Chapter Text
There was something unnatural in the air that morning—the weight of smoke that did not rise, the stillness of the train platform that felt not like calm but like mourning. Private Remus Lupin stood on the cracked stones and tried not to cough against the taste of coal and soot that settled on the back of his throat like blood.
His shoulders ached with new muscle—unfamiliar, tight sinew built not from vanity but from obedience, from command, from screaming voices and sleepless nights. The body he bore now was not one he recognised. It had been forced upon him, beaten into him by the will of drill instructors, by the weight of bayonets, by the sheer inertia of war.
He shifted the heavy kitbag on his back, and with effort that betrayed his exhaustion, climbed into the carriage of the waiting train. His boots—still clotted with dried mud from the last round of exercises—scraped across the iron steps.
There were boys inside already, faces pale beneath thick wool caps, some speaking in low, jittery tones, others already gone somewhere distant in their minds.
Remus took a seat near the window, careful to avoid looking toward the shadowy corner where sat a figure he knew too well—Private Severus Snape, his former barrack-mate and frequent antagonist. The bruise beneath the boy’s left eye, still a mottled sickly hue, stood as a quiet testament to their last encounter—a fist, a broken nose, blood on the drill yard floor.
Had their instructors not taken pity—perhaps in light of the telegram that bore news of his father’s death—Remus would have been court-martialed. Instead, he had been reprimanded, whipped, and returned to the fold like a half-tamed dog.
He exhaled slowly. The air was stagnant, heavy with damp wool, tobacco, unwashed flesh, and something sweeter and more dreadful—mildew and rot, and beneath that, the slow perfume of fear.
He had barely settled when the quiet broke—
“Remus fucking Lupin!”
The voice cracked through the carriage like a bullet.
Private James Potter, all smiles and smoke and clatter, tossed his haversack to the floor and dropped into the seat beside him like the war were a dinner party and he’d arrived fashionably late.
Remus gave him a tired, crooked smile. “Of course you’re here.”
James grinned as if to say where else would I be?
“I thought you’d gone and died in training,” James said, tugging his gloves off with his teeth. “Or else deserted, though I can’t imagine you being so romantic.”
“Neither,” Remus replied. “Though death was a tempting option.”
“Good lad. I’d have missed you.”
They exchanged the sort of silence that only long friendship could bear.
James glanced across the carriage, spotted Snape, and sneered. “Oi! Snivellus!” he called. “Enjoy the gift I left you, did you?”
Snape’s eyes flicked up, black and burning. He said nothing.
Remus didn’t need to ask. He remembered the morning well—Snape shrieking like a slaughtered pig as he awoke with horse dung smeared through his hair, the drill sergeants barely concealing their laughter.
James leaned in, still smirking. “Pranks were played. Just none they could pin on me.”
Remus rolled his eyes but the shadow of a grin crossed his face. It was, perhaps, the first in weeks.
All around them, boys tried not to look afraid. One clutched a photograph of a woman with her eyes closed, as if sleep could save her from the knowledge of where her son had gone. Another picked at the scabs on his arm with quiet desperation.
The countryside passed by in slow, somber procession. Trees without leaves. Fields long untended. Crows in the hundreds perched on fences like watchmen of the damned.
James turned to the window, his voice distant. “Do you ever think it’s all too beautiful to deserve this?”
Remus looked up. “What?”
“This land,” James said. “The hills. The sky. The fucking clouds. And soon it’ll all be blood and holes and bones.”
“You enlisted,” Remus said.
“So did you.”
They fell into silence.
Remus did not speak of his father—not of the letter that arrived soaked through with something darker than ink, not of the final page that had ended in a half-word, as though even writing had abandoned him in his final moment.
He saw the man in dreams. Not in glory. Not in uniform. But with his jaw unhinged and eyes wide open, the trench water rising past his chin.
The train hissed as it slowed.
The station loomed—nothing more than a few structures half-eaten by ash and time.
Two men waited to board. One wore an eyepatch and bore a voice like a chisel against granite. The other, older and still somehow serene, surveyed them like a gardener admiring winter’s bones.
“I am Major Moody,” the first said, loud enough to jolt several boys from their stupor. “And this is Colonel Dumbledore. You are now His Majesty’s sons. You will be sent where you are told. You will fight who you are told. You will die, if you must, as men.”
Remus felt the air grow colder.
“James Potter,” came the call.
James stood. A rare solemnity shadowed his face. Dumbledore leaned close, and Remus caught the words commendation and front line.
Then—
“Remus Lupin.”
He stood without hesitation.
Dumbledore gave a small smile. “A Lupin. Like father, like son. The trenches await. You’ll be with Potter.”
Outside, the air was wet and grey.
James stood motionless among a small group of assigned infantry. His eyes flicked to Remus, and for a moment, his breath hitched.
“Where will you be?” he asked, voice hushed.
Remus shook his head. “With you.”
The horn sounded again—this time not the train’s, but a field signal. The time had come.
Boots met mud. Orders were barked. Names were signed into ledgers.
And then—
A sound like thunder. Hooves striking muck.
A man on horseback approached, his figure dark as pitch. His uniform was splashed in blood—dried, caked in creases. His face pale, his hair black, his expression unreadable.
“General Black,” Dumbledore said. “Your new men.”
Black looked at them as one might look upon the dead—mild surprise they still stood at all.
“We asked for soldiers,” he said coldly. “You’ve given me boys.”
“Regulus—”
But the general did not linger. He dismounted, tossed the reins to a nearby private, and surveyed the ranks with practiced disdain.
“Trenches are an hour east. March fast, speak never, and if you’re lucky, die with your guts still inside you.”
There was no formal dismissal.
Still, every man began to walk.
Remus among them, mud reaching his ankles.
The clouds above them hung low, as though reluctant to watch what would happen next.