Running Up That Hill(A Deal With God)
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2:
Running Up That Hill(A Deal With God)
It started with a crash.
Remus had been there simply for a visit with Sirius, which he did quite often these days. His friend was lonely, and Remus didn’t have much to do aside from Order missions that he rarely got to do and the occasional odd job he got to pay for his doses each month(especially with Severus being out of the picture on that front). This time around he’d been staying all week, and it was on a frigid wednesday evening that all hell broke loose.
They were at the table, he and Remus, chatting away about ‘the old times’, when the pop of apparition sounded and a loud crash was heard.
After that, it was deathly silent. Remus casted Sirius a wide eyed look and found it to be mirrored, so he quickly schooled his expression and placed his forefinger to his lips in order to keep him quiet. He tugged out his wand and stood, making his way to the door slowly and on high alert.
Death Eaters? Someone here to visit? But in either case, there’d at least be knocking-
Remus stood on the wall near the door, placing a hand against it. His heart beat in his throat, and he fought to stay steady minded. If this truly was an attack, then he’d need to be level headed and present for the ordeal.
Sirius peered at him from the other room, a dagger that the curly haired man kept on his thigh consistently now braced in his hand. His eyes were both wide in anxiety and apprehension, eyebrows curved into focused lines as his lips pursed.
Remus casts a disillusionment charm on himself nonverbally if only to disorient any potential attacker as he takes a breath, kicking the bucket and grasping the door to tug it open.
At first, Remus wasn’t sure what he was looking at.
It caught up to him slowly though-piles of robes, what appeared to be two figures face down on the lawn, one blonde and the other-raven haired.
Is that-
Remus quickly removed the disillusionment, racing over to assess the bodies. He flips the blonde over first in case they are a danger-
Oh.
Narcissa Malfoy…or, her limp body anyway, stares up at him through wide, lifeless blue eyes. Remus checks her neck artery, his suspicions confirmed when no pulse makes an appearance.
Remus’ chest suddenly feels very heavy.
The werewolf moves on, mind now clinical as he shifts the other form. He rolls them over-
Snape. Severus. Oh.
His face is quite purpled, nose dripping blood sluggishly, cheeks and lips swollen, eyes surrounded by shadowed circles.
Most alarmingly, however, is the awareness in those eyes. The raw fear pooled in the obsidian.
“Severus-” Remus rasps, voice barely above a whisper. The man seems to gain some sense of a reaction, as his eyes flinch shut in almost resignation. Remus spares a look at his other injuries.
It’s bad. And Remus has never claimed to be a healer.
“SIRIUS.” He shouts sternly, and is joined by his friend not even a second later.
“Moony, what-Merlin.”
Sirius freezes up, eyes stuck on Narcissa’s limp body. He looks haunted, swallowing down a lump in his throat.
“Is she-”
“Sirius.” Remus snaps, giving him a stern look. Sirius finally drags his eyes on Severus’ body, and seems shaken ever more.
“Bloody hell-”
“Summon the Order Sirius, for fuck’s sake.”
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Severus did not want to be here.
He did not want to be anywhere, really.
It was far too much-had been, for the past 24 hours. He was grateful, for the first time, that a particularly brutal Legilimency assault from the Dark Lord himself had snapped something inside of his mind and rendered his pain receptors null and void. Probably not a good thing in the long run, but right now it suited him just fine, because Remus Lupin assuredly does not know how to handle a body with obviously broken bones.
The couch, he concedes, at least is comfortable. Well, he assumes it is. He can’t really feel anything.
Remus is asking him things, talking to him, and Severus very much wants to punch his face. He can’t process the words, he can hear them, it just…doesn’t register in his mind. Not that Remus would understand that.
Time becomes a slight blur, and now Albus is in his face.
He feels the cold intrude into his mind, and tries his damndest to fight it back fight it back fight it back fight it back fight it back-
“-ay Severus, really y-”
“-ot resp-”
“-oody hell-”
Severus blinks quickly. The voices slowly begin registering…what the hell?
Then Sirius Black is in his face, but he’s quickly pushed away by Albus’ hand. There’s too many voices for him to concentrate.
“Mmh-”
The room goes silent at his noise, thank Merlin. He traces the figures before him with his eyes, assessing his situation.
He was in the cell.
He was cold. He felt cold. He’d been cold for a while. He didn’t even notice until Lucius had…
Oh. Lucius.
Narcissa.
Oh, no.
He feels his chest constrict, tears spilling despite himself. His shields being brutally destroyed had made him more emotional, he’d come to realize. Which must have been the plan, if he was being honest. Make him vulnerable, make him hurt.
From the blur of his tears and choked, pained sobs, he can tell he’s just unsettled everyone there. He doesn’t exactly understand why, although there’s a white hot alarmed prodding in one of the fragments of his mind, signaling something he hasn’t quite caught up to yet.
And someone is holding his face, waving their wand above it.
Lucius, grabbing his face-
He jerks violently from their grasp, wincing at the dulled hunch of discomfort he registers should probably be pain. They try to grab him again, but no, he won't let them.
“Severus, please-”
A soft, feminine, motherly voice. Mum? Was it? No, that seems wrong. Lily, perhaps? No, can’t be. That didn’t feel right either. He blinks away his tears, and sees red. Lily? No, no. Really not. Red hair. Weasley. Molly. Safe.
He slowly untenses, letting his face fall into her hands again. Her fingers pry his mouth open, and he just allows it, because she’s Molly. And she’s safe.
There’s an agonized cry, and Molly is jumping back. She looks quite shaken, trembling even. Did he hurt her…? No, no, no. Molly was safe. Molly…is safe? Lily…no, Molly…is she safe?
Did he do that? He didn’t mean to. He didn’t mean to do that. He didn’t mean to slip up and get caught. He didn’t mean to make Lucius upset. Didn’t mean to kill her, he didn’t…’Cissa, ‘Cissa-
Someone is touching him again. He doesn’t like that. Who is touching him-
He focuses for a moment-Poppy. Poppy is good. He trusts Poppy. Doesn’t he? Does he? Who is he?
Oh. He is…He’s Prince. Must be. That’s what…what she had called him…
‘Cissa. ‘Cissa. ‘Cissa. ‘Cissa.
“Severus, can you blink once for yes and twice for no, when I ask you a few questions?”
Can he? He thinks so. Yes. Poppy. Oh. He should blink, shouldn’t he?
So he does, though his eyes stick together for a bit longer than he’d intended.
“Very well. Severus, do you know where you are?”
Does he? No. Sirius is here. Sirius is only in one place, far away. Sirius is far away, that’s good, he tells himself. He blinks once.
“Now, do you know who I am?”
Yes. he blinks once.
“Do you know who you are?”
The question hurts. Why does it hurt?! He’s Prince, he’s Prince. Must be. That’s who he is.
He blinks once, though he can feel himself shaking.
“Oh, poor dear. Now, Severus, do you feel anything when I do this-”
She does something. He can see her move, but decidedly cannot feel a thing.
He blinks twice.
Poppy seems a bit paler than before. She asks him the same question a few more times, the answer being the same each time, and Severus begins feeling like he’s done something wrong. He didn’t mean to…to do anything bad.
Tears well up in his eyes again, and Poppy looks rather panicked at the wobbling of his lip.
“Shh, shh. It's alright love-”
No it wasn’t. He’d done something bad. And now he was going to be hurt, or someone was going to die. They were going to die, because of him!
He knows he’s breathing too fast. He knows that makes Poppy look sick. He knows he’s been bad, bad, bad!
Something is pressed against his lips, down his numb throat, and he feels sleepy.
So, he drifts off.
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Remus felt unwell.
He was in the living room watching Poppy work her magic whilst having arm wrapped around Sirius, who was staring at the floor with a conflicted expression.
Kingsley, Tonks and Moody had gone off to deal with Narcissa’s body, and Albus was watching over Poppy’s work, occasionally offering help when needed. Molly and Arthur had rushed into the kitchen, Molly to make food and recover from..well. And Arthur because he was squeamish, had gone to help her.
And Severus…Merlin.
There had been times when Remus felt bad for the man. When he’d mentioned Lily once while trying to chat with him, and he had visibly flinched. When James had cast Levicorpus on him and had him strung in the air, when the rumor of how his mother had died went floating around the school, and the times when Severus didn’t fight back against the onslaught of attacks and merely let it happen with a resigned expression.
But what Remus was feeling now was not pity, or even really sympathy. Because he couldn’t sympathize, nobody could, nobody could possibly understand what he’d just endured, and if they could they were likely dead. No, Remus was horrified for Severus.
When Molly had…opened his mouth…
Remus shudders, eyes lowering.
This was wrong. Nobody deserved this. Nobody but, well, Voldemort.
There were other injuries, quite awful but healable. No, the…mouth, nerve and mental damage seemed to be the worst of it. Which, and Remus wasn’t going to try and downplay anything, was quite bad. Very bad. Severus very well may never recover. Well, the whole speaking issue wouldn’t…that was already solidified. Severus would not be able to speak again, for sure.
The thought was enough to make Remus’ stomach churn. The stern Potion’s master, unable to snark or snap at anyone any longer. It was more than depressing for Remus to consider.
He turns to Sirius, watching him with a gentle but careful gaze. Sirius and Narcissa had never been close by any means, but a death in the family is still that on paper-someone you’ve known to exist your entire life, who is then snuffed out so suddenly. The reality sinks in that you will never truly get the chance to know that person, and it is a lonely feeling to be sure. So really, the lost expression and frequent blinking on his mate’s face was to be expected.
Remus pulls Sirius closer so that his head is pressed against his chest, resting his chin on the top of Sirius’ hair while watching Severus through hooded eyes.
The world had shifted, of that Remus was sure.
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Maybe, Sirius had made a few mistakes.
Maybe he could have made an effort to form a relationship with Narcissa. As it was, his childhood had been rocky and his idea of family had always been warped. So really, when Narcissa first began discussing the filth of Muggleborns to the other kids and they’d listened so intently and agreed, Sirius steering away from her entirely had never propped much of a thought.
Sirius struggled with that. With what was black and white, all the lines that bled into one another. For most of his life, there had always been a definitive good and a definitive bad, and then Regulus had died and Severus turned out to be a double agent and now Narcissa died saving said spy’s life.
When people die, most tend to see them through a softer lens. As if sparing hurt feelings or disdain would matter much now that they were effectively lost to the universe, but it didn’t stop Sirius from feeling that way about Narcissa. She’d never been too kind to him, but she must have been kind to Snivellus to save his sorry arse. And the idea of her sacrificing herself for someone whom he had held such hatred and distrust for for so many years had certainly caused him pause-because looking at it in a technical light, any person dying for another person deserved a sliver of respect. Even if said person was an Ex-Death Eater, and even if the other person involved was married to one.
It rubbed Sirius the wrong way, but he was honestly too exhausted to think about it. He was content, pressed up to the warmth of Remus’ body while pointedly looking anywhere but the delirious mass being healed in front of him. It was late, his cousin was dead, his childhood rival was dying and horrendously tortured and rendered mute-and he was tired.
Sirius breathes out a huff, closing his eyes and just letting Remus hold him. Remus was Sirius’ constant, as he always had been, and he hoped that would never change. There were times where he thought it would, and he’d been terrified. Truly, unwaveringly, terrified.
Like the Shrieking Shack incident…he’d thought he would be losing him forever. It hadn’t scared him as much when he was a stupid, mindless, sadistic boy-but it scared him enough that even now, the remembrance was enough to make him feel as if he was walking on a glass roof. He’d needed James to knock some sense into him, and still Sirius had merely catered to what Remus wanted and disregarded everyone else.
Because Sirius was selfish. He knew that much. He could admit that. Remus was good, Remus was and is his home, and the thought of losing what was his had shaken him to the very core.
And, years later, when Remus had confessed his feelings after a transformation that had left him utterly vulnerable, Sirius had felt the foundation wobble once again.
Because Sirius wasn’t, by any means, someone to be loved. He could give a good shag, a snog here and there, but he didn’t do love. Love was unfamiliar, and Sirius had no way of knowing if that was what he had felt for Remus. He could read it all wrong, lead him into something he hadn’t been sure about, and recklessly tear down everything he and Remus had built. And then he would ruin it all again. But denying him, telling Remus he had never seen him like that-that seemed almost worse. He would disappoint him, and then they’d be estranged once again.
Sirius had settled for the excuse of not being ready. Which, honestly, wasn’t even that wrong. It was the added yet that had been the lie-because Sirius would and could never be ready for having so much power like that. Remus’ heart was too precious for Sirius to mess with.
Shaking these thoughts away, Sirius closes his eyes. Things were bad, from an introspective point of view. Their spy must have been compromised, and that was why he was here, with afflictions that could only really be explained as inflicted by Death Eaters.
Sirius didn’t feel bad about that. He felt ill, a bit piteous(who wouldn’t?) but he certainly did not feel bad for the man. He’d made his choices, and here he was-Sirius couldn’t be like everyone else and excuse his past. If he did, then he’d just be like the rest of his family. No, if you were a Death Eater, then you were no good and utterly untrustworthy.
And nothing would change his mind about that.