Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all its characters belong to J.K. Rowling, Warner Brothers, Scholastic Books, and anyone else involved publishing, filming, or selling the books. No infringement is intended. No money is being made.
Rating: K
Genre: Drama/Angst
Summary: Remus imagines and the snow falls. Vignette.
Note: Not beta'd. All mistakes my own, etc.
Simulacrum
by Padfootwolfboy
His hands shake as he strikes the match, that little bit of warmth, of color springing forth against a backdrop of gray. It has just snowed, is snowing, and the flakes cover his shoulders. The match slides slowly, then quickly, across the table top, igniting. It will leave a black burn on the wood, parallel to the others, but he does not mind as he lifts the ember to the cigarette limp in his lips and inhales. Smoke billows out and Remus coughs and sighs.
A teacup stands at his elbow. He replaces the cigarette with the cup and savors the feel of warm liquid in his mouth, down his throat, repairing the rasp. But the cup is empty and all he savors is his own imagination.
His hands shake as he replaces the cup, replaces the smoke, fiddles with the fringe at his cuff. His hands shake, but he thinks, that's all right. That is all right. He wipes the snow from his shoulder and hunches against the cold.
The night is quiet, out through that distant window that can only exist in his mind. Sirens sound once in the distant, but they too fade and everything is as it was. And he thinks, that's all right, as he takes a bite of the piece of bread, greenish blue like the color of the veins in his hands.
The bread is gone in an instant, before he realizes he meant to save half for tomorrow's meal, before he realizes that he should not eat so hastily. Like he has got someone to save it for. Like he has got something. It is with a burning shame in his lungs that has nothing to do with the smoke he's inhaled when he vomits something that could not be identified as food. But that, too, is all right.
He lies down next to the table, opposite the brown legs of the chair. The floor is hard, the blanket scratchy. His hands shake as he pulls it over his shoulders, letting the snow melt into its fibers. The bone of his ankle juts out from one corner.
He thinks, that's all right. This is all right, and imagines a bigger blanket, less moldy bread, a sweeter taste to the smoke.
He closes his eyes and drifts to sleep, the park bench under him just as hard as a floor. The snow falls, has fallen. The night is quiet.
Fin.