I do not know how I could write this story. If something like this ever happens in the books, I'll...I'll...I'll cry a lot until they change it sniff.
Disclaimer: I own only the plotline and the house. And (I wish) the photo album. I own none of the characters. Not one, although there's one I'd like to. If I did, I wouldn't be able to go shopping without people recognising me, and that would annoy me. I would, however, have a laptop.
Enjoy.
Dead End.
He stood with his back to the rough brick wall, panting, facing one of the other men. The man with the raised wand in his hand.
Dead end.
More people appeared, cloaked and masked in black, one picking up the battered wand lying feet from the wall and snapping it in two across his knee. The crack resounded throughout the usually deserted dark alley, and the man by the wall winced slightly at the sound. Now he knew he had no hope.
Flashback
Five years since the golden trio had left Hogwarts. The last battle had not yet taken place, but the death count was rising and the fight would soon come to a head.
The count would rise by one more tonight.
They had tracked him down to here. He had been at his lonely house, watching, from a dilapidated dark red sofa, a black-and-white Muggle TV an old friend had given him, when his front door burst from its hinges. Ten Death Eaters entered the house – he could identify most through their masks…the first spell was cast. The man Disapparated away immediately, but two Death Eaters, the thugs Crabbe and Goyle senior, had managed to grab hold of him, and were dragged along.
He had known this would happen sooner or later, known that they would come to find him, but how they did it he didn't know, and wouldn't like to speculate.
He knew who would be leading the group.
Hexing both men before they had a chance to come to their senses after the horrible sensation of Side-Along-Apparition, he managed to escape, but the others had followed, able to track Crabbe and Goyle by a special charm made up for this purpose.
As he tore down the night streets he knew he wouldn't be able to run for much longer. His breath was starting to come in ragged gasps by the time he saw the black entrance to another alley loom up on his left, so he darted into it, hoping he would be able to hide in the shadows, also hoping that he might even have the time to use a quick spell to quell the pain of the stitch in his side.
Bad choice.
It was a dead end, a brick wall that rose to the height of the houses, and he did not have enough energy left to do anything useful. There was not even a staircase leading higher up, where he could possibly have escaped over the roofs. Only ten minutes before, he had been sitting peacefully at home, half his mind on the television, and half thinking about old, happy memories from his school days, conjured up by the open photo album at his side, its occupants, almost all of them now deceased, waving merrily from its pages. Their photographs preserved while their bodies were long gone. Memories that brought a smile to his face, something that had not happened often these past few years.
He backed away as he heard the inevitable footsteps approaching.
End Flashback
"You must have known we would find you. There was no way you could hide."
The man by the wall did not respond.
"Any last words?"
"...Yes. Just a few. I know I have time because he" he jerked his head towards the man in front of him as he spat out the word, "he couldn't do it. He's too feeble to do anything like that." The man was banking on annoying his tormentor to the point where he would simply rant and rave, perhaps giving him enough time to get his breath back, and maybe even enough for members of the Order of the Phoenix to find him.
The short man at the front of the mob laughed from behind his black mask, and it was not his old laugh. Neither was it his old voice. This had a sharper edge to it that had not been there before, hardened over the years, maddened slightly by the Dark Lord's use of the Crucio curse on those who failed him, but hoarse from recent lack of use.
"Oh really? You think so, do you? Well, I'm about to prove you wrong." His eyes glinted slightly, showing his true inner madness, as he opened the palm of his hand. A small object on it glinted. This man had put a lot of thought and malice into thinking of the worst way to dispose of the ragged man slumped against the wall.
"Do you know what this is?"
The man by the wall gulped and nodded, his skin paling further than normal.
"Yes…."
"And I'm going to use it."
"No….no….no, no, you couldn't, you – you wouldn't!" He was shaking slightly, but trying to hide it. His bet on delaying the man had failed. And he had never expected anything like this. Anything as bad as this. But who knows what happens in the minds of people like…that?
"Like to bet your life on that? Telus!"
The shining object shot from the man's palm and buried itself in the other man's jugular vein. It bulged for a moment, and then all that could be heard was the wheezing noises as the man collapsed to the ground, his muscles jerking slightly as the object travelled past nerve pathways and found its way into the more major veins. Blood trickled from his mouth onto his deathly white face as he struggled for breath, his lungs seizing and refusing to fill. He knew then that it was over. Even if they found him now, this second, there was no way they could save him. No way in hell.
His eyes darkened as the sliver of silver sped towards his heart and Peter Pettigrew stepped forwards from where he had been watching with interest, his wand now by his side.
"Goodbye, Remus."
To all fellow Remus lovers out there, I apologise profusely for this story. My only defence, and I know it's a poor one,is that I though it was a good plotline at the time.
Please review.
