Work Text:
And yet it tastes good
He’d believed it to be sweet as honey and fragrant as freshly backed bread.
He’d waited for it, sought it, built it.
Fight with us, they’d said. It’ll be peace, and it’ll be wonderful.
And Remus fought, trusting that tender illusion – ‘cause how could peace not be wonderful? – anticipating a Victory they promised would taste good.
It’s the last night of a bleak October when it finally comes, brought by a flash of green that was born Death and died Hope.
It’s a time for celebration and disregard of secrecy – purple robes on the streets and owls in the daylight skies and showers of falling stars.
It’s a feast for everyone, except for him.
Remus knows what those stars mean – they’re tears from the sky shed to grieve them.
He knows five tears are for them, for five lifes destroyed by a war that was harsh and painful and murderous – and yet, it tasted better than Victory.
Only the silence remains to fill his solitary days – the silence and the crunch of withered leaves crumpled under his feet.
It’s a day like any other when the autumnal soil is covered by the winter candor – and his Christmas is sore loneliness and snow crunched under his paws.
It’s the Eve when he burns the mushrooms found behind the hill – and yet, they taste better than Victory.
*
It’s an early morning at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.
Remus'd wanted to Apparate in Hogsmeade – then he recalled the savor of that train, which is steam and voices and home, as his destination.
He gets on the scarlet locomotive and it’s like being a kid again – he’s eleven, he’s a werewolf and he still can’t believe he’s really going to Hogwarts.
He walks down the train while the sorrow of the memories blends with the joy of the return – he sits in their compartment, the furthest from the prefect carriage, ‘cause at twelve you don’t think you’d become one.
It tastes good, that train. It tastes of chocolate and Harry and home.
*
The foe is back, is strong, is ruthless and Remus begins to wonder about the taste of Victory – what if it’s indeed better than the savor of the war?
And yet, it’s so good to feel valued and praised, it’s so sweet to be part of something yet again.
Remus pretended for too long he’s unworthy to be loved – now he can’t avert those gentle hands willing to tend his wounds, he can’t refuse those soft lips eager to treasure his skin.
He denied for too long to be willing to love – but when every time could be the last, how can you find the strength to say no?
After all, that’s the flair of war – it forces men to seize each fleeting moment, fearing they won’t see tomorrow.
*
Remus knows mothers don’t like war – fifty years and seven children and she only has a disguised ghoul upon which mourning her affection.
He knows that’s another flair of war – it makes the will to make a reason to withstand.
He knows his child’ll be a son of the war – as Harry and Ron and George, even if that was another war, even if now they’re the soldiers, rather than the children.
He knows one thing’d be enough to make Victory taste good – for his son to see the end of the war he’s son of.