Pain, war, confusion; mass panic. Things that would become all to common in the future to come. But for now in this moment, not even slightly. His heart pounded under the pressure and rare excitement of it all. It was clear in this moment, this history changing event that the Death Eaters had their shot at victory. But to find that in some small measure a comfort left him concerned. He was always concerned about the mentality of his choices and this was no different, it was even something that should have made a decision far more easier but it did just the opposite. He watched them fall, muggleborns, Voldemort's enemies and even his companions. It left a curious emotion in the pit of Barty's stomach that he planned to fully analyze once safety was reached.
After dropping the wounded girl off at St. Mungo’s -- already beginning to descend into chaos, but at least for the moment they seemed to have a handle on thing -- he meant to go home. Home to his barren flat that always seemed cold no matter how hot it was. Home, far away from people damaged and murdered, torn apart. Home where he could hide and pretend everything hadn’t just changed.
But his mind, full of fear, and doubts, and regret, mindlessly reinterpreted he thoughts of home as he turned heel and disappeared.
He found himself standing in front of a large and ornate Victorian house. In the countryside outside of London, it sat atop a sloping hill, staring imposingly down on the other houses scattered beyond the grounds. The lights were out, leaving it darkly silhouetted against the moonlight. The night was deafeningly silent after the party’s chaos, broken only by the occasional creak. Of course he parents were out, they’d have been at the party, he reminded himself, his stomach dropping. He didn’t like his parents very much, he was never quite the son they wanted, a fact made clear time and time again. But they were his parents all they same. If they didn’t make it out … they idea felt foreign and haunted, reminiscent of the time he’d been forgotten for hours in a Knockturn Alley shop, four years old and terrified.
Part of him wanted to correct himself, go to the place he now called home. Not here, at least not now. But instead he let himself into the house, instinctively hanging his jacket -- flecked with rubble and blood -- by the door. A house elf scurried up to ask if Master would like some tea, but Rod waved him off. He walked down the hallway into the main sitting room, collapsing onto the couch. He was more tired than he’d realized. not just in the sense it felt like he just ran a marathon (there was that too, the adrenaline had burned through him, leaving him empty and spent). But he just felt endlessly exhausted. The horror of the night kept replaying again and again through his head, with no signs of stopping. And it felt as if the weight of everything was crashing down onto him. Things he’d kept pushed up between the border of denial and apathy. But now, it was all too real.
It was his family, his parents, his brother, people he didn’t want to believe he could lose (although he was sure Rabastan would make it out of this, all of this, with a grand and bloody story to tell).
It was the fact he’d had some abstract assumption, inexplicable, but there all the same, that he would live through the war. But now he wasn’t so sure. Death was so close, and life so delicate.
It was the people he’d known at Hogwarts, good people, who weren’t going to make it out of the war, or even tonight. And that was a little bit his fault, just for being with the Death Eaters.
It was the side he’d chosen, or been chosen for, not that that difference changed anything now.
It was the atrocities he watched, committed, and would commit in the future. And it wasn’t going to stop. It was all going to get worse, and if they won -- he wasn’t sure it’d every get better.
He was too kind to be a good Death Eater, much as he tried to hide it, but he wasn’t strong enough to put down his foot and say No. Never strong enough, never in his whole life. So here he was, stuck in some kind of limbo between his blood and his morals. But the winner had already been predetermined.
This, sitting here, on the cold leather of the couch in the family home, only served to remind him: he might think whatever he wanted, but he was infinitely ensnared into the wrong side. His family’s side. His side.
He slowly drummed his fingers along the arm of the couch, the portraits quietly snoring in the background. When he heard the front door bang open, almost an hour later, he let out a long breath -- as if he’d been holding it. Quietly, he slipped out the back door. He didn’t want to hear what they had to say about the party, or the fact he’d been lurking in the house for an hour just to check on them. They wouldn’t care that he’d cared, he thought. But at least now he knew they were still alive, at least he had that much.
White Knuckles, Breaking Hearts || Peter & Mary (self para conclusion)
He was not prepared for war.
Running through the rubble of the party gone so horribly wrong it occurred to Peter, in some strangely calm corner of his mind that hadn't yet succumb to the blind panic the rest of him was feeling, that he'd never held someone's hand as tightly as he was holding Mary's, and he'd always thought the first time he did it would be some guy's hand.
My how circumstance was a funny thing.
Her hand slipped from his only once, as he attempted to round a collapsed table and instead slipped in the remnants of what looked like Aloysius Hartwether, rising again to wipe the slick, still-warm mess from the side of his face before reaching out for her again, not caring that the blood on his hands fused their hands together in a tacky bond.
It was only after a giant's thundering footstep made him look over his shoulder that he saw him across the room; Remus. His blood froze in his veins as he saw his brother, far too many feet of carnage and wreckage away and as he turned to tug Mary towards his friend he saw the same stricken look on her face, aimed in the opposite direction and turned to see Marlene McKinnon across the garden.
"Go." he managed to bite out, praying that the sheer gut-wrenching terror he felt at letting go of her hand wasn't present in your voice. "Get Marlene out of here. I have to go help Remus... I can't just..... I have to."
He slipped his hand from his, gripping her shoulder and staring deep into her eyes, "Promise me, Mary, promise me... that when the sun rises and we both make it out of this alive you'll find me at the Headquarters. Promise me." A mute nod from her and he pulled her close, hugging her as tightly as he could manage.
"Sunrise, Mary.... it's a date."
He ran as fast as he could, away from the safety of one friend towards the solace of another. Praying that he could at least for the rest of the night escape the simple truth.
Valerie knows what the war means. The time is here to show her worth, to show that she belongs. Everything else has been a test until now and she will not disappoint. Her entire life has been comprised of people telling her that she isn't good enough but she will do whatever it takes to prove them wrong.
Barty had ventured out into the garden when it all started, seeking a familiar face to make the requirements of the evening seem less necessary. The retreat was short lived, out of no where the sounds of screams and thundering crashes could be heard from inside. The people who stumbled past him scurrying as fast as they could manage, all crying out in terror. "Voldemort. . .giants!!" At least that was the small portion of the information Barty was picking up as he eyed them.
Fighting thought he panic of the crowd as the scurried anyway they could to avoid the pain and chaos as it washed though the building. He should have just left, fled like everyone else Barty didn't even like the man anyway but it seemed inhuman even for him to leave his father behind. Carrying with him a sense of urgency, eyeing each passerby searching their faces Barty shot through the background ducking and dodging oncoming attacks. But when the boy reached the far wall with the man still no where in sight he looked around frantically.
'I have you get out of here.' He thought in a short panic as a blast from a near by wand burst out knocking him back roughly against the wall, missing it's target. Green eyes peered up in surprise at the giant that stood before him, pulling his wand up to meet it as it swung.
She knows it's silly, and knows she's childish, but fairy tales are simply better than reality. WIth her very own knight in shining armor in Pius, Daisy knows that fairy tales can be real.
No matter how much blood she see's spilled, Daisy refuses to stop believing in happy endings.
It seemed like the world was ending in front of him, and for the first time in his life, his mind came up empty as to a way to get out of this alive and safe. The wet squelch of the Minister's body as it was ripped apart started Peter forward and the half-smoke cigarette fell to the ground next to the glittering shards of his champagne flute as he pulled his wand from his pocket, darting through the nascent rubble. A familiar head of dark hair swung into view and Peter blasted a table out of the way to get to it, hand clamping onto Mary's arm as he pulled her close into a hug.
"Thank Merlin you're alright!" His breath came ragged and uneven as he scanned the opulent battlefield, mind racing as he tried to figure a way out of it all, "If you try to leave my side before we're safely back to Headquarters I will hex you into immobility and carry you out over my shoulders. My brothers may have kept me from the front lines but I am still a soldier in this war, and you are my brother's solace... I will see you safely out of this bloody mess."
the gods envy us. they envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. you will never be lovelier than you are now. we will never be here again
The library in the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix was without dispute Peter's domain. The Kitchen was Molly's, the Hall was Moody's... but the Library.... that was Peter's, and he loved it well.
Within his domain he had a system, known by none but generally understood to be of vital importance to him. The ink that ran in his books was the same that beat through his veins, and its colors spoke messages that only he understood. Teal for a failure, blue for days won, dark green for plans not yet undone. Black for truth, gold for a lie, red for men sure to die.
His heart hadn't stopped racing since he'd fled the rubble of the Minister's party, breath coming in ragged gasps, as one inescapable truth thundered through veins still burning hot from the adrenaline.
He had not been prepared for war.
Looking down at the page open in front of him he saw a name, written in his unbreakable code and impeccable handwriting, the ink as incarnadine as the blood clotting on his shoes and trousers... Christian Weymouth, Minister. Peter drew a black line through it, miraculously straight even though his hand was shaking on the mother-of-pearl quill. Red for blood that had to be shed... black for the unerring truth of it all.
But as Peter looked down at the two colors, their messages clear and beyond doubt, he felt that quivering seed of anger and sorrow that had been slowly growing in his heart since he had first witnessed death blossom into full and chilling splendor.
He had not been prepared for war.
His body trembled with anger as he looked down at his carefully written out notes. How silly it all seemed now, foolish notes and gaudy inks. How easy it had been for him to sentence men to die in theory, names written in ink that could not compare to the actual red of the viscera of men, a red he had seen for the first time that night. What a child he had been, playing at a game of war, at a game of spies, never truly realizing how abruptly his own name could have a straight black line through it, how woefully unprepared he was for that eventuality.
A roar tore itself from his throat as he upturned the table, pots of ink and journals crashing to the floor, the colors of his so-vaunted code mingling together at his feet as merely hours earlier the blood of both friend and enemy had. Breath scratched ragged across his throat as he lay waste to the system he had cocooned himself in for so long, shredding the parchment and color scheme that had as much kept him from the front lines as his brothers had.
He had not been prepared for war.
With trembling fingers, stained with the echo of his tantrum, Peter pulled a blank journal from a shelf, trembling hand inscribing "Day One" on the top of the first page in code, black ink staring back at him, a stark proclamation against the poor spy he had been, and the warrior he would vow to become.
He had not been prepared for war.... But he'd be damned if he didn't change that immediately.
