fic: Strangers on a Train for lhazzie
Nov. 22nd, 2014 09:08 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
laroseminuit.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
small_giftsTitle: Strangers on a Train
Author/Artist:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
laroseminuit
Recipient:lhazzie
Rating: PG
Contents or warnings (highlight to view): *none *
Word count: 2,532
Summary: Old friends meet on a train at night and discover their relationship is not a broken as they may have thought
Notes: I was actually on a train when I wrote this. My thanks to the tall, dark-haired man in seat D6 doing a crossword puzzle for serving as my unwitting muse. And, thank you to mutuisanimis for her excellent beta work.
The train moved through the silent countryside, gliding quietly through small towns and villages without pause; through the raindrops clinging to the glass of the windowpanes, the fairy lights and Christmas greenery were nothing but smudged streaks of evergreen and gold and red against the black of the night. It was some ungodly hour of the night which was in truth morning, except that calling it morning implied you had been to bed —Remus had not. He had left his remote island home in the wee hours, hitching a ride with the post boat to the mainland, where he caught the late afternoon train to Edinburgh. Then it was the last night-train to London, departing at midnight and scheduled to arrive just after six at King’s Cross.
Magical travel may have been faster, but Remus had distanced himself from the magical world since he was forced into hiding. With the betrayal of one of his closest friends, on top of his continued inability to find steady work (no employer wished to keep him on once his condition was made known), he had preferred the company of Muggles, and more and more now, no one at all. When they had parted, that dark October, the only place he could think to go was his Muggle grandfather’s weather-beaten farm cottage on Mingulay—he had never told any of his magical friends about it, and the nearest wizarding community was a long boat trip away. Now he raised a few sheep (who were, perhaps ironically, rather fond of him), did an odd spot of tutoring for the local Muggle children, and made small batch scotch whisky on his grandfather’s old still.
He was not so far out of touch with Magical Britain that he hadn’t heard of the defeat of Lord Voldemort back in August. But no one had come for him, and Remus understood that the rifts torn between the Marauders were permanent. When even your oldest friends can betray you, how can you trust anyone? Moreover, Peter was still at large, as far as Remus knew. The danger which had forced them into hiding could still be there. For him, those halcyon days of friendship were just cherished memories. If he had hoped—even suspected—that his relationship with Sirius may have been moving toward something even deeper than friendship, well, that was all in the past, now. He hadn’t had word of Sirius in almost a year and a half.
In all truth, Remus preferred the solitude. If Moony did not—if he kept lonely vigil for a stag, a dog, and a rat on the shore of the rocky, unnamed and uninhabited island Remus rowed to on full moon nights—well, Remus was not generally inclined to give much weight to the opinions of his lycanthropic Mr. Hyde.
He wouldn’t even be on this train now, making a long and rattling journey on the day before Christmas, if not for some sense of debt and gratitude to his former professor and head of house. Minerva McGonagall’s grandniece was to be married on Saint Stephen’s day in London, and she had requested a case of his finest whisky for the festivities. London, of course, was still under an anti-apparition ban while Aurors hunted down the remaining Death Eaters and put them to trial. Wars end quickly and smoothly only in history books, Remus mused. At any rate, the case was too bulky for floo and too fragile for port-key, and the Knight Bus didn’t come out as far as the islands. So train it was. It had been too short-notice for the Muggle trains, tickets for Christmas Eve being entirely sold out, but he had managed to secure a seat on the magical carriage that tagged along on each Muggle train.
This was where he was sitting for this last leg of his trip. He had ventured into the Muggle section to find the trolley and obtained a large volume of strong black tea with a splash of milk and three sugars (with a cream scone: the proper way to drink tea), which he carried carefully back to his seat in its thin paper cup. The train was just pulling out of Liverpool station as he sat back down.
A new passenger had come on board at Liverpool, and taken seat 6D, across from his. He was a well-dressed fellow, Remus noted absently; dressed in a fine wool robe of dark charcoal. He had his left leg propped across his right knee, rucking up the hem of the robe and revealing matching charcoal trousers with a subtle black pinstripe. His black dress shoes were impeccably polished and matched. The only departure from dignified solemnity was the bright red socks with animated golden snitches winging about his ankles. It made Remus smile inwardly as he efficiently devoured his really rather awful scone and gulped down his rapidly cooling tea.
It was only ten minutes later, as Remus was neatly banishing the empty paper cup and lingering crumbs of his snack, that he noted the handsome stranger had not moved an inch, except to chew ruminatively on the increasing disreputable end of his self-inking quill as he stared at his creased and rumpled copy of the previous day’s Times. Remus repositioned himself until he could surreptitiously peer at the page and noted the man was working on the crossword. He appeared to be stuck on “of or relating to charity, charitable (12 letters).”
It may have been the sudden flush of sugar in his system, or his exhausted mental state after nearly a full day of travel – whatever it was, Remus would later swear he had no idea what came over him to make him he clear his throat lightly and venture, “Do you think the answer to fifteen across might be ‘eleemosynary’?”
The man startled like a pheasant at a fox hunt. His natural instinct to straighten his leg was foiled when his foot caught in the hem of his robe and he overbalanced. He thrust out a hand to catch himself and only succeeding in thumping his quill against the seatback in front of him, which ejected a large jet of ink upon impact. It splattered across his robes and cheeks – possibly his hair as well, but it was hard tell, being black ink on inky black.
It was Remus’s turn to stare, open-mouthed, in horror at what his words had done. “My sincerest apologies,” he stammered, drawing his wand. “Allow me to help.” He whispered the word for the ink-removal spell that every student learned very early in their Hogwarts career, and swept the wandtip down in zig-zag swath from the man’s crown to his chest.
The man’s left hand shot out and grabbed Remus’s wand, his own wand in his right. Remus cursed his addled state—no matter how far removed from magical society, he knew better than to point wands at strangers in the last dregs of a long war—and made to apologize again, his fingers opening on his wand hand and his own left hand coming up in a gesture of surrender, but the stranger’s hoarse cry of “Moony?” made him pause.
His eyes widened as he realized that despite the short-cropped hair and fine robes, this was no stranger. “Sirius,” he said, his voice breathless from surprise. “I hardly recognized you.”
Sirius’s eye were roaming over his old friend, drinking in his own changes – a touch of premature grey at his temples; new scars on his cheek and the backs of his hands, but also a filling out of his shoulders and weight closer to his healthier Hogwarts days than when Sirius had last seen him. “You look good, Remus.”
Remus blinked. “As do you. You cut your hair. And you’ve upgraded somewhat from rumpled Quidditch jerseys.”
Sirius plucked at his robe and ran a hand through his hair as if to check its length. “Well, you’ve caught me at an odd time. I lost my hair in a cursed warehouse fire a couple months ago, and it’s just growing back in. You should have seen me running about for a week with no eyebrows. As for the clothes…I was going to ride my motorbike into London, but then this bloody rain started and soaked me to the bone before I was even out of Liverpool, so I left my bike at the station and caught the train. These were the only spare clothes I had with me.”
“Running off on your motorbike completely unprepared for the most predictable of circumstances…you really haven’t changed at all, have you?”
Sirius laughed the same barking laugh that filled Remus’s memories of school, before the war. And then he stopped, sobering. “Perhaps not, but there’s certainly been time. Moony, where have you been? The war’s basically over. I kept expecting to hear from you.”
Remus met his eyes, and then looked away. “I’ve been staying away from wizards. Dumbledore needed me less and less towards the end, as the dark creatures were pulling away from Voldemort, and it’s just been easier, with just the Muggles. They don’t ask too many questions.” Fatigue was making him more honest than he was wont to be. “And…you didn’t come looking. I figured you weren’t interested in mending broken friendships.”
Sirius was looking at him with an expression like Remus had just thumped him over the head with a beater’s bat. “Broken friendships?” He repeated it. “Is that what you think we had?”
Remus shrugged, turning his gaze to the window. The rain continued to pour in the darkness. He felt the rocking of the carriage as it rolled along, watched the blurred cheerful lights of another town slide by.
Sirius waited for a response until he grew impatient. “We separated to keep each other safe, Remus, not because we didn’t trust each other. What Peter did—what Peter tried to do—I don’t know where that came from. I don’t understand it, and I don’t think I ever will. But it doesn’t change what was between you and me and James. We’re best mates, Moony. I told you once I’d die for you, and I thought maybe that’s what I’ve done these past two years, alone, not knowing where you were, or what you were doing, with only Dumbledore’s occasional assurances that you were even still alive…” he ground to a stop, then finished quietly. “And…I had thought, perhaps…what we had, it wasn’t just friendship.”
“I know you love James. He’s like your brother,” Remus said, “I never aspired to be held in such esteem.”
“I do love you, Moony.” And here it was Sirius’s turn to look away toward the window, so Remus could only see the clench of his jaw. “But not like a brother.”
Remus’s voice, when he found it again, was tremulous. “Padfoot, I—” This was more than Remus could take, at four in the morning at the end of a long trip, finding a friend thought lost, and realizing that maybe all his past dreams could still come true. “I love you. Every day since we parted, I have thought this feeling should fade, but if anything, it’s worse.”
“Worse?” Sirius quirked a half smile. “I’m sorry loving me is so arduous.”
“I never thought I’d see you again.”
Sirius nodded. “I’ve been half-mad, ready to knock down Dumbledore’s office door and demand he take me to you. I know he’s been busy, rounding up the Death Eaters and making sure Voldemort is truly gone, and all, but damn it Remus, it doesn’t matter now. I’ve found you.”
“What about Peter?”
“Pox on Peter! If he comes at us again, we’ll be ready for him, now that he hasn’t got powerful backup to call on. His only power over us was the element of surprise, since we’d never have suspected him.” Remus didn’t think it would be that easy, but he was willing to table that discussion for another time.
“And what of James, Lily, and Harry? Have you had word of them?” Remus asked.
Sirius grinned. “Indeed I have! I’m on my way to their home off Diagon Alley for Christmas. And it’s James, Lily, Harry, and Alice, now. She was born in October. She looks just like Harry at that age, but with hair like a hedge on fire.” Sirius stood suddenly, and moved across the aisle to sit in the seat next to Remus, taking hold of his left hand in both of his own. “You must come. Cancel whatever plans you have. They have room, and I know they’ll want to see you.”
Remus began to protest. Sirius shushed him. “Give up now, Moony. You’ve never been able to make me change my mind before. You may as well give in now and save us both the effort. Then we can get a few hours of sleep before we make King’s Cross. James is picking us up. I can’t wait to see his face when he sees I’ve brought you as the best Christmas gift ever.”
Remus was too tired to disagree. He nodded his agreement, and then reached over to clear away Sirius’s discarded newspaper and quill. As he moved the newspaper, the crossword puzzle caught his eye. He carefully filled in 15-across, and as he slipped the items nearly into the seatback pocket, he asked, only slightly teasing, “And you’re sure this isn’t just an eleemosynary offering?”
“There is no charity in love, Moony, only the promise of all things.”
The End
Epilogue:
St Stephen’s day, a wedding
Minerva McGonagall swirled the whisky in her glass, inhaled deeply, and then took a small sip to taste the liquor. She nearly purred in pleasure, and took a larger sip. “Truly, Mr. Lupin, you are a man of many talents. This may be the finest whisky I have ever tasted. I do not know how you manage to make 25-year-old scotch in one year’s time, but I also do not want to know. And thank you so much for coming all the way here on such short notice to deliver it. The groom had been planning to serve Odgen’s, if you can believe it.”
Remus shook his head. “It was no trouble. And you wouldn’t guess who I met on the train. It seems Sirius is a guest here, as well, being some convoluted relation the groom.”
Minerva allowed a small smile to cross her lips as she examined the pen-and-ink drawing of a large black dog of the label of Canis Major Single Malt Scotch Whiskey, aged 25 years. “Well isn’t that serendipitous.”
Remus looked at her oddly, suddenly suspicious as his former professor seemed to be fighting a Cheshire grin. She couldn’t have arranged this, could she? How would she have known which train he was taking? How could she have arranged for a downpour at just the right time to cause him to abandon his motorbike? No, there were too many variables. It had to be truly coincidence.
He saw Sirius in the crowd and excused himself. As he walked away, Minerva poured herself a full measure of whiskey and wondered when she would next be attending a wedding.
Author/Artist:
laroseminuitRecipient:
lhazzieRating: PG
Contents or warnings (highlight to view): *none *
Word count: 2,532
Summary: Old friends meet on a train at night and discover their relationship is not a broken as they may have thought
Notes: I was actually on a train when I wrote this. My thanks to the tall, dark-haired man in seat D6 doing a crossword puzzle for serving as my unwitting muse. And, thank you to mutuisanimis for her excellent beta work.
The train moved through the silent countryside, gliding quietly through small towns and villages without pause; through the raindrops clinging to the glass of the windowpanes, the fairy lights and Christmas greenery were nothing but smudged streaks of evergreen and gold and red against the black of the night. It was some ungodly hour of the night which was in truth morning, except that calling it morning implied you had been to bed —Remus had not. He had left his remote island home in the wee hours, hitching a ride with the post boat to the mainland, where he caught the late afternoon train to Edinburgh. Then it was the last night-train to London, departing at midnight and scheduled to arrive just after six at King’s Cross.
Magical travel may have been faster, but Remus had distanced himself from the magical world since he was forced into hiding. With the betrayal of one of his closest friends, on top of his continued inability to find steady work (no employer wished to keep him on once his condition was made known), he had preferred the company of Muggles, and more and more now, no one at all. When they had parted, that dark October, the only place he could think to go was his Muggle grandfather’s weather-beaten farm cottage on Mingulay—he had never told any of his magical friends about it, and the nearest wizarding community was a long boat trip away. Now he raised a few sheep (who were, perhaps ironically, rather fond of him), did an odd spot of tutoring for the local Muggle children, and made small batch scotch whisky on his grandfather’s old still.
He was not so far out of touch with Magical Britain that he hadn’t heard of the defeat of Lord Voldemort back in August. But no one had come for him, and Remus understood that the rifts torn between the Marauders were permanent. When even your oldest friends can betray you, how can you trust anyone? Moreover, Peter was still at large, as far as Remus knew. The danger which had forced them into hiding could still be there. For him, those halcyon days of friendship were just cherished memories. If he had hoped—even suspected—that his relationship with Sirius may have been moving toward something even deeper than friendship, well, that was all in the past, now. He hadn’t had word of Sirius in almost a year and a half.
In all truth, Remus preferred the solitude. If Moony did not—if he kept lonely vigil for a stag, a dog, and a rat on the shore of the rocky, unnamed and uninhabited island Remus rowed to on full moon nights—well, Remus was not generally inclined to give much weight to the opinions of his lycanthropic Mr. Hyde.
He wouldn’t even be on this train now, making a long and rattling journey on the day before Christmas, if not for some sense of debt and gratitude to his former professor and head of house. Minerva McGonagall’s grandniece was to be married on Saint Stephen’s day in London, and she had requested a case of his finest whisky for the festivities. London, of course, was still under an anti-apparition ban while Aurors hunted down the remaining Death Eaters and put them to trial. Wars end quickly and smoothly only in history books, Remus mused. At any rate, the case was too bulky for floo and too fragile for port-key, and the Knight Bus didn’t come out as far as the islands. So train it was. It had been too short-notice for the Muggle trains, tickets for Christmas Eve being entirely sold out, but he had managed to secure a seat on the magical carriage that tagged along on each Muggle train.
This was where he was sitting for this last leg of his trip. He had ventured into the Muggle section to find the trolley and obtained a large volume of strong black tea with a splash of milk and three sugars (with a cream scone: the proper way to drink tea), which he carried carefully back to his seat in its thin paper cup. The train was just pulling out of Liverpool station as he sat back down.
A new passenger had come on board at Liverpool, and taken seat 6D, across from his. He was a well-dressed fellow, Remus noted absently; dressed in a fine wool robe of dark charcoal. He had his left leg propped across his right knee, rucking up the hem of the robe and revealing matching charcoal trousers with a subtle black pinstripe. His black dress shoes were impeccably polished and matched. The only departure from dignified solemnity was the bright red socks with animated golden snitches winging about his ankles. It made Remus smile inwardly as he efficiently devoured his really rather awful scone and gulped down his rapidly cooling tea.
It was only ten minutes later, as Remus was neatly banishing the empty paper cup and lingering crumbs of his snack, that he noted the handsome stranger had not moved an inch, except to chew ruminatively on the increasing disreputable end of his self-inking quill as he stared at his creased and rumpled copy of the previous day’s Times. Remus repositioned himself until he could surreptitiously peer at the page and noted the man was working on the crossword. He appeared to be stuck on “of or relating to charity, charitable (12 letters).”
It may have been the sudden flush of sugar in his system, or his exhausted mental state after nearly a full day of travel – whatever it was, Remus would later swear he had no idea what came over him to make him he clear his throat lightly and venture, “Do you think the answer to fifteen across might be ‘eleemosynary’?”
The man startled like a pheasant at a fox hunt. His natural instinct to straighten his leg was foiled when his foot caught in the hem of his robe and he overbalanced. He thrust out a hand to catch himself and only succeeding in thumping his quill against the seatback in front of him, which ejected a large jet of ink upon impact. It splattered across his robes and cheeks – possibly his hair as well, but it was hard tell, being black ink on inky black.
It was Remus’s turn to stare, open-mouthed, in horror at what his words had done. “My sincerest apologies,” he stammered, drawing his wand. “Allow me to help.” He whispered the word for the ink-removal spell that every student learned very early in their Hogwarts career, and swept the wandtip down in zig-zag swath from the man’s crown to his chest.
The man’s left hand shot out and grabbed Remus’s wand, his own wand in his right. Remus cursed his addled state—no matter how far removed from magical society, he knew better than to point wands at strangers in the last dregs of a long war—and made to apologize again, his fingers opening on his wand hand and his own left hand coming up in a gesture of surrender, but the stranger’s hoarse cry of “Moony?” made him pause.
His eyes widened as he realized that despite the short-cropped hair and fine robes, this was no stranger. “Sirius,” he said, his voice breathless from surprise. “I hardly recognized you.”
Sirius’s eye were roaming over his old friend, drinking in his own changes – a touch of premature grey at his temples; new scars on his cheek and the backs of his hands, but also a filling out of his shoulders and weight closer to his healthier Hogwarts days than when Sirius had last seen him. “You look good, Remus.”
Remus blinked. “As do you. You cut your hair. And you’ve upgraded somewhat from rumpled Quidditch jerseys.”
Sirius plucked at his robe and ran a hand through his hair as if to check its length. “Well, you’ve caught me at an odd time. I lost my hair in a cursed warehouse fire a couple months ago, and it’s just growing back in. You should have seen me running about for a week with no eyebrows. As for the clothes…I was going to ride my motorbike into London, but then this bloody rain started and soaked me to the bone before I was even out of Liverpool, so I left my bike at the station and caught the train. These were the only spare clothes I had with me.”
“Running off on your motorbike completely unprepared for the most predictable of circumstances…you really haven’t changed at all, have you?”
Sirius laughed the same barking laugh that filled Remus’s memories of school, before the war. And then he stopped, sobering. “Perhaps not, but there’s certainly been time. Moony, where have you been? The war’s basically over. I kept expecting to hear from you.”
Remus met his eyes, and then looked away. “I’ve been staying away from wizards. Dumbledore needed me less and less towards the end, as the dark creatures were pulling away from Voldemort, and it’s just been easier, with just the Muggles. They don’t ask too many questions.” Fatigue was making him more honest than he was wont to be. “And…you didn’t come looking. I figured you weren’t interested in mending broken friendships.”
Sirius was looking at him with an expression like Remus had just thumped him over the head with a beater’s bat. “Broken friendships?” He repeated it. “Is that what you think we had?”
Remus shrugged, turning his gaze to the window. The rain continued to pour in the darkness. He felt the rocking of the carriage as it rolled along, watched the blurred cheerful lights of another town slide by.
Sirius waited for a response until he grew impatient. “We separated to keep each other safe, Remus, not because we didn’t trust each other. What Peter did—what Peter tried to do—I don’t know where that came from. I don’t understand it, and I don’t think I ever will. But it doesn’t change what was between you and me and James. We’re best mates, Moony. I told you once I’d die for you, and I thought maybe that’s what I’ve done these past two years, alone, not knowing where you were, or what you were doing, with only Dumbledore’s occasional assurances that you were even still alive…” he ground to a stop, then finished quietly. “And…I had thought, perhaps…what we had, it wasn’t just friendship.”
“I know you love James. He’s like your brother,” Remus said, “I never aspired to be held in such esteem.”
“I do love you, Moony.” And here it was Sirius’s turn to look away toward the window, so Remus could only see the clench of his jaw. “But not like a brother.”
Remus’s voice, when he found it again, was tremulous. “Padfoot, I—” This was more than Remus could take, at four in the morning at the end of a long trip, finding a friend thought lost, and realizing that maybe all his past dreams could still come true. “I love you. Every day since we parted, I have thought this feeling should fade, but if anything, it’s worse.”
“Worse?” Sirius quirked a half smile. “I’m sorry loving me is so arduous.”
“I never thought I’d see you again.”
Sirius nodded. “I’ve been half-mad, ready to knock down Dumbledore’s office door and demand he take me to you. I know he’s been busy, rounding up the Death Eaters and making sure Voldemort is truly gone, and all, but damn it Remus, it doesn’t matter now. I’ve found you.”
“What about Peter?”
“Pox on Peter! If he comes at us again, we’ll be ready for him, now that he hasn’t got powerful backup to call on. His only power over us was the element of surprise, since we’d never have suspected him.” Remus didn’t think it would be that easy, but he was willing to table that discussion for another time.
“And what of James, Lily, and Harry? Have you had word of them?” Remus asked.
Sirius grinned. “Indeed I have! I’m on my way to their home off Diagon Alley for Christmas. And it’s James, Lily, Harry, and Alice, now. She was born in October. She looks just like Harry at that age, but with hair like a hedge on fire.” Sirius stood suddenly, and moved across the aisle to sit in the seat next to Remus, taking hold of his left hand in both of his own. “You must come. Cancel whatever plans you have. They have room, and I know they’ll want to see you.”
Remus began to protest. Sirius shushed him. “Give up now, Moony. You’ve never been able to make me change my mind before. You may as well give in now and save us both the effort. Then we can get a few hours of sleep before we make King’s Cross. James is picking us up. I can’t wait to see his face when he sees I’ve brought you as the best Christmas gift ever.”
Remus was too tired to disagree. He nodded his agreement, and then reached over to clear away Sirius’s discarded newspaper and quill. As he moved the newspaper, the crossword puzzle caught his eye. He carefully filled in 15-across, and as he slipped the items nearly into the seatback pocket, he asked, only slightly teasing, “And you’re sure this isn’t just an eleemosynary offering?”
“There is no charity in love, Moony, only the promise of all things.”
The End
Epilogue:
St Stephen’s day, a wedding
Minerva McGonagall swirled the whisky in her glass, inhaled deeply, and then took a small sip to taste the liquor. She nearly purred in pleasure, and took a larger sip. “Truly, Mr. Lupin, you are a man of many talents. This may be the finest whisky I have ever tasted. I do not know how you manage to make 25-year-old scotch in one year’s time, but I also do not want to know. And thank you so much for coming all the way here on such short notice to deliver it. The groom had been planning to serve Odgen’s, if you can believe it.”
Remus shook his head. “It was no trouble. And you wouldn’t guess who I met on the train. It seems Sirius is a guest here, as well, being some convoluted relation the groom.”
Minerva allowed a small smile to cross her lips as she examined the pen-and-ink drawing of a large black dog of the label of Canis Major Single Malt Scotch Whiskey, aged 25 years. “Well isn’t that serendipitous.”
Remus looked at her oddly, suddenly suspicious as his former professor seemed to be fighting a Cheshire grin. She couldn’t have arranged this, could she? How would she have known which train he was taking? How could she have arranged for a downpour at just the right time to cause him to abandon his motorbike? No, there were too many variables. It had to be truly coincidence.
He saw Sirius in the crowd and excused himself. As he walked away, Minerva poured herself a full measure of whiskey and wondered when she would next be attending a wedding.
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