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halothenthehorns · 3 years

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TLTNL- THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

It didn't entirely come to their expectations, as they'd been expecting a rant about his mother, but instead he snarled in frustration and got to his feet, pacing and muttering angrily, "woman just can't leave me in peace! Even in death she'll find a way to drive me mad, or more mad as I'm still convinced that's what I'd have to be to go back in there for some stupid meeting that Snape's a part of."

"I think we should leave and get some lunch," James sighed as he gazed down at the book. They'd only been at this for a few hours, but really, they'd just been dealing with so many things back to back already a break felt needed.

Sirius stomped wordlessly to the kitchen still muttering obscenities.

They ate their meal in some resemblance of peace but Sirius still refused to leave his plate, scraping it clean and then still scraping his fork against it. Remus hadn't actually meant to whisper, "Sirius, you didn't really mean that right? You know that place didn't-" he broke off as he couldn't think of how to phrase what Azkaban had done to him.

"I'm not acting right," he muttered to his plate alone. "I know I'm not, I don't need to see you two acting so off when I'm mentioned to notice it myself. Haven't gone after Harry, haven't done a damned thing really, now I'm actually back at that place, been there since Harry got there it seems, and I don't come up to see him until I hear that woman shouting." He sighed and shook his head, letting his hair fall into his face.

"You've clearly got a lot on your mind," James tried his very best to put something light into this. "A new feeling for you I'm sure."

Sirius did not rise to the bait, but he didn't seem to want to linger on this in front of them either as he pushed away from the table and wouldn't look at anyone as he went back to the room.

On the way there Lily managed to step in the shards of the vase James had broken earlier. She quickly banished the mess without remorse, that was just one step of ridding Petunia from her life.

James sat unhappily in his seat as he watched Lily sit back down beside him cuddling their child, his mind still on Sirius as he began flipping to his chapter and wishing he had more to comfort his best friend with, but so long as the topic was going to be over that house he didn't see how that was possible.

Harry was stunned at the news while Sirius elaborated that his dear old mother had put up a Permanent Sticking Charm on these so that they couldn't take them down.

"Spiteful old hag," Sirius spat, "can't get away from that even in her death."

"Well maybe you shouldn't have given her the idea," James still tried to play this off as a joke, "she did give you absolute hell when you put all that stuff up in your room."

Sirius still refused to react past grumbling.

Then he quickly tried to usher them all down the stairs before anything woke up again.

"I don't understand why you don't just put something in the way, put a door in front of curtains or something if keeping her face covered keeps her silent." Harry asked.

"I've got one better, just blow the whole wall up and be done with it," Remus added on.

"Oh how I wish I still had Moony's wisdom at a time like that," Sirius sighed theatrically before explaining to Harry what Remus knew full well, "the permanent sticking charm keeping her to that wall means that you'd have to rip down that whole house to get that thing gone, the charm is now in the very fabric of the building and no amount of blasting walls will get it off unless the whole frame goes with it, that's some powerful magic to get rid of anything, and not going to be used on something as precious as headquarters right now." His face puckered with disappointment as Lily explained the more reasonable half.

"As for putting something more solid to keep that woman blocked, I'm afraid that magic can't just have a wall put in front of it and there won't be consequences. So long as it's enchanted to react to noise and start screaming, if you try to cover that up, the person who did so will suffer terribly for it. It comes with its own countercurse that if you block it in any way from acting like it should, you're cursed. The curtains are enough that it can still activate, while ah, well at least you won't have to see the stupid thing."

Harry just sighed and grumbled about complex magic.

Harry asked what a thing like that was doing here?

"Striving to torture me till the end of my days," Sirius huffed.

Sirius was surprised no one had told Harry this was his parents place. He'd offered it to Dumbledore as Headquarters, about the only useful thing he'd done of late.

James felt his heart sink as he could feel the weight of that even if he hadn't seen his best friend in person.

Lily beat him to the punch by sympathizing, "I'm sure you're just exaggerating like always Sirius, just because he's got you doing things you don't want to be doing."

Sirius wasn't so sure, he still couldn't help a worm of agitation going through his brain of how he'd been acting. He'd been acting more normal last year with the Tournament going on, this just didn't feel right to him.

Harry, who had expected a better welcome, noted how hard and bitter Sirius's voice sounded.

They all gave a hard twitch at that, though they hadn't really been pretending before, you couldn't deny anymore something bad was going on with their Padfoot.

Remus tried to force some hope into his voice, "I'm positive he's just in a mood because he's in that house for a while, once he and Harry step back out he'll lighten up at once."

Sirius took a deep breath and tried to take Moony's words to heart, but he also couldn't pretend Harry's frown deepened at the words.

He followed his godfather into the kitchen which was hardly less creepy than the place above. A long dark room lit only by the fireplace at the end that had a stew pot dangling above it, and more kitchen cooking things on the ceiling.

Sirius still couldn't stop a nasty little shiver for the reminder of that place, where so many of his mother's precious 'lessons' about everything he hated had taken place.

A haze of smoke left the whole place with a foreboding feeling as they all took seats around what appeared to be a pile of rags. Mr. Weasley and Bill were still at the table as well talking in low voices, but Bill quickly caught sight of their entry and called out a greeting to Harry, asking if Mad-Eye had gotten him here by Greenland?

"What a shame he didn't, I heard the scenery is lovely," James rolled his eyes.

Tonks said that he tried,

Lily snorted softly as she could honestly imagine that.

while coming forward and accidentally knocking a candle onto a piece of parchment.

"When she said she was clumsy, she really meant it," Remus chuckled softly.

"Did you really think she was kidding?" Harry laughed lightly back.

"Some people exaggerate it," Remus half heartedly persisted, trying to press into any mundane point with Sirius still looking so tight over continued mentionings of this place. "Just because you drop or break something once in awhile, I've been known to be clumsy as well. This however, is clinically clumsy."

Finally causing the others to start a light giggle as well.

Tonks began apologizing at once as Mrs. Weasley swooped in to save the paper, and in the instant flash of light Harry recognized what he thought were building plans.*

"Just what are they looking into?" Lily asked of no one with exasperation.

"Couldn't tell you," James pouted.

Harry was sad to note he didn't even have a gut feeling about this, it was probably something of the Order he was never told.

Mrs. Weasley caught him looking and quickly snatched the paper away to go into Bill's already stuffed arms full of other similar things.

"That woman's just no fun," Sirius sighed tragically, trying to force himself to remain off his own mother for a time and focus on this overbearing one.

She snapped of no one that these things should all be put up right at the end of meetings.

"Or, you know, don't bother hiding stuff inside the Order and just let them know anyways," James grumbled.

Bill didn't argue the point as he got his wand out and vanished the lot with Evanesce.

"Where do they go?" Harry asked in surprise.

"Wherever Bill wants them to," Remus shrugged, "they've probably got some special place they keep all those documents that only Order members can summon them from."

Sirius told Harry to come have a seat next to him, and then reintroduced Mundungus.

They all felt a sharp spike of agitation at the mention of him.

The thing Harry had taken to be a pile of rags gave a prolonged, grunting snore, then jerked awake.

"I can not believe you of all people were sitting next to him," James balked, staring down at the page. Sirius looked just as confused at his setting mate, but then they were all surprised at Harry's sudden burst of laughter.

"What's so funny then?" Remus prompted as Harry rubbed gently at his temple, his eyes shining with mirth.

"Oh, I just remember all of a sudden Ron telling me about how Sirius reacted when Dung came over. It was just Sirius, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Bill there at the time when he showed up. Apparently he came stumbling into the house, saying 'Dementors attacked, Figgs going to kill me, where's Dumbledore?' Mr. Weasley apparently flipped out at once, ran down into the kitchen and sent an owl off to me, and disapparated before Dung had really gotten all the words out."

He paused there and turned those same amused eyes on Sirius and continued, "Want to know what you did? According to Ron and Hermione you made him repeat it, and then you started strangling him."

Sirius cocked his head to the side, then nodded like this made perfect sense to him. The others couldn't help but give grim smiles as well, it felt rather appropriate to the way they were feeling. Harry finished off by saying, "It took Bill pulling you off to get you to stop, but from then on Ron said that you tended to dog Dung wherever he went, and he'd flinch every time you like scratched your nose or something."

James was still chuckling mercilessly at the imagery as he went back to the pages.

He turned hung eyes on everyone questioningly, before saying he voted with Sirius.

"Bet you anything that wanker agreed with me just for some brownie points," Sirius sniffed in disdain, hardly mollified to find out he'd attempted to strangle someone who had been supposed to be looking after his Godson.

Sirius told him the meeting was over, and Harry was here now.

Mundungus had to struggle to focus on him while asking if he was doing alright?

"No thanks to you," Lily still couldn't help but snip.

His fumbling fingers began going through his robes until he came out with a pipe, which he quickly lit causing a nasty smell to linger in the already hazy place, then he added on he owed Harry an apology.

"The least of which," James sniffed.

Molly cut off anything else as she snapped at him not to light that in the kitchen!

"I can't believe he had the nerve to do something that agitates her, right in front of her," Remus raised a brow as he still knew how ticked Lily was at him for the moment, surely Molly was just as bad if not worse as she probably approved of Harry being followed.

Mundungus quickly agreed and pocketed it, but the smell of burning socks still lingered.

"Pleasant," Lily crinkled up her nose.

Then she snapped of the room at large if they wanted dinner any time soon she needed some help, before turning on Harry and saying he was excluded as he'd had a long day.

"I'd have rather been next to the stove," Harry muttered to himself, his rage had made him forget about his cold upon arrival, but he still hadn't fully regained feeling in all his fingers from that flight.

Tonks bounded forward at once to offer her services to a clearly apprehensive Molly.

"I'm supposing Tonks has knocked over one to many stews," Remus smirked.

She tried to tell her as well she'd done enough, but Tonks waved her off and said she wanted to help while going to help Ginny get some cutlery out.

"I'm sensing that's the wrong place for her to be," James rolled his eyes, "more likely she should be set to some potatoes, least she can break those all she likes."

Soon the whole kitchen was busy with something, leaving Harry, Sirius, and Mundungus at the table.

Sirius still felt a flaring agitation rising in him, still pestered over this reunion.

Mundungus asked Harry if he'd seen Mrs. Figg lately, and Harry tartly replied he hadn't seen anyone. Mundungus spoke like Harry hadn't, saying he hadn't meant to leave his post, but there had been a really good business deal-

"Sirius dear, I need you to do me a favor and start strangling him again," Lily said almost pleasantly.

"I'm positive I'll be all too happy to," Sirius almost managed a cheerful look back at the thought.

Harry felt something brush against his knee as he stopped listening to him and glanced down to see Crookshanks. He twined once around Harry's legs before hopping into Sirius' lap, who began absentmindedly scratching him.

"I've missed hearing about that cat," Remus gave a light snicker.

James just suppressed a smile as he imagined Harry looking down at exactly the wrong time. Mundungus bringing that up, and Sirius glaring at him would have been a precious thing described. Sadly the subject got changed in the next sentence before he got to hear of any such thing.

Sirius asked how Harry's summer had been?

Then Sirius flinched again, harder, as he'd already had to realize how dumb that question was, yet he couldn't have bothered to find out any point before now? What exactly had he been so busy doing to not have done so?

Harry just grumbled how lousy it had been, making a grin flit across Sirius' face.

"So glad you find that funny," Harry happily poked fun, while the others all listened curiously to see just what about that had made Sirius act even a smidge more normal at laughing at anything.

Sirius told Harry he had nothing to be complaining about, he'd welcome a dementor attack.

James could not read that without a nasty catch in his throat, hoping beyond everything his best friend was kidding about that part, as Sirius still flinched at the thought of what those foul demons were going to be doing to his future. Sirius making light of this was entirely his Padfoot though, so he read on with more enthusiasm than he would have thought.

A deadly struggle for his soul would have broken the monotony nicely.

"Sirius," Lily began dangerously, clearly saying she'd switch that threat of violence to him in a heartbeat if she heard of anymore fool headed moves on his part.

At least Harry had been allowed out of the house, he'd been stuck in here for a month.

"I, what?" Sirius demanded, feeling like his heart had just dropped down into his stomach. This couldn't really mean what he was thinking...

Harry asked why, and Sirius explained that the Ministry was still after him, and Voldemort knew all about his Animagus disguise.

"But, all of that was true last year too, and you were getting around just fine!" Remus snapped, trying to pretend he hadn't watched James go the worst shade of red at having to be reminded who their friend was sharing all of their secrets with.

So there wasn't much use he could do for the Order, so Dumbledore seemed to feel.

There was a deadly moment of silence where everyone just sat there for a moment and gaped at what Sirius had just implied he'd been up to. No, he hadn't really-

Sirius' temper snapped. The shouting they'd all been expecting before to come up when faced with his mother finally seemed to have tantamount as past memories blocked out everything and he began shouting, "I can't decide who I hate worse right now, the rat for my name still being smeared, or Dumbledore! HE PUT ME IN WHERE!?"

His voice may have ruptured to stop him from continuing, that or he actually realized the baby was crying fiercely now, either way he forced himself to stop that and instead got to his feet and began stamping more than pacing across the room in frustration.

"Sirius-" Someone tried to say, but he didn't even take note of it as he kept going in a forced lesser volume, "it's damn near as bad as if I'd been locked into Azkaban all over again, there's no way I'm actually-" he cut himself off that time though, because in some nasty twisted way it did explain his behavior so far. If Dumbledore had actually convinced him to stay in that house for his safety, than he would be in the worst mood of his life the whole time there, it's no wonder Harry's problems were falling to his wayside, he had trouble thinking of anything else now when he wasn't in that place, but trapped back in those dank walls and he'd be a bottomless pit of self pity.

"Listen Padfoot," James insisted over his still fussy child, who was now making more noise than Sirius, but Lily refused to leave the room this time as she kept soothing him patiently and keeping an eye on Sirius. "Dumbledore's insane for thinking that's what you should do, and Merlin it's a twist of irony you've actually seemed to listen to him in doing it, but I think you're forgetting something really important."

"What?" He barked like a snapping animal.

"It's not happening to you now. You never have to go back there again if you don't want to. Deep breaths Pads, I promise Dumbledore will rue the day he decided to do this to you."

"Rue?" Remus asked more to change the subject than anything. "Look at you using big kid words."

James theatrically pouted at him, while Sirius sighed but at least stopped shouting for now, and so had the baby. James still kept watching Sirius carefully as he went grumpily back to his seat, but when it became clear he was the holdup Sirius just waved him on, though now he looked more likely than Lily to be strangling a certain someone soon, and it wasn't Mundungus anymore.

The tight way Sirius said Harry's headmaster's name made it very clear Sirius had just as many bad thoughts about Dumbledore as Harry lately, and he felt a sudden upsurge of affection for his godfather.

"Mutual hatred of someone will do wonders to bring two people closer together," James gave an awkward smile in agreement, his thoughts on Snape and how for so many years four people had spent their lives hating his every step. Now one of them was on the same side as him.

He still tried to encourage at least Sirius was in the know, but Sirius corrected that sitting around listening to Snape's reports

"That is actual torture," Remus declared.

"I'll be lucky if I don't go mad and murder everyone in the room next time," Sirius agreed.

and all his snide comments was hardly riveting news, especially as he kept making cracks about Sirius lazing on his backside, asking about the cleaning.

Harry wondered if Sirius had known at the time he sounded exactly like his father did upon reading that, then he felt his spirits sink that much lower as Harry kept realizing that with every minute he valued getting to watch James do anything, his Sirius probably missed his brother double.

Harry asked what that meant, and Sirius explained they were trying to make this place fit for human habitation again, it had been abandoned for ten years,

"Ten years eh?" Sirius muttered absently, trying to draw the timeframe in his head, but since he honestly had no clue of who died first, his parents or Regulus, it still wasn't helping anything.

and some nasty stuff had taken to breeding in here.

Mundungus, who hadn't been listening to a word, suddenly cut in towards Sirius that the goblet he was holding was solid silver.

Harry felt a sudden flash of violence overtake him, some memory trying to bubble right to the surface of his strangling Mundungus-

"I can see what his attention was just so riveted on," Lily snarked.

"Trust Mundungus to try filching something from that house," Sirius said with an actual touch of indulgence though, he'd help loot the place for the man even while holding some burning violence for him.

Sirius disdainfully agreed it was a fine piece of fifteenth century goblin-wrought silver with the Black crest and everything.

Mundungus muttered to himself that bit would come off though.

"Why would he want it to?" Remus asked in honest confusion. "Wouldn't it be worth more with that crest in place, proving its pureblood usage."

"Depends on what Dung's using it for I guess," Sirius shrugged without care.

They were all interrupted by Molly's shriek at the twins just to carry it!

James could already feel a touch of indulgence replacing his lackluster mood at Sirius' future problems, the twins always had made him feel better though and this sounded like something right out of his late teen years.

The three at the table only just managed to look up in time, and jump away from the table.

The twins had tried to enchant a cauldron of soup, a flagon of Butterbeer, and a wooden board holding a loaf of bread complete with knife soaring towards the table. Too enthusiastically though, as the soup skidded the length of the table leaving black marks and only just not falling off the edge, the Butterbeer really did fall with a crash, and the knife slipped right off the board and soared point blank into the table where Sirius' hand had just been.

Harry had to swallow very hard around the boy's sudden laughter, that felt like a bad omen to him.

Molly was telling her kids off already in shouting tones about how just because they were of age now did not mean they had to whip their wands out for everything!

James wasn't shouting that too loud considering his infant was still being rather fidgety in his mother's arms, but the tone was clear in his voice and they were all giggling now as none of them would deny they had been the same way after they'd turned seventeen.

Fred was trying to ignore his mother by hurrying forward and apologizing to Sirius while wrenching the knife out of the table, but both he and Harry were to busy laughing to notice.

"Good to know some things don't change," Sirius muttered as he brushed some hair back out of his face and grinned at Harry who'd quickly forced himself to ignore his moment and had indeed been laughing along.

Crookshanks had been startled so bad he'd darted under a dresser.

Arthur was trying to agree with his wife that now they were of age they should be showing more responsibility-

"Parents always think you're supposed to be responsible no matter what age you're at," James sighed.

while Mrs. Weasley cut in that none of their brothers caused this much trouble!

Lily winced as she heard that again, how she wished Molly would quit badgering those boys about being like their siblings, it couldn't be good for any of them to always be compared to each other, she still remembered how Ron had been on that first train ride and how badly it had shown him being looked over when it came to his fourth year.

She slammed a fresh flagon of Butterbeer on to the table, and spilled almost as much again.

"I'm sure that got her point across better," Remus snorted.

All while yelling Bill hadn't felt the need to Apparate every few feet!

"But Percy apparently did, and no one was yelling at him for that," James huffed.

"I don't buy that for a second," Harry muttered to himself, thinking of how Bill's very look screamed he didn't like abiding by normal standards and enjoyed his reckless moments.

Charlie hadn't charmed everything he met!

"Charlie clearly needs some fun tips then," Lily smiled to herself.

Percy -

James voice broke with a sharp hiss of frustration even before he found out how the guys own parents reacted. He didn't care if he had no personal relation to Percy himself, he now couldn't help picturing that little shit of a Weasley in as foul a way as possible.

She stopped dead, catching her breath with a frightened look at her husband, whose expression was suddenly wooden.

Lily felt herself wobbling and tucking her child that much closer to her as it hurt to picture such a thing happening to those parents.

Bill jumped in by saying he was hungry, and Lupin swiftly agreed the stew looked delicious as he tried loading a plate to hand to her.

"I see why the Order's still keeping you around," Sirius nodded to himself, "least you can still manage to change the subject slick as butter."

For a few minutes there was silence but for the chink of plates and cutlery and the scraping of chairs as everyone settled down to their food.

Harry gave a sad sigh as he wondered if Percy would be proud of himself for creating such an awkward silence at just the mention of his name.

Then Mrs. Weasley turned to Sirius.

"Oh boy," they all muttered, as Sirius wasn't being at his most pleasant around them while in mention of that house, but around someone he'd shown not a spot of like for inside it, this could turn ugly fast.

She brought up that there was an odd rattling in the writing desk upstairs,

"And she's telling you this, because?" Remus asked with honest amusement.

"Wants to know the best spell to set it on fire?" Sirius shrugged carelessly.

it could just be a Boggart, but she'd rather have Mad-Eye check it before they opened it.

Harry suddenly blinked in utter fascination at the idea as he turned to Remus and asked, "you said a Boggart could read your mind and automatically turn into the thing you fear most, but could it do that if it doesn't realize Moody's looking at it? What do Boggarts look like when no one's around?"

"No one knows a Boggarts true form," Remus reminded, "not even Moody. Most likely it's just hiding as something already to fear you, and the person who did get closest to it could still manage to transform and scare them before they'd cast it off."

Harry was still trying to picture Moody being afraid of anything a Boggart could turn into as a laughable idea, but still the idea of that Boggart bothered him for some reason, like it did scare someone.

Sirius indifferently agreed, while Molly moved on to talking about some curtains full of Doxys and how they should tackle that tomorrow.

"I wouldn't let Sirius anywhere near anything in that place without taking his wand away, and that's too dangerous as well," James shook his head at Molly. "Just what makes her think it's a good idea to let Sirius help try and clean anything?"

Sirius just wasn't in the mood to respond back and keep playing this off like a joke, the thought of that room like every other dragging up some haunting memories he'd done a good job of burying over the years, this one in particular being the time his dad had given him a week long lecture on the dark creatures of the world and what Sirius was expected to do if he ever met them, not a pleasant reminder while sitting next to Moony.

Sirius stated he looked forward to it, while Harry wondered if he was the only one finding sarcasm in that.

"I can't imagine it was hardly disguised," Lily muttered, Sirius had never done a good job of hiding any feelings.

Opposite him, Tonks was entertaining Hermione and Ginny by changing her nose between bites.

This was so randomly unexpected James had to stifle a giggle before going on, and then read slightly louder over the others still doing so.

Even as Harry looked it extended into a long beak-like protuberance that resembled Snape.

"If she has never done that to his face, I will pay that woman my weight in gold this instant to do it now," Sirius managed to get out in between laughter.

"No, no, you're not thinking hard enough," Remus instructed with a smirk, "she's supposed to be doing it behind his back in the Order meetings while he's not looking."

James actually had to stop to catch his breath back from laughing so hard, while Lily rolled her eyes and was beginning to think Tonks really would fit into this bunch a little too well.

Then she took another bite, and it shrank down to a button. Apparently this was a regular mealtime show, as Hermione and Ginny began asking for favorites.

"This really is fascinating," Lily grinned the more she realized how flexible Tonks's ability was outside of a text describing it.

One asked for a pig snout, and when she was done Harry had the impression of looking at a female Dudley.

"Urgh, as if the original version wasn't vile enough," James chuckled.

Mr. Weasley, Bill and Lupin were having an intense discussion on about goblins.

"Think I'd rather go back hearing about Tonks noses," Remus huffed quietly to himself, which Sirius still heard and rolled his eyes at, hoping Moony wasn't going to be like this every time he was mentioned, and completely ignoring the fact that he had been the same lately.

Bill was talking about how they were giving nothing away, no one could work out whose side they were on. They could just be staying neutral.

"That's what they're doing now," Lily agreed.

Mr. Weasley didn't believe they'd really join You-Know-Who, he'd wronged them too much, reminding them of that goblin family in Nottingham.

"Has that happened yet?" James asked in confusion, though after a while all of the deaths really started blurring together.

"I think Sturgis was actually doing some looking into that area," Remus nodded to himself, "he mentioned it last time, so maybe, or it's just fixing to."

"Must be a big name in the goblin community to still be remembered so vividly," Lily said sadly, as normally wizards were horrible about keeping track of other creatures history.

Lupin countered it all depended on what they were offered. If Voldemort was promising freedoms wizards were denying them, they'd be tempted.

Remus muttered something under his breath about how that would tempt a lot more than goblins, but Sirius gave him a hard nudge to shut up that kind of talk.

Then asking Bill if he'd heard anything from Ragnok?

Bill sighed as he explained how anti wizard he was at the moment, he felt shorted because they'd never gotten back their gold from Bagman, claimed the Ministry was doing a cover up so they wouldn't get their dues.

"I'm sure no one got their gold back from Bagman," Lily scowled at the reminder of that, the twins in particular nearly having suffered a great fallback for it.

Laughter broke off the end of that though, from the rest of the Weasley's and Mundungus.

"Well at least this sounds far more entertaining," James grinned.

He was telling them a story about how he sold this guys nicked toads back to him for double the price.

James nearly couldn't finish to the end he was laughing so hard, though he really was the only one.

Lily still found him too annoying to laugh at such a stupid thing, and though Sirius normally would have he was on Lily's side for once. Remus still looked distant and distracted like he hadn't even realized they'd switched to another topic.

Mrs. Weasley cut him off saying they didn't need to be hearing stories about his business while Ron was slumped over the table laughing.

"At least someone's enjoying themselves," Harry sighed.

Mundungus apologized at once, but tried to offer that as the other guy had nicked them in the first place as well, Mundungus hadn't really been doing anything wrong.

"Can't fault his logic though," Sirius did nod in agreement to that, causing Lily to glare at him as she wished he was kidding.

Molly snapped back Mundungus must have missed a few crucial lessons on right and wrong then.

"Don't know what she's talking about," Remus snorted, "he's clearly looked them all up verbatim."

"So he can do them exactly wrong," James smirked.

Fred and George were keeping their faces out of sight, while Mrs. Weasley shot Sirius a nasty look at the end.

"Just what have you been up to regarding them?" James suddenly demanded eagerly.

Since the first time that place had come up, Sirius truly looked interested in the story again and waved James on eagerly in hopes he would at least find that out.

Then she got up to check on dessert, and Sirius informed Harry Molly didn't approve of Mundungus.

"So what's she glaring at you for then?" Remus asked in honest disappointment if that had been what that look was for.

"I most likely indulged him a lot before he skipped out on Harry," Sirius offered, "and maybe she didn't approve of the way I handled him when he came to tell us."

"Can't imagine that's it," Lily scoffed, "since I can all to easily picture Molly wanting to throw a swing as well."

Harry asked why he was even in the Order, and Sirius explained that he was a useful crook, very loyal to Dumbledore, knows a lot of the underbelly information that came in handy. Molly in particular disliked him because he'd skived off on his tailing duty of Harry.

"I'm positive she's not the only one," Sirius sniffed, even if he was still on Harry's side he should have known about it, it didn't negate that Dung hadn't been doing his job.

Lily was frowning to herself for a different reason, thinking that it technically was Sirius' house and Molly shouldn't be shooting looks at him for having anyone stay over. She did wonder at Sirius' motives behind this, but she knew that he didn't know now.

Three helpings of food later and Harry's pants were beginning to feel a bit tight, quite an accomplishment as they used to be Dudleys.

"Probably back from when he was single digits though," Harry corrected with a slight snort.

He was starting to feel a bit sleepy, and clearly so was the rest of the table.

Just as Molly was encouraging them all to head that way though, Sirius turned to Harry and said how surprised he was, he'd expected him to demand answers about Voldemort the moment he'd stepped in here.

They all burst out laughing at that one, though Harry blushed vividly as he was again reminded who he had demanded those answers from, very vocally.

The atmosphere in the room changed with the rapidity Harry associated with the arrival of Dementors.

"You sure do have the best timing Padfoot," Remus muttered.

Harry agreed he had, but his friends had told him the Order wasn't telling so-

Molly cut him off that was exactly right, he was too young.

Lily flushed in agitation at Molly saying that for her son. It should be Sirius' decision, and more than that, it should be hers to decide what Harry knew at what age. She wasn't the only one scowling hatefully for that comment, but somehow it hurt her the worst that she watched Harry flush with a new embarrassment as his eyes flickered from her and away again almost shamefully, like he'd just been wondering if his mum would say the same.

Sirius asked back since when did you have to be in the Order to be asking questions?

George interrupted loudly to demand of where this attitude had come from? While Fred agreed they'd been trying to get Sirius to tell them for a month and he hadn't shared a thing!

"Honestly Sirius, I think I'm impressed with your restraint," Lily seemed the only one who was surprised though.

James now looked offended for his mate as he said, "Sirius knows better than to get between a mum and her kids. Molly probably asked Sirius specifically not to say anything to them and he knows to respect that."

Lily looked chagrined enough Sirius didn't even bother to smirk at her, much.

Fred mimicked his mother near perfectly about how they were too young to be in the Order.

"They've always seemed rather good at their impressions," Remus muttered randomly as he shifted uneasily in his seat, he could already feel a fight breaking out and he wasn't even in the room for it.

Sirius returned it wasn't his fault what his parents decided to share, but Harry-

Molly cut across it wasn't his decision either!

"Hey!" Sirius barked in outrage.

"He's the only one who should get to decide," James agreed dangerously. He'd spent hours now hating the world that left Sirius the one doing so, but he'd had to come to the acceptance of it all the same. Who was Molly to be saying anything otherwise?! Harry was just a friend of one of her kids!

Her normally kind face was looking dangerous as she reminded Sirius of what Dumbledore had said.

"He's less of a right than Sirius!" Lily sneered back, looking quite dangerous herself Harry noted. "Who's Dumbledore to be telling Sirius anything to do with Harry? Merlin, we left Sirius as Harry's Godfather, and even if it's not recognized because of that stupid bloody thing everyone thinks he did, those who do know better should respect it!"

Sirius asked her of which part with the air of bracing himself for a fight.

Molly shot back the part about telling Harry more than he needed to know.

"Dumbledore needs to get a grip on what he thinks everyone needs to know," Remus snapped hatefully. First trying to keep Harry at such a terrible place he didn't want to be at, now trying to enforce Sirius do his dirty work as well, where did the man think he got the right to control them like this?

Almost everyone was watching the pair like a tennis rally.

"I imagine this would be quite a show under most circumstances," James muttered as he was honestly having a bit of a hard time picturing it. Someone they'd never even really met arguing with his best friend about the circumstances of how much his infant son should know about the Order while he wasn't even in the picture.

Lupin's eyes were fixed only on Sirius.

Sirius came a second too close to snapping, 'thanks for the backup Moony,' but managed to stop himself just in time as it really wasn't fair to be turning his temper on him now when he had just snapped in agreement with him. At least his friend Remus was still acting the same as he should be, whereas they'd still yet to see their friend really taking on his normal roll of anything regarding Sirius or Harry in this twisted future.

Sirius said back he wasn't going to be saying more than needed to be known, but Harry was the one who saw Voldemort come back, (ignoring as always the shiver that passed everyone except Harry, Remus, and Sirius at the mention of that name,) and Harry had more a right than anyone-

Molly cut him off he was only fifteen!

"Don't you cut him off just because he's making a good point," James muttered petulantly.

Sirius instantly snapped back he'd dealt with just as much as the Order at that age!

Harry couldn't stop a soft little smile creeping across his face for that. He hadn't even spoken those words to Sirius, and yet his godfather really did seem to know him so well as he'd said the same thing Harry had been thinking for a month.

Mrs. Weasley icily agreed no one was denying what he'd done, but-

Sirius cut her off to remind he wasn't a child!

Molly snapped right back he wasn't an adult either, he wasn't James!

Sirius looked like he'd just been kicked in the sack. What exactly had he been saying for Molly to insinuate that? Had he really lost a chunk of his mind in Azkaban to really not be able to tell the difference between them sometimes? Sure they looked a lot the same, but he wouldn't really-

James's face had been steadily growing more red the more he got out of Molly talking to his brother like that, but the moment he realized she'd just shot the lowest of blows at him he switched to several shades too pale for his normal coloring and stated in a flat, cold voice, "Molly just lost any of my respect."

"Dad!" Harry yelped defensively at once. He couldn't say he was pleased at Molly's coddling of him in this moment, but that was too far for him of someone he cared deeply for.

"I'm not going to let her get away with talking to him like that," James vowed without a change in expression. "Not after all he's been through, what he's still going through."

Harry glanced around beseechingly, but he didn't see anyone who didn't disagree with James. Harry winced as he did admit that Mrs. Weasley had crossed a line with that remark, but Harry still wished they'd cut her some slack as she was speaking out of anger and clearly trying to look out for him even if it was in the wrong way.

Sirius said back flatly he was perfectly clear who Harry was.

Sirius wished he had that same confidence in his future self. Despite how warmed he was James was using that icy tone, that no one in here had even thought to question the remark besides him, he honestly wondered if it was needed as Sirius wasn't as convinced that he wasn't just a bit loose around the edges, if maybe he did sometimes get the two swapped. He'd like to think he never got that bad, but well, twelve years was a long time, and he'd be wishing he had James back now more than ever in that hated place...

Molly said she wasn't as sure, the way he went on sometimes it was as if he thought he had his best friend back.

Remus suddenly realized they were the only ones enraged over this, and that in fact Sirius was trying to burrow himself into his seat and not looking at anyone, but instead seemed almost guilty of his future actions. James was too distracted by half reading, and half forcing himself not to shout as Remus leaned in to whisper, "Sirius mate, you know that's not happening to you, it never could."

Sirius only nodded as answer, and while he'd have liked more, Remus let it go for now.

Sirius should know that Harry was still in school and be responsible enough not to forget it.

Sirius demanded back, his voice rising with every word, that she was implying he was an irresponsible godfather?

Lily had said a lot about Sirius before, but never that, and she was right behind whatever nasty retorts James was interlacing as he forced himself to keep going.

Molly said it meant Sirius had been known to act rashly, which was exactly why Dumbledore was making him stay at home.

"I'm going to kill Dumbledore doing that to you!" James finally broke and yelled that bit, regretting it instantly as it only started his son crying again. Giving the book a nasty toss aside, he took him from Lily and cradled him in his arms for a moment to calm himself as much as his baby it seemed. "Don't," he said without looking up when he'd seen Harry moving out of the corner of his eye. "I'll get it in a second, just let me," he took a deep breath as he kept his baby to him for an extra second, but now the child had calmed himself back down he didn't seem to want to move again as he nestled into the crook of James's neck. Sighing with content, he managed to keep him there while summoning the book back to him, and managed to keep hold of both while forcing himself to keep going. At least now he couldn't lose his temper.

Molly turned on her husband then for backup, but Arthur took his sweet time in answering that now Harry was here, he should know some things.

Mrs. Weasley snarled back there was a difference between that and inviting him to ask whatever he wanted.

"I'm still struggling to understand where she feels she gets the right to say anything regarding Harry," Remus snarled under his breath as he massaged his temple.

Lupin cut in then, while Molly looked to him almost hopefully like she thought she now had an ally,

"Remus, if you actually agree with her on this, I will hold you down myself and watch them take your head off," Lily promised.

Remus just nodded silently, knowing he wouldn't fight back. If he really had changed so much he'd side with her over Sirius, then there wasn't anything left of his Marauder heritage. It didn't even matter if he disagreed with Sirius, he should stand by him anyways to her face.

but all he said was that Harry should be given the general picture from them rather than, other means. His tone made it obvious he was aware a few Extendable Ears were still around.

"There's my Moony still in there," James at least seemed to approve of this answer.

Molly was breathing heavily as she glared at everyone, giving in at last, but saying that Dumbledore had his best intentions in trying to prevent this.

Sirius bit back he wasn't her son!

Molly shot right back he was as good as.

Sirius felt a burn vanishing all his ire at her. Suddenly another woman flashed across his mind, of Euphemia Potter saying the same thing about him so many years ago now. He'd realized the Weasley's had unofficially adopted Harry, he just hadn't realized how much it paralleled his own family with the Potters. He hadn't even really been the one so angry with her right now, to worried for his own state of mind and what he could have been seeing while Harry wasn't there, and now he was confident he really couldn't say a word against her. Not after he now saw those fierce hazel eyes claiming him as Molly had just done for Harry.

Demanding who else he had?

"The fact that she even needs to ask," Lily's harsh tone came out muffled through her gritted teeth. She'd hated that sting of replacement several times now, but none worse than this where Molly was actively trying to block Sirius from doing his job, what Lily honestly wouldn't even be doing in that moment was hurting so bad she never could have imagined this feeling.

Sirius bitterly reminded he had him!

Molly's lip curled meanly as she reminded he hadn't been doing much good in Azkaban before now.

James couldn't actually allow his temper to snap again with his little charge nodding off while still trying to hold onto conscious trying to catch at his father's flyaway hair, so it just wasn't as satisfying watching Lily and Remus look ready to deck her any second like he knew he wanted to. It was least helpful of all Harry, nor Sirius were on the same boat, both were watching the three of them almost pitifully, though neither risking saying anything to the contrary it was clear they didn't fully agree. James didn't understand how Sirius could be so on this woman's side right now, how he wasn't the angriest of them all, and he would demand answers from him once his kid fell asleep and they had a real excuse to pause, but for now he forced himself to read past that moment that shouldn't exist.

Sirius began rising from his seat, but Lupin cut across both of them Molly wasn't the only one at this table who cared about Harry, and for Sirius to sit down.

"Not one word Sirius, or I'll mute you," Remus promised, his eyes still flashing dangerously as Sirius looked to try cracking a dog joke at a time like this.

Mrs. Weasley was still trembling with fury, while Sirius had to slowly force himself to retake his seat. **

Then Lupin turned to Harry and said he should have a say in this.

"Do you really think he'd say anything against Sirius' side?" James forced himself to ask slowly and calmly, better than starting to shoot curses at someone who wasn't here.

"No, but it was still a valid point," Remus huffed without looking at him, his eyes still focused dangerously on the book. Remus was really wishing that instead of telling Sirius to cool it, he was instead ripping Molly a new one for bringing that up.

Harry instantly agreed he wanted to be told what was going on. He did not look at Mrs. Weasley as he said this, too touched by her saying he was as good as her son, but also impatient with her mollycoddling. He wasn't a child.

Mrs. Weasley's voice cracked as she turned on her own kids plus Hermione, telling them to get out.

"Again, I am going to point out, where does she have the say to be telling Hermione anything," Lily hissed, far past caring she hadn't said much coherent besides that lately, this woman was pushing every last one of her buttons. "It should be up to her own parents to decide!"

Harry honestly felt like maybe Mrs. Weasley could claim there, as perhaps the Grangers had left Mrs. Weasley in charge of their daughter and what all she could know, but that was an honest guess as he had no clue of Hermione's parents relationship with anyone. He was honestly just trying to think of any defense for someone who'd touched him so deeply, but he still couldn't bring himself to undermine his own mother.

Fred and George shouted back at once they were of age, while Ron demanded if Harry could why couldn't he?

"Sadly, the parents original points against their own children still stand," Sirius said under his breath, clearly the only one going to do so, though he had no doubts all those being removed would pounce on Harry the moment he was alone.

While all Ginny could protest was that she wanted to stay.

"Poor Ginny really doesn't have any kind of excuse," Sirius muttered absently.

Mrs. Weasley began forbidding any such thing, but again Arthur cut her off, saying the twins were of age and could hear at least this.

"I- he couldn't have said that when they'd be saying that all summer! Why does he cut in now to back them up?" Lily balked at the randomness of this.

"I suppose Mr. Weasley still wouldn't let them into the Order meetings, but now when I'm hopefully just going to get a few questions answered, he thought that was okay than whatever the twins were trying to ask," Harry offered.

Molly was going scarlet as she forced herself to agree with this,

"Can't baby them all forever," Lily snapped grimly.

but then she tried to insist that Ron, but Ron cut her off it didn't matter, Harry would just tell him anyways, then suddenly he phrased it as a question as he looked at Harry.

"Now why did he ask you that?" James raised a still fuming brow. "Would have been much stronger if he'd thrown that out not as a question."

"Guess he thought I was still too pissed at him to hold his weight," Harry sighed as some pesky part of his mind snipped he just may not.

For a split second, Harry considered telling Ron that he wouldn't tell him a single word, that he could try a taste of being kept in the dark and see how he liked it.

"Ouch, Harry sure knows how to get his revenge point across," Remus winced as he watched Harry flinch at such a thing being spoken, he was not proud of that thought.

"I can't see him doing it," James said without looking up, "angry he is, but he's never been petty."

But the nasty impulse vanished as they looked at each other.

James nodded without surprise while Lily gave her son a pleased smile and Harry basked just for a moment in his parents happiness at that.

Mrs. Weasley entirely lost her temper as she shouted at Ginny to get to bed, now!

Ginny did not go quietly.

Harry gave a light chuckle to himself at that little spitfire, he had no doubts Ginny may well be clever enough to be going through the twins stuff the moment her mother was back out of sight and try to sneak back down with an Extendable Ear.

She stormed up the stairs and made such a racket Mrs. Black's ear splitting portrait began shrieking again, while Lupin ran off to restore calm to that.

"What he's usually best at," Sirius gave a half hearted smile that didn't match the still sour tone of the room.

Only when he returned next to Sirius did his godfather ask Harry what he wanted to know?

"I really do love how open ended you are with him," James forced a smile that felt like cracking plaster. At least he'd tried though, and it was as good as any attempt he could make at praising how Sirius was handling his son.

Harry took a deep breath and asked the question that had obsessed him for the last month.

Lily hummed as a stirring of emotions still bothered her for that being true, Dumbledore better show his white beard around soon to explain that mess, but listened eagerly to this news that should have long since been given to her son.

Where was Voldemort? What had he been doing? He'd been trying to find out through the Muggle news but couldn't find anything.

Sirius said that was because he hadn't been causing any funny deaths, as far as they knew, which was quite a lot.

More than he thought they did, Lupin added.

"Well that's nice at least," Remus tried, unintentionally Harry was sure, for the same smile he'd offered him that same night.

Harry asked why he'd stopped killing then, as Harry knew he had done so at least twice in the past year.

"Well don't say it like it's such a bad thing Harry," James muttered.

Sirius said it was because he was trying not to draw attention to himself, his comeback hadn't gone off as he'd wanted to, Lupin agreed Harry had messed it up for him with a satisfied smile.

"Well at least someone's having fun with this," Lily almost managed a smirk for Harry's now bewildered face.

Harry asked how, and Sirius reminded he wasn't supposed to have survived.

"But I'm glad you did by the way," Sirius inserted as James's small face twitch showed Sirius hadn't at the time.

Nobody apart from his Death Eaters was supposed to know, but Harry had come back and instantly informed Dumbledore.

Harry asked how that had been helpful, and Bill reminded that You-Know-Who was only scared of one person, the very same Dumbledore. While Sirius added that thanks to Harry, Dumbledore had managed to recall the Order of the Phoenix in an hour after Voldemort's return.

"That really is some brilliant timing though," James really did smile this time. "If we'd been able to do that the first time around, I'm actually positive far more lives could be saved, a lot more could be done to cramp him up more often."

"It's not the one with the most pieces, but the one with the most knowledge," Remus agreed while both his friends rolled their eyes at him and his word wisdom talk again.

Harry asked what the Order had been doing then?

Sirius said they'd been trying to work against Voldemort carrying out his plans, which Harry interrupted to ask how they knew what those were.

"I thought that you put that one together yourself," Lily reminded Harry of his last year and watching Dumbledore give Sirius those orders.

"I was still aiming for more specifics than my guessing," Harry defended.

Lupin told that Dumbledore had a shrewd idea, and Dumbledore's ideas were normally accurate.

"I do like how you sidestepped actually giving an answer to that," Sirius told him sarcastically.

While Harry asked what Dumbledore's idea was then?

"And Harry fell for it," James said tragically, he'd have never let Moony get away with that.

Sirius said that first of all, Voldemort was trying to get his numbers back up. He used to have countless witches and wizards he'd bullied and bewitched to work for him, plus a plethora of Dark creatures.

Remus tried his hardest to smother the flinch that gave him, he really hated his job for the Order and had no delusions he'd pick back up on it for Dumbledore's orders.

He wasn't going to try taking on the Ministry with a handful of Death Eaters.

Harry watched those around him smile without humor at the idea, but then why did he get a nasty little pit swelling inside of him at the idea of that?

So they were trying to make people aware Voldemort was back to keep them on guard, they'd be less of a target for Voldemort that way, but it was proving tricky.

Harry asked why, and Tonks explained it was Cornelius Fudge.

"Still can not wrap my head around anyone being that dense," James muttered in disgust as his infants heavy breathing began lightly filling his ears, at least encouraging him to keep a gentle volume even while referring back to something he hated.

Harry tried to ask why he was being so stupid, while Arthur said it all boiled down to Dumbledore.

Tonks agreed Fudge was frightened of him.

"He's what now?" Lily demanded like she thought James was playing a joke.

Arthur added on frightened of what Dumbledore was up to.

"He's up to trying to save your useless arses," Remus still had his head cocked to the side as he tried to find any other way to interpret this news and coming up short.

Fudge thinks Dumbledore's plotting to overthrow him.

There was a moment of silence where you could hear crickets chirping in the background after the stupidity of that statement. None of the others could even think to add anything onto it, and James had to remember how to get past such a new level of stupid to even keep going.

He thinks Dumbledore wants to be Minister of Magic.

"But he doesn't," Remus said slowly and clearly, trying to form a proper sentence again. "If he did, he'd have done it ages ago."

"I think Fudge and Vernon could form their own group of idiots, but they're too dense to understand how to put together the meeting," Sirius muttered.

Harry tried to say Dumbledore didn't want, while Arthur agreed everyone knew Dumbledore didn't want the job, even though a lot of people had told him he should take it after Millicent Bagnold had retired.

"I'd still take her over this dunderhead any day," Lily sniffed, "pull her out of retirement or something, please!"

Fudge had never forgotten though how popular Dumbledore was when he took office, even if deep down he knew how much more clever than him Dumbledore was and how back in the early days he'd been asking for Dumbledore's help with his new position all the time.

"I would so love to pay someone to follow him around and try to at least get him to admit that though," James huffed.

He was now enjoying his new power too much, and he'd convinced himself Dumbledore was making this all up to cause trouble.

"That doesn't even make sense, about anything!" Lily still insisted as if hoping repeating this enough would make anyone see sense.

Harry was getting angry now as he asked how anyone could think that, that Harry would make it all up?

"Fudge was there when you, when-" Lily had to swallow hard to phrase that without crying from remembrance of what her son had been through, "outside that maze. There just isn't a way possible he could explain that away!"

"Apparently deniability stretches so far it can block even the worst of memories, I almost envy him," Remus stated.

Sirius explained that if he accepted Voldemort was back, it would put the Ministry in a state of fear they hadn't had to cope with in fourteen years.

"Just because you're pretending it's not happening doesn't mean it's not," James felt a growl building in his throat as he got that out, but the vibrating was already stirring his restless charge and he forced himself to temper off.

Lupin switched back to explaining the problem with the Ministry denying Voldemort's return, it put the rest of the populace in a dangerous position of being made unaware anything was happening, leaving them all vulnerable to the Imperius Curse for starters.

Harry felt a shiver creep up his spine at that idea of so many left unprotected, all the damage Fudge was doing to countless people just because he was afraid. Harry had now seen fear do so many things to people, and yet he still couldn't imagine acting in those same ways.

Harry looked around the table beseechingly as he asked if anyone was telling?

Sirius gave a humorless smile as he reminded that with a ten thousand galleon price on his head,

"Really? That was actually more than I was expecting. You think if- ouch!" He yelped as Remus smacked him hard for making light of that.

he could hardly stroll around the street handing out fliers.

"Oh but it would be so much more interesting if I did," Sirius persisted, trying to duck around Moony's swinging hand now, "what better impact than- ouch, Lily!"

Her eyes flashed, threatening to use worse than a stinging hex on him if he kept poking fun at this while his friends still adopted fear filled looks at any mention of it. Sirius honestly just did because it made him feel better to pretend this was funny than be reminded who had put him in this situation, but held his tongue back nonetheless in hopes the subject would just be changed off of him.

Lupin added next that he was not a popular dinner guest, as being a werewolf tended to be an occupational hazard.

"Remus," James began in agitation.

"What? I'm not wrong," he shot back at once with his arms crossed.

"We still hate the way you phrase that," Lily snipped at him, while he rolled his eyes at the lot of them. There really wasn't a nice way to say it, though they all tried to pretend otherwise.

Harry was just gazing sadly at Remus for a moment as an extra surge of hatred flashed for Snape, Skeeter, and everyone else who had been making Remus' name so public of late. It's no wonder if he'd been doing worse since he'd left Hogwarts, he clearly had a hard life without people automatically reacting to his name.

Sirius added on for them that Tonks and Arthur would get fired if they tried anything, and they needed people inside the Ministry they could trust.

They have managed to convince a few though, Arthur added on, Tonks and Kingsley for instance. Kingsley in particular was useful to have on their side, as he was leading the hunt for Sirius.

James had to cut off his snort of amusement with a small cough instead as he turned worried eyes on Sirius, though at least his best friend tried to play that off as a joke again. "Now I wonder how that meeting went? Would really hope I sat in on that one, though do you think it's too much to ask Kingsley to start spreading word of just how dumb it is to be looking for me at all?"

"Well my liking for Kingsley just went up tenfold," Remus muttered.

He'd instead been giving false information that Sirius was in Tibet.

"Bleh, no way could I survive out there, I couldn't stand replacing my diet with yak milk."

"I am going to smack you," Lily promised him.

Harry began in confusion if no one was spreading word, but Sirius reminded about Dumbledore, and pointed out why he was in so much trouble with the Ministry lately.

"Ah," they all muttered, at least Dumbledore was doing something besides annoying the piss out of all of them.

He'd been going around telling anyone and everyone with a trace of fear that Voldemort was back, and the Ministry was trying to retaliate by discrediting him as an old man losing his grip. They'd already taken away his Chairmanship on the International Confederation of Wizards and had voted him out of his Chief Warlock position on the Wizengamot. They were even trying to take away his Order of Merlin, First Class.

"Can they actually take that away once it's given to you?" Harry frowned at a rather mean blow in his opinion.

"Only if they can prove he didn't rightfully earn it in the first place," James shrugged without much care.

Bill added on with a grin Dumbledore said he didn't care though so long as they didn't take him off his Chocolate Frog Card.

"That sounds like Dumbledore," Remus muttered almost wistfully, still half hoping to hear the return of the headmaster they knew and trusted rather than this control freak ruining both Harry and Sirius' life of late.

Arthur snipped at his son this wasn't a time for laughing,

"I think you all need a few good laughs," James mumbled pitifully, wondering when his friends had fallen out of that business, knowing it had happened at the point he'd stopped being around turning them into these cold, barely recognizable people.

if Dumbledore carried on in this way he'd wind up in Azkaban.

"I'm honestly not convinced that place could hold him," Lily said mostly to herself, "or more over, that they could get him there."

"Can't deny it would be a show to watch them try though," Remus sighed without any humor.

Harry stared oddly at them for a moment but was too distracted to really let that sink in.

Harry asked if Voldemort was recruiting for more Death Eaters, word was bound to get out that he was back then.

Sirius reminded Voldemort didn't exactly go door to door to do this.

"Yeah, he only did that to Crouch, and that didn't seem to work out too well for him," Sirius finished himself with a roll of his eyes, then went cross eyed as he realized what he did.

James was just ignoring him at this point.

He tricked, jinxed, and blackmailed them all as subtly as possible. He also had bigger plans than just that.

When Sirius hesitated, Harry pushed what else while Sirius and Lupin exchanged a look.

"Now you're asking the real questions," Lily said a bit eagerly, her boys reacting that way must mean Harry was starting to scratch at what supposedly was too much information.

Sirius began slowly and carefully that it was something he could only get by stealth.

Harry automatically guessed it was a weapon, adding on he didn't have it last time?

Sirius agreed, and Harry wanted to know if it was more powerful than the most deadly curse, but Mrs. Weasley broke in that was enough!

"Damn that woman!" Sirius barked in frustration, causing all of them to jump, though thankfully the baby slept on. "If I want to tell Harry every little detail, would you just let me get on with it."

"You're just pissed because she cut in at the good part," Harry softly rebuked.

Sirius shrugged as he wasn't going to deny that while the others were just happy to see their normal Sirius again agreeing with them.

Harry hadn't realized she'd come back, but she marched into the full room again and snapped at every last one of them they'd heard enough, now get to bed.

Fred began protesting she couldn't boss them-

"Actually, I'm sure she can right to your own place," Lily muttered tersely, in no mood to defend her, especially to the twins, but that one had come out on impulse.

she snapped back he was going to watch her do it. Then she turned still burning eyes on Sirius and said Harry had been told enough, any more and he may as well be inducted into the Order.

"Please, please just ignore her and keep right on going," Remus placed his hands together and actually pleaded, there was no way she could actually cut off there when that had been a real answer for once!

Harry instantly agreed to the idea, but the word no was spoken sharply again, this time by Lupin.

"Remus James Lupin, I am renouncing your middle name just for that," James huffed at him, though his eyes were too dark for the joke, it was clear he didn't actually find it funny Moony had switched sides.

"You know I hate it when you call me that you twit," Remus huffed, though there was no force to his return, he felt bad himself like he'd give himself a good smack as well.

"Exactly why he did it," Sirius pointed out as he slumped back into his seat with a pout.

Remus turned on him and was fixing to start a snip right back, but Lily cut them off by telling them to hush so that James could hopefully find out just a little bit more.

The Order was only comprised of those overage, and had left school, he finished with a look at the twins.

"Honestly I don't see why though," Remus butted in, whether to keep in his friends good graces or honestly meaning it they weren't sure. Honestly it was just a sight to watch him argue with himself for a moment no one was going to stop him. "I think some spies in school would be just as useful, could surprise the lot of them how much you learn in that castle."

"Well I won't say I'm not pleased they haven't stepped that far yet," Lily rolled her eyes, thinking telling Harry these things was one thing, but actually going full through with making him an official member and expecting him to do work for them while in school really was pushing it. There did still have to be some priorities.

Then he turned to Sirius and told Molly was right, they'd said enough.

Sirius just shrugged and didn't argue.

James's face puckered as he honestly struggled to imagine that. Not his Padfoot, who had to be almost physically restrained from backing down from any fight, who only did so while still grumbling that he hadn't gotten his last say in like he was still doing now for his and Remus' tiff. The dynamic between Remus and Sirius' friendship had clearly changed just as much as the two themselves, and James was sick of hearing about these strangers passing as his friends.

Mrs. Weasley beckoned imperiously to her sons and Hermione. One by one they stood up and Harry, recognizing defeat, followed suit.

"Chapter's done," James announced as he gave the book another careless toss away, and got up to put his infant down for a proper nap.

HPHPHPHP

There's a lot of Molly lovers, and a lot of Molly haters, and most of them all center around this chapter. Really, like with Ron in the last book, there's no way to make everyone happy, but I do hope you enjoyed this chapter and what I ultimately had them all feeling for her. I won't deny this chapter truly did annoy me, as Sirius is given so much crap from Molly and Dumbledore telling him how to treat Harry when in every way possible it should be Sirius' decision. This will be the worst of what's said about her, I did promise and I will never break that promise that this'll never hit bashing territory for any character. Everyone gets a fair shake with me, as everyone does have their high and low points.

* You know, I'm actually not sure what that is supposed to be. Probably is something random we're just never told about. I kicked around a few ideas, like the Ministry for one though I can't come up with a reason why they'd need building plans for that place since people from the Ministry work there, but I suppose it could be documents of the Department of Mysteries, but I honestly doubt those plans exist and no one of the Order's been inside there, so I'd love some suggestions of other places those plans could be.

**I'm aware that Sirius technically was 'the first of thirteen to rise and so the first to die,' in that moment, but honestly it'll never be brought up by my characters as they won't be digging past the moment to realize that. Just something fun I enjoyed seeing someone point out once.

#The LIfe that Never LIved #Harry Potter #fanfiction #reading the books #hp #Ootp #The Marauders #jilly #James Potter #Lily Potter #Remus Lupin #Sirius black

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pi-cat000 · 4 years

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MSA time travel idea (part 37)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Vivi POV, 8, 9, 10, Lewis POV, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, Lance POV 18, 19, Lewis POV 2, 21 , 22, Vivi POV 2, 24, 25 Lewis POV 3, Mystery POV , Vivi POV 3, 29, Lewis POV 4, 31, ViVi POV 4 , 33, 34, Lewis POV 5, Mystery POV 2

Part 38: here

Lewis POV

To Lewis, it feels like blinking. Arthur’s workshop breaks apart, splintering into pieces which disintergate around him. The body snatcher, still clutching his shirt, still grinning, dissolves, flaking away. Darkness swallows up the scene leaving only an impression of poisonous green imprinted into his mind.

When he opens his eyes, it is too pale moonlight and cool blues, greys and browns. He is standing in a clearing of loose rock and packed dirt. Vivi is standing several feet away surveying a grove of bent-looking trees. The bright blue of her sweater and skirt stands out against the muted background. Relieved, he tries to call out a greeting and maybe ask if she is okay but finds the action hard, bordering on impossible.

He can’t talk. He can’t move either.

“Are you sure about this one. It says to keep out.”

Arthur’s voice, loud if slightly muffled, sounds like it is being filtered through a closed door. Vivi turns and hits him with a wide smile.

“So have half the other places we’ve visited,” she answers, drawing Lewis’s attention to the numinous ‘keep out’ signs hammed into the ground between them. Where are they? Is what he wants to say.

“Yeah, and I remember getting chased through a forest by a bunch of machete-wielding, red-cloaked wackos,” he finds himself asking instead in a voice suspiciously close to Arthur’s.

Vivi walks a little way into the trees, disappearing, and-without his impute- Lewis’s attention drifts to examine the entrance to the foreboding cave looming over him. It is far too dark to see into. He can feel himself breathe and shuffle with apprehension, though Lewis has never been one to fidget.

“Sometimes, there’s a good reason for the keep out signs.”

“I’m sure that was a one-off.”

Lewis’s view quickly shifts, moving, reacting to the comment. And… he finds himself looking into a very familiar face. His own face. Stunned, Lewis stares at the second Lewis who wears an expression of amusement and concern, mouth curled into a loose smile. It's like looking in an uncanny mirror.

Oh. His own hand, other-Lewis's hand, lands on his, Arthur's, shoulder, giving a reaffirming pat.

This is a memory. He is reliving a memory from Arthur’s point of view. That’s why everything feels disconnected and fuzzy around the edges. When tries to concentrate on areas outside Arthur’s line of focus the scene blurs.

This is what that body snatcher had promised him… a look into Arthur's memories.

It feels like he's stuck in some sort of hyper-real, virtual reality without any input controls. His ability to hear is muffled, and his sense of touch is muted, almost non-existent, so there is a distinct disconnection between himself and the scene. Despite this distance, it feels invasive. He’s not sure what he ought to have expected upon agreeing to see Arthur’s memories, but this isn't it. Lewis tries to shake his sudden discomfort and guilt, focusing instead on the other-Lewis as he talks.

Memory-Lewis looks pretty relaxed despite the disconcerting environment, commenting “If this has you really worried we can always wait out here while Vivi takes her supernatural readings.”

“No." Arthur sighs, waving away the concern, "It’s fine. Probably best not to let Vivi go spelunking with only Mystery as back up.”

“Just stick behind me. I’m sure this will be just as boring as all the other caves we’ve walked through.”

There is an air of familiarity to their words, like traversing creepy caves is an everyday occurrence. Confused, Lewis searches his recent memories but comes up with nothing resembling this exchange.

The group of three, having finished their light banter, start into the cave with Vivi in the lead. They talk like they’ve been planning this trip for ages. Only, no, that can’t be right because Lewis can’t remember ever visiting a place like this with Arthur and Vivi. The cave, now lit with the flickering firelight of the torch Vivi's uncovered, is distinct enough that he would surely remember it.

How was this one of Arthur's memories if Lewis doesn't remember taking part in it? Is it even real or is this another lie?

Vivi and the other-memory-Lewis walk down the sloping stone tunnel with Arthur quick to position himself between the two of them, so Lewis has a good view of the back of Vivi’s head. Mystery appears at Vivi’s feet, sniffing around, all dog-like. Lewis vaguely remembers Mystery conversing with the body snatcher before turning into a giant fox and biting his arm. Details of the confrontation are a little fuzzy, Lewis being too preoccupied with his worry for Arthur at the time. This Mystery is acting normal. Arthur barely spares the dog a glance with his vision glued into Vivi. Occasionally, Arthur’s attention wanders over to the cave's uneven walls, examining shadows which waver in the firelight.

“Maybe there’ll be an actual ghost this time and not a dude playing dress-up?” The other-Lewis comments from behind him.

“One can only hope,” Vivi’s voice echoes about and Arthur shudders at her volume, peering into a particularly dark crack in the wall before adding in a half-whisper, “Ah. Objection. A dude in a sheet is plenty scary, thanks. No need for anything else.”

Thankfully, the other-Lewis seems to be picking up on how nervous Arthur is because he attempts to lighten the mood. “Like weird-scary or scary-scary?”

Arthur glances over his shoulder, retorting, “Both.” The interaction is friendly and familiar, no trace of stiffness. It is easy to imagine that, had they decided to travel around and follow Vivi’s original plans to investigate supernatural locations, then this is what it would have been like. he ease of the interplay, lacking any form of tension, is one that Lewis misses. He wants it back.

The lighter mood doesn’t last long because Arthur spots something moving along the cave walls. An elongated shadow appears and is gone quicker than Arthur can blink. Lewis’s sense of nostalgic longing turns to apprehension and fear. So caught up in enjoying watching Arthur interact with other-memory-Lewis, he had forgotten what this was. A fake memory or illusion designed to mess with him.

Barely noticeable is a sinister shadow of a recognisable green colour. Arthur doesn't notice it, attention drifting. Lewis begins to study each stone surface around the small group. That thing is here. In the walls. In the floor. Watching and waiting…

“Let’s split up,” Vivi’s announces when the group arrives at a split in the larger tunnel.

“What? No way!” Lewis hears Arthur object to which he mentally agrees. Splitting up is definitely a bad idea… Other-memory-Lewis doesn’t appear to share his mindset, unbothered by the location, nodding along with Vivi like an idiot.

“Splitting up is a terrible idea. When has splitting up ever worked well for anyone?” Arthur continues.

Yes. Listen to Arthur! Even if this is some twisted illusion, Lewis still doesn’t want to see any of them hurt.

“If we split up, we’ll cover more ground and get through the cave system faster.” Vivi points out.

They’re not listening.

“Just remember to take lots of photos. Here have my spare EMF meter.”

He watches Vivi and other-Lewis pass equipment between them. Arthur groans aloud, rubbing his eyes in frustrated exasperation. His friend is nervous, but not nervous enough to insist on them all sticking together. Lewis watched silently, worry mounting.

“Lewis. You go with Arthur. He’ll need the moral support more than I will.”

“Hey,” Arthur mutters a half-hearted protest.

“I’ll take Mystery down that tunnel. Let’s meet up in, say, an hour and report our findings.”

Mystery. Vivi’s mention of her not-quite-a-dog has Lewis’s attention drifting around. Surely, the dog would stop them from splitting up. In all the chaos and in between getting stabbed, Lewis is sure Mystery had been on their side. Even if the result had been less than ideal. They should stick together with Mystery so the dog could protect them all from whatever danger was lurking in the walls.

Alas, Mystery seems oblivious, following Vivi as she walks off towards one of the tunnels. No. What he wouldn’t give to be able to interact and warn the trio.

Vivi pauses, glancing back. “Oh, and if it gets too maze-like come back here, so you don’t get lost,” A familiar playful note colours her voice as she takes a light jab at his poor sense of direction, “And don’t fall down any holes.”

“We’ll be fine,” Other-Lewis reassures, amused while Lewis stews in his worry, annoyed at his counterparts carelessness. Idiot. He’s pulled from his worry by the odd experience of getting caught in a headlock when Arthur is too slow to avoid his other-Lewis. Lewis knows he’s above average height, but it’s a very different experience seeing and feeling it from Arthur’s perspective.

Vivi snorts, waving, “See you boys in an hour.” She disappears into the dark, the blue of her shirt fading.

“You okay there Arthur?”

Arthur glances up at the other-Lewis, batting away his arms.

“Yeah. Come on. Let’s go poke around a dark, damp, tunnel some more.”

Lewis might have found the sarcastic comment amusing if he weren’t so busy freaking out, trying to work out which of them the body snatcher will target first. Silently, Lewis watches, wishing he could smack the other-Lewis over the head. Arthur is obviously nervous, this cave is creepy as hell, and he doesn’t appear to care.

The trip down the tunnel becomes an expedition of heightening tension. A rope being slowly pulled to its breaking point. Every time the other-Lewis stumbles on a bit of uneven rock has him holding his non-existent breath. The low flickering light does nothing for the ominous atmosphere, causing Arthur to stumble as well, bumping into Lewis several times. Doom presses down on then. It reminds Lewis of a horror movie, in which he is stuck waiting for something terrible to happen.

They come to the end of the tunnel without interruption. A narrow stone walkway juts out ahead, ending in a sharp drop. The light of the torch reflects off the mossy walls and spike-covered ceiling and Arthur eyes the pointy stone formations with apprehension. This is dangerous, Lewis thinks as Arthur shivers.

Other-Lewis confidently walks out ahead, leaving his friend to follow at a more cautious pace. If it were up to him he would be grabbing Arthur and dragging him out of this creepy cave system post hast. Sure, this cavern is impressive, but what about self-preservation?

It does not take long for the worse to happen. Distracted by the impressive scenery, Arthur trips and brushes up against the cave wall. When Lewis sees Arthur’s arm start to turn green, everything rings with an overpowering déjà vu. This time, Mystery doesn’t jump in to immediately rip the infected limb free.

“Hey, Arthur! Come check out this view!” Other-Lewis calls from where he looks to be attempting to peer down into the steep drop. Arthur lunches forward, arm outstretched and aiming for other-Lewis’s unprotected back.

“Lew..!”

His name is chocked off, so his counterpart doesn’t have time to turn around and brace himself. Lewis is treated to the somewhat horrifying sight of his own shocked expression as he disappears over the edge of the stone platform. He hears the other-Lewis yell, which echoes in the stone chamber, and then he only hears Arthur’s harder breathing. The sound is no longer muffled but distinct and sharp, taking over the memory.

Had…had he just watched himself die??

The next sequence is also disturbingly familiar. White teeth. Bone snapping. Blood droplets spinning in the air. Unlike his own recent experience, Arthur doesn’t immediately blank out, so Lewis is treated to the phantom sting of pain, filtering through the bond.

“Ah Shit.” He hears Arthur uncharacteristically say in contrast to the nightmare going on around him. Was that the body snatcher?? The scenery blurs and distorts so he no longer has a clear view.

This couldn’t be real…This wasn’t a real memory because he definitely wasn’t dead. He'll wake up in the hospital, and Arthur and Vivi would be fine. They would work everything out.

The cave dissolves, breaking apart and fading.

....

Lewis blinks and opens his eyes to darkness. Complete and utter black presses in from all angles. The memory…or illusion because there was no way that had been a real memory… is finished. For a moment Lewis can’t think, brain stalling as he tries to process what he’s just witnessed.

It couldn’t have been a real memory. But, if that where the case, then why show it to him? Too upset him?? Well, it has succeeded. Poor Arthur, he had probably been terrified. At least when Lewis had had his own arm bitten off, he had, sort of, understood that Mystery was trying to save him. Arthur and other-Lewis were taken completely off guard. He can’t image what they might have been thinking. Nothing good. Slowly he clenches his fist, drawing it into his chest, clutching it tightly. When he looks down, he can see his hands and torso, giving off a faint lilac glow. It’s his own arm, whole and attached. There is solid ground beneath his feet, though, when he looks down, all he sees is the same bank darkness. Lewis glances around in helplessly. Stuck in this empty void, all he can do is feel frustrated and trapped.

Where is he?

His vision blurs, and he blinks again.

...

Reopening his eyes, Lewis struggles to focus on an off-white ceiling lit by warm natural light. He is lying horizontally on a soft surface. For one brief moment, Lewis thinks he’s made it back to the real waking world. No more nightmare fake-memory. That overhead definitely looks like a hospital ceiling and he seems to be in a bed.

When he tries to move, he is faced with a familiar disconnection and lack of control. He still can’t quite feel his limbs or talk.

/Arthur./

The voice seems to pull Arthur fully awake and his vision finally focuses, landing on Mystery who leaps nimbly into a vacant chair positioned adjacent to the bed. A curtain blocks out most of the room to his left and a window lets in fading sunlight on the right.

Lewis is right about this being a hospital. The space is sparse, tilled with grey and white vinyl, consisting of a single bed, and two empty chairs, one with a blue denim jacket slung over the backrest. Bright red eyes catch the light of the fading sun, causing Arthur to flinch slightly under their unnerving intensity. At first, Lewis thinks there is something wrong with the memory when darkness tugs at its edges but quickly realises that it’s because Arthur is too drowsy to properly focus.

/You are awake./ The sentence is said with relief, sounding distorted to Lewis who is again relegated to watching from the sidelines.

“You’re talking?” Arthur mutters to himself.

/…Yes…/

“Oh…”

Mystery is silent and Arthur’s attention drifts away to examine the ceiling, vision continuing to dim. If Mystery waits any longer, Arthur is going to fall right back asleep. Lewis wishes he could ask the dog questions. He has so, so many questions about everything that has happened over the last 24 hours.

But no…he can’t as he is once again the silent observer.

/You do not remember either…/ Mystery’s voice is softer, reserved, almost as if speaking to himself.

“Remember...” Arthur repeats, blinking up at the ceiling so Lewis can’t see Mystery’s expression when he asks gently, /What is the last you remember, Arthur? /

“A cave… I think?”

/Nothing else?/

“Vivi and Lewis were there...” Arthur winces. Even with the sound muffled Lewis can hear Arthur’s confusion as he clings to consciousness. Mystery lets out a long breath, shuffling back, jumping from chair to the floor.

/Go back to sleep Arthur. / Mystery, now out of sight, commands softly. The sound fades and Lewis is left alone in the dark, the memory finished.

...

Once again, he blinks, and he is back in the empty space …still clutching his arm. Lewis glances around, mind churning. What had been the point of that memory? Maybe, it was supposed to mess with his head, tricking him into thinking he had awakened back in the hospital, giving him relief then snatching it away. He doesn’t get the chance to properly contemplate the ramifications of the scene because the next memory starts suddenly with a lot of panicked movement and activity.

....

Instead of drifting back to consciousness slowly, Arthur snaps awake, lunching himself upright, arm outstretched like he's trying to grab something. Lewis’s perspective spins as he tries to reorientate himself within the new memory. Sunlight is streaming through the window, making the white walls and floor unbearably bright. Arthur apparently thinks so too because his vision distorts as his eyes water.

“Whoa! Arthur, you’re awake!” Vivi’s startled voice draws Arthur’s attention. His friend’s gaze snaps to her and he blinks rapidly.

“Vivi…what…ugh...” Arthur groans, doubling over, gripping his bandaged shoulder. Even Lewis can feel a phantom sting of pain, captured faintly in the memory. It is a harsh reminder that this is his future as Lewis might also be faced with a missing limb upon wakening. Perhaps, foreshadowing Lewis’s future is the purpose of this particular fake-memory.

“Where am I? What is this?”

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re in the hospital,” Vivi reassures and Lewis examines the darkened under her eyes and her gaunt features like she hasn’t been eating properly. The room is the same hospital room from the last fake-memory only it is now daytime. There is also a book, lying discarded, face down on the floor. Vivi had probably dropped it upon Arthur's sudden awakening.

“Mystery…Mystery was here…he was…ouch….” Arthur’s grip tightens on his shoulder. For several seconds the scene blurs and distorts as Arthur tries to control his breathing, panting heavily.

"Why does everything hurt?"

“You shouldn’t be moving around so much…” Vivi answers gently, voice soft and careful. Arthur reaches pull at the bandages on his shoulder to which Vivi immediately grasps his…Arthur’s…hand. Lewis momentary struggles to separate the two, thrown by the affection the action inspires in him.

“Hey, stop that.”

“My arms gone…” Arthur breathes, shivering, shifting his grip to squeeze Vivi’s hand, staring at her with wide eyes. Her expression radiates concern.

“I can’t remember anything.” Arthur stammers, growing more panicked.

“The doctor said that’s normal for recent trauma suffers,” Vivi placates, returning the squeeze “…here, I’ll call the nurse now. They should probably be the ones to explain this…Also...I'll text Uncle Lance as well...he'll want to know you're awake...”

“Trauma?” Arthur interrupts dumbly, looking from Vivi, who reaches for bed’s call remote and then her phone, to his bandaged shoulder like he’s not sure if it is real. Internally, Lewis winces, uncomfortable. Even if this is fake, it still feels like an invasion of privacy.

“Were we in an accident? I remember a…a cave or something... It was dark…green...” He shivers again.

“I…” Vivi’s voice wavers, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant.

“I can’t remember much either…” She admits, uneasy.

“Oh..I...I see.”

They both appear equally confused, lapsing into a disconcerting silence.

Lewis’s thoughts shift anxiously at the admission. Is it a good or bad thing that neither of them remembers that strange cave nightmare? Did that mean neither of them remembered his death? It had been a pretty traumatic event…maybe it is for the best that they don’t remember. But why include that in this set of fake memories? If the point of all this was to make Lewis suffer, then witnessing Arthur remember unwillingly pushing other-Lewis down a pit would be more upsetting for the both of them. Knowing Arthur, his friend would definitely blame himself for other-Lewis’s death. Surely, forcing him to watch his friend spiral into a circle of self-deprecation would be the worst sort of second-hand torture.

“What about Lewis? What does he remember…” Arthur asks suddenly, glancing around like he is expecting the other-Lewis to come strolling around the curtain.

Of course, there is no Lewis. If this was continuing on from the last memory then the other-Lewis was dead. Vivi doesn’t respond and Lewis’s feels a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach . Or maybe it’s Arthur feeling that...hard to tell.

“Vivi?” Arthur glances back in time to watch Vivi’s expression slacken, eyes growing vacant.

“Vivi?” Arthur repeats, flustered, pulling at the hand still holding hers. Several seconds pass and Vivi stares, unfocused and unaware of Arthur and his increasing panic. The memory ends with a nurse arriving and Arthur trying to physically shake a response out of Vivi.

Lewis is left cut off from his two friends to fret in silent isolation. Around him the dark presses in once more. Even if the memories weren’t real, Lewis still feels a lingering pang of worry and distress at seeing either of his friends hurt. He would give anything to just...walk into that hospital room and alleviate Arthur’s fears and check on Vivi himself. Angry and anxious, Lewis waits for something else to happen.

How many more of these disquieting, fake memories is he going to have to live through?

......

Note: Hello! It’s been ages (^▽^;) here’s an update. Enjoy!

Part 38: here

#MSA #mystery skulls animated #fanfiction #fanfic #lewis peper #mild violence #angst #getting stuck watching anther person's memories? is there even a tag for this?#blood and injury #timelines #time travel #amnesia

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nikxation · 6 years

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Gravity Falls Fic Rec List

In honor of Fanfiction Writer Appreciation Day, I’ve decided to compile a list of some of my favorite fanfics I’ve encountered thus far in the fandom! Please note that this list is not all-encompassing, and that even if you don’t see your fic here, if I have liked/kudoed/commented/reblogged your fic, that means I love it. Keeping this list a moderate length is already going to be difficult enough because holy cats this fandom has a lot of amazing writers!

Before the Bridges Burn by @endae

Summary: Canon Divergence from DAMvtF and the entirety of Weirdmageddon. Rather than being stopped by Ford and being encaged in front of Blendin, Dipper finds Mabel in the forest trapped inside her Dreamscape. He makes a deal with Bill to rescue Mabel, but with the risk of losing his life if he doesn't make it within the time restriction of Bill's game.

Why you should read it: Okay, so, Endae has this absolutely beautiful and heart-breaking way with words that really whacks you in the face with the Feels Stick from the get-go, and if you haven’t read anything by her yet, then you’re missing out. The angst is real, folks. Don’t take my word on it. Just go read it for yourself. Seriously. Currently the sequel is a WIP.

Fisherman’s Knot by @scribefindegil

Summary: Happy endings are messy, and the Arctic winter is more difficult than either Stan or Ford want to admit.

Why you should read it: Okay this is literally a fandom classic, and if you haven’t heard of it thus far, you must be new like I was. This fic is a gem. So much hurt and quite a few serious themes that you should make sure you’re ready for before you start. Also... tissues. Be sure to have tissues on hand... The fic is technically not finished, but where it leaves off is super satisfying and honestly works as an ending, so don’t worry, you don’t end on any horrifying cliffhangers.

Raising Stakes by @marypsue

Summary: 1982. A postcard from his estranged twin brother summons Stanley Pines halfway across the country to Gravity Falls, Oregon, where something sinister is brewing. Ford may have bitten off more than he can chew this time, but Stan's never been one to lie down and give up. And this time, he's got a new bag of tricks to try...

Why you should read it: Two words... Vampire AU! It’s super well-done, it has heart and jokes while also being appropriately sinister at certain points. Also, I love the interpretation of vampires and how they work. Beyond this fic itself, Mary is just a superb writer and really cranks out some amazing fics and AUs.

Lighthouse Keeper AU by @impishnature

Summary: A beast lurks in the waters. Stan loses Ford to the waves, the lighthouse his only point of contact and hope of ever getting him back. …He used to love the sea, now it’s taken everything from him.

Why you should read it: Okay... This is another one where, if you haven’t read it, you must live under a rock. Super cool AU where the show takes place centered around a lighthouse instead of the Portal. Bill is creepy af, Ford’s means of being trapped are super rad and also super terrifying, and Stan is just such a good boy I love him so much. Imp also writes beautifully and has this amazing grasp of imagery and storytelling that is really astounding and paints these gorgeous pictures of what’s happening. Her stories will just have you completely enraptured, so go check out her stuff.

Some Sunny Day by @anistarrose

Summary: Time isn’t linear, Stan has a catchy piano tune stuck in his head, and blue flames threaten to consume the peace that the Pines family has found. Based off the Same Coin Theory.

Why you should read it: I’m going to be completely honest here: I’ve only read the first chapter of this so far. I know, I know, bad Nikki. But look, okay, the first chapter is super good, Rose’s Stan Twins are amazing and so in-character that is hurts, and Same Coin theory is just so cool to explore and play with. But Nikki, how can you rec something you’ve barely read? I can because I just know, alright. Rose writes really well, and even the first chapter had me completely invested (even if I haven’t had time to read the rest). So I’ll rec what I want, thank you very much. Currently a WIP.

1 Step Forward, 20 Years Back by @infriga

Summary: A Tale of Two Stans AU: Instead of fighting over the journal Stan tries to leave, but Ford isn't willing to let him go that easily. During the argument Stan comes into contact with a strange magical substance, and when he wakes up later he finds he's a bit smaller than he remembers. Now not only does Ford have to worry about Bill taking over the world, he also has to figure out how to turn his brother back to normal.

Why you should read this: This is another one that is a huge fandom hit, and for good reason. It’s got humor and imagination. Infriga’s writing is super nice and flows perfectly. Their grasp of the characters is spot-on, and they explore some really neat concepts and ideas in the fic. Really, just and all-around amazing fic that you should definitely read if you haven’t yet. (They also illustrate every chapter, and their art is spectacular).

by the skin of your teeth by @apathetic-revenant

Summary: In which Ford's attempt to survive entirely on caffeine and paranoia suffers some pitfalls, and things happen differently in 1982.

Why you should read it: This was literally the first fic I read for this fandom, and I still love it to this day. Ford’s a goddamn mess, Stan is the real MVP for taking all this BS and craziness in stride, and Fidds saves the day. Some rather dark themes interspersed with some comforting humor (lookin @ you, end of Ch2/beginning of Ch3). Plus, I am always in the mood for the boys figuring their problems out and bonding again. Good good stuff.

Cast Away (part 2) by @fordanoia

Summary: What happens when Stanley is the one to fall through the portal instead.

Why you should read it: Two chapters of absolute stress. Both of the boys are bad-ass in their own ways, and Stan gets some unexpected help (from something that canon really would have benefited from expanding upon). Really, an all-around awesome two-shot. Noia gets into the boys’ heads so well and writes them amazingly. Just... such a great read.

An Outreached Hand by @dubsdeedubs

Summary: On a cold winter's day in 1982, Stan Pines shows up at his brother's door with two cats tucked in his jacket and no heartbeat in his chest. (A sort-of Ghost Trick AU, but requires no previous knowledge of that to read.)

Why you should read it: Super neat concept. Really, this fic is so cool. Dubs’s writing is spectacular, and they instill this sense of mystery and foreboding into this story so seamlessly with little hits of humor here and there. Really, I can’t put into words how awesome this fic is. Just go check it out. Currently a WIP.

30 Seconds Later by @invisibletinkerer

Summary: Stanford falls through the portal in 1982, but is pulled back almost immediately. Stanley, meanwhile, struggles for 30 years to bring his brother back. Neither is reunited with the brother they expect.

Why you should read it: Hooooo boy. This fic is about as angsty and painful as you would expect from reading the summary. It’s super well-written and the idea is so unique and honestly heart-breaking when you consider the implications. It just presents some new and interesting challenges for the gang to overcome and is a solid, interesting fic so far. Currently a WIP.

Okay I know I’m missing some, but these are some major highlights in my book and this post is starting to get ridiculously long RIP.

To everyone that writes, thank you for doing what you do. You all are amazing and loved and appreciated. The world would truly be a sad place without so many of amazing writers in it. Keep doing what you’re doing, and may the gods of inspiration rain every beautiful idea down on you, and may your fingers fly swiftly across the keys to compose beautiful tales each and every day. <3

#fanfiction #gravity falls fanfiction #fic rec #holy crap i need to stop before this list gets longer #if you think i missed someone feel free to reblog and add on!!!#LOVE YOU ALL #happy fanfic writer appreciation day!!!!!

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iamnotyouarenotme-blog · 5 years

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16/02/2019 - A new age in the making

Hi all! Sorry I have been away for so bloody long! With university starting back up, keeping up with Arsene became a lower priority matter. However, with my current mood, I could use some me time and what better way to have me time than to explore my own world with Arsene! I do apologize, this will be quite disjointed from out last adventure but hopefully you’ll still enjoy it as much as I did. After having been away for so long, I was completely unsure of Arsene’s condition. My aims of making him my own equal have not faded, but I am in no rush to reach that conclusion any time soon, so any regression would not have been a major concern. I did, however, in my time away decide what I wanted to do with my wonderland, which will become more clear later. In a flash of light, I entered the wonderland. I found this to be an excellent ‘ice breaker’ for starting an active force. Looking around, I had emerged in the Dark Woods, not too far from Aesene’s temple or the Bright Lake. (these names are unimaginative, yes, but they serve purpose) After the week I have had in the real world, a relaxing sit by the lake would not go amiss. I sat in on the damp ground and dipped my feet into the cool water. Looking over the lake, I spotted some animals. This was very new for my wonderland. I spotted several geese cruising around on the lake, and a kingfisher perched proudly near the middle of the lake on a piece of wood that jutted out from below the water's surface. I did not think to look for any fish, though they would have been generic. I don’t really know a lot about fish. I mean, I know generally what they look like and do, but I couldn’t tell you about a specific type of fish that interested me. Closing my eyes, and focussing on my other senses, I invited Arsene to sit by me and enjoy the water. With that, the familiar heavy clunk of his footsteps sounded behind me, then around, and ended with a gentle plop. I asked Arsene “Are you enjoying the water?” I waited for around 5 seconds and got a faint pluck of a response. Remembering it had been a while since I had last been here, I opened my eyes and looked for an expression. He was looking directly at me, much like he did in my first adventure in this world. I was mildly disheartened, but I had a new objective in mind. Removing my feet from the lake, I stood up and began to walk away from the water’s edge. “I would like to try something,” I said to Arsene, as he followed my motions and stood next to me. His form had not altered, the same dome face, same cloak and same creepy hands and conical legs. He did stand around a foot taller than me though. He may have done that before and I had just failed to mention it. “We should try to form a kingdom of our own, right here somewhere” I began to ramble while walking towards the water source for the Bright Lake. “I’m not sure who or what we would rule over, but whatever it is, we can rule it and make it brilliant.” My nagging element of narcissism crept up on me at this point. “Of course I would need to look the part.” I summoned myself a white cloak, with a black interior with twinkling while dots throughout. (See White Diamond from Steven Universe) Now we just needed a location. I did not want to harm the areas that had been bought to me so clearly, so I pondered over what I could do. The most clear space was the Creek, but it would be most difficult to build there. Similar to a previous sensation, an image flashed into my mind of a palace rising out of the ocean near the creek, with me stood at the top of the rocks there. With that, I knew exactly what to do and where to go. I don’t know what these images are, perhaps it is Arsene dropping me hints or just my brain skipping ahead in my thought process. So, we had a destination. We began our trek along the stream and across the wooden bridge. I tried to focus in on Arsene’s movements to try and increase his presence, but I couldn’t feel much more than his gaze back at me while I addressed him. Here, I had an odd sensation I have in real life often too. I can’t recall what I said to myself, but my brain repeated it exactly 3 times, along with the section of sounds that I heard along with it. Much like a broken record or scratched CD. I have no clue what causes this but I thought it would be interesting to share. I digress, we continued our march along the gravel path and finally reached the zenith of the stones, the spot where I had first really felt Arsene’s presence. I stood, feet together, and looked over the water ahead. I raised my hands and spread my arms outwards, just as I had in my premonition. Lo and behold, the ground began to shake, and a marble structure began to raise out of the water. Firstly was the throne room. It was a large structure with a gaping door. The palace raised further, revealing another, larger layer and then a further one. All in all, the palace looked like a larger marble version of Arsene’s temple. Excited, I clambered down the rocks to the beach and made my way to the steps of the palace the led all the way up to the throne room. I took a couple of steps up. My footwear made a loud distinctive clack of which I am very fond. Rather similar to that of heeled shoes on a hard floor. This was followed by Arsene’s heavy and unceremonious clunk with the ground. Although Arsene may seem rather brutish and simple at this stage, I cannot say I am not fond of him at all. Generally speaking, I am not a fan of barbaric, large and ungraceful characters, but Arsene carries a much more foreboding aura that makes him very serious and would allow command a certain level of fear to which I seemed immune. As we ascended the steps, I made sure to mould this palace in a useful way. I made sure to add entrances to each side of the steps at each clear segment of the palace, allowing convenient entrance to all areas. If this area was going to be a center of power, I needed it to be efficient. Upon eventually reaching the top of the steps, I was entranced by the throne room. The walls were a glossy dark stone, in stark contrast of the glossy white floor. There were two raised thrones, also made of the white stone that dominated the room. With a smug feeling deep in my heart, I rushed up the steps and took a seat in the commanding throne. I let out a sigh of pure satisfaction. Never before had I needed something so much and never known until I received it. “I cannot describe how wonderful this makes me feel Arsene.” Looking down, Arsene had taken a knee to me. I laughed this off, my trickster was still in there. I gestured over to the second throne. “Like I have always said, we will be equals. Not master and servant.” Arsene seemed to comply, but did not sit in the throne. Perhaps he thought it silly. My final thoughts before leaving for today were what to do next time and where to place the palace. I knew it could not stay here and surely I could move it easily enough. After all, I did summon it out of the ground. I decided that next time, our job would be to map out more of this area that we lived in. With a full lay of the land, I could begin to set in motion plans to start the foundations of our own kingdom.

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kookie-ghoul · 6 years

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Perdition pt.3

BTS Horror AU

Warning!- may contain main character deaths, disturbing images, mentions of bullying, suicide and death. Please don’t read this if you think you might get triggered.

Summary: After a major accident resulting in the death of his loved ones, Jimin moves to town in hopes of turning over a new leaf at his new school. Taehyung, the school’s resident loner with a mysterious reputation, just wants a break. Fate brings them together forging a meaningful friendship between the two and life seems good, but when a foreboding entity begins visiting Jimin in his dreams, he finds himself inexorably linked to a series of mysterious deaths. Soon everyone is a suspect and Jimin doesn’t know who to trust. Is Taehyung really who he says he is?

part 1 part 2 part 3

The next day Jimin was shaken to say the least. He couldn’t get the weird dream out of his mind. He had reasoned that it must’ve been something he ate or maybe even the stress from moving, but for some reason everything felt too real, too personal…. Hoping school would take his mind off it, he continued on his way.

“Jimin!! What a coincidence!” Jimin was surprised to see Taehyung who was now putting an arm around him. “I was just telling these wonderful freshmen here that they’ve been such good helpers,” he said putting his hands together and bowing to a couple of blushing freshman girls.

“Okay….” Jimin replied unsure of how this was relevant to him as Taehyung waved the girls goodbye. He walked with Taehyung down the hallway and noticed his welcome buddy thankfully seemed more relaxed. Jimin was worried he wouldn’t see him around again considering how weird he had acted. Despite his apparent meltdown however, Jimin still thought it would be nice to be friends with him. He decided not to bring up the incident to avoid any future awkwardness.

“I’m gonna level with you,” Taehyung said suddenly taking Jimin by both shoulders. “It wasn’t a coincidence, I was actually waiting for you all morning.” He laughed making Jimin smile a bit as they arrived at Taehyung’s locker. “I got you a new locker and asked those nice freshman girls to move your books. They were so kind and eager to help.”

“You sure?” Jimin asked. “I think they were eager for something else,” he teased.

Taehyung just winked at him and opened the locker next to his. “ Welcome to your new abode,” he said bowing dramatically. Jimin laughed, this time being Taehyung’s turn to smile. “I know your old locker was all creepy and stuff so I took the liberty of getting you a locker next to me! Now we’re neighbors!” Taehyung said excitedly.

“Oh, you didn’t have to, but thank you!” Jimin said a little taken aback. “That’s so nice of you.” Right when he said that, however, he felt a shiver down his spine and remembered his dream. Don’t trust him, it said. That left a pit in Jimin’s stomach. He looked at Taehyung who was now happily unpacking a bunch of carp bread packets into his own locker. Could the dream have meant him? This kid who who was now putting sweet bread instead of books into his locker? It couldn’t be… why was Jimin even listening to a bad dream anyways?

~~~

The rest of the day went smoothly in comparison. Jimin met up with Taehyung during lunch who led them to a table in the corner where someone was already seated; a pale boy dressed in all black.

“Yoongi Hyung!”Taehyung called as they approached him.

“I told you to just call me Yoongi, Tae,” Yoongi corrected. Taehyung sighed taking a seat right in front of him.

“Goodness, Yoongi. I was trying to act all respectful and stuff to impress our new friend here,” he replied nodding toward Jimin. Jimin sat beside Taehyung.

“Hey, Yoongi,” Jimin greeted.

“Jimin,” Yoongi returned bowing slightly, barely looking up from his lunch.

“Oh yeah, that reminds me. How did you know my name yesterday when it was my first day?” Jimin asked remembering the conversation from the day before. Yoongi shrugged.

“Yoongi’s just weird like that. He knows everything before anyone tells him anything. It’s like a super power of his,” Taehyung replied as a matter of factly. Jimin nodded pretending to understand. He definitely did not.

“Hi, mind if I join you?”

The three boys looked up simultaneously to find a tall, handsome looking boy with broad shoulders coming their way. None of them responded a little wary of the new company. The boy sat next to Yoongi and set down his things.

“Uh, yeah… sorry,” Jimin said finally. He was still getting used to people actually wanting to be with him. This was the most he’d been talked to without the bullying in a long time. Jimin had started to accept being called “psycho,” “mental patient,” and so on, not to mention getting beaten up and having his belongings thrown in the toilets or school fountain everyday. It was nice being with people who were outliers like him and enjoying himself.

“Yoongi. Taehyung,” the boy said. The two greeted him with a slight bow. He waved to Jimin from across the table, “Hello! I’m Seokjin. I’m the student body president and part of the welcome committee. I heard you were new here so I wanted to come meet you.”

“Oh, thanks,”Jimin replied. “I’m Jimin. It’s really nice of you to come talk to me, I’m not used to this.” He smiled brightly.

“No problem!” Seokjin said waving a hand. “I just wanted to let you know that if you need anything you can always come to me! Yoongi and Taehyung are old friends of mine, so any friend of theirs is a friend of mine.” He smiled at Jimin and Jimin smiled back; Seokjin seemed cool too.

~~~

The next few weeks went by in a blink of an eye. Without the usual horridness of school and good friends instead, Jimin found that life was actually somewhat enjoyable. He spent his lunch with Yoongi and Taehyung, occasionally Seokjin, but he was usually busy. Outside of lunch however, Jimin hung out with Taehyung who seemed just as eager to become friends. Taehyung texted Jimin non stop asking him about his favorite video games, favorite ice cream flavors, favorite music. It turned out they had a lot in common and that made Jimin happy. The more time that passed, the more Jimin found that Taehyung was a very caring person. For one, he always gave Jimin some of the carp bread stashed in his locker. He also always made sure that Jimin was comfortable and happy, not just as a “welcome buddy” but just as a good friend would. Jimin would try to return the favor by doing small things for him in return. Sometimes he would notice that Taehyung seemed a bit down so he’d send him a funny meme or bring him some junk food from the vending machines. Jimin was happy thinking that of all the welcome buddies he could’ve received, he got the best one. However, as much as Jimin was enjoying himself, his and Taehyung’s lives had not changed much on the outside. Noticing the new friendship, people’s name calling evolved from just “freaks” and “weirdos,” now officially being noticed as the school’s resident “psycho soulmates.”

“I have to hand it to them,” said Taehyung as he and Jimin stood waiting in line for food at the cafeteria. “It is pretty catchy.” Jimin chuckled. Taehyung was such an optimist.

“If anyone dares call you guys ‘psycho soulmates’ in front of my face, I’ll eat them alive,” Yoongi said as he walked up to them. A grubby student walked by eyeing the group earning a threatening lunge from Yoongi effectively scaring the kid away.

Taehyung teased him, “Gosh, Yoongi. You almost sound like you like us!” Yoongi shrugged and the three smiled at each other.

“Hey, gang!” Seokjin called from a little ways away. He jogged up to them excitedly.

“Aish… Don’t call us ‘gang’,” Yoongi groaned. “It makes us sound like some sort of 80’s boy band.”

Seokjin visibly struggled to not laugh. “Hey, Yoongi, speaking about 80’s boy bands,” he said lightly slapping Yoongi’s arm. “Are you a Jonas Brother? Because I’m burning up for you, Baby.” Seokjin burst out laughing while Yoongi put his fingers to the bridge of his nose and just shook his head in shame.

“Hyung, That’s not even an 80’s boy band!” Jimin exclaimed. The joke was so bad but Jimin couldn’t stop laughing. Sometimes Seokjin was such a nerd about these things but despite the general cringe of his humor, Jimin would always fall prey to a fit of laughter.

Calming down for a second, Seokjin put a hand on Jimin’s shoulder and straightened up a bit. “Jimin, because of your good sense of humor, I have decided to adopt you as my son.” The two burst out laughing again, clutching their sides as they began to hurt. Yoongi rolled his eyes fondly at the two, but Taehyung, who had been more or less quite the whole time, just looked on.

“Anyways, I got to go. I just wanted to say hi! Maybe I’ll catch you guys later!” Seokjin said before he walked off. Jimin was still trying to recover from laughing but waved Seokjin goodbye and turned back to his two friends.

“I don’t understand why you think his jokes are so funny,”Taehyung suddenly deadpanned.

“Oh, come on, Tae. Stop being so cynical,” Jimin replied. “It’s just so bad, it’s too good!”

Taehyung just shrugged. “To me it’s just bad.”Jimin felt a little disappointed by Taehyung’s comment. The whole mood had dropped in an instant leaving Jimin feeling a bit uncomfortable.

“Do you really dislike Seokjin’s humor or do you just not like Seokjin?” Jimin asked.

“I don’t know, Jimin,” Taehyung said flatly. “Maybe we just shouldn’t trust him.” Then he picked up his food tray and headed to the table leaving Jimin and Yoongi in line. But the words Taehyung had used left Jimin with shivers running down his spine.

Don’t trust him…

Thanks for reading! There’s more to come so please look forward to it!

Seems like Jimin is making good friends... right? Why does Taehyung not like Seokjin? Why does Jimin’s dream keep coming to mind?

#BTS #bts fanfic #horror #horror AU #fanfiction #writing #kim namjoon #kim seokjin #min yoongi #jung hoseok #kim taehyung

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deathnote-themusical · 6 years

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L’s Death/Light’s Reaction

I think I’m gonna start this blog by showing and discussing the different ways the actors handled this scene. It feels very different from actor to actor and it’s really such a pivotal moment. An important thing to note is that I’m most comparing their performances to Light and L’s original cannon characters. Not that I’m saying anything is wrong with new interpretations of the characters, I really love it actually. But for a base comparison I reference the original characters. Now, let’s get to it!

L’s Final Moments:

-In the Japanese productions, L (Teppei) remains very somber and “cool” for lack of a better word. And although in the 2017 version where you can see L upset by the realization that there is nothing he can do he still doesn’t panic. You can see he is resistant to move the gun away from light but I think he accepts his fate pretty readily. His final monologue is eerily calm this leaves the audience with a foreboding feeling of what’s to come for Light.

-In the 2015 Korean productions Junsu takes a very different approach. He shows how disturbed his is very outwardly. He physically shows attempts to keep the gun pointed at light with his arm trembling as he tries to resist what’s been written. In a stark contrast to Teppei’s final monologue Junsu is very shaken. His final words are delivered why he’s at the verge of tears. While I think it’s a very powerful performance I do think it’s more out of character compared to the L we know from the Manga and anime.

We again see very different performances between actors when it comes to Light’s reaction of this moment.

Light’s Reaction :

-Urai’s 2015 performance is very focused on L. He in fact never takes his eyes off of him. I think this is more true to the source material seeing as L died with Lights eyes locked on him. Then with a gentle touch he sends L to the ground, it seems like a final goodbye to me.

-Urai’s 2017 performance is similar to what we see in the 2015 Korean production. Urai’s attention quickly shifts from L to his watch. Counting down the seconds to his death. Then he takes a creepier approach to knocking L down. He places his hand on L’s chest, taking a moment to look at him one last time, then knocking him down with a slap.

-Kakizawa’s 2015 performance is the least “Light” like in my opinion. It feels to me like he can’t quite believe his plan is working. He keeps his hand on L’s arm for the majority of the moment. only letting go right before L pulls the trigger. Then he stares, mouth gaping, at what’s just happened. I think he’s feeling so overwhelmed with victory that he’s speechless. That to me is what feels a little out of character from the source.

-Kakizawa’s 2017 performance. It’s incredibly similar to Urai’s 2017 interpretation with watching his watch and placing his hand on his chest. Kakizawa’s is a bit interesting however as at the beginning of this moment he takes a beat to whisper L’s name into his ear when saying goodbye it feels very personal and again kinda creepy. He then shifts the mood by turning his back to L while watching his watch. He appears very pleased with himself though out this whole moment, which is something we haven’t seen as much in the other Japanese performances.

Kwang-ho‘s 2015 performance. This one feels the most out of character for both Light and L to me. But with that said it’s also currently my favorite interpretation. Light’s confidence is palpable in this one. The only emotion he’s feeling is success though he’s not presenting it in a “happy” way. He’s very rough with L treating him like a toy. He forces L’s arm to his head then pushes him to the side like he’s already bored of the scene. In addition to being impatient and glancing back at L when it seems to be taking a while he also seems annoyed at L’s cries, rolling his eyes when he hears it. He ignores L’s final words and counts the seconds down. This is the “coldest” of all the Light variants we’ve seen. Then however something funny happens. the shot rings out and Light continues to have his back turned to L, he appears to be waiting to hear L’s body hit the floor. He turns back to see L still standing there frozen. Then he checks his watch again to make sure everything is correct, only then looking L up and down confirming he is actually dead. I love how this give one final emphasis on how strange L is, even in death. Then unlike Urai and Kakizawa, Kwang-ho he grabs L’s shoulder and actually pulls L to the ground. The comedic feel of this does a good job distracting the audience from L’s final warning which is think is a good touch.

Okay. I think that’s all on that for now. Unfortunately despite the existence of some video boots and some really good audio boots of the 2017 Korean production nothing from this scene has surfaced. If/when it does, you can bet I’ll talk about it.

I know I can be pretty long winded but maybe someone will enjoy reading this anyway. I’ll try and post some gifs comparing these different shows soon, but again (learning curves). Anyway, if anyone is reading, thanks.

#death note #death note musical #final moment #hayato kakizawa #kenji Urai #Teppei Koike #junsu #xia junsu #hong kwang ho #japan #south korea #musical theater #review #kira #L #Light Yagami

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ettadunham · 7 years

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Day 24 - Bad Dreams

Guys!!! It’s Bad Dreams time on Fringe September.

This episode is an emotional rollercoaster - and by that I mean that it’s devastating from start to finish. It’s also just REALLY well done, acted and written.

And it presents Olivia to us as a possible perpetrator, which adds an added layer of emotion and drama to an already intriguing plot.

You see, she keeps having these restless nights, until one night she dreams about pushing a woman in front of the train. And then wakes and sees the incident on the news.

So naturally she starts investigating. Peter thinks that it’s an insane idea to even consider that she could’ve killed someone while being asleep hundreds of miles away, but Walter indulges her with his own theories. Teleportation? Astral projection? Who knows, anything is possible on this show.

Olivia also describes details to Peter about the crime scene before getting there. Specifically a red balloon still being stuck on the ceiling. But when they watch the recording, there’s no one seen pushing the woman in front of the train.

But it still doesn’t add up. The balloon is there for one, but the woman in question was also with her baby! They were at the circus before! It’s all so heartbreaking, and it’s highlighted even more when they question the husband who can’t wrap his head around the tragedy himself.

The team reconvenes after that, still trying to make sense of it all. Walter starts pushing Olivia. Why would she want to kill that woman? Why did she kill that woman? Olivia can’t find any answer, and Peter is just done with this craziness. He still refuses to even entertain the possibility that Olivia somehow caused all this.

But Walter’s answer to that is a rather interesting one:

“I'm surprised at you, Peter. Agent Dunham is your friend. You trust her. she says she killed that girl. Are you presumptuous to believe her only when she says what you want to hear? Your mother was a bit like that.“

The last part of that quote perhaps holds a glimpse to pre-brain surgery Walter, but there is a bigger truth to this. Peter not believing that Olivia would be responsible for something like this feels more like something he does for himself. He doesn’t want to consider the possibility because it doesn’t sit right with HIM. So maybe Walter is right - in order to assure Olivia’s peace of mind, for HER sake, they need to consider the possibility of her being the killer, and then try to figure out the WHYs. Especially since Olivia is already blaming herself, regardless of what Peter believes.

It of course escalates further when there’s another case the following night. A woman stabs her husband multiple times, seemingly out of the blue. When Peter and Olivia question the woman, she can’t explain her reasons either. She says that suddenly she was sure that he was going to leave her, that she got so angry, but then those feelings disappeared as soon as they arrived. And now she has to live with the consequences of these actions, and watch on as her husband dies from the injuries she caused.

Olivia at this point is overwhelmed. With guilt, and just by watching these people dealing with tragedies that they can’t find reasons or explanations for. She’s desperate, she tries telling the woman that maybe someone compelled her to do all that, asking her if it felt like that someone was in her mind... But what good does it do at this point? The damage has already been done, and they can’t prove that it was anyone else committing the crime. They don’t even KNOW that at this point.

Olivia’s emotions are running at an all time high, and she finally snaps at the restaurant manager who’s not being very forthcoming to them with information. She pushes him into a table, demanding to know if SHE was there, if she sat at the table she remembers from her dream... But it wasn’t her. It was some guy with a scar on his face.

And that finally provides a break in this investigation. Because Olivia remembers someone fitting that description from the tape of the subway station.

The problem is that while trying to find him in the database, they also draw Broyles’ attention to them. You see, Broyles didn’t yet know about Olivia’s dreams, or about the nature of her interest in those cases. And she didn’t tell him, because her being involved would’ve meant that she couldn’t technically investigate this case herself. He let her go after the suicide case not asking any questions, because she earned that much of his trust, but now that she’s using agency resources, he has to know what’s going on.

“These things that we see every day, these things that we investigate -- they're happening to me” - Olivia tells him. And Broyles is reluctant, because Olivia is already under investigation by Harris, she walks on a thin ice as it is. But eventually he lets her do it, opening a case officially on the subject they found during their database search - Nick Lane.

But as they look up Nick Lane, instead of finding a perpetrator who as Walter’s theory suggested, is killing people with their thoughts, they realize that Nick himself is a possible victim. He used to be a voluntary resident at a psychiatric facility, where they were treating his suicidal tendencies. His doctor also described him as “bright”, emotionally speaking, someone who could light up a room or suck everyone into a black hole of despair depending on his mood.

It is however his delusions that offer the final piece to the puzzle - the ones that sounded eerily similar to the ZFT manifesto.

Oh yeah, and he was also from Jacksonville. And is about the same age as Olivia.

Olivia at that point has already made the connection, so she decides it’s time to confront Walter. She asks him about Cortexiphan, if it was possible that Nick was affecting people with his emotions due to being treated with the drug as a child. And Walter not only confirms that theory, but also offers an explanation to Olivia’s involvement, laying all her fears out in the open. He says that when he and Belly would experiment on children they would often put them in pairs. And that he believes that that’s the source of their connection.

Peter once again is trying to shut it all down - he doesn’t want to consider the option that Olivia was experimented as a kid by Walter’s old colleague (*cough* or Walter himself *cough*)... and Olivia hasn’t told him or Walter about what she found out at the end of 1x14. That there WAS a Cortexiphan trial in Jacksonville that she could’ve been a part of.

Olivia’s reveal of “I might have been” is a favorite of mine when it comes to Anna’s deliveries. There’s both a nonchalantness and a dramatic edge that’s uniquely Olivia Dunham.

But now Walter knows how to find Nick! He puts Olivia under REM state, so she could describe to them where Nick is and what he’s doing... And apparently Nick right now decided to go to a strip club. And have sex with a dancer. So we all witness Olivia making out with said dancer lady, and we also got a rare moment of levity as the team one by one realizes what Olivia’s physical reactions mean at one point. (”OH.” “Oooh.” “Oh.”)

In any case, after it happens, Nick is once again consumed by self-loathing. And... IT IS ACTUALLY REALLY CREEPY AND RAPEY WHEN YOU CONSIDER. Nick’s sexual excitement affected the dancer, that’s WHY she had sex with him in the first place. And now his self-hatred is causing her to end her own life.

Olivia struggles to stay under after that, but Peter helps her calm down enough for her to see Nick’s address. So that’s where they go.

Nick’s wall is full of conspiracy theory newspaper cut-outs - revolving around secret drug trials and whatnots. We also see “what was written will come to pass” written there, confirming that Jones and his organization got to him, and they were the ones who activated his latent abilities.

But Nick is not there anymore, and it’s not that hard to find him either. He apparently decided to end it all. (Maybe he wasn’t even fully aware or sure that he was the one who caused all those deaths around him until the dancer - who knows.) So he’s going up to a rooftop to jump... But his mood also affected dozens of people on the way, so they’re all there, at the edge of the building, ready to jump with him. And they can’t send up anyone, because they just get affected by his mood and join the group as well.

So instead Olivia goes up alone, hoping that her connection to Nick and the Cortexiphan in her own blood would make her immune. And it does. And what happens next is an unexpected reunion between the two.

Because you see, Nick remembers. He remembers the trials, and he remembers Olivia. And he hoped that she could be able to hear him.

He recites the ZFT manifesto to her, but with an earnest desperation. He has been waiting for the call all his life, for his life to gain meaning, but it never came. And when Jones approached him, he jumped at the opportunity to fulfill his destiny... But instead what he’s got is a trail of dead in his wake.

“Sometimes what we wake up, it can’t be put back to sleep.” - And then he gives his gun to Olivia, asking her to shoot him. Because he “just wants to stop hurting people”.

“Please. We weren’t meant for this” - he tells Olivia.

But Olivia refuses to kill him, instead shooting him in the leg, and the pain reverberates among the group, who fall to the ground with Nick, preventing them all from jumping. Nick’s last words are full of foreboding (”You’ll wish you had. You’ll wish you’d kill me.”), but it’s not a threat. At this point it’s obvious that Nick genuinely wanted this all to stop, that none of the deaths he caused were his intention.

And that’s the tragedy of it all. Because there are no real perpetrators in this episode, no bad guys. Only victims. There is of course Jones and his associates, but they don’t actually appear in the episode, and all they did here was to bring forward Nick’s abilities that he’s already had in him.

So isn’t the real villain William Bell and his drug trials then? Except it’s not presented to us in such a simple manner either.After we see the harrowing images of Olivia and Broyles visiting Nick in his drug-induced coma state, we get yet another scene. Of Walter watching an old tape with a little girl called Olive, who it seems like just set fire to an entire room previously. It becomes apparent early on that it’s a tape of Olivia’s Cortexiphan experiments... but then we hear another voice in the recording beside Bell. WALTER.

THIS IS WHERE WE LEARN THAT WALTER WAS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE CORTEXIPHAN TRIALS DESPITE HIS PREVIOUS STATEMENTS IN THE EPISODE ABOUT HOW HE WAS AGAINST THEM.

So yeah, this episode isn’t an emotional rollercoaster after all. It’s a one-way trip to the darkest pits of despair.

Parts of this story are reminiscent of the Kilgrave one in Jessica Jones, except here the perpetrator is someone who actually has no control over his actions. Surely, one could question if Nick could’ve done more or less, and what happened with the dancer is especially murky, but above all, he’s a victim in all this. One who couldn’t help the fact that he was suffering from depression, or that it was affecting others in such extreme ways.

Bad Dreams is an episode that will leave an impression on all who watched it. It’s definitely my own personal favorite of the s1 roster.

This was a long as analysis, but let’s also talk about the stuff not mentioned:

When describing the effects of Cortexiphan, Walter mentions the possibility of travelling between worlds.

The lines about how Cortexiphan worked are also ones that come back later in different forms. (”Perception is the key to transformation.“ “Reality is both subjective and malleable. If you can dream a better world, you can make a better world.”)

“Astral” “Astrid.” “....projection” - aka the one time Walter didn’t actually butcher Astrid’s name.

Another episode with Ella and Rachel! Also: GRUESOME.

The episode parallels Nick’s and Olivia’s morning routine, showing us how Olivia has unintentionally been following the ZFT guidelines that Nick lived by.

#fringe talk

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candlesdance · 7 years

Text

Chapter 6: A Cursed Image

The book falls open on the same page that had given Sugawara pause in the beginning. Behind him, Kageyama carefully begins to read.

“’…I hid the knife underneath the floorboards.’” He drags his finger down, as if in disbelief of what he’s reading. “’I only have one choice.’ What the hell kind of choice is that?”

For a moment, they’re all quiet. Hinata tentatively interrupts that silence. “This is kind of scary.”

They ignore him. Kageyama keeps reading.

AO3. Info. Trailer.

Hinata and Kageyama enter the cafeteria quietly, but are still noticed.

Bokuto and a few others holler out at the pair, glad to see Kageyama okay. Kenma gives a tiny wave where he sits beside Kuroo, and Hinata eagerly returns it—perhaps a bit too eagerly, judging by the way Kageyama clicks his tongue.

The first years from either team and some of the second years are crowded at one table, but Inuoka and Fukunaga still move aside to allow Kageyama and Hinata to sit down after getting their food.

“So!” Inuoka starts, smiling at the pair. “I heard you were sick, Kageyama!”

“I feel better now,” Kageyama shrugs, eating his food at a languid pace. True to that, he no longer carries the ill, forsaken mood and pallor of earlier. “I just wish I hadn’t missed practice.”

“It’s not the flu, is it?” Yamaguchi strains to be heard, tilting himself slightly to speak across the table. The babble of voices echoes in the wide space of the cafeteria.

Kageyama chews thoughtfully. “I can’t promise it’s not.”

“That… that’s weirdly foreboding,” Yamaguchi says.

Inuoka pursues Hinata for a conversation about the latest monster hunter game, but the spiker is noticeably distracted. He keeps shooting glances toward the table of third years; after doing so several times in one minute, Kageyama stomps hard on his foot under the table. He yelps. Everyone in the vicinity glances at him.

Before long, they’re done their dinner—and so is Sugawara. Hinata watches out of the corner of his eye as he stands from the table of third years, excusing himself. They can’t hear what he’s talking about from so far away, but something Asahi says gets him to burst out laughing. Hinata squints.

Without so much as a glance toward the first years, Sugawara leaves the cafeteria.

Hinata nearly chokes in swallowing his mouthful of unchewed rice, turning to Kageyama beside him to shake his shoulder with a less than subtle “mrgh” of attention-getting noise. Across the table, Fukurodani’s middle blocker Onaga stares at him.

“A-are you choking?”

Hinata shakes his head in fervent disagreement, reaching for his bowl of miso soup. He downs the last of it and gasps as the rice goes down. “Nope!” And then, hissing in a blatant whisper directed at Kageyama: “Let’s go!”

“What the hell are you two up to?”

Unfortunately for them, their timing is terrible. Yaku passes behind them as they stand from their seats, a second portion of rice in hand.

"Nothing," Kageyama shrugs, voice and face so completely blank it's genuinely convincing. Hinata folds his hands politely behind his back and rocks on his heels.

"Nothing!" He parrots, seeming shifty even in that.

Unconvinced, Yaku turns his eyes from Hinata to Kageyama. “I heard you were ill. Are you feeling better now?”

“A bit,” Kageyama is clearly unwanting in continuing the conversation. “But I still feel sick. I was going to go get some fresh air.”

Behind them, Yamaguchi raises his eyebrows.

Hinata nods vigorously. “I was going to go with him!”

The look Kageyama shoots him gives them away, but Kuroo is calling Yaku over so he relents and accepts their shoddy excuses with a haphazard smile. “Take it easy. I always like receiving your freakish quick, so don’t wear yourselves out, alright?”

They nod. Yaku leaves them with that and turns to return to his table. Walking as quickly as they can without raising any suspicion, they exit the cafeteria. As soon as they turn a corner, Hinata turns to his setter with a laugh.

“You’re a really good liar, you know. It’s kind of scary.”

“Shut up.”

“It was kind of ruined since you already told the guys at our table that you were feeling fine, though. Plus, since when would you ever admit to feeling sick?”

Kageyama tries to smack him. He evades. They end up racing each other to the old classroom, where Sugawara stands with the keys in hand and a look of mixed amusement on his face, almost as though he wants to laugh, but can’t bring himself to.

“I thought you were going to try and be stealthy?” Sugawara asks, even as he picks through the ring of keys.

“Well, I was trying!” Hinata protests.

“I’m sure you were,” Sugawara does laugh now, though it’s dry and maybe a bit forced. “I guess it doesn’t matter as long as we get back before bed. Let’s look around a bit and then leave.”

He unlocks the door and they step inside.

—

As soon as he closes the door behind them, they split up. The opaque glass had obscured anything of interest in the room, and Sugawara has to wonder what drew Hinata here in the first place.

Although the room is full, it seems empty in the sense that there’s nothing of use here anymore. Where there might have been cameras, there sit some reels of exposed film and grunge covered textbooks, piles of notes and crumbled bits of chalk. Sugawara stifles a sneeze.

Kageyama wanders over to a bookshelf, and Sugawara and Hinata end up scrounging through the old desks. Minutes of silence pass undisturbed; maybe they’d used up all of their energy getting here, but neither Hinata nor Kageyama say anything, both boys taking to different artifacts curiously. Sugawara doesn’t question them.

Hinata is examining what looks like scrap notebooks. There’s no real merit to digging around like this—and he’s truly digging, without any rhyme or reason to his methods of searching—but he’s focused, just as much as he’d be during a volleyball game. Sugawara had initially thought that perhaps he was searching for a specific object, but it's clear now that he isn't seeking out anything in particular.

“Hmm, this one is older than the others,” Hinata says, holding up a ratty, dog-eared book. The frame of the binder is peeling away in places, the leather spine covered in cracks. It must have been somebody’s beloved book in the past.

“Did you look inside?” Sugawara asks him, stepping past some rolled up papers to peer over his shoulder. Kageyama doesn’t even look up from the photography albums on his lap.

“Nope,” Hinata chirps, carefully opening the cover. “It’s so old.”

There’s a hand drawn circle of some sort on the very first page that gives them both pause. It looks like a pentagram at first glance, but that isn’t quite right. There’s three words scribbled in the outermost circle in a language he doesn’t know, and there is more writing in the middle of what appears to be a pyramid. Underneath, there’s something written in roman characters.

“This isn’t English… what is this?” Hinata asks.

“I can’t recognize it…”

“You can’t tell either, Sugawara?”

“Well, it’s definitely the roman alphabet,” He shrugs, straining to see it. “Here, let me see?”

The book is carefully passed between the two. Further inspection proves that the circle that Sugawara had assumed to be a pentagram is—well, it’s not a pentagram. It isn’t necessarily satanic in nature, but there’s still something weird about it.

“What is that creepy scribble?”

Sugawara and Hinata both jump. Kageyama had grown bored of the photo albums, evidently, and had snuck up behind Sugawara to peer over his shoulder. Hinata had been too absorbed to notice him.

“Geez, Kageyama, don’t sneak up on people like that! It’s rude!”

“Shut up, I was right in front of you.”

“I would have noticed if you weren’t being sneaky ,” Hinata sticks his tongue out at him and for that, Kageyama glares daggers at him. “But you’re right. That drawing is creepy.”

They fall silent, peering at it. Bored with the circle, Hinata reaches over Sugawara to flip the page for him.

“What a dirty book,” Kageyama comments idly, crowding around his upper classmate. “Gross.”

"You make it sound like it’s a perverted magazine," Hinata chastises him. “Choose your words more carefully!”

“I thought you said it was in English?” Kageyama ignores Hinata entirely. Sugawara examines the book, befuddled by the question. The second page is in Japanese; it seems like a journal of some sort.

“No, I said it’s definitely not English,” Sugawara murmurs, flipping through the pages.

“What is it? A diary?” Hinata asks, screwing up his face into a concentrated squint as he attempts to work out the text from upside down. “What does it say?”

“...?”

Something catches Sugawara’s eye. He pauses in flipping the pages to scan a passage.

“... I think this is a journal from one of the former students,” He says slowly, flipping back to the first few pages. Behind him, Kageyama makes a noise of dissatisfaction. He’d probably been trying to read what was on the other page. Sugawara is silent, so Hinata prompts him with an imploring look and a whine. He rolls his eyes, but begins to read aloud.

“… this is by ‘Nishimoto Mori’, … ‘my world with crumbing lenses.’ Huh?”

“Are you reading that right?” Kageyama asks, reaching around his vice captain to tap the scrawled letters. “’My life is ruined’. And then ‘here’s my story’. Isn’t that what it says?”

“You’re right,” Sugawara turns to blink at him, impressed. “This is written brokenly. I’m surprised you were able to parse that.”

Kageyama shrugs, but his ears go red. Sugawara turns back to the book and continues to read.

“’This school is boring. We were told by our teachers to keep journals to occupy ourselves, but I don’t really like it.’ Hmm… Kageyama, can you read this?” Sugawara taps a passage he finds illegible. The writing is not only smudged, but also written as though by a young child.

“‘The transfer student is loved by everyone’,” Kageyama answers, squinting down at it. “’I don’t know about her’.”

“That’s weird,” Hinata seems dubious. “Is that really what it says?”

“Yeah,” Sugawara nods, eyes roving across the idle writings. “Huh. This is kind of neat.”

“Like a time capsule,” Hinata grins. “I told you we might find something cool!”

Sugawara doesn’t respond to that—he just gives Hinata a smile in return before continuing reading aloud. “’The teachers are strict but they don’t check our notebooks’. And ‘the new girl talks a lot during lunch. Somehow, everyone listens’.”

“What are they, ten years old?” Kageyama mutters, squinting at the characters

“I don’t think so. This was a high school,” Sugawara replies to the rhetorical remark seriously, preoccupied with the text.

“Then it was written by an idiot,” Kageyama decides.

“Maybe that’s why you can read it so easily,” Hinata teases, getting an indignant huff from Kageyama. Sugawara flaps an annoyed hand and shushes them before they can devolve into bickering.

“This is just a boring recounting of the first few days of classes…” He flips through the pages until he finds something else—something that seems peculiar enough to read out.

“’This school is strange. I was told by one of my peers that someone once hung themselves in the third gym, but it’s brand new. I don’t think anyone hung themselves there’.”

Kageyama and Hinata fall silent, sharing a look with one another.

“’The headmistress is kind. I thought she would tell me to go away when I reported these things, but she took me seriously. She told me not to worry about it. These are just rumors. I won’t listen to them’.”

Sugawara hesitates and scans the next few lines before speaking them aloud.

“’I do want to go home. At night, the wooden floorboards squeak. We are not allowed to wander. But I hear someone walking around after curfew. Are they just messing with me’?”

Sugawara lifts his head and scowls, stopping there. “We… we shouldn’t read this.”

“Keep going!” Hinata urges, bouncing on the balls of his feet. His excitement is offbeat and misplaced, seeming an odd contrast to the uneasy atmosphere in the room.

“Doesn’t this bother you?” Sugawara asks, dumbstruck.

“It’s just a book!” Hinata says, usually loud voice sounding even louder in the quiet of the classroom. “We can’t stop here.”

“I kind of want to keep going, too,” Kageyama admits, lips pressed into a thin line. Despite his own curiosity, Sugawara is still hesitant. He doesn’t want to, but between the two of them, it’s not like he can say no. He reluctantly turns back to the book, flipping to the next entry.

“There’s only one line for this date,” Sugawara mutters, prompting Hinata to stand on tip toes to see so for himself.

“What does it say?” Hinata questions.

“’Akira told stories in our reading class again. Everyone listened, but I didn’t want to.’”

“That’s weird.” Kageyama is as blunt as ever.

Hinata gives a nervous smile and nods, agreeing with him, but curious all the same. “What were the stories?”

“It doesn’t say. Maybe they were rumors,” Sugawara offers, flipping through the book. There’s another page, like the last, with just a single line written in the middle. “’They knocked my lunch over and put cicadas in my slippers.’”

“Eh?” Hinata is plainly confused. “… why would they put cicadas in his shoes?”

“That’s what you pay attention to?” Kageyama gives him a disgusted look behind their upper classmate’s back, baiting him. “Are you an idiot?”

“No! Well, I mean it seriously. Why would they do that? Is there more, Sugawara?” He asks, as persistent as ever.

“’I found a bird in my cupboard. It ruined my school uniform’. This is...”

“There’s got to be more. Look,” Gripped with a frantic desire to uncover more, Kageyama flips to the next passage. Silence settles over them for a moment as he and Sugawara read it, Hinata fidgeting in impatience. “‘Akira wrote a message for me on the chalkboard: it told me to go home’. What the hell does that mean?”

“Go home,” Hinata parrots. “Didn’t they mention wanting to go home?”

The next few lines are scribbled out, ink smeared across the messy scrawl of writing. It’s barely legible at all. “’The world’s setting sun grows cold. The rotten trees reach the sky and touch the moon’—I think this next part is a poem,” Sugawara continues, turning to look to Kageyama for approval.

“I think so,” He nods.

“This is weird,” Hinata butts in, going still. “I don’t really get it. Maybe we should just put it back.”

Both Sugawara and Kageyama look up and fix him with a perplexed stare. The sudden drop in interest is unusual—Kageyama can’t ignore it. “Seriously? You’re the one who wanted to look through this thing in the first place.”

“I can’t even read it from here,” He says, making it clear that he simply feels excluded—or perhaps teased, like they’re making it all up as they go along.

The younger setter rolls his eyes, exasperated. “You’re not missing out on anything.”

“A lot of it is boring,” Sugawara quietly agrees. “You can look at it after, if you don’t believe us.”

Hinata huffs, but he doesn’t argue further. “… I guess.”

Sugawara hums idly as he and Kageyama struggle to read the rest of the poem. “… ‘understanding is given to life…’? That doesn’t sound right.”

“’Magic held close becomes the truth’. That’s this line,” Kageyama taps the paper where Hinata can’t see.

“’This was the summer story Akira told us’,” Sugawara reads, giving an appreciative murmur of realization. “ Oh. So the stories were really just poems?”

“I dunno if it’s a poem,” Kageyama’s lack of patience has him scowling, frustrated with his inability to understand the journal’s contents. “I don’t get it.”

“Okay, so maybe it’s not a poem,” Discontent with that answer, Sugawara flips the page. “This is dated the same as the story. ’Today, I thought I’d go see the teachers. I thought if I spoke to them something would change’. Oh… ‘nothing did’.”

“I guess it didn’t help the bullying in the end.”

Kageyama’s hushed words hang in the air. Hinata’s mouth falls open in surprise, like he hadn’t expected Kageyama to actually say it—like he’d hoped that they could just continue pretending that it’s a story, not a disturbing retelling of a high school boy’s life.

What they’re reading is sad, and how they’re reading it is unforgivably cruel—like it’s cheap entertainment, or a mystery to be solved. Sugawara has nothing to say for himself. Without turning any more pages, he rethinks what they’d read.

It was obvious. There were probably more explicit clues in the diary, but they hadn’t had the patience to read in depth. The cicadas, the bird in his cubby, everything. He feels guilty for flipping through the pages as if it were a magazine, searching for the parts that caught his interest.

“This is messed up.” Kageyama reaches past him to flip through the diary, and Sugawara’s hand snaps out to stop him midway, something catching his eye.

The book falls open on the same page that had given Sugawara pause in the beginning. Behind him, Kageyama carefully begins to read.

For a moment, they’re all quiet. Hinata tentatively interrupts that silence. “This is kind of scary.”

They ignore him. Kageyama keeps reading.

“’If I hide in the showers, it’s no good. If I miss role call, it’s no good. The doors are chained when we sleep. If I break a chain, the noise will wake the others, so it’s no good. To hide I’ll have to be outside. To be outside I’ll have to have a reason. If I…’ I can’t read this. It’s smeared.”

Sugawara finds the next legible text and reads that. “’I’ll put it in the storage closet’. I can’t tell what he’s referring to… ‘And this in the photography room’. I think he means the journal…? Then ‘Akira is it’. That’s the last line.”

Kageyama flips through the book, but there’s no other text. The rest of it is empty.

“Is… is that it?” Hinata asks, peeking through his hands.

“I think—whoa,” Kageyama freezes as he flutters through a few blank pages and finds one with a polaroid taped to it, picturing the front of the school draped in snow. Underneath, it reads: I knew as soon as I saw it .

That isn’t it. There’s more and more pictures, the probable cause of the book’s heft. One of the hallways, filled with students. A young girl holding a book and reading in front of the classroom. A few smiling students stood underneath a cherry tree, covered in dappled shadows. It reads Nishimoto, Misaoto and Mirai underneath.

None of the pictures depict anything strange, but they’re eerie anyway. There’s a gradual shift in the pictures, more taken of people’s backs and not their faces, some unfocused and some far off, distant. If Sugawara didn’t know any better, he’d think of it as some kind of art project. The pictures are gorgeous, even for their age. That doesn’t change how strange they are.

Eventually, the photographs lose their beauty. The subject is blurred, or unsure. There’s pictures of the ground and nothing else. Another photo gives him pause—it’s of a tree. It seems to be of the tree in the courtyard. It’s hardly recognizable because it’s in bloom, but Sugawara is somehow sure of it. He glances at Hinata, expecting him to notice and perhaps comment on it, but he doesn’t.

The caption reads my summer’s story. Sugawara studies the page.

Kageyama speaks up before he can. “There’s something up with the picture.”

It’s warped from water damage, Sugawara realizes. Reaching past him, Kageyama touches it. “Huh.” He picks at the edge, trying to pry it free from the page. It’s taped on the bottom and the top—he removes the piece from the top, and flips it down.

There’s a scribbled drawing of another pentagram on the back of the photo. It’s a bit different from the one on the first page, but there’s no mistaking it. None of them say anything for a moment, unsure how to address it. It makes the hair on the back of Sugawara’s neck stand up. This isn’t something they should look at, and he doesn’t know why he feels that way, but the feeling is so suddenly intense that it makes him want to cringe away.

There’s something written in a messy scrawl underneath it, so he focuses on that, instead. No one says anything about the drawing.

“’I thought I could fix it on my own. Now all I have is this’.”

“This?” Hinata asks, fascination warped with confusion. “What’s ‘this’? The circle?”

“He could mean the book itself,” Sugawara says, avoiding looking at the drawing. He flips the photo back up and puzzles over it, trying to understand the meaning.

“All I have left is ‘my summer’s story’?” Kageyama suggests, dragging a hand through his hair. “It sounds like what we read earlier, about her ‘summer stories’.”

“But he hated her stories,” Sugawara says, precariously. “And, these photos… I don’t know; it might just be me, but I think they’re pretty good.” In front of him, Hinata tilts his head. “I mean—they’re taken well. He’s skilled. There’s so many… and this journal is here, in the photography room. Don’t you think it’s probably something he liked doing?”

“Oh,” Kageyama says, flattening his mussed hair. “So, you’re saying he wouldn’t mix her stuff with his pictures?”

“Yeah,” Sugawara nods, flipping the page. “It’s got to be something of his.”

“We should check the other photos, too. There might be more.”

Following Kageyama’s suggestion, Sugawara returns to the previous polaroids—but most are glued down, not taped, and those that aren’t have nothing underneath them. He flips through the rest of the pictures, but the book ends with just a few blank pages. There’s nothing else of note. Sugawara heaves a nearly relieved sigh.

Having seen them reach the end, Hinata holds out his hands imploringly. Sugawara is quick to oblige him, handing it off as if passing him something disgusting. Hinata’s persistent cheeriness is incredibly atypical when compared to the mood of the room, and Sugawara can’t help but think that it’s his own way of dealing with it. Allowing him to read in peace, the two other boys settle down at one of the abandoned desks, silently brooding.

After a minute or two of grinding teeth, Kageyama speaks up. “It’s bugging me.”

“What is?”

“I don’t know,” he sighs, weighted and exhausted. Sugawara realizes that the healthy flush that Kageyama had regained is long gone, lost to a pallor that makes him look sickly. The tremble to his intertwined fingers is barely perceptible, but present. “I guess all of it. I don’t know, it just… it feels like we read something we weren’t supposed to.”

“What do you…” The older setter swallows, nervousness bringing about a cold sweat. He thinks about the drawings. “What do you mean? Which part?”

“Like I said, all of it,” Kageyama snaps, frustration and sickness taking an obvious toll on his patience. “I’ve felt uneasy ever since we opened the book.”

“Kageyama, you don’t… this doesn’t have anything to do with how you felt on the way up, does it?”

“I…” Kageyama runs his hands through his hair again and then brings them down to the table, clenching them into fists. “It’s the only thing that makes sense to me.”

For one heart shattering beat, Sugawara really has nothing to say. He can’t comfort him again, not when he doesn’t believe it himself. The entire book reeks of bad omens. The mentions of bullying and the vague, obscure sounding poetry combined with the eerie degradation of the quality of the photography alongside the circles were all grim signs.

He wants to laugh at it. He should be able to laugh at it. But this is too serious to ignore or shrug off.

The tense silence doesn’t last long. Sugawara is just opening his mouth to spill out half-hearted comforts when Hinata runs over to the table and slams the open book down in front of them. The forbidding circle from the first page stares up at them, seeming to glint maliciously. Sugawara averts his eyes.

“Look at this again!” Hinata says, excitement seeming strange in the grim atmosphere of the small room—too bright, too cheery. “Guess what? I figured something out!”

Kageyama sighs, obviously struggling not to yell at him. “Pipe down before someone hears you, dumbass.”

“This writing isn’t by Nishimoto!”

“Huh?”

“Look," Hinata taps the scrawled writing underneath. “It’s all neat and tidy, when the rest is all messy. It’s different!”

Having thought Hinata might have been getting somewhere, Kageyama’s disappointment is explosive. “You’re such an idiot! It’s written in the alphabet, so of course it’s gonna look different.”

“Shut up! Tell me something that you noticed if you’re so smart! All you do is complain.”

“Dumbass. You’re an absolute dumbass.” Kageyama is sweating. If his sickness wasn’t clear to Hinata, then it is to Sugawara. It’s only getting worse.

“You’re just angry I noticed something that you didn’t!”

“Hinata,” Sugawara cuts him off before he can continue. “Stop. Arguing isn’t going to solve anything. This is serious. ”

“I know it’s serious,” The younger teen blurts. Both Sugawara and Kageyama can only stare. Hinata stares back with an intense, challenging gaze. He seems determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.

He turns around, walks through the mess, and squats to dig through more books, as stubborn as always. Sugawara watches him for a moment longer before heaving a sigh, drained of energy. If he wants to keep looking, then there’s not a lot Sugawara can do to stop him.

“Let’s keep this to ourselves,” Sugawara says, firmly. “The others might also… take this really seriously.”

“I don’t think they’d believe us unless we showed them this,” Kageyama mumbles, picking up the journal. He turns the page, obscuring the ugly scribble from their sight. “…I’ve read it myself, but even I still don’t really understand.”

“I think it’s a journal from a bullied boy,” Sugawara says. “And I don’t think we had any business reading it.”

“He’s probably long gone now, though,” Kageyama shrugs, flipping idly through the pages. “… it’s not about that. It just gives me the creeps.”

Sugawara raises his head and watches as Hinata picks his way through the junk in the room, carrying what looks like an album in his arms. He drops it onto the table and watches proudly as Sugawara drags it closer to inspect it.

“What is this…?”

Kageyama squints at it. “I was looking through that earlier.”

“Read the label on the side,” Hinata insists. Sugawara is befuddled, but he obeys, checking the label on the binder’s spine.

“’Nishimoto’… this is his? This entire album?”

“Yeah!” Hinata gestures toward it, obviously eager for Sugawara to open it. He rolls his eyes but gives in, because even though he’d said himself that they’d had no business in prying, he’s too curious to deny himself a look. And it’s not like this is a diary, this time.

Inside, the pictures are more of the same. Some are more mediocre than he’d expected, but others are spectacularly artful. There’s almost no text to accompany the many photographs, but they tell their own story—again, matching the dates of the diary, the pictures gradually lose focus and precision. Photographs of snow covered trees and wildlife, students silhouetted against the shining sun—the gorgeous frames make way for murky skies and unsure looking puddles of rain, blurred, as though taken hastily.

Sugawara isn’t interested, and Kageyama isn’t either, judging by the firm glare he’s giving the opposing wall. He closes the album and pushes it back toward Hinata, feeling sick to his stomach.

“We should go,” he suggests, throat dry. “I have to return the keys to Daichi.”

Hinata wilts. It’s obvious that what they’ve found has disappointed him, despite the fact that he was the one who wanted to come here in the first place. Or perhaps it’s not the mystery of the diary itself, but the reluctance of his friends to investigate further. Either way, he gives up on it, and nods.

“… I guess!” He’s pouting, put out. “Kageyama, you should probably rest more! You look sicker than before.”

“And who’s fault is that?” He grumbles, chair squealing as he stands from the table. “This place gives me the creeps. Let’s hurry up and get out of here already.”

Hinata picks up the book—and turns to leave with it. Sugawara gapes. “Hey! Leave that here.”

“What?” Hinata stares. “Why?”

“First, we’re not supposed to be here,” He admonishes him in hushed tones, heart beating a mile a minute. “You—maybe you didn’t catch it, but I already said we shouldn’t tell anyone else about this.”

Hinata seems puzzled. “We shouldn’t?”

“No,” Sugawara agrees. “We shouldn’t.”

Kageyama crosses his arms and scowls. “Put that down so we can go.”

Hinata does, though with great reluctance; like a kicked, scolded puppy, he settles it down on top of the table he’s closest to, eyes lingering on it even as he begins to walk away, steps slow. He’s probably expecting Sugawara to sigh and say fine, just take it! But when he realizes that’s not going to happen, he sighs and hurries out of the room.

Sugawara takes care to lock the door behind them, unenthused with the idea of Hinata returning to sneak the book out. For an extra measure, he tries the knob; it stays stiffly unmoving. It’s enough to reassure him.

Kageyama and Hinata split up from Sugawara. “Don’t sneak around anymore,” He advises, trying not to sound too stern. Even if he feels uneasy because of the book, he doesn’t want to show it in front of them any more than he already has. “Just get to the showers and then head up to our room.”

Sugawara doesn’t head up immediately, himself. There’s a restlessness deep in his bones; he finds himself drawn to the courtyard, where he pauses in front of the rows of windows to peer outside, at the tree.

It’s definitely the same one from the photos. Did Nishimoto spend his highschool days quietly sitting underneath it…? Even if he took photos of it, they didn’t seem to hold any type of cherished memory. Sugawara thinks about the circle that he’d avoided looking at, and the ominous message that went with it.

He suppresses a shudder.

It’s still cold in the hallways. Sugawara hates the miserable weather; it doesn’t look like it’s going to clear up any time soon. He just hopes it doesn’t rain.

It’s probably best if he heads up to the dorms to get settled into bed—staying out any longer might look suspicious. He’d even lectured the first years about discreetly hurrying to their dorm, so it doesn’t look good for him to avoid it himself.

Sugawara doesn’t run into anyone else on his way upstairs.

The second floor should be quiet other than the insistent howling of the wind outside, but when he opens the door to head inside, he stops short. He closes the door instead of entering the room, and a sudden thunk startles him.

Sugawara looks for the source of the noise and finds his eyes drawn to the brass ornament swaying from the doorknob.

That feeling of inexplicable dread crawls up his back as he watches it spin in place. It comes to a stop, and he draws it as close as the thin chain tying it to the knob allows him to.

There’s no doubt about it. It’s a charm with a circle etched into the metal, done in the same style as the pentagrams they’d seen in Nishimoto’s journal.

“Wh...what is this?”

Sugawara can’t take his eyes off of it. How had he never noticed this before? It was something that stood out from the rest of the school—no other doors had charms like this, and no other art existed like these circles. He can’t fathom as to why it’s here or what it means, but he has a feeling it’s nothing good.

There’s no way he can leave it on the door, not having seen Nishimoto’s writings. It’s probably been here for a while—probably since the school was vacated. Sugawara looks around for people, and then unhooks the chain it’s hanging from on the knob and pulls it off.

He stands back and stares at the door. Nothing has really changed except its appearance, but… standing here with the creepy charm in his hand, something feels different.

Sugawara shakes his head free of worries and opens the door.

#haikyuu #haikyuu!!#hq #hq!!#sugawara #hinata #kageyama #kagehina #sugawara koushi #kageyama tobio #hinata shouyou #fanfiction #kirayama #chapter 6

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