Remus didn't know what he had expected really. White clouds, pearly gates, a long, golden staircase that wound endlessly into the sky.
He'd thought about death often enough, imagined his inevitable end with a morbid curiosity. Sometimes, he imagined an oblivion. An endless expanse of empty nothing, stretching to forever. Other times, a fiery pit filled with monsters like him.
Sometimes, when he was particularly hopeful, during the rare times that he drifted to sleep somewhere warm and safe and weeks from a full moon, he'd imagine a common room. Red walls, soft couches, smiles and laughter from people who already knew what lay beyond death.
He had not—however—imagined a train station. It was... mundane. Nothing like the fairytale heavens and hells his brain conjured up for him.
"Fitting," Remus muttered to himself as he stared around the pristine halls of King's Cross Underground Station. The more he stared, the more the walls seemed to solidify around him. White, clean pillars arched around a bright, domed walls were clean, the signs that held the times were blank, and the train tracks lay empty.
It seemed oddly peaceful. After all, Remus Lupin had been expecting this since he was four years old.
Remus walked up the platform, not knowing where to go but not minding either. His mind drifted, floating somewhere between remembering and imagining. There had been a fight, he remembered that much. Spells and screaming and everything just falling. Brick, dust, ash, and people; all tumbling down around him in one deafening roar.
Remus squeezed his eyes closed, trying to remember. There had been people wearing black cloaks and fierce faces. Faces he knew, and some younger ones he vaguely recognised from years ago. They had all been shouting and yelling and—
"Where am I?"
The voice echoed around the station. Remus spun around frantically, only to catch a glimpse of a young, mousy-haired boy darting behind a pillar. Remus ran after him, but the boy had vanished.
"Hello?"
Another voice drifted from the other end of the platform. Remus squinted as another figure, this time of a young girl, walked behind a pillar and out of sight. He followed her, jogging down the platform.
He spotted an older man on the platform opposite. Remus wheeled around, but as he ran to catch up, the man turned a corner and vanished. More voices were drifting up now. Confused and lost and afraid. Young voices, each ringing through the air and echoing around the empty station like alarm bells.
"Is anyone there?"
"Hello?"
"Where—"
"Hello, Remus."
Remus's heart stopped. Standing in front of him, red hair blazing like a burning fire against the white station, Lily Evans stood bold as brass, grinning cheekily.
"Are you coming?" She gestured towards the platform where, as though by magic, stood an enormous train, puffing clouds of clean, white smoke onto the domed ceiling above. It sat idly on the tracks, just as large and beautiful as the Hogwarts Express had been the first time he'd been to Kings Cross Station.
"Come on, Remus. We've saved you a seat." Lily turned and skipped lightly towards the carriage doors. She threw them open and Remus heard laughter; roars of cheers and celebrations and suddenly, Remus was transported back to 1980. A time between the fighting, when the Order's ranks were still full and Alice had announced her pregnancy and they had taken photos to remember that they still had something worth fighting for.
Remus watched as Lily's flaming hair disappeared into the carriage and, as though tugged by magnets deep in his bones, Remus's feet began to follow her.
Until another person darted past his vision.
"Is anyone there?"
"Where am I?"
"Moony!"
Remus' eyes snapped back to the carriage as Sirius Black's head appeared in the door, looking younger and happier than Remus could ever remember seeing it.
"Honestly, such a Prefect," Sirius mocked, rolling his eyes. "They'll be fine! Come on!" He threw himself back into the train and a roar of laughter erupted again. Remus thought he could almost make out the voices, voices he hadn't heard in years.
He took another step towards the train. The windows were lit with a warm, yellow light and he thought he could see shadows moving just on the other side of the glass.
"Is anyone there?"
"George? George!"
Remus froze. That voice was familiar. He turned away from the train, looking for the source but—
"You were always late, even at school. Helping all the lost first years in the corridors. Honestly, it's no wonder you ended up a Prefect."
James Potter leaned casually against the train, his arms folded and studying Remus jokingly through square-framed glasses. He looked just as Remus liked to remember him. Happy and confident and full of life.
Remus couldn't help but smile.
"Come on, we're all waiting on you." James turned and hoisted himself up into the carriage where the joyful laughter was still drifting from the doors.
Remus hesitated. There were still voices calling from the station, lost and afraid.
"What about the others?" he called to James.
James turned, giving him a soft smile. "They'll find their own carriage. See?" He gestured down the train, and Remus could just make out the people boarding. The sandy haired boy he saw earlier, a flash of familiar ginger, and a blaze of neon pink.
"You ready?" James asked as Remus stared at the place the pink hair had been. He looked up at the train, at the warm windows and familiar shadows. The white station didn't seem as comforting anymore. Not when the train was so inviting.
James reached out his hand and Remus took it. "Where are we going?"
The black-haired boy grinned back at him, mischief dancing in his eyes just as it had been the last time he and James Potter had been on a train leaving King's Cross Station together.
"On!"
THC
House: Ravenclaw
Class: Astronomy
Drabble
WC: 989
Prompt: [Word] Fairytale