
I'm still me.
Away you turn if you are scared.
Walk into the black.
Yeah, I'm still me.
x~x
You are avoiding me. Don't for a second think I haven't noticed. I did notice it again today, when you muttered some transparent excuse and disapparated never telling where. I thought you were headed home, but I am here now. You are not.
Where are you? Why don't you confide in me anymore like you used to in the old days. Bloody hell, "in the old days". I'm talking like some grizzled old geezer of the times when his equally old pal Ed invented the wheel. But it's true, nevertheless. A few short years feel like an eternity, when they separate this moment from the times when we still could see into each other's hearts. Now I don't know you anymore.
A more ignorant person could mistake your small, slightly run down cottage for abandoned. The last flowers of the late summer grow wild under the windows, dressed up in all their brightly coloured glory. I don't know if they realise how badly their splendour suits these dark times. I'm jealous. To bloody flowers. Great, I'm going crazy on top of everything else.
I used to like this place. It looked like you, just as Godrick's Hollow resembles James and Lily. Now your empty house and the vast forest growing almost on your backyard frighten me.
We weren't with you, when you last transformed. None of us knows where you were.
I'm scared.
Today they knew again where we were. The end was a matter of a few seconds. They couldn't possibly just have guessed, not when this happened yet again. No one says it aloud, but everyone knows. One of us is no longer one of us.
I don't want to think about it. Nor the way you told me to mind my own business, when I asked why you had lied to me. You snarled at me and walked away, and I saw the full Moon glow beneath your eyes. You have always kept yourself so closely in check. What has happened to you, and when?
I'm more scared than I was when I for the first time looked Death straight into his merciless blood-red eyes. Back then I knew who the enemy was. Now I'm not sure anymore.
What the hell has happened to you, Moony? Where have you gone to?
x~x
You, forgotten you, forsaken you, forever you!
x~x
You lied to me again. It's you. It has to be you. Who else could it be?
Why?
x~x
You had the nerve to say,
that I've lost the way.
I'm still me.
After losing sanity,
together you and me,
Guess who still walks free. It's not…
x~x
You! Of course it was you! Who else could it have been?
I throw a framed photograph to a wall. Photo of you. The glass of the frame breaks, shatters into a million tiny pieces. Just like my life.
On the table the newspaper's headlines sing hallelujah, joyously laughing they mock my pain.
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Gone At Last!
Harry Potter, The Boy-Who-Lived, Survived The Attack!
James and Lily Potter Murdered
Accursed snake, how did I not see what you really were like? There were hundreds of clues for everybody to see, why didn't I dare to draw the conclusion? Why didn't I want to see how Black your soul truly was? You revealed yourself for what you were countless of times, and every time I pretended not to notice.
The frame around your picture is broken beyond repair, but you look at me still as if you couldn't see what the problem is. That same smile you smiled to them, too, when you swore to them that you would keep them safe. You smiled to them and fed honeyed poison in the form of words, until they trusted you more than they trusted even the Headmaster.
I doubted you. I just didn't want to say it aloud. Why didn't I do anything?
Why didn't I dare to accuse you even when you pinned me against the wall and called me a liar? You claimed that I had acted suspiciously, claimed that I could no longer be trusted. And they believed you, smiling they gave their lives into your hands.
Had your Master already decided on the day they would die?
At the very least you could not destroy everything. Your little Godson survived and your Master is defeated.
Everything is over.
x~x
You, forgotten you, forsaken you, forever you!
x~x
I will hunt you down, you filthy traitor! I swear you are going to pay for this!
x~x
This anger, with hunger.
You've chosen to hold on
To your bitter needs
x~x
"Where have you been?"
"It's none of your business, Sirius, leave me alone!"
"No! No one knows again where you were on the last full Moon!"
"Dubledore's business. Get lost, Sirius!"
"Business! I smelled somebody else's blood on your robes, Remus! What have you done?"
"Are you accusing me? Me? Which one of us was it again that attempted murder at the age of sixteen, old friend?"
"I said I was sorry! And don't change the subject! Peter has seen you in Greyback's pack! What have you done near that monster?"
"Have you asked Peter to follow me?"
"Answer me, Remus!"
"If you can't trust me enough to-"
"How could I trust you when you are never around and you lie about what you've been doing all the time! What have you done? Given in to your instincts, werewolf?"
"Burn in Hell, Black, I never want to see your face again!"
You disapparate in blind fury. I never meant to say any of those things to you. But you didn't deny having been with Greyback. You didn't answer a single question.
What has happened to you? What have you become? Why?
Dear Merlin, this is really happening.
x~x
You lost yourself somewhere.
Blamed me for not being there,
not loving a stranger, that was…
x~x
I fall on my knees and the shards of the glass that had been protecting your picture cut into my skin. I can't feel the glass. I can't feel anything at all. You have taken absolutely everything from me.
Sirius Black to Azkaban for Murdering 13 People
Peter Pettigrew to Receive a Posthumous Order of Merlin
When did it happen? When did you turn into a monster? When did we stop knowing you?
I don't know how long I have stayed on my knees, not moving. I watch as if in dream as my blood dries on the wooden floor. My mind seems to have stopped functioning.
We loved you!
Traitor!
The Ninth Hell is reserved for you.
It's not enough. You can never pay enough.
I'm numb all over. I stand up as cool as a wintery pond. Something breaks within me. I grab my wand and blinded by tears destroy everything in my sight. Teacups, plates, even the bookshelf explodes into splinters. Your picture grins at me from amidst the wreckage. I spit out a curse and you go up in flames.
Finally I throw even my wand to a wall and collapse in middle of my destroyed possessions.
When did you sell your soul to that red-eyed monster?
How could you!
For the first time in my life I pray for the Moon to be full. I pray for the emotionless bloodlust to wash me away. Anything to stop feeling this pain.
Why didn't kill me too? Why did you have to leave me alone?
Why?
x~x
You, forgotten you, forsaken you, forever you!
x~x
The day has been cloudy everywhere. To me the Sun will never shine again.
And you, my fallen brother… I will not forget you. I will hate you till the end of my days.
x~x
FUCK YOU!
x~x
Rain washes away the blood and the tears. Grass grows over graves and old battlefields. Memories fade from minds to the past, the ghosts whisper only to those who cannot forget.
History will not remember a human. Only stories remain, the truth being formed as they are told.
AN: Review?