JANUARY 24, 1972
"What's it mean?" Remus asked. "To kill a god?"
He'd thought of nothing else for the better part of three weeks. It'd strike him like a dagger to the heart—the gravity, the tragedy of it all—in the middle of class sometimes, and he'd grind his teeth to keep the panic at bay. He'd found himself spacing off during breakfast or dinner, when James and Sirius were both animatedly plotting some nefarious prank or other. Remus would feel his eyes go hazy. The noise of the Great Hall would simmer down to nothing as suddenly, the only think he'd be able to see was Sirius Black in shimmering, silver armour, sword drawn, ready to slay the dragon. He'd see it with such vivid clarity—taste the venomous metal of Sirius's armour with each inhale—that he'd wonder if he'd been having some terror-induced fever dream, right there in the middle of the Great Hall.
Because no matter now many times Remus blinked, the image never left his mind. Sirius was King Arthur, on a perilous, futile quest for the Holy Grail. He was Beowulf, D'Artagnan, and St. George, off to slay the dragon.
He was Adam, standing before the snake, damned to take the fruit.
Remus felt as though he hadn't slept since before the full moon—eons ago, when the world was still a decent place, save for the wolf that tore him to pieces every month. Before he'd found Sirius Black on the bathroom floor bloody, beaten, and broken.
From behind her desk, McGonagall stared at him with wide, cat-like green eyes, her spine rigid. Rather intelligently, she said, "What?"
Remus forced himself to concentrate enough to repeat the question.
A perfectly sarcastic eyebrow went up. Remus was privileged enough to watch in real time as Professor McGonagall schooled her expression back to neutral. "What, in Merlin's name, are you writing your essay about, Lupin?"
Technically, given that he was sitting detention with McGonagall for his behaviour in Care of Magical Creatures, he was supposed to be writing something of a reflection on said behaviour that he'd yet to formally apologise for. He had no plans on doing so.
Remus looked down at his parchment and the words he'd written over and over and over and over. He'd traced the words with his pen, scribbled them out and written them again. He'd circled, underlined, and jabbed his pen into the parchment so hard that it'd left indentations.
Sirius Black, how tragically flawed
Thought he might be the boy to kill God
Now Nothing's dictating
And that dark kiss is waiting
For the murder of the boy who killed God.
After his and Sirius's confrontation with Peeves, Remus had spent the next several nights after detention searching the dark corridors for the poltergeist. When he'd finally tracked Peeves down, Remus had goaded Peeves into repeating the verse over and over, until Remus had it memorised.
Now, it haunted his every heartbeat.
Surreptitiously, Remus covered his mad-man scribbles before McGonagall could see what he'd written. He didn't need her assuming he'd lost his mind. Not when McGonagall may have, possibly—impossibly—become his most vocal advocate among the staff.
Though, he'd yet to forgive her for sending Sirius quite literally into the maw of the beast.
"Wand-crafting," Remus lied, in reference to his essay. "Is it a metaphor?"
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The Boy Who Killed God {Sirius Black | Marauders Era Fanfiction}
FanfictionSirius Black has a secret. Well, no, that's not true. Sirius Black has many secrets. His wand is dying, his parents more or less want to kill him, and there's the small matter of the cursed TOUJOURS PUR tattoo right above his heart, that he's had si...
