shooting star

When: The night of Alastor and Suri’s release, 11:30pm  Where: Any bar, anywhere

Sleeping at night was becoming more of a struggle. Knowing that so many of those close to him were working overtime to clean up the mess that he created was weighing heavily on his conscience – even more so was the burden of keeping the secret buried and watching innocent people be accused. Rodolphus had used him as part of his own filthy scheme and Rabastan was left to simmer in the guilt. Nothing could convince him that this wasn’t his fault; he felt like a danger to society. A monster. Just like the papers painted him.

And so he found himself at the bar, alone, ruminating in his thoughts. Rabastan had grown used to dining and drinking alone since he traveled so often. While he greatly enjoyed the company of his friends, he did enjoy the solitude every so often. He was drinking slowly, tapping his fingers against the surface at the bar, observing other patrons. As he absentmindedly scanned the crowd he spotted a familiar face and tried to shake himself from his thoughts, flashing the most authentic smile he could manage. “I’d like to say I don’t normally make a habit of drinking alone, but I do enjoy it every so often.” He gestured to the seat next to him. “That being said, I wouldn’t mind some company.” 

.

Ren was not a bar-goer. He had little interest in sitting among strangers and sipping drinks that were supposed to taste good but never quite hit the spot-- he would always rather sit among friends, tossing back mixtures of whatever liquor was leftover in the cabinets. Yet when he began to check on the members of the Rising, just little check-ins to see how everyone was doing in the aftermath of the storm that had hit their lives, he had found too many of their friends and partners in arms in various bars. 

So he shoved his hands deep in his pockets and weaved his way through the throngs of people, making his way toward the bar. That’s where the disheartened always seemed to end up, nursing a drink between their hands. When he saw Rabastan, Ren’s lips turned up into a small smile, though there was little of his typical joy in it. “You’ve got it, Bas,” Ren responded, slipping into the seat next to the other man. “But I’ve got to be honest with you, I’m not much of a drinker. You’ll have to pick something out for me.”

Now? | OPEN

She was the girl with fire in her eyes. She was the girl with a smile which could say a thousand things. She was the girl who had taken down men twice her size and height; with and without a wand. She was the girl who used to stare at the stars at night even when she knew she had to get up early, just to see them shine. And now she was the girl who flinched at the sound of a slamming door, a chair dragging across the floor, wind making the windows rattle and whistle. Now she couldn’t sleep without some semblance of light on. Now she had to sleep with the door open because she’s scared that someone will lock it from the outside. Once she’d climbed into the boot of a car because there hadn’t been any seats left, or laps. Now? The idea of that was suffocating.

Suri looked more herself today. Less palid and a little more vibrant. She felt more herself today. But being in the safe house and not her home hadn’t helped. Unfamiliar surroundings weren’t a comfort to her currently. But familiar faces were. She welcomed them. She welcomed company or any kind. 

She sat in the kitchen, a hot cup of coffee between her hands. Hearing the door open, she looked up. A small smile found her lips at the familiar face. 

“Hey,”

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Like a ship slowly drifting along the shore, Ren found himself continuously coming back to safe house, unable to help himself. He was a carer, feeling most himself when he was able to help someone, whether it was by seeking new information or physically looking after them, delivering them warm food and company. 

The bag of neatly wrapped pastries was clutched in his hand as he opened the door, half expecting to just set the food down on the table and disappear back to his flat. Instead, he was greeted by Suri herself and Ren’s face immediately split into a relieved smile. 

“Suri, hey,” he greeted, setting the bag on the table. “How are you doing? Sorry I wasn’t around earlier- the line at the bakery was mad.” He found himself scanning her face, her eyes and felt a little semblance of comfort settle over him. She looked better than the images his brain had conjured.

Nights like these had to be her favorites – taking out the fact that some of their friends had to spend time in St. Mungo’s, that what they’d aligned themselves with had been declared terroristic and that both their eyes dangerously drooped, ready to close at any moment – because they were with him. The two used to sit in the Ravenclaw Commonroom and analyze the different questions they’d heard the eagle knocker say. They’d sneak up to the Astronomy Tower and Cissa would tell him all the facts about the stars, then talk about the stories muggles had thought up to explain them. She would sit on the grounds when it was nice out and just listen to him talk about whatever had piqued his interest that day – it was always written somewhere. So nights like these, though they had their downsides, were reminiscent of some of her favorite memories. 

Narcissa had never had to worry about what to say around Ren, never had to censor herself or stop talking about it because he listened. He cared. He’d talk to her like an equal, was genuinely interested in what she had to say and would give helpful feedback. So him point out other things she could do with the information was true to form, and she just laughed and shook her, squeezing his hand lovingly. “I don’t know-” she said, a yawn interrupting her mid-sentence, “How my publisher would feel about that. Jacob’s always telling me to cut things, y’know? As he reminds me constantly ‘These are facts, Black, not fiction’.” She let out a sigh, her dark eyes meeting his as he confirmed what they both already knew – exhaustion was creeping up on them, even with the coffee. 

She stood, finishing her beverage with one hand, and keeping a grip on his hand with the other, gently tugging him out of the chair with a smile. She dropped the paper cup back on the table and reached for her wand. She pointed it at the beat up, 90’s looking radio that sat in their kitchen and it crackled to life, volume rising and music coming from it. “I thought that’s what song this was! I could barely hear it over all the static, was drivin’ me mad..”

.

When Cissa yawned mid-sentence, when discussing her book of all matters, Ren knew that it was past time that they found their way to bed. Despite the fact that he had spent his last several days flitting between homes and caring for others, looking out for Narcissa had never felt like it had with others. Checking to see if she was alright, noting when something was on her mind or blocking her from sleep, was as natural as his own breathing. They were simply extensions of each other. 

His own coffee went mostly untouched-- in truth when he picked them up he had a feeling that it would. It wasn’t caffeine that he needed to feel refreshed and awake again; far from it. He filed away the information about Cissa’s book away in his mind, thinking that perhaps he could give it more thought when he was less exhausted to help her find a solution. With Narcissa’s hand gently pulling him up out of his seat, he did just that. He stretched, lifting his arms high above his head, every inch of his body crying out for rest. 

With the radio turned on (a beloved little treasure that they had discovered and one of Ren’s favorite items in their little flat), sleep was swept out of his mind for the moment. He smiled at Narcissa, a gentle tug at the corners of his lips. “Merlin, I couldn’t even hear it...” he mused, leaning over to gently bump his shoulder into her own, reaching down to take her hand once more. “Babe, I got you babe,” he sang softly, grinning impishly at her. “Maybe a quick song and dance before bed?”

There were a good many things that Remus felt prepared to deal with and he felt like he mostly knew how to navigate most situations he found himself in.  Even if the way he did that was to slink into the background and ignore the gnawing ache in the center of his chest. But for all that he was good with his very unique way of dealing with the world, he never quite knew what to do with Ren Evans.  

There was always some spark about him whenever their eyes caught that Remus never quite knew how to react to and deferred to a small, lopsided smile.  He just never knew what to do with someone who was just that happy to see him, no matter the situation.  It was incredible really, affirming in a way that Remus wasn’t used to.  He’d always been like that though.  Happiness and the other positive emotions never exactly sit well with him.  

He gave Ren that lopsided smile and let out a soft chuckle, almost surprised he had it in him.  “That’s very kind of you.  I think I would make a good saint.  I’ve already got the celibacy and isolation down, it won’t really change my life in any significant way.”  Remus could feel some of the exhaustion start to sink in just from hearing Ren’s words, all of it finally coming home that he’d been here since the moment they’d heard what had happened.  How many hours had it been?  Remus couldn’t be sure at the moment.  "It’s not been a pleasant evening, that’s for sure,“ he said with a tired smile. "But I think everyone is holding up alright.”  He ran his fingers gently through his hair.  "I’m…well.  As well as can be expected, in any case.  Hardly the most important person to be worried about.“

.

Ren couldn’t help himself. He hung his head, shaking it gently as he chuckled at Remus’s words. The sound was warm, as Ren so often was. Whereas others would became jaded and downtrodden after so much heartache and pain and war, Ren forced himself to always be warm. To always be inviting and to give those around him some level of comfort. It wasn’t necessarily just for the others either. Oftentimes, Ren needed it for himself. It would be too easy to slip into that bleakness, the darkness of it all. If he could grasp the light and hold onto it, perhaps he could bring it to the others too. 

“Then maybe being a saint wouldn’t be as great as it initially sounded. I take back my letter,” Ren joked, “We can always change the celibacy and isolation pre-sainthood. It would become significantly more difficult afterwards.” He gave Remus a grin, a hint of his own pre-election self coming through in that moment. Just a bubble of a moment without the threat of Rodolphus, Sebastian, and Peter hanging over them. 

Ren nodded his head listening to Remus, his mouth turning down into a slight frown at one corner. Though as Remus went on, Ren’s steps paused and he gave his head a slight shake then. “No. You’re just as important as everyone else on my list of people to worry about.”

It was nearly palpable, the amount of comfort and ease he brought with his presence. He’d walk in the door and she’d relax – he was the normalcy, calamity that she needed. There were no secrets with them, there was nothing they couldn’t share with one another. Ren Evans was one of the only people in the world that Narcissa didn’t have to worry about looking weak or dealing with expectations set for her. Because truly, it was just the two of them, had been the same for nine years. Every single time he walked through the door, she let out a sigh of relief. 

“Oh, that’s amazing!” The news of Marlene’s condition cheered her slightly – home in a few days obviously didn’t mean she was miraculously cured, but it was no comparison to the alternative. She knew Marlene fairly well, though mainly in the sense that they loved the same people, so Cissa knew they’d all breathe a bit easier once she was fully out of the woods.

Then he’d reached out his hands to her – those hands that had mounted broomsticks and brushed hair behind her ears and pointed at a multitude of stars in the night sky – and she held onto them without hesitation, her nails glistening with a soft baby pink polish; it had become almost a ritual to paint her nails when she couldn’t sleep. “I’m really doing alright,” though he tone betrayed her, exhaustion more than evident, “I got some more notes taken! But I keep having to cut down on what actually goes into the book because it’s supposed to be building on each chapter, so sticking in the fact that Jupiter and Saturn can be observed in the same telescope and form a large, ultra-bright celestial body that many muggles perceive as deity-centric doesn’t really fit with basic descriptions of the planets in our solar system.” The fact that she’d actually been working on her book, and her enthusiasm about it, indicated one thing for certain – she hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep and needed something time-consuming to keep her mind off other things. 

Her eyes met his over the table, and she could see how tired he really was, up close. Dark circles lined his eyes and the slump of his shoulders gave the impression he could fall asleep right at their uneven table. And Narcissa… well, she hadn’t slept well in nearly two weeks. The unspoken answer hung in the air between them. Of course she didn’t get any sleep, she never did. Not without him. 

.

Starstruck. 

That was exactly the word that popped into Ren’s mind when Narcissa spoke-- when her eyes would brighten from the light of the cosmos and it seemed like, for a couple of sacred moments, that he could see right into the galaxy of her mind. He would become utterly starstruck, listening to her with a faint smile on his own lips, no matter what else was going on. It had become his favorite thing in the world, way back at Hogwarts when they would lie on a blanket in the Astronomy Tower and he would listen her to her talk. 

Ren considered himself intelligent-- no one could doubt that. He knew he was bright, he had been told he was from a young age. The way that he poured over books and gushed over facts to anyone who might listen and hoarded information and observations in his little leatherbound notebook and up his sleeves on his arms. But Narcissa...if anyone asked Ren, he would tell them that Narcissa was the smartest person he had ever met. 

So he listened, ethralled, as she spoke. Holding onto her hands, his thumbs brushed gentle circles on the back of her hand as his own tired mind raised to keep up with hers. “Are you going to add a whole new section for all of that?” he asked her, immediately conitnuing, “What if you did a section on muggle and wizarding beliefs? You could write it chronologically that way it could always be evolving.” 

Then his sense returned and if it were anyone else, his smile might have been misconstrued as shy. It became softer and he gave her hands a light squeeze. “But we should talk more about it later. We’re both exhausted.”

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” A blurry-eyed Narcissa called to him from the couch, where she had a book propped up in her lap and her face had lit up at the sight of him. “Never thought I’d see the day when you got back later than me, and that’s saying something considering the way Mars is acting at the moment.” But, that hadn’t been true, not for the past few weeks, in fact. With his job and with the election, he’d been getting home later and later – most of the time the sun had already begun to rise. 

And, of course, she’d waited up for him, and tonight he hadn’t been too much longer than she had and sleep was infrequent and sporadic, as her sister weaved in and out of her subconscious, both dead and alive, resulting in disturbing nightmares that Narcissa couldn’t get a handle on. And besides, she liked to see him come home, physically walk in the door, where she could look at him and make sure that, really, he was all in one piece. 

Tonight he was in one piece, though his dark circles could have rivaled hers, but even with both of them looking worse for wear, he still brought a comfort to her, provided a security, made the flat feel like home because home truly was wherever he happened to be. She crossed toward him, an automatic, easy smile forming across her lips, and sat at the uneven table, shifting in one of the four mismatched chairs they’d acquired. Her hand brushed his, a silent ‘thank you’ for the warm caffeination he’d brought her. Cissa’s eyes searched his face for the briefest of moments before she met his eyes, her eyebrows raised in questioning. “Long night?” 

.

As soon as he heard her voice, an easy smile came to his lips, one that spoke of the relief from all of the going-ons from the Ministry and St. Mungo’s and his pure happiness at seeing Narcissa. “Hey,” he said softly, “I’d rather be back to the days of me coming home first, I’m exhausted.” It was something he wouldn’t have been able to admit to anyone else, not with everything going. But with Narcissa, it slipped out as naturally as a simple hello. 

He waited until she crossed the room, his own tired eyes searching her face for any clues to how she was doing. He had a strong feeling what he would find and sure enough, it was the same levels of pure exhaustion that he felt. When she sat, he followed suit and pulled out the chair opposite to her. He took the seat that his body was aching for and reached forward to grab the coffee that had been designated for himself, giving Cissa another faint smile. 

AT her question, he glanced down at the coffee, nodding his head after a pause. “Yeah,” he said simply, looking back up at her, “Things are looking up at least a little...Marlene should be able to go home soon according to Lils.” More pressing on his mind was Narcissa herself though and Ren slowly reached across the table, palms up as an offering to hold onto her own. “How are you though? Get any sleep?”

___

Knowing that the night could have ended very differently allowed Lily to keep perspective. She could have lost them both. If Marlene had been a little later, if she had been just a bit slower in her response, Lily could have lost two people she loved most in the world. The idea of losing James and Marlene both made her blood run cold. Lily couldn’t fathom trying to do all of this without them. Grinning, Lily nodded, “Yeah it definitely. Most likely they’re going to discharge her as soon as they possibly can.” Usually, Lily wasn’t overly keen with her people getting out of the hospital early, but this time she could make an exception. She could protect Marlene better in their own homes. 

Undoubtedly, Ren didn’t fully believe that she was holding it together well. Just as Lily knew that Ren was likely not doing all that well either. Given everything going on, she wasn’t sure that either of them really could be. For the moment they had lost, and it wasn’t a game they could afford to lose. “Good, let’s keep it that way. I need you to be safe,” she admitted. More than anything else, she needed to know that her baby brother was out of harm’s way. 

“You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve got a plan, or at least some semblance of one. I need to get in touch with our da’s though. We need to call a meeting and get a headcount of our numbers. That’ll be the first order of business,” she admitted. Waving him off, she answered, “I’ll sleep once we have this settled,” Lily offered.

.

Ren’s head bobbed as he listened to Lily and he grinned faintly, imagining for a moment just how eager the healers and the rest of the St. Mungo’s staff were to rid themselves of the whole lot of them. It would be good though, once she was discharged. While it wouldn’t bring things magically back to normal, it would bring some semblance of order back to everyone’s life. They could all be together again and everything would feel a whole lot less...dire. “Good...that’ll be really good. For everyone.”

Ren’s smile then was a little less than a grin, a small uptick of the corner of his mouth as he tried to convey to Lily that he was truly fine. “I promise I’ll do my best to stay safe,” he swore to her, though it came with a signature younger-brother eyeroll. He had to lighten the mood somehow. 

The knowledge that Lily had a plan immediately eased Ren’s soul-- he had felt so lost after everything, so unsure about what was going to become of all of them. “That sounds like a great start, Fox. What do you want me to do? I can go out right now, let me know and I’ll do it,” he told her quickly.

St. Mungo’s had a way of making Ren feel as if he were being drained of every fiber of energy he possessed. Every time he left the quiet corridors, no matter how much caffeine he had indulged in with Lily or Sirius or anyone else waiting outside the doors, he always felt like he desperately needed a long rest. Yet he had about a thousand things written on a scrap of parchment in his pocket that were more pressing than his need to sleep and he knew that no matter what, sleep wouldn’t come with his list so long. A habit he had picked up from Lily, no doubt. 

So he pressed forward. 

The two coffees in his hand were still steaming hot as he carefully balanced them so that he could fish his key out of his pocket. His tiny flat with Narcissa had become an oasis during this time, an immediate balm to the burns from the outside world. He managed to unlock the door, nudging it closed again with his hip, trying to be as quiet as possible, just in case Narcissa had managed to get any rest. He placed the coffees down on a rickety little table, lifting his gaze then to peer around before calling, “Cissa?” 

R E N  E V A N S - the observer {a playlist}

Remus had been working himself up into a fantastic bit of misery.  It was something it was incredibly good at, actually, and there didn’t seem to be any better time to do it, too, considering everything.  But then Ren had to smile that smile at him and Remus found it hard to keep seeing the world as bleakly as he ought to.

“Yes, I picked up a box, I ought to be canonized,” he said, a small smirk playing over his lips.  Of course it fled a few moments later, when he remembered why he’d come outside to have a smoke in the first place.  “I’ve been in and out,” he said, clearing his throat.  "If by that you mean upstairs and then down here.  It’s…“  He shrugged.  "I don’t like hospitals. I needed to get some air.  Not that anything bad is going on up there, everyone’s fine.  Physically, at least,” he said and let out a soft, sad kind of a laugh. “I don’t know about everything else.  How are you handling it?”

.

Another person might have felt mild embarrassment for gushing about someone picking up a little box for them, but Ren felt no such thing. He was simply pleased to see Remus and at times, even a little bit of humanity had a way of making his whole day. So he just chuckled, giving his shoulders a small shrug. “I’ll write the Pope and let him know,” he replied shamelessly. 

He nodded as Remus spoke about disliking hospitals, listening without judgement as he did so. He gave the other a small smile, a small lift of the corner of his mouth to assure Remus that he understood. “Me? Oh I’m doing alright...just trying to help everyone out a little...I can’t even imagine how it must be for everyone that hasn’t left for even a moment,” Ren commented softly. “More importantly though, how are you?”