The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

The Proverbial Dust

"Please. I am begging you. Get down off the table."

Sirius was delirious. Somewhere in the midst of his dazed staring, he'd suddenly gotten up quite a lot of crazed energy - an uninhibited Sirius. As though the boy had any inhibitions to speak of to begin with! This even more unhinged version of Sirius had taken up with a rowdy crowd of frat lads that were out celebrating whatever it is uni boys celebrate, and he was not only keeping up with them, but they were bowing down to him as though he were their king, and they mere peasants.

Remus had stepped away from his husband for only a minute - headed to the bad to get tea and water for himself and Sirius, thinking Sirius might liven up with some liquids in him. But when Remus turned back it was to find Sirius doing a wonky jig on the table as the frat lads shouted praises and clapped their hands rather deliriously.

"Sirius!" Remus begged, tugging on the leg of his ripped and patched denims, "Please. Please. Just get down from there. I beg of you."

"Remus!" Sirius cried, grinning at him from on high, his eyes still strange and dull, despite his enthusiastic jig, "Why don't you come up here and try this muggle whiskey?"

Remus felt his neck around his collar grow rather warm with nervousness. He half expected a Ministry official to appear and haul them off for breaking the Statute - and gods knew what they'd do when they saw whatever it was going on outside at the moment! Remus had a wildly errant flash of the entire Order all locked up together in one of the little cells below the Ministry floors... Luckily, the frat lads were too drunk to give a damn about the unusual word, and those around them in the pub were busy ignoring them all to have cared, either. And no Ministry officials would show their face in Bakewell that night - aside from those who were already there, unofficially.

There was a sudden loud banging and the front wall of the pub shook as though hit by a bomb.

Distracted from Sirius, Remus hurried to put down the tea and water and rushed to the door. He pulled it open and looked out onto the square from within, his eyes opening wide at the scene outside.

Outside was a sharp contrast to inside. The warmth and comfort, jovial shouting, and the illusion of all things being quite everyday was behind Remus, and before him, just steps through the door of the pub, was a smoking, terrible, war ridden scene. Blasted stones from buildings lay in a mess of destruction on the ground, tables toppled over, their cloths on fire or else completely blown away. There had been a statue on top of a fountain, Remus was sure of it, but the fountain itself had been hit so completely that it was nothing more than a pipe coming up from the ground, pouring out water into the street. The water formed rivers, running away, and Remus looked at the pale moonlight reflected in them and saw the dark, swirling crimson of blood as it mixed and flowed away from the bodies that had shed it.

He felt sick to his stomach as the wreckage before him seemed to ricochet about in his mind. How many were dead? How many of his friends were gone?

It was silent in the square. The proverbial dust was settling.

Behind him, Sirius was shouting - lyrics to some drinking song he and the frat lads were chanting as they drank themselves mad - but the voices were a distant echo to Remus. He stepped outside, numb. He knew he ought not to, he ought to stay in the pub, like James had said, but what if James was not coming for him and Sirius? What if he couldn't?

Remus drew his wand, careful to close the pub door behind him, taking tentative steps across the square.

Several of the bodies on the ground were now shifting, moving with the slow delicate motions of someone recently injured. Remus saw Edgar Bones helping up Benji Fenwick and Dumbledore was sitting on the ground, a sheen of sweat upon his forehead, blood on his face. He stepped around a Death Eater's form, bound in an incarcerous charm, squirming about like a hideous worm, his mask half fallen aside.