Author's Note: A pointless yarn to make Babbitt smile, and hopefully give you the same reaction. If anything, call it a character sketch. For some reason for me, Remus is a hippie and Severus an ice cream addict. So sue me. Inspired by Feel Good Inc. and Deep Space Nine. R/R
Disclaimer: "If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended,
That you did but slumber'd here while these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme is no more yielding then a dream."
-Midsummer's Night Dream
"A great tragedy has ended. We have known the bitterness of defeat, and the exhalation of triumph. From both we have learned...there can be no going back."
- General Douglas Macarthur
"Take it all in on your stride, it is sinking, falling down.
Love forever love is free, let's turn forever you and me:
Windmill, windmill for the land, is everybody in?"
- Feel Good Inc
Ice Cream Protests
The Order of the Phoenix was playing Tag. It occurred to Remus Lupin sometime after the revelation that he could twist that into something deeply symbolic of the war at large, or of how each member coped with something bigger and scarier then themselves at such a time. But that wouldn't be truthful. The truth was simple. The Order of the Phoenix was playing Tag in Moody's front yard. Sirius was it. He liked being it. He would follow his nose or the screams to the women then made a point to accidentally fall on the woman's bosom. The more endowed she was, the clumsier Sirius seemed to get. Not that it mattered much. Sirius was handsome, smiled easily and laughed quicker and had a certain boyish naïve that people longed for at such times. Sirius' mentality was then, and Remus was quite certain, would forever be trapped in the third year of Hogwarts.
Black was the kind of man who still snickered when someone said boogers.
It made him the life of any party.
Remus sat quietly in the kitchen staring out into space, listening to the laughter outside. He could hear them all acutely, from Lily proclaiming once more that if James did not protect her bosom from Sirius, she would run off with Peter and be done with them all. Moody then proclaimed that he would be a better find and proposed to her on the spot. James' groans and proclamations of his undying love for Sirius drowned out her answer.
It was all so damn normal.
Well, normal for them.
Remus looked down and scanned the paper on the table. The Ministry of Magic was dragging the Thames for the remains of Caradoc Dearborn. Last week, the Bones had been attacked. McKinnon was in hiding. Four Muggle homes had been ravaged. They had taken photographs of the Dark Mark. People were beginning to notice what Remus already knew acutely; they were losing the war.
Remus ran his hands through his hair and felt like laughing. In the back of his mind, he could hear Grayback's laughter pounding at his skull. The full moon was a night after tomorrow, which only added to his restlessness, his hunger and his mood. It was times like this that Remus desperately hated himself. It was times like this he was tempted. So very tempted.
Tempted to do what exactly, he thought to himself, throwing his hands over the paper, covering the grim moving photographs of Aurors and their serious stony faced frowns. He snorted angrily, closing his eyes and trying to block out the laughter outside.
Hestia had taken matters into her own hands, it seemed, and grabbed Sirius somewhere between his kneecaps and his navel. The general chorus was shouting her praise.
Normalcy, Remus cursed it, at its obscene extremes.
"Troubling thoughts, Lupin?"
Remus jumped at the sound of the voice. Severus Snape had appeared as easily, and naturally as a shadow. He had done that during school too. Silked around like a viper, waiting and playing unassuming until just the right time to strike. And when he did, it was vicious.
That had been half the reason Sirius and James had made such sport of him, Remus thought as he sized up the man, they feared him. It was natural to fear snakes: quiet things usually were most dangerous.
Take him for example.
"Ah," Severus murmured, sounding like rain as he slithered towards the fridge. "I see you are as vocal and eloquent as you were in school."
"Forgive me, Severus." Remus began, shaking his head. "I was…"
"No." Remus blinked and frowned. Snape played off that look. "I do not forgive you."
Remus shrugged, and looked back at the paper, suddenly uncomfortable with the room. He reached over and began to tug at the corners of the paper, folding them over. "I was just thinking."
"A painful experience, I'm sure."
Remus ignored that. "..about the war."
"Aha. I was right."
He looked up, watching as Severus pulled down two glass bowls from the cupboard, and proceed to the silver drawer, pulling out a fork, and two spoons. Remus noticed there was blood under Snape's fingernails. There was a bandage over his left wrist. He wondered what happened. Snape was moving with the deftness and professionalism of a hunter: clean, efficient and swift. Odd considering he had never been in the house before.
"How do you know where to find those things?" Remus asked, for no other reason then to fill the silence.
Snape's lips curved upward, as he peeled back the freezer door. "Auror homes. All the same."
"How would you…nevermind."
"Wise man."
Remus watched as Snape set down the bowls between them. Sometime during his work, Severus had cut and served a pie into one of the bowls, the cherry oozing from outsides. He watched as Snape dug into the paper container of ice cream. Two light, uneven scoops of caramel colored ice cream appeared over the pie. The plate was pushed towards Lupin. Remus watched in continued silence as the second bowl became filled.
Snape did not sit. He lifted the bowl to his chest, and bent to meet the spoonful. Remus picked up his fork and stabbed the ice cream. "Why?"
A brow arched under a curtain of black hair as equally blacked eyes settled on him.
"Why…how…"
"Ice cream should never be eaten alone."
"You're serious."
"As the Killing Curse."
Remus scooped the ice cream into his mouth. Butter Pecan merged with Cherry Filling into some sweet sticky goo that stuck to the top of his mouth. He wanted to laugh again as he peeled it off with his tongue. He glared at Severus. "Snape, you hate me." This received a nod. "Do you see what you're doing?" Another nod. "Damn it, Severus, there's a war going on right now! People are dying all around us, spies are everywhere…and those…fools out there are playing tag and you're in here eating ice cream! Do you see that insanity that has taken all of you over?"
Snape's black eyes had him fixed. For a moment, Remus wasn't sure if Snape was listening at all. He decided he didn't care. He needed to say this. "We should be doing something! We should be fighting or protesting or refusing or something! We should be acting! We need to stand against him."
"The Dark Lord?" Snape asked quietly. It was his turn to accept a nod. He looked down at his bowl in thought. "I am taking a stand. I refuse to eat ice cream alone. This, I deny him."
Remus watched him for a moment, without thinking. After a moment, he sighed and did what he could.
After all, his ice cream was melting.