This was meant to be a one-shot, but Dark One convinced me to write some more. Ah, well it is Christmas, I may continue with a few more snapshots from this more bizarre war, but don't hold your breath.

Shards of Shattered Glass

Lost in this place, like fragments of another time
I close my eyes and see myself from above
Drifting apart, like splinters of scattered glass
But we all have our own reasons to continue
Don't you want it this way?
Don't you need it this way?
Don't you love it this way?
Don't you need it anyway...
-Kovenant, Stillborn Universe

Stephan reached into his pocket and drew out a packet of cigarettes, he took one out and tried to light it with his wand, but his hands were shaking so badly he kept missing. Finally Avery took out his own wand and lit for him.

"Thanks." Stephan nodded to the older man.

They were standing the remains of what had once been Charing Cross road. Once busy and bustling it was now empty, buildings in ruins cars burnt out and chunks of stone blocking whole sections of the street.

The rain was coming down hard and the air chilly, Strephan shivered. Water was tricking down the back of his neck and the Dark Mark ached dully on his arm, the emptiness after the adraline rush leaving his feeling tired and dead.

Flashes of the last raid flickered in his eyes, it had turned very nasty, some muggle army regiments had holed up inside the Underground station and they had been charge with flushing them out.

After hiding down there for three days without food or water the muggles had tried to run for it. There had been a very bloody skirmish by the blasted entrance and most had been killed. Stephan now sported a livid, three inch cut across his palm from a desperate attack by a knife wielding muggle.

"Should be over by Samhain." Avery said, staring at the roiling mass of cloud above them.

Stephan choked on his cigarette and laughed, "That's what they say in every war Avery, haven't been right yet."

He pulled down his hood, it was soaked through anyway. The rain plastered his trademark red hair over his face.

"Well, if it is, you're welcome to come to my family house for the festivities."

Troubled blue eyes regarded Avery is surprise, "Thank you Dermon, I'd like that."

"Must have been a while since you had a proper Hallow'ene feast eh?"

Stephen laughed, "Oh yes, you could say that. Not since I left school in fact."

There was a pause.

"I heard about your family, Stephan. They're still alive, we haven't seen them since just after the ministry fell and the muggles have them on their 'most wanted' list so they haven't got them."

"Probably hiding in some hole with Harry Potter." Stephan shrugged.

Dermon Avery smiled, "Probably, haven't heard of that brat for about as long, so much for the 'Saviour of the wizarding world', eh?"

Stephan took a long drag on his cigarette to staedy his still shaking hands and nodded, a wry smile twisting his lips.

Yes, so much for the great Potter...

So much for the Boy Who Lived...

Not for the first time, Stephan felt a pang. He could have been like that. He could have looked up to Harry Potter and Dumbledore like so many did.
Like his family did.
It wasn't much of an ache, a vague longing for something he had never had and would never have. He got them occasionally, never enought to sway him from his road.

They both gasped in pain as the grinning skulls on their forearms burnt black.

"Come on them Stephan." Avery pushed himself upright from where he'd been leaning against the wall. "Work to do, muggles to kill, Dark Lords to obey..."

Stephan Weasley laughed softly and followed his brother in arms down the road to what had once been Leicester Square and would now be a battlefield in the raging war.

Shards of shattered glass glittering in the pelting rain from the broken windows above them.

Skull Bearer.