small_gifts | Fic: The Cruelty of Words for Oddsbobs

penhaligonblue.livejournal.com posting in

Title: The Cruelty of Words
Author:

oddsbobs
Prompt: Trying to fall in love (or find each other again) during war time
Rating: PG
Notes: Many thanks to

comrade_sir for the beta read. Historical AU, set during World War I. Remus-centric.

The Cruelty of Words

As he stands at the window of his flat, gazing at the omnibuses clattering up and down the street in the weak December light, Remus finds himself haunted by a remembrance.

It was in the winter vac of his third year, during a tea his mother had given for one of her ladies’ societies – Remus had been studying in the adjacent room. The door to the parlor had been left just barely open, and Remus, who found silence suffocating when he was working, had allowed the indistinct hum of the conversation to pour in.

Art, books, politics. These women, lacking the freedoms their husbands and sons enjoyed, had no other choice than to talk, talk. Remus had let the noise wash over him, happy to scratch away at his essay, not listening to the particulars of the chatter, until one unfamiliar voice rose above the others, making his quill freeze midword.

Beasts, it said vehemently. Ought to be locked up. A danger to wizardkind.

It wasn’t that Remus hadn’t heard the words before – he had. But to hear them here, in his own home... His heartbeat deadened. His hands felt chill. The essay sat before him, entirely forgotten, his thought now trained on the stranger’s voice in the next room, each word amplified by its own harshness.

It’s unthinkable, the way the Ministry just turns a blind eye to the brutes. As though they’re perfectly normal, perfectly harmless. Can’t trust the Ministry to look after its own people, to keep my children safe out of the house. Animals, every one of them.

Even now, years later, he cannot shake this moment from his memory. Today the world lies in confusion, and even the Prophet cannot ignore the daily terrors of the Muggles’ Great War. Muggles, Remus thinks, go about killing in whatever manner will produce the most noise. In that world, murder is accompanied by gunshots, crashes, and explosions.

Not so with wizards. For them the deed is done with just two words – cruel words, biting words, words that beat in his mind for months after his father’s murder – but nothing more material than two words. Wizards do not kill with show. It is just an utterance, and then a life is gone.

Oh, yes. Remus Lupin knows the cruelty of words.

He steps away from the window, whose blinds are tinged with a crepuscular glow, and turns to look at the rest of the little room. Its only other occupant is the boy with whom he’s shared his life this past near-decade, in spite of all the risks and dangers – for Remus is no stranger to keeping secrets. This boy, who sits now reading the evening paper on their couch – tie undone, jacket rumpled, shoes cast off – is supposed to be his guard against that cruelty. But how can Remus trust to such feeble hope, when it is met with the malice of the entire world? What match are they two against such utter hate?

Sirius looks up from his paper, gives Remus a faint, tired smile, and says very simply, “I love you.”

And in those three words, hope is restored.