Title: The World As We Know It
Author: Amalin




The war comes to Rousse first. They come on boats, sweeping down the Danube with Death Eaters at the prows, and on the banks, children with their fathers' wands are setting off green sparks to the sky. This is what history will say: the war came to Rousse first, led by Voldemort's troops, pulling into the city with their dark ships.

Viktor will say: Voldemort did not bring war to Rousse. A shabby, tired man did, limping into the city a fortnight before.

And this is what Viktor will remember: saying, Why us? Saying, Why Bulgaria? And Remus Lupin, with the tired eyes and a cold cup of tea, saying, "Why? He's in Egypt, he's in Russia, he's in India. He's holding the world. We didn't see it coming. Why concentrate on one boy when you can have the whole planet?"

He'll remember saying no. He'll remember saying no for two weeks, saying, It won't happen here, saying, I'm a Quidditch player, not a killer. He'll remember fourteen starless nights of cold tea and the smell of change coming. He'll remember waking up on the fourteenth day to strange ships in the city and an empty space on his couch. He'll remember cheers from below his window, cheers from the ever-decreasing wizarding sect of the city, the people who had been crowded in on each other by the expansion of Muggle Rousse. He'll remember the magic running wild in the streets, regulations forgotten.

Viktor finds Remus by the river, hands in his pockets, patched coat on the ground. Remus looks up at him, not reproachful, not resentful, just tired. He says, "Well."

Later, Viktor won't remember saying, What should I do? and Remus leading him home. Years later, all Viktor will remember clearly is Remus's jacket lying in the grass, a little muddy and a little torn, lying there as if he just stood up to stretch. He'll remember the pale open sky and the river and that jacket, left alone by the water. He'll think, That was the beginning of the end.

In the days that follow, Remus goes underground. Lucius Malfoy comes to Viktor's door, politely forceful, and coolly suggests that Viktor cooperate. It is very important that he, as a leader figure to his people, show them the right path, does he see? Viktor says yes, he sees. Viktor signs the papers. Viktor isn't sorry when Lucius Malfoy’s body is dumped in the river that evening and gladly hands over the money required for such services.

Rousse erupts. Muggles are slaughtered; no one goes anywhere without his or her wand in hand. Children roam the streets, orphans or runaways or future Death Eaters, playing at Crucio and setting off faint Dark Marks. Stolen potions, fires in notorious pureblooded residences, rioting in the streets. On the fourth day, Remus appears again, shabbier, wearier. He doesn't come in. He stands at the door, nods, says, "The city will be gone tomorrow. Meet me in St. Petersburg, if you can get out." As an afterthought, he says, "Goodbye," which is as close to "Thank you" as Viktor can imagine.

The next evening, the Death Eaters leave, but Viktor leaves first. Behind him the sky is red.






A small room, paint peeling, window rattling at night. Viktor says, "Bulgaria?"

Remus says, "You saw Rousse. Your country is burning." Says, "It wasn't my choice."

Viktor says, "Are we going to win?"

Remus says, "It's not a Quidditch match."

After that, there is nothing more to say.







Viktor meets him at a train station in Zurich two months later. Things have changed. He carries a knife and ten watches and feels more like an Auror and less like an athlete. He never Floos because there's always a record and only Apparates when it's dire; his longest trip was to Iceland and he was held up for two days while he recovered. He drinks more. He sleeps less. He thinks he might be in love with Remus Lupin.

In a week, every Death Eater bank account is frozen and they spend a weary weekend in Lucerne. It's puzzling; every source pointed to Switzerland, but there has been no sign of Voldemort, and Remus is exhausted but triumphant until the mountains are filled with smoke and the giants begin to come. He packs his suitcase, shuts the windows, sighs. "Too late," he says. "There wasn’t much hope anyway."

They Apparate home to London. The owl comes an hour later from 12 Grimmauld Place, but Remus burns it before Viktor can read it and hands him a drink instead. "Still wondering if we can win?"

"Nobody wins in a war," Viktor says. Remus looks proud.

They drink in silence. It's a gray, empty night; Remus is slouched in a sagging, secondhand chair, while Viktor is sprawled on the floor next to him, feeling too large and awkward for the couch. It's after midnight when Remus starts talking, bottle forgotten; he says, "Dear god, did you see them, the--it was too much, did you see?"

"They were enormous," agrees Viktor, who has never seen a giant before.

"No," Remus says, "no, the children. They were screaming, didn't you hear? It's always that way, too many to Apparate with, the parents won't leave them. There was some young tourist snapping photographs, can you imagine? He's never going home."

Viktor wonders what he left in Rousse. He hadn't heard the screams.

"War, this, it's just a battle to save who we can," Remus sighs. "You can never win enough. You see? It's never enough."

Suddenly Viktor realizes he hasn't understood, not even after two months of fighting for the same cause, of doing what Remus asks of him by owl. It's been all the same to him, taking orders like he's flying formations in Quidditch practice, like he's perfecting a new feint. For the first time, he wonders who survived Rousse. He feels guilty to be halfway to drunk in a London flat, to be tired and empty and responsible for failure. "I," he says. "I didn't--I."

"There are rebels in France," Remus responds. "Set fire to the Ministry there yesterday. They'd just put up the Dark Mark on a flag before it went up in flames."

"Oh," Viktor says. He sits up, rolls to his knees, leans on the arm of Remus's chair. He says, quieter, "Oh, good."

His kiss catches Remus half on the mouth, half towards his jaw; Remus turns his head a little, meets his lips, then sighs. Remus mutters something that sounds a bit like "Sirius," and then he says louder, "I'm sorry, Viktor."

Viktor doesn't sleep that night. In the morning, he Apparates to France.






Hermione's in France: older, tougher, sadder. They sleep together, the first rain-drenched night, and it's companionable, easy. It's Hermione who tells Viktor who Sirius Black is. It's Hermione who tells him that Sirius Black has been dead for six years.

"You love someone, I can see it," she says to him, one night, when they're quizzing each other on French verbs and simultaneously poring over maps. Viktor looks up.

"No," he says, then, "Oui."

She doesn't ask who. When he kisses her goodnight, he whispers the name in her ear, and she looks up and says only, "You, too?"

They win France. France: burned villages, spell-torn countryside, an empty city. Viktor hears Remus's voice saying, It's never enough, and he doesn't join the celebrations that night. When Hermione sees him off, he holds both her hands for a moment and says, having just remembered, "Where is Harry?"

Hermione gives him an echo of the bright smile he used to love. "Does it matter? The war is everywhere."

Viktor stands by the rail, later, and watches her hair blow in the breeze. Her-my-oh-knee, he thinks, and later will remember just this: the figure of a girl outlined against the clouds, robes flapping, hair in her face, waving goodbye.






Venice is burning. It took an entire week, but there was no way to blockade the city and so they went Muggle, at Hermione's owled suggestion: gasoline on all the canals and even they went up in flames. Remus stands on the mainland and watches the fire, Viktor at his side.

"Sometimes I think the entire world is going to be gone," Viktor says. When Remus doesn’t answer, he looks away. "Burning our bridges – what happens when there's nowhere left to run?"

Remus says quietly, "Then we stop running."

"Was it like this before? The first time? No one even tries with Muggle relations any more; it’s everyone for themselves." He feels heroic for an instant, going city to city, trying to save what they can. The Aurors are everywhere trying to stop Voldemort and the Order's spread thin as it is. He turns back to the sky and loses the heroics: he just feels sad, old. He thinks, tiredly, Maybe the world is ending.

"Voldemort's learned a thing or two," Remus tells him. "And he took us by surprise. It was too late."

"You always say that," Viktor snaps, angry at once: tired of feeling so old, so helpless. Tired of loving a man who is. "Why do you think we're fighting, why--there's got to be something, maybe we'll win, maybe we'll--there's always reconstruction--"

"Viktor," Remus says, patiently, wearily, "sometimes it's just too late."

They stand and watch the water. It's silent and, across the water, an empty city is burning. At last, in the silence, Viktor mutters, "You loved him."

Remus says, "Yes. I do."

Maybe there's something wild and romantic about that, Viktor thinks, something he's missing. Maybe holding a candle for the dead is all you can do when the rest of the world is dying; maybe in every fire and in all the war-worn, weary homeless, the only face you see is his, and that's why. Or maybe he was your whole life, and now your whole life is missing him. Or maybe you're just too tired to change.

Viktor thinks of a younger version of himself, still reeling from the heat of his city against the sky, nervous in a new city with an uncertain future. Are we going to win? he'd asked, like a child.

"We've already lost," he tells Remus, by which he means, I've already lost. His life is a snapshot collection of things left behind, and Remus is just another, this figure with his head bowed on the banks, this figure who dissolves into the red sky like a blurring silhouette. Love. War. Viktor thinks, Save what you can. Save yourself, if you're able. It's never enough, but we get by.

Kids living in blackened houses, eyes big and hands smeared with soot. A Muggle newspaper, speculating alien invasions and the apocalypse and government conspiracies, everything from communism to the second coming of Christ. Makeshift markets selling knives and half-burned wands, all that's been salvaged: no broomsticks or Chocolate Frogs now, but necessity. Cut your losses. Take what you can; live.

Viktor thinks again, We get by. Remus doesn't watch him leave; he wonders if Remus even notices.






Ron Weasley shows up at his door two weeks after the war ends, leaner and quieter. His voice is still hoarse; Viktor heard that he screamed so many spells in the last battle there was permanent damage to his vocal cords, something like that. He's missing his pinky finger and his hair is cropped short. "Krum," he says, voice straining, and Viktor notices the glint of the engagement ring on his fourth and now last finger.

"Come in." He’s in France, now, renting out a little flat; every day he goes and helps to rebuild the Ministry, brick by brick, spell by spell. "I expected Hermione, is she well?"

"Herm's okay, but she couldn't come. She's still with Harry." Ron shrugs, shutting the door behind him. "I say we're lucky that we all made it, but she thinks Harry's still touch and go. He'll pull through, I know him."

"And you and Hermione?" Viktor glances at Ron's hand and is rewarded with a sudden grin. He hasn't seen Ron more than in passing for years and remembers only barely a gangly boy who wanted an autograph once. "Congratulations, then. To both of you."

"We're happy," Ron admits, guardedly, as if the confession will curse it. After a moment, he says it again, less uncertainly.

Viktor nods. "Well." It's a moment. "Life goes on."

"Here, look," says Ron, gruffly, or perhaps it's merely his voice, "I was with him when he died, and I wanted to say, it was. He. He told me the night before to come see you, in case, and he wanted to apologize, I think. Well, he said, he said things should have been different."

Viktor says, blindly, "Who?"

Pain crosses Ron's face; he winces obviously. "Bollocks! They didn't tell you? I'm sorry, I expected you'd know. Lupin. He fought, but--"

Then we stop running, Remus says, in Viktor's mind. His throat works for a moment, and then he says, "It's. Yes. Well."

"I, er, you should come to London sometime," Ron tries, blundering now, reaching behind him for the door handle. "Harry wants to see you, Hermione too. Don't lose touch."

"Thank you." Viktor is startled to find he means it.

"Oh," Ron says at the door, loudly, as if a bit embarrassed, "and he said to tell you that Prof--that Sirius never loved him the way, er, you, er, did. And he said to tell you, 'Don't wait for me.' And that's it. Uh, goodbye."

Viktor watches him go; he stands in the doorway, arm propped against the side, and stares out as Ron takes the stairs two at a time. Outside, a car horn sounds; none of the Muggle streetlights are working yet and, despite the few cars left in working condition, there have been two crashes already. Later, much later, this is what he will remember: the sensation of standing on the brink of everything, like water rushing by. He will remember thinking of fire, of a wrecked world burning; he will remember thinking, It was enough. And sometimes he'll think: What you lose is a part of you too. Maybe it's not as simple as holding on to absence. Maybe it's simpler still.

Viktor thinks part of him will always be standing, silent, on the banks of a river, waiting for the man beside him to turn to him; it's part of him, this snapshot, this moment in time. Some things aren't losable. Part of him is glad.

Don't wait for me. It's too late for that; part of him already is. But he thinks, he thinks--

This is something Remus already knows.