AN: This takes place right after the Death Eaters were so nice and stopped by Hogwarts at the end of Half-Blood Prince, some of the dialog is directly from there and since I am lazy, may be a bit confusing.
Kevin was the one that had to do it. She was the only one with experience. Remus had suggested it to Madam Pomfrey the moment he heard of it. Now she was looking down on the savaged face.
"I can't promise it'll be good," Kevin muttered as she summoned a needle and thread into her shaking hands.
"You always did a good job with me," Remus told her and squeezed her shoulder lightly.
"I can't promise..." She swallowed hard as she laid the flesh on the cheek better together and did the first stitch. Then another one. Pomfrey mopped up some blood on his chest.
"Please hurry," the matron told her as she did the fifth stitch next to the nose.
"Don't stress me," Kevin answered in a dangerous voice and steadied her hands again. "You'll always bear these scars," she mouthed to the unconscious man to comfort herself. "I'll do my best, sweet Bill, but Greyback have marked you for life. I'm sorry. I hope you'll be all right. Not really a..." She couldn't even think the word and felt two warm hands pull her long hair back.
"Here," Tonks said and took the pink scrunchie off her wrist to tie back Kevin's hair. She couldn't even thank, she was too wrapped up in making the flesh on his jaw meet properly. The smell of his blood took over her brain, pumping through her with each shallow breath. Still she had to breath, to know it was real and not just a horrible nightmare.
He got paler by the minute and Pomfrey fetched a salve as Kevin moved down his body. A deep gash went across his stomach and almost over his lean hip. He laid bare to the room, the only sound the occasional shuffling of feet or Kevin's summons of more thread.
"Kevin, the girl," Madam Pomfrey said and pointed to another bed with another victim. The vampire nodded and quickly concluded Bill would make it even if she attended to Greyback's other victim for a short time. She repeated the process with the stitches on the slender female body, but after about thirty minute the heart gave up, the girl was dead. Kevin stepped over to do the rest of Bill's gashes at once, he couldn't afford to lose any more blood.
When it was more sounds, when Longbottom and Granger and a couple of more joined them and Pomfrey got busy again, she sighed. She needed help to get to his back and Remus lifted the limp torso up, leaning it on himself. She had stopped thinking by now and just worked fast to stop the blood-flow.
They wrapped a bandage around his chest and stomach before laying him back down. The sheet was an utter mess and she ripped it off him in frustration. She panted as she ran her eyes over his naked body. He wasn't affected much below his waist except for that horrible gash on his hip. A fresh sheet was placed over Bill, tucked gently in and she watch with dead eyes as a glimmer from a purple ring flew across her face and saw the matron open the jar with the ointment.
"How is he?" someone asked. Kevin looked up to see Hermione's worried face, Ron's tall frame on his side.
"Alive," Kevin croaked. The red of the hair mixed with the red of the blood on his pillow and she couldn't understand how sweet, brave, marvellous William Weasley could have been attacked. The door opened and her eyes instinctively went to the sound. Harry and Ginny stood there for a moment before Hermione ran to hug him. Kevin took a step towards the wall and squatted down, staring at her hands before she slowly began licking off the coagulating blood.
"Can't you fix them with a charm or something?" she heard Harry ask far away.
"No, stitches is all," she muttered as Pomfrey gave the boy a more audible explanation.
"But he wasn't bitten at the full moon, Greyback hadn't transformed, so surely Bill won't be a – a real –?" Ron couldn't bring himself to say the word, but it was repeating in her head as she gazed over at Remus.
Werewolf. Werewolf. Where, oh where have you taken my boy, where, werewolf. Beast. Once a month. Werewolf.
"No, I don't think Bill will be a werewolf," Remus said.
"But that doesn't mean it won't be some contamination." She had stood up and cleared her throat. "Those are cursed wounds!"
"Yes, they are unlikely ever to heal fully, and – and Bill may have some wolfish characteristics from now." Remus' eyes met Kevin's in a brief moment and she erected her back properly, if it had to be her job to get Billy-boy through this, she would.
"Dumbledore might know something that'd work, though. Where is he? Bill fought those maniacs on Dumbledore's order, Dumbledore owes him, he can't leave him in this state –" Ron's voice was close to breaking, it shouldn't be necessary – possible – for the eldest Weasley-brother to get hurt like this.
"Ron – Dumbledore's dead," a soft voice said with great authority under the surface. It took several seconds for Kevin just to understand it was Ginny. Then the message, Albus Dumbledore, gone from this word?
She squatted down again, crossing her arms over her knees and hid her face. If they had lost him, they had lost everything. There was no hope. They could fight, but even if they won the next battle the war was ultimately lost. Someone said Snape did it. Snivellus. The reason good would not conquer over evil this time. Death Eaters, someone else said.
He is gone, but not forgotten. A phoenix was heard out on the grounds and Kevin's shoulders relaxed. Even if they lost, some good would always survive. Some of Albus P. W. B. Dumbledore would always be in this world, this castle. Her chest was tight as she peeked up on Bill's still mass again. His suffering would not be for nothing. The song rang in her bones, digging into her spine and she let out a heavy breath.
"Molly and Arthur are on their way." Minnie McG, always delivering nagging news, Kevin thought with a wry smile. At least they had the Transfiguration professor still. Kevin stood up and wrapped her arms around her waist before meeting the eyes of McGonagall for a silent, mutual thank you.
The old woman didn't take the news of what Snape had done lightly and muttered the name several times as she fell into a chair.
"Sni– Snape was a highly trained Occlumens," Kevin said bitterly. "We always knew it." Despite many fights through the years she and Sirius had always agreed the eel was not with them.
"But Dumbledore swore he was on our side," Tonks whispered. "I always thought Dumbledore must know something about Snape we didn't..." The girl sounded so naïve and innocent, but this was war and Kevin wondered when she herself had lost the ability to trust blindly.
"He always hinted..." Kevin tuned out from the muttering of McGonagall.
"I'd love to hear what Snape told him to convince him," Tonks said after the professor was done.
"I know," Harry said and Kevin tilted her head, if she could just go to sleep now. Or wake up to learn it had just been a nightmare. All of it. "Snape passed Voldemort the information that made Voldemort hunt down my mum and dad." She snapped up her head to stare baffled at his familiar features. "Then Snape told Dumbledore he hadn't realised what he was doing, he was really sorry he'd done it, sorry they were dead."
"And Dumbledore believed that?" Lupin said incredulously.
"Dumbledore believed Snape was sorry James was dead?" Kevin shouted. "Snape hated James!"
"And he didn't think my mother was worth a damn either." The voice of the sixteen year old boy quivered. "Because she was Muggle-born... 'Mudblood,' he called her..." Kevin furrowed her brows, she could recall the scene with ease, but didn't think to ask how Harry knew of it, it was so many possibilities, none important now. James and Lily was gone, likewise Dumbledore, and Bill had come damn close.
"This is all my fault," McGonagall said and Kevin slumped down against the wall, shaking and blocking out the conversation. Remus joined in for a short moment, then it was Minnie again. "Dumbledore had told us he would be leaving the school for a few hours and that we were to patrol the corridors just in case... Remus, Bill, Kevin and Nymphadora were to join us... And so we patrolled." She didn't need to hear it, she had been there and covered her ears with her hands like a child.
The phoenix' song soaked through her again before the doors were flung open. Molly and Arthur hurried to their oldest son, his fiancé on their trail and Kevin made herself stand up and heard a dull creak from her back. Molly kissed Bill's forehead and Kevin felt sorry she hadn't done a better job.
"You said Greyback attacked him," Arthur said with his eyes on McGonagall. "But he hadn't transformed, so what do that mean? What will happen to Bill?"
"Arthur..." Kevin went over and placed a hand around his back as they watched the bed. "There will probably be some contamination."
"It's an odd case," Remus shot in.
"Possibly unique," she agreed. "We don't know what his behaviour might be like when he wakes up..." She pressed her eyes shut to keep the tears in, her friend was savaged beyond recognition and she would take care of him if it was necessary. Arthur hugged lightly around her for support as he asked about the Headmaster. She heard Molly sobbing and gazed over at the plump woman, salve in hand.
"Of course it doesn't matter how he looks... It's not r-really important... But he was always a very handsome little boy," the woman got out and Kevin nodded, thinking of their daughter back in Romania. "Always very handsome... And he was g-going to be married!"
"And what do you mean by zat?" Fleur's voice cut through. "What do you mean, 'e was going to be married?"
"Well – only that –"
"You theenk Bill will not wish to marry me any more? You theenk, because of these bites, he will not love me?" The blonde was beautiful even in her fury and Kevin just watched while leaning on Arthur.
"No, it's not what I -"
"Because 'e will! It would take more than a werewolf to stop Bill loving me!"
"Well, yes, I'm sure." Kevin thought she saw Molly blushing and it was a nice change from Bill's dead-pale face. "But I thought perhaps – given how – how he –"
"You thought I would not weesh to marry him? Or per'aps you hoped? What do I care how he looks?" The blonde said and Kevin felt her eyes start to glide shut. "I am good-looking enough for both of us, I theenk! All these scars show is zat my 'usband is brave. And I shall do that!" The ointment was snatched from Molly's hand.
Something had stirred in Kevin's mind. It was a thin line between bravery and stupidity. Scars. Charlie. Brave to save the dragons and humans alike.
Kevin had to let go of Arthur's warm body when his wife needed him. She yawned, her mind needed sleep to process it all.
Kevin couldn't listen to all of Molly's words about goblin-made tiaras and Muriel. Kaya didn't even know the amazing man in the bed was her father and Charlie didn't know his brother had almost been killed.
"You see?" The screeching voice of Tonks brought Kevin back. "She still wants to marry him, even though he's been bitten! She doesn't care!"
"It's different," Remus said and his eyes almost flickered to Kay. "Bill will not be a full werewolf, the cases are completely –"
"But I don't care either, I don't care!" Tonks gripped the front of Remus' shirt and Kevin had to admire her stubbornness. "I've told you a million times..."
"And I've told you a million times that I'm too old for you, too poor... Too dangerous..." The drawn expression on his lined face was too easy for Kay to read, he feared starting a family again.
"I've said all along you've taking a ridiculous line on this," Molly said, feeling he needed some happiness for himself, not torment himself with what had and might have been.
"I am not being ridiculous," Remus insisted and couldn't keep himself from looking at Kevin for help. "Tonks deserve someone young and whole."
"But she wants you." Arthur's words sent trembles out to the tip of Kevin's fingers. "And after all, Remus, young and whole men do not necessary remain so." As the balding man gestured to his son in the sick-bed Kevin fisted her hands.
Charlie. He wants me. He deserve me. I deserve him. We have to use the time, we don't know how much we have. She began running, out of the hospital wing, down stairs, out on the grounds. Charlie! She headed for the Quidditch pitch and whipped out her wand to break in. It wasn't the nice way, she blew the door off the hinges and summoned a broom. It was old and battered, but she needed to see her boyfriend, it was the first option that sprang to mind. He was at home with Kaya and Lisa. My daughters and my boyfriend.
It was several freezing hours in strong wind before she landed on the flat roof. The heating charms had taken the worst notch off it, but she had to wrench her finger off from around the handle and left the broom there as she Alohomoraed the door open and ran down the stairs, pursing her lips when she reached the door to their flat.
"Charlie! Charlie, I love you!" she shouted as she hammered a soar fist to the door. "Open up! I need you!" She kept pounding fast until he opened in just his underwear and she flung herself into his arms with a wet kiss. "I don't ever wanna leave you again," she whispered in his ear before he let her down.
"I love you too," he said and looked down on her clothes. "What have happened? Are you hurt? Have you..." He placed his hand on her blotched shirt.
"No, I'm fine, the blood is Bill's, but he'll be okay," she rushed out and stretched for another kiss.
"What happened?" He had to hold her back as she attempted to suck on his lower lip.
"Nothing, he'll survive, he'll be all right," she said fast. "I want you, I need you, to the end of my life, whether that is tomorrow or in a century, I love you forever and I'm sorry for making you wait!" She couldn't help but grin.
"I want you too, but..."
"Everyone's okay and I'd be especially okay if you would make love to me," she said and held her breath until he kissed her. The warmth stretched all the way down to her toes and she wrapped her arms around his neck as he lifted her up.
"Are you sure?" he asked and she got lost in his green eyes before she nodded. He carried her slowly into his bedroom and let her down, still holding her lips with his as he began unbuttoning her shirt. She moaned into his mouth as his rough hands went softly over her breasts and sides. She managed to step out of her shoes and socks while running her hand through his long hair.
He pulled them close for a moment, his skin prickling into goosebumps where she left freezing, smooth touches and she felt he was hard. She exhaled before taking off her jeans and gave him a long kiss while running her hands over his back, soaking up the warmth as he caressed her butt carefully.
He moaned as she slipped her fingers inside his boxer-shorts and pulled them down, releasing his erection and rubbing it against her hip. His fingers went down between her legs and felt the moist fabric as their lips played. He removed her knickers slowly and she smiled as his fingers went along her thighs, leaving warm traces in their wake. Still, it wasn't enough and she fumbled for a moment on the floor after her wand, leaving him to enjoy the view of her naked arse before she found it and cast a few quick heating charms on herself.
They moved slowly towards the bed, his arms around her waist and her hands on his biceps. She laid down first and blinked at him before he followed, kissing her neck softly as she placed her legs around his hips. His cock was next to her entrance and he breathed heavy as he brought himself a bit closer.
"I want you," she whispered and ran her eyes over his freckled face while her fingers tickled the back of his neck. He kissed her and felt her tongue gently against his own and her strutting nipples to his chest as he penetrated slowly.
"I need you," he whispered back in the second their lips parted. They were one now and he was almost surprised when she moved a bit. The sensation was beyond anything he had dreamt of, so alive and filled with love. He didn't need to, but he began rocking slowly into her while brushing their cheeks together. She was still cold to his touch, but he had never felt anything more burning as she placed her lips to his forehead and held them there as he thrust deeper.
Her hands ran over his shoulders and arms as she tightened her legs around him, bringing them closer and he went faster. She returned the motions and moaned. He breathed down on her neck and kissed her cheek as she inclined her head to the side, he was so careful and tender in his actions. She had never felt safer as he stopped thrusting to reach up to the back of her neck and release her hair. He drew a few brown strands over her shoulder and stroke it slowly as she combed his red locks back with her fingers.
She smiled up at him and pushed her hips towards him, he started again, gentle to make it last. Her hands went under his arms and held at his muscular side, her eyes begging him to make it good. He went faster and brushed their lips together.
"Charlie," she whispered and he felt her move more with him. His stomach was working hard to take deep breaths as she stroke the small of his back with her foot and he moaned. She returned it in a kiss and took a better hold of his sides, feeling him slip back and forth in a steady rhythm.
"Kay," he panted as he intensified. He put his lips to her neck and heard her breath as her body began cramping in pleasure. His lips left a wet mark before he looked into her eyes again as her lips parted and pressed a fast kiss to them as she climaxed, moaning as her body squirmed under his in delight. He let himself thrust hard a couple of times before he came, his back tensing as she pressed her lips to his jaw. He found her mouth as he slowly removed himself, he didn't want it to end. They broke the kiss with a small laughter.
"Wow, that was beyond anything I've imagined," he said at last. His mind was positively blown from the closeness.
"Yeah... It was better than anything I've had, too..." She smiled up at him and the warmth of his release.
"I have to tell you something..." Embarrassment was forming in his eyes.
"Of course, anything," she whispered.
"Up until this... I was a virgin." The last part was spat out quickly and he blushed. He hardly considered his homo-erotic experiences in the shower as sex, sex was what he had just had with her.
"Really? But you have dated some girls, some you have spend the night at." She didn't know she would be his first and only, it made her feel both guilty and happy.
"We just talked and sometimes fell asleep. It wasn't that I wasn't turned on by them, I just couldn't bring myself to do it." He thought it was strange himself and she ran a finger reassuring over his cheek.
"Okay, it just makes me feel kinda slutty," she confessed, trying to wrap her mind around the idea of never having sex before.
"Don't, it's so much better to do it with you than alone that you deserve it," he finished with a lopsided smile and she repeated the words in her mind to make sense of it. "I love you."
"I love making love to you," she said and half-closed her eyes. The sun was raising, casting a golden glow on the curtains and emphasising his red hair cascading over his shoulders, the almost yellow-blonde strands standing on end, the auburn stubble in the shadow under his jaw, and the gold dusting of coarse hairs on his arms.
"Tired?" he asked.
"Yeah, but I'm so glad we..." She didn't manage to stifle the yawn, he slid off to her side and she moved close to the wall to make room for him. He put his arm around her and she settled against his broad chest before dozing off. For one who had neither, nothing was more soothing than the sound of his breathing, his heartbeat, his living body.
"Kevin?" His soft voice in her ear. She opened her eyes and moved to look at him.
"What time is it?" she asked drowsily and reached her arm across him.
"A little past two." His eyes were serious and she tried waking properly. "What happened last night?"
"We were just supposed to patrol, but Death Eaters came in, something about some vanishing cabinets. A fight broke out." She was staring at his hand. "The kids fought like heroes, only a couple got some minor injuries, but... Fenrir Greyback attacked Bill."
"The werewolf? No..." He swallowed, but the tears came anyhow. "It wasn't full moon."
"No, Bill won't be a werewolf, but... He doesn't look good." She gripped his thumb. "Maybe they have moved him to St. Mungo's, I don't know, I just stitched him up."
"You said he was okay." Charlie felt betrayed and used.
"I said he will be okay," she corrected. I hope, she added in her mind.
"What made you come here?" he inquired.
"Your mother have squared up with Fleur and... Tonks and Remus... I need you to love me." She took a deep breath and he tightened his hold on her. "Where are the girls?"
"I sent them over to Marion," he answered. "So we can be more alone." They laid still for a couple of minutes.
"Dumbledore is dead," she told him. He gripped under her chin to make her look at him. It was true. "Snape did it." She sniffed as tears began streaming down her cheeks.
"No," he said, even though he could see it was how it was.
"I'm scared," she admitted. He just hugged around her and let her cry as he promised himself they would get through the war together, whatever it took of him.
