rosie_rues | A Final Flight (scarvesnhats Days 30 & 31)

Title: A Final Flight
Rating: Gen/PG
Disclaimer: They're not mine. I'm just borrowing them because I like them.
Wordcount: 882
Prompt: For the last two prompts:
toffee apples

and...

This is the story of the boys who loved you
Who love you now and loved you then
And some were sweet, some were cold and snuffed you
And some just laid around in bed.

Some had crumbled you straight to your knees
Did it cruel, did it tenderly
Some had crawled their way into your heart
To rend your ventricles apart
This is the story of the boys who loved you.

--the Decemberists, Red Right Ankle

Notes: Sixth year. I've finished!! Here, as an epilogue, let Peter Pettigrew have the last word. This has been a fantastic month and after 29 fics and 46889 words it must come to an end.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 & 31

“So,” James said through a mouthful of toast, “it’s up to you. Halloween party?”

Peter thought about it. He didn’t really know how he was meant to be feeling right now. There was an emptiness within him where his family should have been. Already he was thinking of them in the past tense, as part of a blurred and merry time when the war was someone else’s pain. He couldn’t help wondering if he could become an empty space that easily.

A party, full of life and laughter, might make it worse. Or it might help.

James was watching him, patient and thoughtful. James wasn’t meant to look at him solemnly. James was meant to be laughing. It was his job to keep them all laughing when James despaired and Sirius raged and Remus brooded.

“Party,” he said.

“That’s my man,” James said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s plan. Oy, Padfoot, stop being a girl.”

Sirius swung round indignantly. “I am not a girl!”

“He definitely isn’t,” Remus added thoughtfully and buttered another slice of toast.

James spluttered at that and Peter sniggered and gave Remus a quick thumbs-up.

“What do you want?” Sirius demanded, his cheeks slightly pink.

“You are a girl. You’re blushing.”

“Potter,” Lily said threateningly.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with being a girl. Splendid things, girls. Pretty.”

“Keep digging that hole,” Remus murmured. “What’s up, Pete?”

“Halloween party,” Peter said. “Gryffindor piss-up.”

“You okay with that?” Sirius said sharply. “You can tell Prongs to piss off, y’know.”

“I think it would be good,” Peter said. “Tell Remus to take his prefect face off.”

“He wouldn’t be such a spoilsport,” Sirius said and flung his arm around Remus’ shoulders. “Besides we’re all prefects, now, aren’t we, Moony?”

Remus was failing miserably to look disapproving. James pretended to throw up his pumpkin juice.

Peter left them to bicker and looked out over the Great Hall. It was strange to be back. It had been so quiet at home, with his mother too shocked to cry and his father suddenly old. It seemed that the train had not carried him from home but out of a nightmare. Perhaps if he could find enough noise and laughter Paul and Jenny would not be dead and his nieces would not be sleeping in the cold earth, in too small coffins. If he could surround himself with life and mischief the war would go away and no one else would die.

But as he looked around he knew it could never be that easy. The faces around him would be soldiers soon.

Narcissa and Regulus Black sat at the Slytherin table, surrounded by the rest of the Quidditch team, heads close together. Would one of them hold the wand that killed James or Sirius? Would they think of Quidditch as they spoke the killing curse?

One of the Ravenclaw prefects had turned round to flirt with the Head Girl where she sat at the Hufflepuff table. Lorelei was blushing and laughing. Would they both survive? Would their children sit in this hall one day, talking about the war their parents had seen? Or would there only be one table, only Slytherin to eat in cowed silence?

“Oy! Pete!” James said. “You’re on food duty. Can you nick toffee apples from the kitchen so we can use the ones my mum sent for apple-bobbing? I’ll write you a list of the other stuff we need.”

“Righto,” Peter said and turned back to his own table. Lily was laughing with her friends and occasionally glancing at James. He wasn’t even sure she realised she was doing it. There was no way she would survive the war. She was too clever, too poweful and too Muggleborn.

James was grinning madly, as he always did when gripped by inspiration. His hair was on end again and his eyes were gleaming behind his glasses. He would die to defend Lily, Peter knew, and if he couldn’t save her he would avenge her.

Sirius was whispering in Remus’ ear, something Peter was almost certain was lewd, by the expression on Remus’ face. Would they make it? Or had they decided to grasp happiness while they could?

Was he the only one who knew enough to be afraid?

Then there was the flutter and beat of wings as the owls swooped into the Great Hall. Peter looked up briefly and then noticed that Sirius was staring up as well, his face fierce. His fingers were clenched around the table’s edge and Remus quietly covered his hand with his own. Sirius turned his hand so their fingers entwined, knuckles white, but did not look down.

Letters and parcels came thumping down around them. Someone at the Ravenclaw table shrieked as something exploded.

Then the owls were swooping away again.

Sirius was still looking up. No letter had come for him. As he brought his head down he began to smile. Remus was grinning beside him, a wide, heedless smirk of delight. James was whooping with laughter, his hands in fists. Peter felt their joy touch him and began to smile, clapping his hands together.

The war wasn’t over but they’d won a battle.

These were his friends and he was with them.

For now, these were the best of times.

Current Mood: elated

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

busaikko

Oh, my, a lovely Peter chapter! Very nice! I love the feeling of the war coming down, of Peter's fear, and then the owl post.... Oh, I don't want to say goodbye to the boys (but neither do I want to see what happens to them, oh dear).

Thanks for a great story!

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A Final Flight (scarvesnhats Days 30 & 31)

A Final Flight (scarvesnhats Days 30 & 31)

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