rosie_rues (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rosie_rues) wrote2006-04-05 10:22 pm
rosie_rues) wrote2006-04-05 10:22 pm
Hung With Bloom Along the Bough (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
wellymuck Day 04)
Title: Hung With Bloom Along the Bough
Words: 1616
Rating: PG for a foul-mouthed statue.
Prompt: Picture prompt of blossom. It made me think of Housman's poem, which made me think of this.
Author's notes: The poem quoted is A E Housman's 'Loveliest of Trees.' After the war, Remus Lupin lives in a house surrounded by cherry trees and waits to fade away. I like this one - it's more wistful than most of mine.
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
The postcard was from Nymphadora. Remus turned it over in his hands, amused by the gaudy picture of the Taj Mahal. It felt rough and soft in his hands, the stamps battered and faded. She had sent it Muggle-style, and he wondered if he was meant to take a message from that.
It read: Weather bloody brilliant! Have been cultured – you would approve. Charlie almost pulled a naga. Have bought you tea – let my owl in this time!! Wish you were here!!! Tonks.
The last sentence was underlined, hard.
Remus smiled and wandered back through into the living room. He stuck the postcard above the fireplace, aligning its edges neatly with the previous ones. Paris. Riga. Istanbul. Alexandria. Goa.
There were others, from other wanderers. Kingsley was in Seattle, Hestia in Sydney, Oliver Wood in Bulgaria. Luna had sent him a plain black card with the caption Nepal by Night, which puzzled him, as he had thought she was in Rio.
He wasn’t even sure who some of these people were. They kept sending him postcards, though.
He drifted across the room, gathering up dirty mugs. It wasn’t worth trying to settle to a task, not when he was expecting the crunch of footsteps on gravel. The moon would be full tonight.
He understood the wanderlust that came with the empty aftermath of war. He had run away before, put nations and oceans between himself and his memories.
Every sea had made him think of Azkaban, high above the water, and this time he knew better. It was easier to stay. There was no one left to flee.
He took the mugs through to the kitchen, wrinkling his nose at the stink of the Wolfsbane warming on the hob.
He tried to tell them he didn’t need company at the moon these days. With the potion he could just sit by his window and watch the light shimmer across his tangled garden. He had let the trees go wild for just that reason, so none of his polite neighbours would ever notice that the old eccentric next door was sometimes a little altered.
Somehow, though, one of them always appeared, with some casual excuse – a book to borrow or a letter to pass on. Then it was, “Oh, since I’m here, Remus,” or “I’m too knackered to apparate, mate.” Only Harry didn’t bother with excuses. He just came, and stayed, and sometimes, when the sky was clear, opened the doors into the garden and walked with the placid wolf beneath the lacery of the branches, listening to dogs cry in the distance.
Remus dumped the mugs in the sink to scourgify later, and put the kettle on. The trees were in blossom now, heavy pink and white falls. He watched them through the kitchen window, swaying in the breeze. It made him think of Scottish snow, and the feathery plumes of London plane and impatient boys, wild with the spring and convinced that their whole lives were waiting to be grasped.
Old Aurors never die, they’d said, long ago, when Alice Longbottom had still been able to tap his nose and tease, they merely fade away. None of them had had the chance to fade, not Alice, not Frank, not-
He wasn’t fading. He just wasn’t feeling very sociable. It was perfectly understandable. He’d spent most of the war in a pack that wasn’t his own. Was it really any surprise he just wanted everyone to leave him alone.
He could hear footsteps coming around the side of the house, so he wandered back into the main room. Harry appeared outside the doors, grinning widely. He rapped on the glass and Remus hurried to open the door.
The spring breeze gusted in, bringing blossom with it. One of the neighbours must have mowed their lawn because he could smell cut grass amongst the blossom and the echo of wet brick from the rain earlier.
“Hi,” Harry said. “Sorry – I thought we’d get here earlier.”
“I’ll forgive you,” Remus said. “Especially as I didn’t know you were coming. Did Ron come?”
“Oh, no,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. “He’s doing wedding things. How are you?”
Remus shrugged. “Not bad. And you?”
“Great,” Harry said. “Um, yeah, brilliant. Can I come in?”
Remus nodded, moving back to let him through the doors. He’d been peering into the garden, wondering who Harry had dragged along this time.
“He’s probably still trying to find his way through the jungle,” Harry said, poking at the squat statue on the windowsill. “Honestly, Remus, don’t you ever de-gnome?”
Somebody, Remus thought, has been spending too much time with Weasleys.
“I like the gnomes,” he said mildly. “If you leave them alone long enough they discover democracy.”
Harry gave him a sceptical look, and shook the statue.
“Oy!” it shouted. “Put me down, you scarfaced turnip!”
Harry lifted it up, studying its squashed gargoyle face. “What on earth?”
“I don’t know,” Remus said. “It was a gift from Mundungus. It seems to exist purely to insult people.”
“Cool,” Harry said, and shook it again.
“Git!”
The kettle was beginning to whistle. Remus leant on the windowsill to wait for it, studying Harry. He did look happy, more so than he had been for a long time. It had been a hard few years. Harry had done what no one else could do, but he was too young to be a hero, and the last battle had left him not only with new scars but an arm too badly healed for him to ever play Quidditch again. There had been wild months, and Remus knew it had only been Hermione’s furious crusade which had saved both him and Ron from self-destruction by drink, fame and desolation. Now he was sadder and wiser and quieter, old before his time, but somehow, miraculously, alive.
He did it, James, he thought. Here he is, twenty and laughing. Your son made it.
He managed not to say the words aloud. He hadn’t started speaking to his ghosts in company yet, though he supposed it was only a matter of time.
“Cack-handed wanker!”
“Tea?” Remus asked.
“Better make a pot. He’ll want a cup, too.” Harry grinned at him, and Remus bit back a sigh. He wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking. Let his guest remain a mystery.
As he wandered back towards the kitchen, Harry put the statue down and began to straighten cushions.
“I like them as they are,” Remus said mildly.
“It looks like no one’s looking after you,” Harry complained. “Remus, there’s books down the back of your sofa.”
“I turned forty last month. I don’t need looking after.”
“I remember,” Harry said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “You didn’t turn up to your party.”
“I don’t like parties.”
He pretended not to hear Harry mutter at his back. He could imagine how they all would have laughed at that, even Peter.
Who made Harry nervous enough to tidy up? If the guest hadn’t been male, he’d have suspected Minerva. He wouldn’t have objected to that – she’d come for the moon in August and spent the night as a cat on his windowsill. He didn’t mind restful company.
Arthur Weasley? No, Arthur didn’t mind a bit of mess. Alastor? It would be like him to lurk in the garden.
He grabbed the top three mugs out of the sink and muttered a spell at them before digging deeper for the teapot.
“Do you want biscuits?” he called. “Minerva keeps sending me shortbread.”
“Yeah,” Harry called back, sounding distracted, and the statue shrieked, “Mannerless moron!”
Remus sent the tray floating into the main room, and followed it, shaking his head. “Don’t bully the statue, Harry.”
“It’s great,” Harry said, bending over it again. “Just like a minature Malfoy. Oy, ferret-face, Dementors ate your Daddy!”
“Fuck your nostrils, toad-arse!”
“Harry!” Remus protested. “I hope you don’t say any such thing to poor Draco.”
He got a look which was half exasperation, half affection, and all Lily. “No, Professor Lupin.”
The breeze sighed through the window again, catching the back of his neck and making him shiver. “Do you think your friend would mind coming in? It’s getting cold.”
“Mmm,” Harry said. “Give him a bit longer. Shall I pour?”
Remus relinquished the tray and went to sit down. This close to the moon his bones ached constantly, a dull throb. He took a shortbread finger with him, fussing at the edges until it crumbled onto his robes.
Harry put the statue down again. Immediately it bellowed, “Oy! Oy! Loony Lupin!”
“What?” Remus said, nibbling at the biscuit. His appetite came and went.
“There’s a Grim widdling on your cherry tree!”
Remus shot to his feet, the biscuit snapping between his fingers. Sure enough, there was a black dog in his garden, its leg lifted against the trunk of his favourite tree. As Remus took a shaky step forward, it turned to grin at him, gleefully marking its territory.
Harry was leaning against the sill, roaring with delighted laughter.
It wasn’t-
It couldn’t be-
He was gone.
But the dog was rising into a man, striding towards him through the falling flowers, too bold and loud and living to ever fade away.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
Words: 1616
Rating: PG for a foul-mouthed statue.
Prompt: Picture prompt of blossom. It made me think of Housman's poem, which made me think of this.
Author's notes: The poem quoted is A E Housman's 'Loveliest of Trees.' After the war, Remus Lupin lives in a house surrounded by cherry trees and waits to fade away. I like this one - it's more wistful than most of mine.
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
The postcard was from Nymphadora. Remus turned it over in his hands, amused by the gaudy picture of the Taj Mahal. It felt rough and soft in his hands, the stamps battered and faded. She had sent it Muggle-style, and he wondered if he was meant to take a message from that.
It read: Weather bloody brilliant! Have been cultured – you would approve. Charlie almost pulled a naga. Have bought you tea – let my owl in this time!! Wish you were here!!! Tonks.
The last sentence was underlined, hard.
Remus smiled and wandered back through into the living room. He stuck the postcard above the fireplace, aligning its edges neatly with the previous ones. Paris. Riga. Istanbul. Alexandria. Goa.
There were others, from other wanderers. Kingsley was in Seattle, Hestia in Sydney, Oliver Wood in Bulgaria. Luna had sent him a plain black card with the caption Nepal by Night, which puzzled him, as he had thought she was in Rio.
He wasn’t even sure who some of these people were. They kept sending him postcards, though.
He drifted across the room, gathering up dirty mugs. It wasn’t worth trying to settle to a task, not when he was expecting the crunch of footsteps on gravel. The moon would be full tonight.
He understood the wanderlust that came with the empty aftermath of war. He had run away before, put nations and oceans between himself and his memories.
Every sea had made him think of Azkaban, high above the water, and this time he knew better. It was easier to stay. There was no one left to flee.
He took the mugs through to the kitchen, wrinkling his nose at the stink of the Wolfsbane warming on the hob.
He tried to tell them he didn’t need company at the moon these days. With the potion he could just sit by his window and watch the light shimmer across his tangled garden. He had let the trees go wild for just that reason, so none of his polite neighbours would ever notice that the old eccentric next door was sometimes a little altered.
Somehow, though, one of them always appeared, with some casual excuse – a book to borrow or a letter to pass on. Then it was, “Oh, since I’m here, Remus,” or “I’m too knackered to apparate, mate.” Only Harry didn’t bother with excuses. He just came, and stayed, and sometimes, when the sky was clear, opened the doors into the garden and walked with the placid wolf beneath the lacery of the branches, listening to dogs cry in the distance.
Remus dumped the mugs in the sink to scourgify later, and put the kettle on. The trees were in blossom now, heavy pink and white falls. He watched them through the kitchen window, swaying in the breeze. It made him think of Scottish snow, and the feathery plumes of London plane and impatient boys, wild with the spring and convinced that their whole lives were waiting to be grasped.
Old Aurors never die, they’d said, long ago, when Alice Longbottom had still been able to tap his nose and tease, they merely fade away. None of them had had the chance to fade, not Alice, not Frank, not-
He wasn’t fading. He just wasn’t feeling very sociable. It was perfectly understandable. He’d spent most of the war in a pack that wasn’t his own. Was it really any surprise he just wanted everyone to leave him alone.
He could hear footsteps coming around the side of the house, so he wandered back into the main room. Harry appeared outside the doors, grinning widely. He rapped on the glass and Remus hurried to open the door.
The spring breeze gusted in, bringing blossom with it. One of the neighbours must have mowed their lawn because he could smell cut grass amongst the blossom and the echo of wet brick from the rain earlier.
“Hi,” Harry said. “Sorry – I thought we’d get here earlier.”
“I’ll forgive you,” Remus said. “Especially as I didn’t know you were coming. Did Ron come?”
“Oh, no,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. “He’s doing wedding things. How are you?”
Remus shrugged. “Not bad. And you?”
“Great,” Harry said. “Um, yeah, brilliant. Can I come in?”
Remus nodded, moving back to let him through the doors. He’d been peering into the garden, wondering who Harry had dragged along this time.
“He’s probably still trying to find his way through the jungle,” Harry said, poking at the squat statue on the windowsill. “Honestly, Remus, don’t you ever de-gnome?”
Somebody, Remus thought, has been spending too much time with Weasleys.
“I like the gnomes,” he said mildly. “If you leave them alone long enough they discover democracy.”
Harry gave him a sceptical look, and shook the statue.
“Oy!” it shouted. “Put me down, you scarfaced turnip!”
Harry lifted it up, studying its squashed gargoyle face. “What on earth?”
“I don’t know,” Remus said. “It was a gift from Mundungus. It seems to exist purely to insult people.”
“Cool,” Harry said, and shook it again.
“Git!”
The kettle was beginning to whistle. Remus leant on the windowsill to wait for it, studying Harry. He did look happy, more so than he had been for a long time. It had been a hard few years. Harry had done what no one else could do, but he was too young to be a hero, and the last battle had left him not only with new scars but an arm too badly healed for him to ever play Quidditch again. There had been wild months, and Remus knew it had only been Hermione’s furious crusade which had saved both him and Ron from self-destruction by drink, fame and desolation. Now he was sadder and wiser and quieter, old before his time, but somehow, miraculously, alive.
He did it, James, he thought. Here he is, twenty and laughing. Your son made it.
He managed not to say the words aloud. He hadn’t started speaking to his ghosts in company yet, though he supposed it was only a matter of time.
“Cack-handed wanker!”
“Tea?” Remus asked.
“Better make a pot. He’ll want a cup, too.” Harry grinned at him, and Remus bit back a sigh. He wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking. Let his guest remain a mystery.
As he wandered back towards the kitchen, Harry put the statue down and began to straighten cushions.
“I like them as they are,” Remus said mildly.
“It looks like no one’s looking after you,” Harry complained. “Remus, there’s books down the back of your sofa.”
“I turned forty last month. I don’t need looking after.”
“I remember,” Harry said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “You didn’t turn up to your party.”
“I don’t like parties.”
He pretended not to hear Harry mutter at his back. He could imagine how they all would have laughed at that, even Peter.
Who made Harry nervous enough to tidy up? If the guest hadn’t been male, he’d have suspected Minerva. He wouldn’t have objected to that – she’d come for the moon in August and spent the night as a cat on his windowsill. He didn’t mind restful company.
Arthur Weasley? No, Arthur didn’t mind a bit of mess. Alastor? It would be like him to lurk in the garden.
He grabbed the top three mugs out of the sink and muttered a spell at them before digging deeper for the teapot.
“Do you want biscuits?” he called. “Minerva keeps sending me shortbread.”
“Yeah,” Harry called back, sounding distracted, and the statue shrieked, “Mannerless moron!”
Remus sent the tray floating into the main room, and followed it, shaking his head. “Don’t bully the statue, Harry.”
“It’s great,” Harry said, bending over it again. “Just like a minature Malfoy. Oy, ferret-face, Dementors ate your Daddy!”
“Fuck your nostrils, toad-arse!”
“Harry!” Remus protested. “I hope you don’t say any such thing to poor Draco.”
He got a look which was half exasperation, half affection, and all Lily. “No, Professor Lupin.”
The breeze sighed through the window again, catching the back of his neck and making him shiver. “Do you think your friend would mind coming in? It’s getting cold.”
“Mmm,” Harry said. “Give him a bit longer. Shall I pour?”
Remus relinquished the tray and went to sit down. This close to the moon his bones ached constantly, a dull throb. He took a shortbread finger with him, fussing at the edges until it crumbled onto his robes.
Harry put the statue down again. Immediately it bellowed, “Oy! Oy! Loony Lupin!”
“What?” Remus said, nibbling at the biscuit. His appetite came and went.
“There’s a Grim widdling on your cherry tree!”
Remus shot to his feet, the biscuit snapping between his fingers. Sure enough, there was a black dog in his garden, its leg lifted against the trunk of his favourite tree. As Remus took a shaky step forward, it turned to grin at him, gleefully marking its territory.
Harry was leaning against the sill, roaring with delighted laughter.
It wasn’t-
It couldn’t be-
He was gone.
But the dog was rising into a man, striding towards him through the falling flowers, too bold and loud and living to ever fade away.
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
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Then you killed me again with the ending, only for an entirely different reason.
The insulting little statue was hilarious, I'd love to buy one.
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I had fun with that statue. I dread to think where Dung got it from
Thanks for the comment :)
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I ADORE you for writing a Bring Back Black :) Adore, adore adore! And how you worked up to it - brilliant! It really impresses me how you told this story - giving us important details without throwing it at us all at once, drawing it out and building until you gave us SUCH a wonderful ending :)
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I really wanted this one to be a little more subtle and atmospheric.
Thanks for commenting :)
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Remus' dreary life is about to get thoroughly disrupted, whether he likes it or not.
Thanks for the comment :)
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I'm glad you liked it. I was quite pleased with it myself.
Thanks for the comment :)
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Oh, lovely and worn and wistful. Just perfect for a spring evening.
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*friends you back*
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I really loved that line... the humor and the self awareness of it, just mkaes it so funny and sad and charming all at once. Oh, but this picture of Remus broke my heart a little. It was so calm and sad in a really believable, Remus-like way. but then the end...Oh, I thought it was coming, hoped it was... but then when it did, the best thing in all the world!
The statue, is brilliant, by the way. BRILLIANT.
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I'm glad you enjoyed it. I wanted to write something a little more subdued than the high jinks I usually come up with.
Thanks for commenting :)
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Loved this line, which made me laugh at the end of a long day: Luna had sent him a plain black card with the caption Nepal by Night, which puzzled him, as he had thought she was in Rio.
Appreciatively,
Maggie
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I love Luna so much.
Thanks for commenting :)
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there are cherry trees all over the campus of my university, and they just came into bloom last week. :)
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Cambridge is just faltering into spring. We're too cramped and grey to have a profusion of trees, but there's a cherry tree in blossom in the shadow of the catholic church and I spotted a magnolia in bud this morning.
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This is just beautiful. How many more times am I going to
have totell you I love you this month??♥♥♥
also, this part?
Oy, ferret-face, Dementors ate your Daddy!
had me laughing hysterically. luckily, this time the roommate was not sleeping. or even in the room. so I win. except I don't because you totally do.
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I'm not sure how many of the next few I'm going to tackle. There's a big piece I want to tackle before the 23rd - isn't it great how one day can hold so many mayhem inducing festivities?
Thanks for the comment.
hello.
(Anonymous) 2006-04-06 06:26 am (UTC)(link)I have never wanted to kiss a fictional character more. <3 Remus.
This was a very lovely read. The beginning, the middle, the end! The end was just wonderful. Enjoyed Harry immensely ("...Dementors ate your Daddy!")
Thank you for sharing. :)
Re: hello.
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And Remus not turning up to his own party! Great detail. However, on behalf of the book overpopulated; there is nothing wrong with having books down the back of the sofa. Keeps them handy for when you're having withdrawal symptoms!
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*chuckles* I live in a house where every surface is heaped with books. The only thing I object to is when my boyfriend tries to annex my side of the bed as an extra bookshelf. ^_^
Thanks for the comment :)
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I adore how this felt like a small segment of a much larger picture - as other people have said, the delight was in the details.
But the dog was rising into a man, striding towards him through the falling flowers, too bold and loud and living to ever fade away.
Completely perfect, my heart played a little fanfare all by itself.
And a lovely, lovely Harry, which was nice as I seem to have been reading quite a few dark/angry!Harry fics recently.
YAY.
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I can understand why Harry would end up a complete mess, but I like to hope he'd come through it in the end. I don't think it's going to easy for him, even if he doesn't lose anyone in the final confrontation.
Thanks for commenting :)
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But Remus! Oh, Remus. He's portrayed so well, so vividly. Jo, above, has said it better than I could. And then, in the middle of it you drop something like “I like the gnomes,” he said mildly. “If you leave them alone long enough they discover democracy.” How could anyone not adore you for it?
And oh, Luna. :D
I like the idea of all the members sending Remus postcards, even though he probably never was close to any of them - or maybe even because of that. He's strong and resilient, but in a reassuring, comforting way, that makes him the person one is most likely to turn to. And I love the details you infuse in your story, that make them feel much more real - and realistic than most. In this case an example could be He took the mugs through to the kitchen, wrinkling his nose at the stink of the Wolfsbane warming on the hob. I like your characterization of Harry, just like the one you have of Alice (http://pics.livejournal.com/kasche/pic/000296z8). But the goblin statue! That stole my heart. (In fact, if you pay attention, it's not anymore in the place you left it last. If you try to take it away from the mini-goblin you'll probably be covered in insults.)
“It’s great,” Harry said, bending over it again. “Just like a minature Malfoy. Oy, ferret-face, Dementors ate your Daddy!”
“Fuck your nostrils, toad-arse!”
That's one scene that had me in fits of giggles - literally. It's just such a visual scene - I can see Harry's face like it was in front of me, you know?
And Sirius. I love how you drop hints until you know what is going to happen, you can't wait for it to happen, but you still love every single second of the waiting. When I was reading the passage where you see him marking his territory I laughed and smiled in pure delight. (And you ended the story in the best way possible.)
What bugs is that I damn can't draw it, though. I can't give away the ending like that!
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I can very easy see Remus withdrawing, and becoming a little bit vague and a little bit eccentric. He needs someone to challenge him, which is why I'm cool with Tonks as the second-best choice.
I love Luna ^_^
I can see all of them turning to Remus for advice at some point, and I think they would think of him as this reliable person who's always waiting for them at home.
*squeaks* Alice! Oh, wow.
I'll just have to make sure that nobody steals the statue, then ~_^
I loved weaving Sirius into the subtext like this. And he would make an entrance.
Thanks for reading :) I'm glad you enjoyed it - I'm really pleased with this one.
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I cried at that. Seriously, tears.
“It’s great,” Harry said, bending over it again. “Just like a minature Malfoy. Oy, ferret-face, Dementors ate your Daddy!”
“Fuck your nostrils, toad-arse!”
Okay, that made me laugh.
So all in all, it was just perfect. Oh, and...
“There’s a Grim widdling on your cherry tree!”
That's one of the sentences I never thought I'd hear.
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I had so much fun with that statue :)
That sentence about the Grim was the plot bunny that got this from a vague sense of ooh, cherry blossom, Harry to an actual plot. :)
Thanks for the comment.
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The beginning was evocative and touching, and the part about everyone sending him postcards and his fridge having a piece of the world just broke me completely. Then Harry and the statue were brilliant, fun and great and then, God, but the ending has left me all fuzzy and
tingly. ^-^
Wonderful!
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I'm really pleased with it, because now I've finished, I can see that thresholds were a pattern in it. Remus is retreating further and further inside, and the whole thing is about the ways people are breaking in to find him.
I loved writing that statue. I want one ^-^
Thanks for commenting :)
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That line brought tears to my eyes. Seriously.
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Thanks for commenting :)
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What a gorgeous, triumphant ending! And a lovely surprise, since I was being slow on the uptake and didn't get it until fairly near the end.
"He did it, James, he thought. Here he is, twenty and laughing. Your son made it."
You know, I never realised how much I'd give for that to be true until I read this.
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God I want one of those statues!
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“Fuck your nostrils, toad-arse!”
That has to be the best thing EVER.
Great fic!
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