Scarves N Hats: Days 21-24

[melayneseahawk]

scarvesnhats

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prompt for Day 21
Rain Like Tears | Day 21 | PG | 100 words

He looked out the window of the café while he sipped his tea. It was pouring outside, Muggle London blurred by rain falling and steam on the window.

He refused to think about how the rain looked like tears. He couldn't, not now.

He watched people hurry by in the early November rain. Tomorrow, a traitor would be brought to justice. Then the lies would be over, the war won. He'd go home without fearing his lover was a traitor.

Sirius stood and paid for his tea. In 24 hours, it would all be over, and then he could cry.

prompt for Day 22
Seasonal Enigma | Day 22 | PG | 141 words

Remus watched the last of the leaves giving up their perches and drifting down from their branches. He'd always loved watching falling leaves, how the rhythm of them changed: first, a slow fall of leaves, one by one, gradually increasing until the ones became hundreds, overpowering the slow trickle in a veritable deluge; then that too would slow down to the last few straggling leaves, until the trees were bare and autumn's cool warmth gave way to winter's frigid chill.

He and Sirius had been like that, Remus thought. A slow crawl into each other's arms, and then a handful of years of passion before suspicion, fear, and the war had pushed them away from each other. Winter had been Azkaban, of course, but now Sirius was back, and maybe now, after 13 years of cold, it would finally be spring.

prompt for Day 23
What Makes the Leaves Change Color? | Day 23 | G | 100 words

"You know," Sirius said, crossing his arms behind his head as he looked up at the cloudless sky, "I like the Wizard explanation better than the Muggle one."

"For what?" Remus asked, knowing he'd probably been the one to give the 'Muggle one'.

"About leaves," Sirius replied. "With...chloro-thingies. I like pixies with paint brushes better."

Remus nodded sagely and Peter giggled. James, who had more experience with such things than Sirius, just shook his head in wonderment. "Either way," Remus said solemnly, picking up an armful of leaves and dumping them on Sirius' head, "they're fun to play with."

prompt for Day 24
The First Fire of Autumn | Day 24 | PG | 223 words

It had been Peter's idea to get together once more before the Fidelius was set up. They gathered solemnly, four men, one woman, and a baby, in the once-colorful garden of Godric's Hollow. It was only late September, but the summer's fickle weather had caused the leaves to go straight to brown and soggy.

Sirius and James had lit a small bonfire, and they spend the evening roasting sausages and reminiscing about Hogwarts and the happy years before the war and fear had made happiness all but a dream. They laughed about pranks past, and told all the old stories, about Sirius cornering Remus behind the broom shed and when Lily had turned around one day and realized that James wasn't quite the prat he pretended to be. Little Harry, just a bit over a year old, was passed from lap to lap like a stuffed animal and fed tiny bits of sausage when his mother wasn't looking. When they left, Sirius and Remus together to their flat and Peter alone to his, they knew this was an end of sorts, even if only a temporary one.

And they knew, though none would admit it aloud, that though they had had these brief hours of happiness, they were severing the ties that held them together, and flying apart like leaves in the wind.

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