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westernredcedarHola! It's time to repost my ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
snupin_santa fic from this year. It was written for the talented kirasha and it's DARK like whoa, but I promise a happy ending. I've done a very little bit of editing on this version, but no big changes.
Title: A Clock That Never Strikes
Rated: NC-17
Prompt: A retelling of James O'Barr's "The Crow"
Summary: Remus and Severus are dead, but the crow will not let Remus rest until he has had his revenge.
Length: 5000
Warnings: Dark AU, violence, substance abuse, character death, dark themes, aaaangst!
Notes: This was primped into final shape by the wonderfulblpaintchart. I based this off of the original graphic novel of "The Crow" which was kirasha's request, and I enjoyed (if you can truly enjoy a brutal, emotional, violent piece of art) getting to know that canon for this piece.
The knife slid into his chest all the way to the hilt. Remus stared for a moment at the weapon embedded in his body, then simply pulled it out again and tossed it aside without flinching.
His attacker, a solitary Death Eater carrying a pathetic satchel of stolen silverware, now stared, wide-eyed, at the man looming before him. The man who should be dead.
"You'll have to try harder than that," Remus said, backing the sniveling thief against the wall of the alley. "Don’t you recognize me?"
The Death Eater clawed at the hand Remus wrapped firmly around his throat. "How'd you find me?" he gasped.
"Doesn't take much to get you animals to talk," Remus said, revealing his pointed canines, which lengthened and sharpened as he snarled. "Where are they?" He snapped his jaw and gnashed his teeth together with a growl, allowing the cold edge of his fangs to graze the man's cheek.
"Please, mister, whatever you are, don't hurt me!" The little man's heart was beating so fast Remus could feel his pulse rushing beneath the skin of his throat. "Try the Leaky first. There's some that still meet there after a job."
Remus squeezed hard enough to leave fingerprint bruises on the Death Eater's pale skin, then kneed the cowering man in his gut before stepping away and leaving him prone in the alley.
"Tell them all," he murmured, "I'm coming," and then he melted into the darkness.
*
The sky was always dark now, as if the sun was nothing but a fairy tale character made up to widen the eyes of young wizards. The dark was a swirling miasma of magic and death; it clogged the throat and fooled the eyes, turned the cheery man sour and the sour man into an animal.
When he realized he had returned, Remus was thankful for the dark.
He'd wandered in a daze to Spinner's End, not daring to dwell on the hope that was rattling the back of his mind. Indeed, when he arrived at the old house, it was empty.
He'd found one of Severus's oldest and inkiest cloaks, one that smelled of camphor and herbs, and taken it for his own.
If the world is dark now, he thought, I will be too.
*
After the attack that killed him, all that Remus could recall was the train station. Enormous and white, eerily quiet, he waited there for Severus, watching time tick slowly away. Where was he? When the hour stamped on his ticket struck on the silent clock, he walked to the platform, even as his mind was screaming wait here, you must wait here for him, and boarded the train.
Rocketing down the track, the train seemed to move without sound, without effort, and Remus's worries were lulled by the motion and the ghostly calm. His thoughts became muddled, and his gaze drifted to the barren landscape outside the window. Mile after mile it passed.
A blank-faced conductor approached, and Remus mindlessly reached for his ticket…
"Shouldn't have looked!" shrieked a voice at his shoulder, shattering the silence like the breaking of glass.
It was a patronus, glowing bright in the dull sameness of the train- a crow, judgmental and proud, mocking Remus as it squawked and soared past his head and passed through the wall of the train carriage as if it wasn't there.
The shimmering bird knocked Remus out of his dream state. Severus. Remus flung himself up from his seat and grasped at the streaming trail of light the crow left in its wake. He felt himself being ripped out of the train. His body was squeezed and torn, racked and ripped, and then he slammed back to earth.
As he opened his eyes, the glowing crow was still beside him, victorious, and its eyes were dark as the sky.
*
Spinner's End had fallen into disrepair. How long have I been away? Remus wondered. Severus's books were scattered, windows were broken, and the furniture was gone; in the fireplace he could see the remnants of one of their kitchen chairs, broken and charred. Someone desperate had lived in the house for a while it seemed, perhaps a poor Muggle trying to escape the roving bands of wizards he had seen prowling the streets.
For weeks, Remus sat in the icy house, wrapped in Severus's cloak. He didn't need to eat, didn't need to sleep. He was numb, and he had no idea why he had been brought back to this hell.
The crow returned suddenly one grey afternoon. Remus had discovered, at the back of a high shelf, a photo of Severus that had survived, a tiny snapshot capturing his profile and his mess of hair, taken by Remus one afternoon when he was feeling sneaky, mischievous, and loved. A long time ago.
"Don't look!" the shimmering crow said, appearing suddenly and deafeningly by Remus's right ear. With those words, Remus could see it all again, clear as if it was happening in front of him: the rain streaking the sky, the dark forest, Severus's eyes as they dulled and died…
A new sensation flooded Remus's body, roared into him like a runaway train, and propelled him up from the floor. Rage. And a new goal formed in his muddled brain, sharp and bright as a star. Revenge.
”About time,” said the crow.
After that he'd trailed a gang of sloppy, mealy-mouthed Death Eaters back to London, and had no trouble getting them to talk.
*
The Leaky Cauldron was no longer open to the public. Since the start of the new order, Death Eaters had taken over and made it a private club, restricting access to Diagon Alley to any but the highest ranking in the regime.
Bellatrix had set up headquarters here for her nearest and dearest henchmen, those brave enough to face her every day, knowing on a whim they could be the next body she ripped apart with a flick of her wand. The pub was crawling with trash, wizards and witches who had given themselves over entirely to the dark.
They feel safe here, Remus thought from his perch outside the filthy window. Just as we felt safe, before.
Bellatrix's insane cackle echoed out onto the ledge and ran up Remus's spine like ice. The last time he'd heard that laugh, he had been twisting in agony from a vicious Crucio and Severus had been suspended, helpless, just out of reach, blood draining from the gashes in his arms...
"Look away!" screamed the crow.
The memory of it sent familiar prickles through Remus skin. No need for the full moon now, he thought. Rage transformed him just as well.
He wanted to scream, and run, but he couldn't stop himself. This was why he'd come back.
Through the window he charged, and every Death Eater in the pub stopped their carousing, dropped their drinks and drugs and vials of poison, and pointed aggressive wands in his direction.
"Who the hell are you?" snarled one, but he fell silent as claws emerged from stiffened fingers, muscle and sinew tightened under coarse fur, fangs were bared. Remus's neck arched and his bones wrenched from their sockets.
"Werewolf!"
The nearest man's scream was abruptly cut off as teeth sunk into flesh, and the man’s warm blood gushed down Remus's chin and chest, staining his fur.
A blast of killing spells rioted against Remus's body, but he shook them off like a dog shakes off a cold rain. His mind was no longer his own, he told himself. Blood spattered the room.
"What the...?" he heard vaguely. "It's not dead!"
But in mere moments, everyone else was.
*
Bellatrix he saved for last, cornering her behind the old bar where Tom had so often greeted Remus and Severus with a friendly nod and a firewhiskey.
She rattled off spell after spell through her yellowed teeth, and tore at her own hair as they had no effect on the monster baring down on her.
"Nice doggy," she said with a cackle. "No need to kill Bellatrix. You are just the sort I like to keep around." She aimed another killing curse at his chest and fired. "You should serve the Dark Lord. We could use a good doggy like you."
Transforming back to human form was just as painful, but Remus needed her to know who he was.
"Tempted are you?" she said, her eyes wild as she watched the man reappear from his wolf shape. "Never seen a werewolf who could transform at will."
"Don't you recognize me?" Remus asked, bringing his wand up and pressing it to her forehead, right between her crazed eyes.
"The Dark Lord can give you anything you ask," she said. "Wealth, power, all the muggles you'd like to eat…"
"The war was over," Remus continued, voice steady. "We were leaving." He dug his wand hard into her flesh. The smell of blood permeated the room.
She whimpered and scrambled backwards, clawing at the cabinets. “You won’t get anything from the Dark Lord without Bellatrix to ask for you," she said, and finally he heard it, real fear in her voice.
"Do you remember the rain, and the old oak tree? And Severus?"
"Oh!" she said, recognizing him at last. "But we killed you."
The killing curse was too quick, Remus thought, as Bellatrix's body slumped to the ground, silent at last.
*
Once he'd started to kill, Remus got hungry again.
Each night at Spinner's End he laid out a feast for two, candlelit and intimate, and ate it alone. One night, an old kneazle crept in from the cold, and sat across from Remus as he ate. Remus found that he didn't mind the company. The kneazle was another cold-blooded killer, after all.
He raised his glass in toast.
"Happy anniversary, Severus," he said. "Tomorrow, I'll have your ring back."
*
It had been during the terrible summer after Dumbedore's death, when Remus didn't know where Severus had gone, or who would be killed next, or whether or not he had been sleeping with a traitor for the past decade.
After two weeks of agony, he'd received an envelope by owl post that said only, "Trust me," and inside contained a plain gold ring, the same ring Remus still twisted on his finger even now.
Remus had sent a reply, "I do," along with a ring in return, the gold wedding band his own father wore, until his death at the hands of Voldemort.
Severus had worn it until his death as well.
He’d tracked a gang of Death Eater thieves for the previous week, pursuing the ring, and at last, he’d found the shop where their loot had been taken, after...
Look away! said the crow
Remus finished his meal in silence, only the steady purring of the kneazle for company.
*
The last vestiges of the Ministry for Magic were held together by Kingsley Shacklebolt, who kept a shabby office in Brixton. Powerless to fight all but the pettiest crimes, still the Aurors Office soldiered on, and with Kingsley's strength the unit had so far remained free of Voldemort's influence. Ron had joined shortly after Harry's death, hoping that fighting evil might give him some relief from the pain.
Ron had never seen a crime scene quite like this one before. The filthy basement room had been set up as some sort of exchange for stolen goods; piles of jewelry, wands, potions, and other desirable items filled the space. A makeshift counter had been built out of old doors at one end, and a stack of cash was still sitting there, covered in blood.
In fact, the entire scene was splashed with the blood of the victim, a beady-eyed man whose throat had been ripped out, as if by an animal.
As he crouched down to get a better look at the victim's face, Ron heard a gentle sound from the darkest corner of the room, almost like the sound of wings.
He had his wand out in moments, just as a looming figure in a black cloak eased out of the shadows and glided towards him.
"Stop right there, don't make me curse you!" he shouted.
The figure did not stop, but instead let out a small chuckle. "Auror Weasley, I presume," the figure said, and Ron could almost place the gentle voice. "Sorry about the mess here. He had my ring and I had to retrieve it, you see."
"Don't move!" Ron warned again.
Suddenly, he was blinded then by a flash of light and a rush of wings that forced him to withdraw his wand and shield his eyes. When he looked up again, the man had passed him and was walking steadily out the door. A bright shape, a birdlike patronus, was soaring behind him.
"Tell Kingsley I send my greetings," the retreating form said in that same familiar voice. "You'll want to leave quickly before the fire spreads."
"What fire?" Ron asked, now too confused to raise his wand again.
Faster than he could see, the dark figure lifted a wand and pointed back over his head into the darkness. "Incendio!"
Fire ignited from the tip of the wand and roared through the boxes and piles of stolen goods. Flames licked up the walls, and the room filled with heat and soot and and smoke.
Ron ran for the door. Choking, he dashed into the street and then doubled over coughing. Through his watering eyes, he caught a final glimpse of the dark man at the end of the road, silhouetted by the night, the brilliant bird looping above him in joyful circles.
*
Lost in memories again, Remus lay flat on the hard wood floor of Spinner's End while the lazy kneazle curled up by his side.
Christmas last.
Severus had been unwilling to call Remus anything but flatmate, although the ring on his finger said otherwise, but after so many years of complicated intimacy and mind-blowing fucks wherever they could find one another, for the first time they were finally living under the same roof. At least at school holidays.
Remus expected very little, so when he arrived home one day to Severus sipping tea and reading next to a small evergreen tree in the sitting room, he'd bit his tongue rather than express his surprise and joy.
"I enjoy the scent," Severus had said without lifting his head.
"Oh," Remus replied, setting down his parcels. "Do you plan to," he cleared his throat before the next word, "decorate it?"
Severus's glare was piercing. "No." Then he had looked back at his book, "But you may."
Remus had decorated, with a handful of old ornaments he dug out of the cluttered attic, and though he refused to hang a single thing on the tree, Severus allowed as how the room did seem a bit warmer in the glow of the fairy lights. Remus started the wireless playing some holiday tunes, and drew a resistant Severus up to dance. Somehow though, rather than a slow waltz, Remus had ended up pressed against the bookshelf, his mouth smothered with a kiss that made his toes curl, and Severus's body was warm and hard and demanding against him…
The pain ripped through Remus in a way that real knives no longer could. The kneazle hissed and swiped at Remus as he coiled up in agony, his body wracked with partial transformation, his soul torn apart as surely as Voldemort's.
*
There had been so many of them that night, but Remus only knew the names of a few. He'd tracked one more, one of the worst.
Remus arrived at the run-down building just after dawn. Severus's cloak weighed heavy on him today. He still had so much to do.
"Professor? Professor Lupin? What have you done to yourself?" A young woman was sitting on the dirty steps of the building. Her long blonde hair had gone slack and colorless, but her big silvery eyes were unmistakable.
"Luna? What are you doing here?" Remus asked, shocked.
"I'd ask you the same thing, Professor. I thought you were dead. Isn't this Professor Snape's cloak?" Luna replied, and she ran a curious hand down the heavy wool. "Won't he be wanting it back?"
Remus started back at her words. "W-Why are you here, Luna? This is a dangerous place."
"Oh don't be silly, professor, everywhere is dangerous now." Her smile, warm and kind, was so out of place as to be disquieting.
"I'm looking for someone who lives here," Remus said, looking up at the building.
"Is it Barty? Hermione is in his flat," Luna said. "I don’t like watching her when she's gone on magic, so I stay down here and wait. Harry asked me to stay with her if he should die, and he did, so here I am."
Hermione. Remus's heart pounded in fury. He had to breathe long and slow to keep his transformation at bay.
"Luna," he said, "Hermione will be coming down shortly, and I want you to take her away and help her get cleaned up. I've recently seen Ron Weasley. He’s a Auror now. Find him so he can help you. Will you try to do that?"
"That's a wonderful idea, Professor. I do wish that Hermione would be well again."
Remus brushed a hand over Luna's hunched shoulders as he strode with added purpose up the stairs towards Barty Crouch's flat.
*
Hermione was plastered to the floor with a mix of confusion spells and dream potions when Remus walked in, and Barty himself didn't look much better, lying prone on the sofa tapping his temple with his wand and releasing little bursts of magic into his mind.
"Hermione," Remus said as he pulled her up and hugged her close. She smelled foul, but under the grime and drugs, Remus could still see that talented girl who had almost, almost, saved the world.
"What the fuck?" Barty tried unsuccessfully to sit up.
Barty Crouch had been drained of his soul by Dementors, Remus thought. What magics Voldemort had used to make him walk and talk and hurt and kill again after losing his soul, he didn't even want to guess.
Remus tapped Hermione with his wand, whispering every healing and reviving spell he could think of. She slowly opened her eyes. He grabbed a large vial of potion that was on the floor at her side.
“Is this what she took?” he asked.
"You'd better get out of here," Barty slurred from the couch, still trying to right himself. "I have a gun."
How quaint, thought Remus. A gun.
"Pro-professor?" Hermione said from out of her mass of tangled hair. "What…?"
"Hermione, run out of here and never come back. Luna is waiting for you," Remus whispered, and he shoved her, dazed, towards the door just as Barty fired a shot. It pierced Remus's thigh and left a perfect, bloodless hole.
"Wha…" Barty collapsed back on his sofa, the gun clattering down next to him.
"Don't even try, Crouch," Remus allowed his rage to build just enough that a bristle of fur stood up from his neck and his teeth sharpened to fearsome points.
"Whoa, don't hurt me, man. I heard about you. You're the ghost man that done in Bellatrix and her lot, eh? Or maybe I'm just hallucinating you." Barty's blonde hair was matted and filthy, his eyes vacant. I'm talking to a man without a soul, Remus thought. He remembered back to that night, to Severus's prone body, limp and dead under the oak tree, and Barty's maniacal laughter as he hit it again and again with Crucio, even after he was dead…
"Stop looking!" screamed the crow
"From one dead man to another, Mr. Crouch," Remus said, flexing his lengthening claws, "I need to ask you a favor. I think we can understand one another."
"Yeah," said Barty, eyes wide and empty. “I can’t kill you, can I? Not again.”
"I need you to call them all together. Everyone who was there that night."
Barty nodded his wobbling head and then cackled wildly. "I know where to tell 'em to meet you, ghost man," he said with a grin. "The old oak!"
"Midnight. Tonight." Remus sighed with relief as he said it. It would soon be over. His body relaxed, claws retracting, fur settling and disappearing. "Your reward will be an easy death," he added, "for your services."
As Remus walked away, he looked back once to see Barty blinking his eyes and waving his hand in front of his face as if to test his perception of reality. There is no reality for either of us anymore, he thought.
*
"Don't do it!" cawed the crow, glowering and soaring through the darkened rooms of Spinner's End.
But Remus couldn't stop.
Every room in the house held memories of Severus’s body, his scent, his skin, his cock. Awkward and slippery in the bathtub that time, with candles all around, and then the day they’d never even risen from bed from sunrise to sunset, except for essentials. Being wrapped up in each other was sustenance enough.
“Stop looking!” said the crow.
Remus remembered the hard feeling of Severus’s hands on him, his rough, calloused hands, stained and scarred. He could smell the herbal tang of Severus’s skin at the throat, and the musky smell of him when he sweat. He could feel the pounding of his heart the day he’d claimed Severus, called him, “Mine,” and Severus had murmured, “Forever,” so quietly that only Remus’s soul could hear it. He could feel the hot press of skin against his own, the rub of body hair and bone. The smooth feel of Severus opening for him, letting him inside, trusting him and needing him, and...
“You may as well stick the knife in,” the crow said, “and twist.”
But Remus did not want to stop remembering. He curled around himself, grabbed the knife, and plunged it in again.
*
Later, as Remus packed to leave the house of memories, forever, the kneazle knocked against he knees and asked a plaintive “Mew?”
“You’ll have to leave too, my friend,” Remus replied. “I won’t be coming back.”
The kneazle followed him no further than the gate. It sat down in the garden and turned back to watch as the flames Remus had set began to consume the dry wood of the old house, and its purring was loud and strong.
*
Ron and Kingsley apparated to the scene of the house fire at the same moment.
“Same spell trace as that dump that was torched last week, same arsonist,” Kingsley said, as the flames lit the sky and smoke billowed around them. Ron knew the name of the place.
“Spinner’s End. It used to be Professor...I mean, Severus Snape’s I think,” Ron said, fingering through the paperwork he’d accumulated about the house. He didn’t add that he thought he might have seen Snape, or at least someone wearing his cloak, at that last fire. Snape was dead, after all.
“What’s that?” Kingsley asked one of the constables, who was toting a wriggling bundle under her arm and away from the destruction. The house would collapse in a matter of minutes.
“Kneazle, sir. And it has a note attached, for Auror Weasley.”
Ron pulled the note off, ran a shaking hand through his hair, and read:
Dear Auror Weasley,
Please take care of this old boy. He will bring you good luck. If you have not yet been found by Ms. Granger and Ms. Lovegood, please look out for them. This kneazle will help you. I know Ms. Granger has an affinity with felines and he will be useful when you get her home again. Good luck.
“Bloody hell,” Ron said, eyeing the struggling kneazle with trepidation.
“Congratulations, Weasley,” Kingsley said with a smirk. “You’re a pet owner!”
*
Remus apparated to the meeting place at the edge of the forest just before midnight. Still roiling with memories, hands scorched by the fire, he lay down in the wet grass and bathed himself in the horror that was this place and all that had happened there.
One year ago...
All of Voldemort’s horcruxes had been destroyed, but the final battle to kill him had been lost. Victorious, Voldemort had stood on the steps of Hogwarts and declared his rule over all wizards and muggles, all the while levitating Harry’s broken body over the crowd like a hunting trophy. Remus and the other captured Order members had been forced to watch humiliation and disrespect heaped upon their dead for hours after the fighting stopped. Remus’s only shred of hope was that he could see Severus, alive and whole, standing quietly amongst the crowd of jubilant Death Eaters.
But then Voldemort had surprised them all. “Those who do not wish to be a part of this great new order, you may depart. Get beyond our borders within one hour, and you will be spared.”
A great sigh of magic went up as hundreds of witches and wizards began apparating from where they stood, suddenly freed from their captors. Remus glanced at Severus for a moment, then apparated to their meeting place, an old oak near his childhood home that he and Severus had planned in case of disaster. This certainly seemed to qualify.
Severus appeared a minute later. Afterwards, Remus would wallow with regret that in that moment they did not touch, even for a moment. Instead, Severus appeared, and his look of shock and terror was so alarming that Remus almost couldn’t breathe.
Severus’s voice was low and hard. “He means it as a game for his followers, we’re meant to hunt you down before you can leave the...”
It was already too late. The Death Eaters came flying and apparating in so fast they were surrounded in moments, had no chance. Spells separated them, knocked them to the ground, overwhelmed them.
Remus’s vision blurred and pain seared through him and turned to bright, vibrating light, like the beating of glowing wings.
“Remus, my boy,” the crow said, “this is not your fault. Don’t look.”
But he had to look as Severus was slowly tortured, and hung in the old oak tree, and bled Stop looking! and his poor limp body was abused and beaten long after his life had seeped away. The killing curse that ended it for Remus felt like a kindness, and as he drifted into cool white nothing, he could still hear the crow.
“Don’t go too far away! You’ve got work to do.”
*
Barty arrived first, alone.
“They’re all coming for you. Even the big guy,” he said, his blank eyes staring, his body trembling.
“Thank you, Barty,” Remus replied, and he pulled out the vial of dream potion that he had grabbed from Hermione earlier. “Drink it all, and drink it fast. That is your reward.” He would slip into dreams, and then into death, and with a shock of empathy, Remus could only hope the broken man would find his soul, waiting there. As he hoped Severus would be for him.
When the rest of the Death Eaters arrived, they found a murderous werewolf waiting for them, and no spells, guns, knives, fists, or terrified pleas could stop him.
*
Voldemort himself had held back, watching the carnage. Remus could smell him close to the forest by the old oak. As the last man fell to the wolf and only the Dark Lord remained, Remus transformed back into himself and strode towards him without fear, without hesitation. What did he have to fear? He had become fear.
“I’ve done it, you see,” Remus said, his arms outstretched. Voldemort’s snake-like face was very hard to read. Was that terror in his cold eyes?
Remus was hit with a flurry of powerful spells from Voldemort’s wand, spells that sliced his skin and made him bleed.
“You cannot hurt me,” he continued. “I’ve conquered death. I am the immortal. It required something you have never had.” He was close now. The smell of decay around the distorted and evil man was pungent and deep.
“It only took love.”
Voldemort raised his arms, and let loose one final blast of death against him. The force of the magic seared the air and scorched the earth beneath it, enveloping Remus like a tidal wave. He clung on to his memories, calling them all to him- hot skin, warm breath, the smell of evergreen- then threw his arms wide, lifted his head high and screamed. The magic shattered and blasted backwards away from Remus, ricocheting into Voldemort and throwing him, broken and dead, against the old oak.
As Remus collapsed to the ground, death seeping in, his vision was filled with the flutter of shimmering wings and the sound of a soothing voice, whispering, “Rest now, rest now, and look.”
*
Ron woke at dawn to a deep purring in his ear and a gentle tapping on his door.
The two women standing at his doorstep were pale and silent, but in their eyes Ron could see they also felt the strange hope that seemed to be drifting through the air this morning like the sweet scent of roses.
“Come in,” he said, ushering Luna and Hermione into his warm flat, placing a careful hand on Hermione’s thin shoulder.
As he turned to shut the door, Ron peeked once more out at the dawn and thought that, perhaps, today might just be a little less dark.
Postscript:
The train pulled into the station, and Remus stepped off, his body whole again, his mind calm.
“I expect you will have some pathetic excuse for your tardiness.” Severus’s deep bass echoed on the silent platform. “I’ve been waiting.”
"Apologies, Severus," Remus replied, one eyebrow raised. "I'm afraid I had something to do."
Severus greeted this pronouncement with a grunt.
“Well, you promised me forever,” Remus replied.
“And I expected you would be on time for forever, Lupin. Nonetheless.” He held out his hand, warm and solid, if not also a bit stained and scarred, and Remus took it and held on.
Severus led him out of the station, and into the light.
snupin_santa fic from this year. It was written for the talented kirasha and it's DARK like whoa, but I promise a happy ending. I've done a very little bit of editing on this version, but no big changes.Title: A Clock That Never Strikes
Rated: NC-17
Prompt: A retelling of James O'Barr's "The Crow"
Summary: Remus and Severus are dead, but the crow will not let Remus rest until he has had his revenge.
Length: 5000
Warnings: Dark AU, violence, substance abuse, character death, dark themes, aaaangst!
Notes: This was primped into final shape by the wonderful
blpaintchart. I based this off of the original graphic novel of "The Crow" which was kirasha's request, and I enjoyed (if you can truly enjoy a brutal, emotional, violent piece of art) getting to know that canon for this piece.The knife slid into his chest all the way to the hilt. Remus stared for a moment at the weapon embedded in his body, then simply pulled it out again and tossed it aside without flinching.
His attacker, a solitary Death Eater carrying a pathetic satchel of stolen silverware, now stared, wide-eyed, at the man looming before him. The man who should be dead.
"You'll have to try harder than that," Remus said, backing the sniveling thief against the wall of the alley. "Don’t you recognize me?"
The Death Eater clawed at the hand Remus wrapped firmly around his throat. "How'd you find me?" he gasped.
"Doesn't take much to get you animals to talk," Remus said, revealing his pointed canines, which lengthened and sharpened as he snarled. "Where are they?" He snapped his jaw and gnashed his teeth together with a growl, allowing the cold edge of his fangs to graze the man's cheek.
"Please, mister, whatever you are, don't hurt me!" The little man's heart was beating so fast Remus could feel his pulse rushing beneath the skin of his throat. "Try the Leaky first. There's some that still meet there after a job."
Remus squeezed hard enough to leave fingerprint bruises on the Death Eater's pale skin, then kneed the cowering man in his gut before stepping away and leaving him prone in the alley.
"Tell them all," he murmured, "I'm coming," and then he melted into the darkness.
*
The sky was always dark now, as if the sun was nothing but a fairy tale character made up to widen the eyes of young wizards. The dark was a swirling miasma of magic and death; it clogged the throat and fooled the eyes, turned the cheery man sour and the sour man into an animal.
When he realized he had returned, Remus was thankful for the dark.
He'd wandered in a daze to Spinner's End, not daring to dwell on the hope that was rattling the back of his mind. Indeed, when he arrived at the old house, it was empty.
He'd found one of Severus's oldest and inkiest cloaks, one that smelled of camphor and herbs, and taken it for his own.
If the world is dark now, he thought, I will be too.
*
After the attack that killed him, all that Remus could recall was the train station. Enormous and white, eerily quiet, he waited there for Severus, watching time tick slowly away. Where was he? When the hour stamped on his ticket struck on the silent clock, he walked to the platform, even as his mind was screaming wait here, you must wait here for him, and boarded the train.
Rocketing down the track, the train seemed to move without sound, without effort, and Remus's worries were lulled by the motion and the ghostly calm. His thoughts became muddled, and his gaze drifted to the barren landscape outside the window. Mile after mile it passed.
A blank-faced conductor approached, and Remus mindlessly reached for his ticket…
"Shouldn't have looked!" shrieked a voice at his shoulder, shattering the silence like the breaking of glass.
It was a patronus, glowing bright in the dull sameness of the train- a crow, judgmental and proud, mocking Remus as it squawked and soared past his head and passed through the wall of the train carriage as if it wasn't there.
The shimmering bird knocked Remus out of his dream state. Severus. Remus flung himself up from his seat and grasped at the streaming trail of light the crow left in its wake. He felt himself being ripped out of the train. His body was squeezed and torn, racked and ripped, and then he slammed back to earth.
As he opened his eyes, the glowing crow was still beside him, victorious, and its eyes were dark as the sky.
*
Spinner's End had fallen into disrepair. How long have I been away? Remus wondered. Severus's books were scattered, windows were broken, and the furniture was gone; in the fireplace he could see the remnants of one of their kitchen chairs, broken and charred. Someone desperate had lived in the house for a while it seemed, perhaps a poor Muggle trying to escape the roving bands of wizards he had seen prowling the streets.
For weeks, Remus sat in the icy house, wrapped in Severus's cloak. He didn't need to eat, didn't need to sleep. He was numb, and he had no idea why he had been brought back to this hell.
The crow returned suddenly one grey afternoon. Remus had discovered, at the back of a high shelf, a photo of Severus that had survived, a tiny snapshot capturing his profile and his mess of hair, taken by Remus one afternoon when he was feeling sneaky, mischievous, and loved. A long time ago.
"Don't look!" the shimmering crow said, appearing suddenly and deafeningly by Remus's right ear. With those words, Remus could see it all again, clear as if it was happening in front of him: the rain streaking the sky, the dark forest, Severus's eyes as they dulled and died…
A new sensation flooded Remus's body, roared into him like a runaway train, and propelled him up from the floor. Rage. And a new goal formed in his muddled brain, sharp and bright as a star. Revenge.
”About time,” said the crow.
After that he'd trailed a gang of sloppy, mealy-mouthed Death Eaters back to London, and had no trouble getting them to talk.
*
The Leaky Cauldron was no longer open to the public. Since the start of the new order, Death Eaters had taken over and made it a private club, restricting access to Diagon Alley to any but the highest ranking in the regime.
Bellatrix had set up headquarters here for her nearest and dearest henchmen, those brave enough to face her every day, knowing on a whim they could be the next body she ripped apart with a flick of her wand. The pub was crawling with trash, wizards and witches who had given themselves over entirely to the dark.
They feel safe here, Remus thought from his perch outside the filthy window. Just as we felt safe, before.
Bellatrix's insane cackle echoed out onto the ledge and ran up Remus's spine like ice. The last time he'd heard that laugh, he had been twisting in agony from a vicious Crucio and Severus had been suspended, helpless, just out of reach, blood draining from the gashes in his arms...
"Look away!" screamed the crow.
The memory of it sent familiar prickles through Remus skin. No need for the full moon now, he thought. Rage transformed him just as well.
He wanted to scream, and run, but he couldn't stop himself. This was why he'd come back.
Through the window he charged, and every Death Eater in the pub stopped their carousing, dropped their drinks and drugs and vials of poison, and pointed aggressive wands in his direction.
"Who the hell are you?" snarled one, but he fell silent as claws emerged from stiffened fingers, muscle and sinew tightened under coarse fur, fangs were bared. Remus's neck arched and his bones wrenched from their sockets.
"Werewolf!"
The nearest man's scream was abruptly cut off as teeth sunk into flesh, and the man’s warm blood gushed down Remus's chin and chest, staining his fur.
A blast of killing spells rioted against Remus's body, but he shook them off like a dog shakes off a cold rain. His mind was no longer his own, he told himself. Blood spattered the room.
"What the...?" he heard vaguely. "It's not dead!"
But in mere moments, everyone else was.
*
Bellatrix he saved for last, cornering her behind the old bar where Tom had so often greeted Remus and Severus with a friendly nod and a firewhiskey.
She rattled off spell after spell through her yellowed teeth, and tore at her own hair as they had no effect on the monster baring down on her.
"Nice doggy," she said with a cackle. "No need to kill Bellatrix. You are just the sort I like to keep around." She aimed another killing curse at his chest and fired. "You should serve the Dark Lord. We could use a good doggy like you."
Transforming back to human form was just as painful, but Remus needed her to know who he was.
"Tempted are you?" she said, her eyes wild as she watched the man reappear from his wolf shape. "Never seen a werewolf who could transform at will."
"Don't you recognize me?" Remus asked, bringing his wand up and pressing it to her forehead, right between her crazed eyes.
"The Dark Lord can give you anything you ask," she said. "Wealth, power, all the muggles you'd like to eat…"
"The war was over," Remus continued, voice steady. "We were leaving." He dug his wand hard into her flesh. The smell of blood permeated the room.
She whimpered and scrambled backwards, clawing at the cabinets. “You won’t get anything from the Dark Lord without Bellatrix to ask for you," she said, and finally he heard it, real fear in her voice.
"Do you remember the rain, and the old oak tree? And Severus?"
"Oh!" she said, recognizing him at last. "But we killed you."
The killing curse was too quick, Remus thought, as Bellatrix's body slumped to the ground, silent at last.
*
Once he'd started to kill, Remus got hungry again.
Each night at Spinner's End he laid out a feast for two, candlelit and intimate, and ate it alone. One night, an old kneazle crept in from the cold, and sat across from Remus as he ate. Remus found that he didn't mind the company. The kneazle was another cold-blooded killer, after all.
He raised his glass in toast.
"Happy anniversary, Severus," he said. "Tomorrow, I'll have your ring back."
*
It had been during the terrible summer after Dumbedore's death, when Remus didn't know where Severus had gone, or who would be killed next, or whether or not he had been sleeping with a traitor for the past decade.
After two weeks of agony, he'd received an envelope by owl post that said only, "Trust me," and inside contained a plain gold ring, the same ring Remus still twisted on his finger even now.
Remus had sent a reply, "I do," along with a ring in return, the gold wedding band his own father wore, until his death at the hands of Voldemort.
Severus had worn it until his death as well.
He’d tracked a gang of Death Eater thieves for the previous week, pursuing the ring, and at last, he’d found the shop where their loot had been taken, after...
Look away! said the crow
Remus finished his meal in silence, only the steady purring of the kneazle for company.
*
The last vestiges of the Ministry for Magic were held together by Kingsley Shacklebolt, who kept a shabby office in Brixton. Powerless to fight all but the pettiest crimes, still the Aurors Office soldiered on, and with Kingsley's strength the unit had so far remained free of Voldemort's influence. Ron had joined shortly after Harry's death, hoping that fighting evil might give him some relief from the pain.
Ron had never seen a crime scene quite like this one before. The filthy basement room had been set up as some sort of exchange for stolen goods; piles of jewelry, wands, potions, and other desirable items filled the space. A makeshift counter had been built out of old doors at one end, and a stack of cash was still sitting there, covered in blood.
In fact, the entire scene was splashed with the blood of the victim, a beady-eyed man whose throat had been ripped out, as if by an animal.
As he crouched down to get a better look at the victim's face, Ron heard a gentle sound from the darkest corner of the room, almost like the sound of wings.
He had his wand out in moments, just as a looming figure in a black cloak eased out of the shadows and glided towards him.
"Stop right there, don't make me curse you!" he shouted.
The figure did not stop, but instead let out a small chuckle. "Auror Weasley, I presume," the figure said, and Ron could almost place the gentle voice. "Sorry about the mess here. He had my ring and I had to retrieve it, you see."
"Don't move!" Ron warned again.
Suddenly, he was blinded then by a flash of light and a rush of wings that forced him to withdraw his wand and shield his eyes. When he looked up again, the man had passed him and was walking steadily out the door. A bright shape, a birdlike patronus, was soaring behind him.
"Tell Kingsley I send my greetings," the retreating form said in that same familiar voice. "You'll want to leave quickly before the fire spreads."
"What fire?" Ron asked, now too confused to raise his wand again.
Faster than he could see, the dark figure lifted a wand and pointed back over his head into the darkness. "Incendio!"
Fire ignited from the tip of the wand and roared through the boxes and piles of stolen goods. Flames licked up the walls, and the room filled with heat and soot and and smoke.
Ron ran for the door. Choking, he dashed into the street and then doubled over coughing. Through his watering eyes, he caught a final glimpse of the dark man at the end of the road, silhouetted by the night, the brilliant bird looping above him in joyful circles.
*
Lost in memories again, Remus lay flat on the hard wood floor of Spinner's End while the lazy kneazle curled up by his side.
Christmas last.
Severus had been unwilling to call Remus anything but flatmate, although the ring on his finger said otherwise, but after so many years of complicated intimacy and mind-blowing fucks wherever they could find one another, for the first time they were finally living under the same roof. At least at school holidays.
Remus expected very little, so when he arrived home one day to Severus sipping tea and reading next to a small evergreen tree in the sitting room, he'd bit his tongue rather than express his surprise and joy.
"I enjoy the scent," Severus had said without lifting his head.
"Oh," Remus replied, setting down his parcels. "Do you plan to," he cleared his throat before the next word, "decorate it?"
Severus's glare was piercing. "No." Then he had looked back at his book, "But you may."
Remus had decorated, with a handful of old ornaments he dug out of the cluttered attic, and though he refused to hang a single thing on the tree, Severus allowed as how the room did seem a bit warmer in the glow of the fairy lights. Remus started the wireless playing some holiday tunes, and drew a resistant Severus up to dance. Somehow though, rather than a slow waltz, Remus had ended up pressed against the bookshelf, his mouth smothered with a kiss that made his toes curl, and Severus's body was warm and hard and demanding against him…
The pain ripped through Remus in a way that real knives no longer could. The kneazle hissed and swiped at Remus as he coiled up in agony, his body wracked with partial transformation, his soul torn apart as surely as Voldemort's.
*
There had been so many of them that night, but Remus only knew the names of a few. He'd tracked one more, one of the worst.
Remus arrived at the run-down building just after dawn. Severus's cloak weighed heavy on him today. He still had so much to do.
"Professor? Professor Lupin? What have you done to yourself?" A young woman was sitting on the dirty steps of the building. Her long blonde hair had gone slack and colorless, but her big silvery eyes were unmistakable.
"Luna? What are you doing here?" Remus asked, shocked.
"I'd ask you the same thing, Professor. I thought you were dead. Isn't this Professor Snape's cloak?" Luna replied, and she ran a curious hand down the heavy wool. "Won't he be wanting it back?"
Remus started back at her words. "W-Why are you here, Luna? This is a dangerous place."
"Oh don't be silly, professor, everywhere is dangerous now." Her smile, warm and kind, was so out of place as to be disquieting.
"I'm looking for someone who lives here," Remus said, looking up at the building.
"Is it Barty? Hermione is in his flat," Luna said. "I don’t like watching her when she's gone on magic, so I stay down here and wait. Harry asked me to stay with her if he should die, and he did, so here I am."
Hermione. Remus's heart pounded in fury. He had to breathe long and slow to keep his transformation at bay.
"Luna," he said, "Hermione will be coming down shortly, and I want you to take her away and help her get cleaned up. I've recently seen Ron Weasley. He’s a Auror now. Find him so he can help you. Will you try to do that?"
"That's a wonderful idea, Professor. I do wish that Hermione would be well again."
Remus brushed a hand over Luna's hunched shoulders as he strode with added purpose up the stairs towards Barty Crouch's flat.
*
Hermione was plastered to the floor with a mix of confusion spells and dream potions when Remus walked in, and Barty himself didn't look much better, lying prone on the sofa tapping his temple with his wand and releasing little bursts of magic into his mind.
"Hermione," Remus said as he pulled her up and hugged her close. She smelled foul, but under the grime and drugs, Remus could still see that talented girl who had almost, almost, saved the world.
"What the fuck?" Barty tried unsuccessfully to sit up.
Barty Crouch had been drained of his soul by Dementors, Remus thought. What magics Voldemort had used to make him walk and talk and hurt and kill again after losing his soul, he didn't even want to guess.
Remus tapped Hermione with his wand, whispering every healing and reviving spell he could think of. She slowly opened her eyes. He grabbed a large vial of potion that was on the floor at her side.
“Is this what she took?” he asked.
"You'd better get out of here," Barty slurred from the couch, still trying to right himself. "I have a gun."
How quaint, thought Remus. A gun.
"Pro-professor?" Hermione said from out of her mass of tangled hair. "What…?"
"Hermione, run out of here and never come back. Luna is waiting for you," Remus whispered, and he shoved her, dazed, towards the door just as Barty fired a shot. It pierced Remus's thigh and left a perfect, bloodless hole.
"Wha…" Barty collapsed back on his sofa, the gun clattering down next to him.
"Don't even try, Crouch," Remus allowed his rage to build just enough that a bristle of fur stood up from his neck and his teeth sharpened to fearsome points.
"Whoa, don't hurt me, man. I heard about you. You're the ghost man that done in Bellatrix and her lot, eh? Or maybe I'm just hallucinating you." Barty's blonde hair was matted and filthy, his eyes vacant. I'm talking to a man without a soul, Remus thought. He remembered back to that night, to Severus's prone body, limp and dead under the oak tree, and Barty's maniacal laughter as he hit it again and again with Crucio, even after he was dead…
"Stop looking!" screamed the crow
"From one dead man to another, Mr. Crouch," Remus said, flexing his lengthening claws, "I need to ask you a favor. I think we can understand one another."
"Yeah," said Barty, eyes wide and empty. “I can’t kill you, can I? Not again.”
"I need you to call them all together. Everyone who was there that night."
Barty nodded his wobbling head and then cackled wildly. "I know where to tell 'em to meet you, ghost man," he said with a grin. "The old oak!"
"Midnight. Tonight." Remus sighed with relief as he said it. It would soon be over. His body relaxed, claws retracting, fur settling and disappearing. "Your reward will be an easy death," he added, "for your services."
As Remus walked away, he looked back once to see Barty blinking his eyes and waving his hand in front of his face as if to test his perception of reality. There is no reality for either of us anymore, he thought.
*
"Don't do it!" cawed the crow, glowering and soaring through the darkened rooms of Spinner's End.
But Remus couldn't stop.
Every room in the house held memories of Severus’s body, his scent, his skin, his cock. Awkward and slippery in the bathtub that time, with candles all around, and then the day they’d never even risen from bed from sunrise to sunset, except for essentials. Being wrapped up in each other was sustenance enough.
“Stop looking!” said the crow.
Remus remembered the hard feeling of Severus’s hands on him, his rough, calloused hands, stained and scarred. He could smell the herbal tang of Severus’s skin at the throat, and the musky smell of him when he sweat. He could feel the pounding of his heart the day he’d claimed Severus, called him, “Mine,” and Severus had murmured, “Forever,” so quietly that only Remus’s soul could hear it. He could feel the hot press of skin against his own, the rub of body hair and bone. The smooth feel of Severus opening for him, letting him inside, trusting him and needing him, and...
“You may as well stick the knife in,” the crow said, “and twist.”
But Remus did not want to stop remembering. He curled around himself, grabbed the knife, and plunged it in again.
*
Later, as Remus packed to leave the house of memories, forever, the kneazle knocked against he knees and asked a plaintive “Mew?”
“You’ll have to leave too, my friend,” Remus replied. “I won’t be coming back.”
The kneazle followed him no further than the gate. It sat down in the garden and turned back to watch as the flames Remus had set began to consume the dry wood of the old house, and its purring was loud and strong.
*
Ron and Kingsley apparated to the scene of the house fire at the same moment.
“Same spell trace as that dump that was torched last week, same arsonist,” Kingsley said, as the flames lit the sky and smoke billowed around them. Ron knew the name of the place.
“Spinner’s End. It used to be Professor...I mean, Severus Snape’s I think,” Ron said, fingering through the paperwork he’d accumulated about the house. He didn’t add that he thought he might have seen Snape, or at least someone wearing his cloak, at that last fire. Snape was dead, after all.
“What’s that?” Kingsley asked one of the constables, who was toting a wriggling bundle under her arm and away from the destruction. The house would collapse in a matter of minutes.
“Kneazle, sir. And it has a note attached, for Auror Weasley.”
Ron pulled the note off, ran a shaking hand through his hair, and read:
Dear Auror Weasley,
Please take care of this old boy. He will bring you good luck. If you have not yet been found by Ms. Granger and Ms. Lovegood, please look out for them. This kneazle will help you. I know Ms. Granger has an affinity with felines and he will be useful when you get her home again. Good luck.
“Bloody hell,” Ron said, eyeing the struggling kneazle with trepidation.
“Congratulations, Weasley,” Kingsley said with a smirk. “You’re a pet owner!”
*
Remus apparated to the meeting place at the edge of the forest just before midnight. Still roiling with memories, hands scorched by the fire, he lay down in the wet grass and bathed himself in the horror that was this place and all that had happened there.
One year ago...
All of Voldemort’s horcruxes had been destroyed, but the final battle to kill him had been lost. Victorious, Voldemort had stood on the steps of Hogwarts and declared his rule over all wizards and muggles, all the while levitating Harry’s broken body over the crowd like a hunting trophy. Remus and the other captured Order members had been forced to watch humiliation and disrespect heaped upon their dead for hours after the fighting stopped. Remus’s only shred of hope was that he could see Severus, alive and whole, standing quietly amongst the crowd of jubilant Death Eaters.
But then Voldemort had surprised them all. “Those who do not wish to be a part of this great new order, you may depart. Get beyond our borders within one hour, and you will be spared.”
A great sigh of magic went up as hundreds of witches and wizards began apparating from where they stood, suddenly freed from their captors. Remus glanced at Severus for a moment, then apparated to their meeting place, an old oak near his childhood home that he and Severus had planned in case of disaster. This certainly seemed to qualify.
Severus appeared a minute later. Afterwards, Remus would wallow with regret that in that moment they did not touch, even for a moment. Instead, Severus appeared, and his look of shock and terror was so alarming that Remus almost couldn’t breathe.
Severus’s voice was low and hard. “He means it as a game for his followers, we’re meant to hunt you down before you can leave the...”
It was already too late. The Death Eaters came flying and apparating in so fast they were surrounded in moments, had no chance. Spells separated them, knocked them to the ground, overwhelmed them.
Remus’s vision blurred and pain seared through him and turned to bright, vibrating light, like the beating of glowing wings.
“Remus, my boy,” the crow said, “this is not your fault. Don’t look.”
But he had to look as Severus was slowly tortured, and hung in the old oak tree, and bled Stop looking! and his poor limp body was abused and beaten long after his life had seeped away. The killing curse that ended it for Remus felt like a kindness, and as he drifted into cool white nothing, he could still hear the crow.
“Don’t go too far away! You’ve got work to do.”
*
Barty arrived first, alone.
“They’re all coming for you. Even the big guy,” he said, his blank eyes staring, his body trembling.
“Thank you, Barty,” Remus replied, and he pulled out the vial of dream potion that he had grabbed from Hermione earlier. “Drink it all, and drink it fast. That is your reward.” He would slip into dreams, and then into death, and with a shock of empathy, Remus could only hope the broken man would find his soul, waiting there. As he hoped Severus would be for him.
When the rest of the Death Eaters arrived, they found a murderous werewolf waiting for them, and no spells, guns, knives, fists, or terrified pleas could stop him.
*
Voldemort himself had held back, watching the carnage. Remus could smell him close to the forest by the old oak. As the last man fell to the wolf and only the Dark Lord remained, Remus transformed back into himself and strode towards him without fear, without hesitation. What did he have to fear? He had become fear.
“I’ve done it, you see,” Remus said, his arms outstretched. Voldemort’s snake-like face was very hard to read. Was that terror in his cold eyes?
Remus was hit with a flurry of powerful spells from Voldemort’s wand, spells that sliced his skin and made him bleed.
“You cannot hurt me,” he continued. “I’ve conquered death. I am the immortal. It required something you have never had.” He was close now. The smell of decay around the distorted and evil man was pungent and deep.
“It only took love.”
Voldemort raised his arms, and let loose one final blast of death against him. The force of the magic seared the air and scorched the earth beneath it, enveloping Remus like a tidal wave. He clung on to his memories, calling them all to him- hot skin, warm breath, the smell of evergreen- then threw his arms wide, lifted his head high and screamed. The magic shattered and blasted backwards away from Remus, ricocheting into Voldemort and throwing him, broken and dead, against the old oak.
As Remus collapsed to the ground, death seeping in, his vision was filled with the flutter of shimmering wings and the sound of a soothing voice, whispering, “Rest now, rest now, and look.”
*
Ron woke at dawn to a deep purring in his ear and a gentle tapping on his door.
The two women standing at his doorstep were pale and silent, but in their eyes Ron could see they also felt the strange hope that seemed to be drifting through the air this morning like the sweet scent of roses.
“Come in,” he said, ushering Luna and Hermione into his warm flat, placing a careful hand on Hermione’s thin shoulder.
As he turned to shut the door, Ron peeked once more out at the dawn and thought that, perhaps, today might just be a little less dark.
Postscript:
The train pulled into the station, and Remus stepped off, his body whole again, his mind calm.
“I expect you will have some pathetic excuse for your tardiness.” Severus’s deep bass echoed on the silent platform. “I’ve been waiting.”
"Apologies, Severus," Remus replied, one eyebrow raised. "I'm afraid I had something to do."
Severus greeted this pronouncement with a grunt.
“Well, you promised me forever,” Remus replied.
“And I expected you would be on time for forever, Lupin. Nonetheless.” He held out his hand, warm and solid, if not also a bit stained and scarred, and Remus took it and held on.
Severus led him out of the station, and into the light.
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Date: 11 Jan 2011 08:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 12 Jan 2011 03:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Jan 2011 02:42 pm (UTC)i re-read this and actually cried when you described severus' death!