It had taken damn near everything in Morgana to remain calm.
The scores of men that trounced through her mansion, her territory, the forests around it; leaving muddy footprints and countless messes in their wake; the Minister was a rotten man for taking advantage of her absence.
Arthur Weasley had stood by her, offered to 'keep an eye on her' but only stood by to express his apologies. He was a good man, she thought as she trudged through the Forbidden forest and back to the school. And he was the only good man left in this world, as far as she was concerned.
She felt a flash of anger at the thought of Remus, the deep ache of betrayal. Though she could always account for him as far as helping Sirius Black into the castle, she could not trust that he didn't know how it was happening. That hurt ran deep. But she should have known better, she thought bitterly. She should have known there were no good men left unscathed in this world. There were no men without secrets, without lies.
"Queen Morgana! My queen!"
The scout came barreling through the forest with little regard, scattering nestled creatures about and rustling trees. The look of terror on his face, there was something happening on the grounds.
"What's wrong?" she asked, catching by the shoulders as he tripped over a fallen branch.
"Three students… attacked by a wild dog… drug into that large tree with the angry branches… it was the Potter boy and his friends, the ones you told me to watch for…"
As he spoke, a heat drew from her cloak pocket. She reached in, touched the coin she'd given Harry the exact match of not long ago. He'd activated it, the stars and moon had disappeared and the SoM had turned to SOS. She glanced at her ring for a moment. She could call for Remus on it, if she twisted it clockwise thrice, as Dumbledore had shown them both when he'd given them over. But he could not be trusted, not any longer. She'd have to go it alone.
"Show me where, and return to the Sanctuary, await my orders," she said quietly. The scout bowed and ran off toward the Whomping Willow, much more quietly now.
She could feel him.
Of greater concern, she could smell blood, human blood. Her teeth ached, the way they always did when she was near it. She hated it, to the point that bile rose uncomfortably in her throat at the smell. This house was old, cobweb swept and covered in rotten destroyed furniture. There were huge scratch marks along the walls, bigger than any wild dog could make. She slowly ascended the rotted staircase, tracing the scent of blood up towards the room. She could not avoid the creaking of the wood, even under her light step.
"Who's there?!"
A hoarse voice shouted from just outside the cracked door of a far room. Though it had been some time, she recognized his voice. She froze, waiting quietly to see what he would do.
"Please, Mr. Black; we need to get Ron help. I think his leg is broken," Hermione's sobbing voice came through the same cracked door.
"Quiet, girl! Who's out there?! Show yourself!"
Morgana stepped quietly through the doorway with her hands up, doing her best to survey the room as she did.
"Morgana? Morgana Fawley?" The gaunt-faced Sirius Black croaked in surprise. Morgana smiled gently at him.
"Hello, Sirius," she replied kindly, taking another step into the room.
"Morgana, remember the last time we spoke? I found him! I found him because of you," he shouted at her in excitement. Morgana continued to hold her patient smile as Sirius dropped his wand arm and came closer.
"I'm going to kill him, finish this once and for all," he said, again stepping closer to her.
"I trusted you!" Hermione shouted from behind them, causing Morgana to turn.
"I trusted you both; and all this time you were helping him?" she continued, standing and stepping toward Morgana.
"No, Hermione. I did not help him, I-"
"-you're a monster!" she shouted, causing Sirius to point his wand at her head again.
Morgana held her hands up once more.
"Hermione, now is not the time to hash out your feelings about me, or my husband. We are your professors, and Harry will tell you himself that we owe him a great debt that neither one of us would ever fail to uphold."
Harry nodded a bit, silencing Hermione and drawing her back down toward Ron.
"Never pegged you for the settling down type. You were always so ambitious. I suppose you still are," he commented. She lowered her hands again slowly, focusing on the wands pointed at her.
"Ambition and love are not mutually exclusive, you know that. I'm not armed, can I check on the boy?" she asked, motioning her head toward the slumped over Ron at the far end of the room.
"You can give me the rat in his pocket, so we can be done with all of this," he answered, tipping the wands toward Ron as well. Ron weakly clutched to squirming rodent in his hands. Morgana looked back to Sirius.
"What do you want with the boy's pet?" she asked. Sirius let out a croaking, maniacal laugh but gave no answer. Though she already knew it, Sirius was proving as insane as the last time they'd spoken.
"Sirius, it's time to end this. You and I both know it's going to end one way or another, much worse way. Come quietly with me, now. We don't have to mention any of this to the Minister," she said, offering her hand out to him. He scoffed.
"I've read the papers, Fawley. You can't stop them giving me the Dementor's Kiss. So I'd like to at least get what I came here for first," he answered, again leaving his focus on her to her outstretched hand. He was nervous, and therefore easily distracted by her movements. If she tried to call for Remus now, he'd notice.
"It's not Fawley anymore," she corrected him gently, taking steps backwards toward Ron and the others, her hands still clearly in his vision.
She kneeled down beside Ron, locking calm eyes with Harry. He was terrified, but overpowering that was the courage he showed by keeping between Sirius and Ron. She smiled gently at him, as reassuring a smile as she could manage.
"It's strange, you know. Seems you haven't aged a day since you took me in all those years ago," Sirius mused, mostly to himself as Morgana reached across to Ron and put a hand on his leg. Hermione caught it and pushed her off, surprising her.
"Don't," she whispered sternly, keeping herself between Morgana and Ron, "I know what you are. I know what you both are."
Morgana smiled a little. Of course she did, she was the smartest young witch Morgana had ever met.
"Remus is an easy sell. But I'm curious, what gave me away?" she whispered, leaning back a bit to assure that Sirius was still muttering to himself.
"You never eat. Everyone is afraid to make eye contact with you. And that coin you gave Harry, it's from the Sanctuary of Moon, I recognized the symbol from researching the essay Snape assigned us. No one would have that if they weren't a member."
"You are so, so smart, Hermione. Muggle blood be damned, you're the brightest witch of your age. I am here to help you. I would never betray Harry, or the promise I made to Dumbledore. Trust me."
Hermione nodded, not that she had much of a choice. An neither did Morgana. Her hands fell behind her back, twisting the ring three times. A small red glow emitted from it for a moment. She hoped it was the right decision. She hoped he was on the right side of this.
"You know, my husband tried to tell me that he knew how you were getting into the castle."
Freddo sat cross-legged by the fire, watching him intently as though he was going to do anything more drastic than pour over the Marauder's map again and again, searching for Peter. This map made no mistakes, no spelling errors, no glitches. He knew what he'd seen. Peter was alive, in the castle, and he had to find him.
"Suitor Lupin," Freddo said, drawing Remus' tired eyes to the rug by the fire, "do you love the queen?"
Remus looked at him, the curious vampire elf that he was, with stern eyes.
"Why do you call me that? Suitor? As though there are others?"
"You are the only one she's ever accepted. I've seen her show affection to you beyond that of this masquerade. She cares for you. I wonder if we should prepare to have a king," he asked. Remus laughed a little. Him, a husband, was hard enough to have wrapped his head around these last few months. Now a king?
"She's not very happy with me right now, so I doubt that greatly," he answered finally, looking back down at the map. He could see Harry, Ron, and Hermione all at Hagrid's hut, no doubt trying to console him over the loss of his Hippogriff.
"She is a forgiving woman. To some, too kind a woman. There are many who still resist her, attempt to undermine her, poison her, steal her necklace. Yet she lets you, an outsider, close enough to her to do any of those things. It's peculiar how much she trusts someone such as you."
Remus thought back to whenever she was served her drinks, how she'd sniff at them, swirl them; a test for human blood. He recalled seeing her necklace too.
"Why would anyone steal her necklace?"
"It's a horcrux. A part of her soul. The part that tore away when she killed the death eater who turned her," he stated, looking at Remus in pleasant surprise that he didn't already know. Of course, she'd mentioned as much once before; that her soul was 'mostly intact'.
"What a nasty whelp of a creature he was. He grew very close to her, first through letters as a fan of her for her capture of Black, then as a fellow up and coming Auror. Starved himself for months so his eyes would go back to normal before the exams. They never realized, the fools, that he wasn't normal. She knew what he was when they finally met face to face, but it was too late. He got the better of her, turned her. And when she was abandoned by the Ministry, swept under the rug; she sought him out. He was hiding in the Sanctuary of Moon. She killed him, and it tore away a piece of her soul. Before it left our realm, she captured it in that necklace, in the hopes that she'll one day be able to redeem herself enough for it to become one with her again."
Remus looked away, taking in everything Freddo had said. This death eater, had grown close to her? Though he wondered what that meant, he surely felt that he had betrayed the same trust she'd placed in that man by withholding the truth from her. And who was he really protecting besides himself? He'd had years, upon years, to tell someone this secret. Who was he saving that wasn't already dead?
A flash of red light drew his eye to his hand. His ring was glowing. That meant that Morgana was in trouble, wherever she was. He looked down at the map.
She was just beyond the Whomping Willow, in a place all too familiar to Remus. And she was standing with Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew.
"The queen is in trouble," Freddo stated, standing at once, "I will take you to where she is."
"No. Stay here, I know how to get there, quickly and quietly. Just stay here."
Remus ran from the room, clutching for his wand.
It was only a short while later that a knock at the door rose Freddo from peering at the map Remus had left open on the table.
"Death Eater," Freddo stated in greeting, looking up at the slightly bothered Snape.
"They imported you over to cater to their royal whims too, I see," Snape commented stiffly, glaring back down.
"The queen and her suitor are not in," he stated, still reaching for the steaming mug Snape had in his grasp.
"Where are they? Being fitted for crowns?"
"A place called the Shrieking Shack. With that wanted man, Sirius Black."