The Marauders: Year Five #Wattys2017

Should've Been You

Should've Been You

Thirteen muggle-borns were missing from the Great Hall that evening - thirteen families had been attacked, thirteen houses destroyed, twenty people had been killed. Mr. Evans was just one of the many parents that were killed. Dumbledore stood behind the podium at the front of the students, a very pale and pained expression on his face, his eyes sad behind his half-moon glasses. Everyone was silent as he told them what Voldemort and his followers had done. He rubbed his forehead, "It has become far too usual -- me, standing before you, telling you about some horrible occurrence... some terrible result of an attack by the one they call the Dark Lord..." he looked up over them, "I am sorry for it. I am sorry for this terrible world which you have inherited from the generations before you." He shook his head, "I am sorry that you have such a terrible responsibility resting upon your shoulders."

James stared at the table, nudging the salt shaker with his wand, his face solemn. Remus was crying, Sirius's arms around him, face drawn and pale. Peter stared up at Dumbledore with wide, watery eyes. Beside James, Frank was holding Ali and rubbing her shoulder as her tears fell onto his shoulder. Frank glanced over his shoulder to look at Sirius and their eyes met and both set their jaws with determination. Silent conversations were had - swears to be the generation that ended it, that stopped it going further.

Sirius looked down the table at the first years - only six of them were there. Ollie, too, had gone home - the Kent family another of the thirteen that had been attacked. Wally stared up at the ceiling, tears falling over his face as Dexter shook his head and Liam rubbed Vivian's back as she shivered and Macy and Darcy cried. He recognized the sick look on Wally's face as he worried - recognized it as one he'd once worn, worrying about Remus, and he pulled Remus closer, leaning his cheek against his shoulder and closing his eyes, breathing deep the smell of comfortable jumpers and chocolate that was Remus.

James got up suddenly and walked out of the Great Hall.

Dumbledore adjusted his half-moon glasses and he stood upright, reaching into his sleeve and produced his knotted wand. He held it into the air. "Lumos," he announced, holding the wand over his head. "To those who we lost."

Sirius reached in his pocket for his wand as Remus disengaged from beneath his arms, pulling his own wand out. "Lumos," they said together, and Peter scrambled for his wand, too, "Lumos," he whispered and Frank and Ali whispered the words and even Andy raised his wand, unseeing... All the Gryffindors raised their wands and the Ravenclaws and the Hufflepuffs and Alabaster Jackson at the Slytherin table and then Regulus Black... and one by one even the other Slytherins - more out of obligation than desire - and the teachers all raised theirs and soon the entire Great Hall was dotted with light.

Sirius took a deep breath and, beneath it, he murmured, "This ends."

Remus looked 'round at him.

"I'll bloody fight to the raw bone to keep this shit from continuing on. I'll do whatever it takes. I don't give a damn what it means for me. But this -- this fear that fucker Voldemort has caused... it bloody ends."

Remus's arm shook as he held the wand over his head, his soul shaken by the solemnity of Sirius's tone. His throat ached. This was it, he thought. We're officially, most definitely not kids anymore. We'll never be kids again.

Lily Evans sat at the family dinner table. Her hands holded on her lap, her eyes glazed over, staring straight ahead, eyes unfocused, unseeing for how lost she was in her thoughts. Somewhere around her, far off it seemed, her mother was pacing, talking, saying words about life insurance policies and funeral arrangements, about burials and headstones, graves and wakes and family that needed contacting and obituaries to be written. The official coronor's examination said heart attack or stroke, though relaly the doctors had no idea what killed Mr. Evans - no muggle doctor could have recognized the avada kedavra. It left no mark, left no trace. Only a body.