14
NORAH had been about to climb the stairs to the second floor of Headquarters to Brennan's room, but her fear of seeing him was getting the better of her.
Mrs. Weasley had long since left the blonde werewolf to her own devices, which had since resulted in a restless pacing spell as she wandered the length of the front hallway, not wanting to go up and face the man again after…that.
"If I do this, there's no going back and Father will get what he wants," the wolf growled angrily through gritted teeth.
And Greyback always got what he wanted, in the end.
"Ugh. Why me? Why did I agree to do this for you, Dad? Why?" Norah moaned.
What if you give away who you are and accidentally let it slip? You know you've always had a bad habit of not being able to watch your mouth…
Her inner demonic voices were tormenting her greatly, not giving her any peace. She growled in agitation.
Growing increasingly frustrated with herself at her overall lack of courage towards going up there and seeing him again, and unable to sell herself on just doing what Molly Weasley had asked of her, Norah plopped herself on the bottommost step of the stairs, staring up at the ceiling and letting herself sigh in an unrestrained manner.
An unfamiliar feeling was beginning to well in her chest. It took Norah Jameson a moment to realize it was a vent of adrenaline and courage surging in her veins, hot as dragon fire.
"Okay, you can do this. Just… go up there, drop these off, and get out before he has a chance to yell at you again, Jameson," she muttered through gritted teeth, steeling her nerves, and heaving a heavy sigh as she rose to her feet, clutching the little plate of brownies Molly had prepared.
Molly claimed she'd made them for everyone, but Norah had a sinking feeling in the pit of her churning stomach it was specifically as a peace offering of sorts.
As she climbed the rickety old stairwell, doing her best not to trip over the hem of her long black lace dress, all the while balancing the plate of brownies in her hand, Jameson could not help but feel an overwhelming sense of trepidation that pricked at her heartstrings at all of this.
"Am I really going to do this?" she whispered, horrified at her own actions, disbelieving of the mess she'd gotten herself into by going along with Greyback's plan. "I really am a stupid witch if I'm actually considering doing this for Dad when that man saved your life. Listen to yourself, Jameson, this whole thing is positively insane!"
But you know you owe it to him. Her conscience was NOT helping her in this regard, and Norah was able to silence it with one low wolfish growl that erupted from deep in her chest.
"Oh, my Merlin…" she moaned, finding it difficult not to roll her eyes a bit the closer she got. "Perhaps things are looking up," she whispered, a note of hope creeping its way into her voice. "Though don't kid yourself, Jameson. The only way things will improve for you is if you find a way out of Dad's clutches without bloody getting your own throat ripped out, and you and I both know the only way out of this situation unless someone here in the Order takes a liking to you and helps you is death. You're trapped in Greyback's clutches until my life debt is paid, which is never," Norah whispered, as though her words would be the silencer to the dark, demonic voices swirling around inside her mind.
Fate, the young blonde werewolf knew, could be as cruel as Death itself, which was something she knew for herself firsthand. There were demons in her life, men, wizards like Fenrir Greyback, who held her feelings and faults over her head daily, doing unspeakable things to her that left her scarred, both physically and emotionally, yes. Norah Jameson was a broken, battered wreck.
These demons, these men, figuratively speaking, held onto her neck so tightly, they squeezed the very air from her lungs.
Yet, she figured fate would get tired of suffocating her, that its clutches would numb eventually, and loosen its grip around the column of her throat, but it didn't.
As Norah continued to climb the stairwell, not sure nor was she caring where the hell she went at this point, she knew that this decision she had foolishly agreed to help Greyback undertake, was never going to set her free from that monster.
At the moment, the young werewolf had no idea the events in motion she was about to unleash, the lives she would touch and change, not to mention that of her own and Brennan's.
She let out a tiny groan. She'd reached the top of the stairs and could climb no further, much to Norah's chagrin.
This was bloody it.
The moment that she was going to have to decide. To dare to enter the man's room uninvited and unannounced or turn around and head back down the stairwell.
The choice should have been relatively easy for most witches. But for Norah, it wasn't.
Norah paused once she reached the front of the door, desperately trying to regulate her heartbeat, which was throbbing relentlessly against her chest, back to normal, hoping to hide how fearful she was, not knowing what kind of horrible, awful mood the man might be stuck in.
She could control the tremors in her voice to an extent. She could consciously force her body movements to be less still. She could even make herself smile, at least a little, even if it looked pasted onto her pallid and peaky features.
The beads of sweat forming onto her browbone was a law unto itself and in no time at all, she found herself sweating.
"You're insane, Jameson. Are you bloody out of your Merlin-damned mind? You saw how he was looking at you during dinner, he hates you!" she angrily growled, whisper hissing her words through her clenched teeth and locked jaw.
He's not going to want to see you, not after tonight. Molly said it herself. He doesn't take kindly to strangers entering his room announced, and you're definitely a stranger…
Her thought process trailed off as Norah looked around, taking a deep breath to try to steel the worst of her fear.
The young blonde witch felt as though her lungs were slowly filling with water as if there was just less space in them for air. Inflating them felt like pushing a lead weight on her chest.
She drew in a deep breath as though her life depended on it, yet it would not come to her. Her breaths seemed to stutter and die in her lungs before Norah released it, feeling the tension slowly melt off her body like Stinksap, as she gingerly pushed the door open that led inside to Brennan's bedroom, visibly wincing as the thing creaked horribly, alerting Brennan, if he was inside, to her presence. Norah froze, her face paling.
"Just bloody great," she growled, whisper-hissing a few choice curse words under her breath as she took another cautious half step forward into the pitch-blackened bedroom.
"There goes the stealth part of my plan. Now, what do I do?" She paused, needing to drink in the silence to counteract the fear that threatened to engulf her completely.
This kind of thick silence would normally chill her bones, but tonight, for the young blonde witch and werewolf, it worked like a healing salve. She felt it. The more absolute it was, the stronger its medicinal effect.
Realizing that the silence was now her enemy, she mustered up all her courage and called out, hoping that whoever was here would answer her and quit leaving her in suspense as to whether or not she was alone.
"Hello? Brennan? Are you up here? Mrs. Weasley asked me to come to check on you, said you were suffering a headache. I—I have…brownies? They're…really good…" she whispered, her voice trailing off.
She was met with nothing but silence. If he was in fact here, and not answering her, Norah felt a surge of anger rise within herself and set the little plate of brownies Molly had made for Brennan down on a nearby wooden table and had been about to turn on her heels to go.
Norah would have left right then and there, if not for a portrait hung on the wall just across from the queen-size bed, that caught Norah's eye.
As Norah gingerly approached, wanting a better look, she felt her blue eyes widen in shock and horror as she found herself looking into the shrewd-looking face of former Death Eater, Jack Brennan's.
Brennan's father, she thought wildly.
His portrait was unmoved and lifeless, which Jameson thought strange. She felt certain his portrait would have been enchanted and moved like all the others. His piercing blue eyes, just like his son's, seemed to penetrate out of the portrait, like there was real life behind the paint.
The man's name was inscribed in the golden frame that held the truly formidable-looking paint. Jack Daniel Brennan.
Norah could not explain it, but she felt a stab of pity prick at her heartstrings for her new partner, thinking that was Jack a kinder father to his son, then maybe his offspring wouldn't have grown up to be such a vicious man, if the rumors she'd heard tell of Ollie from Greyback were true.
Without even thinking of what she was doing, Norah closed her eyes and held out the palm of her hand, silently and using nonverbal magic to conjure a single, pristine white lily flower, where she set it inside of a nearby vase and put the vase just underneath the portrait, her gaze once more drawn to Jack Brennan's glacier-cold and fathomless glower.
"I hope that some measure of happiness and peace have come to you, Jack, and may you find the peace in death that you could not find in this life," Norah whispered out of a show of respect, clasping her hands together and feeling her fingers dig into the skin of her palms as she spoke the words.
Just as she was about to bow her head and close her eyes with the intent of offering a silent prayer to Merlin up in the heavens above to take care of Jack, however, Norah heard the sound of approaching footsteps coming from just outside.
Realizing they were coming closer and closer, thinking it to be Brennan, there was absolutely no doubt her partner was making his way towards his room was no doubt going to take in the sight of the blonde standing in the middle of his room, unannounced and unvented, more to the point, besides.
Norah whirled around and took a faltering step backward, visibly wincing as her black leather ankle boot stepped on a particularly noisy floorboard and the damned thing creaked, alerting Brennan, if that was indeed him, to her presence.
Ugh, she thought, letting out a tiny groan and briefly squeezing her eyes tightly shut. I really need to work on my sneaking. There's no way my new partner didn't bloody hear that.
Hastily looking about the room for someplace—anything—that she could slip behind to hide, Norah bit down on her bottom lip and ducked behind the front door, shrinking as far back into the corner. She tried to make herself as small as possible, tucking in her black lace dress behind her legs and clamping a hand over her mouth, trying to still her breathing to a standstill.
The man's deep, disenthralled voice reached her eardrums, and Norah couldn't be sure, but it sounded like the man was talking to Nymphadora Tonks. Norah fell silent and listened.
"…I don't understand why that has to do with me, T," he was grumbling to the young witch. "You saw the way that girl looked at me. Jameson hates me. I saw it in her eyes tonight, Tonks. She doesn't want anything to do with me," he snarled. "I'm better off alone. We both know it. It's pointless, T, so stop…"
Norah froze. Unlike Tonks's voice, who muttered a few choice words about her friend's attitude that Norah dared not repeat, which sounded just outside the door and in the hallway, her new partner's voice sounded much closer and self-contained.
Almost too close.
Her back pressed firmly against the peeling wallpaper of the room, Norah breathed slowly through her nose, her nose tickling as she fought back the onset of a sneeze as a result of the copious amounts of dust and grime in the room.
Clamping a hand over her mouth to stifle the scream that threatened to escape her lips, Norah saw Brennan's towering figure stalk into the room, heard him heave a heavy sigh of exasperation and tiredness, as though he could not be bothered to argue with whatever Tonks was saying to him when he stilled.
"Why is this lily here, Tonks? Did you come into my room earlier, Dora?" he growled. Nymphadora's voice from the doorway just outside of Brennan's bedroom immediately stopped talking as a dead silence fell as Tonks, wisely, shut up.
Brennan's voice might not have suggested anger to most other people, but Norah had had enough interactions with the man, however brief they had been, to know that the man's calm, smooth, rich, and melodious voice hid the deep-seated rage just bubbling, threatening to breach the surface.
And it seemed like it was about to burst forth for the third or fourth time in the span of a single eve.
Because of her. It was at that point that Norah felt her heart sink to the pit of her churning stomach and she might as well just point her own wand squarely at her chest and just kill herself now with the Killing Curse.
She'd bloody been found out by the way his blue eyes narrowed, and she swore, for a moment, as her heart stopped, that his piercing glacier gaze settled and lingered upon her petite form, cowering behind the door, hoping that she'd not be discovered.
"Did you do this?" asked Brennan, his voice curt and angered as he swiveled his direction to look towards the open doorway, to Tonks. "Did Remus set you up to do this, Dora?"
"No, Ollie, of course, not," came Tonks's voice, perhaps for the first time since knowing the young witch close to her age, Norah thought the Auror and pink-haired witch sounded unnerved. Even scared.
"Then what the bloody hell is this?!" bellowed her new partner's voice, his hoarse voice full of such anger and intensity and fury, that Norah was taken completely off-guard.
She couldn't help but flinch. Even under Greyback's thumb, all the Death Eaters' names she'd come to be acquainted with, she'd never heard anyone sound quite like Brennan did now.
Simply put, the man sounded utterly terrifying.
Just as Norah thought Brennan would start shouting again, she heard his footsteps come closer.
Norah squeezed her eyes tightly shut and prayed Ollie wouldn't discover her hiding behind his bedroom door, that he would leave with Tonks and grant her a much-needed opening to escape and forget that this had ever happened.
"Tonks, leave," came Ollie's voice, hearing the man sigh dejectedly as Norah's wolfish hearing perked up at the sound of Tonks's footsteps fading and going back down the creaky stairs. "Please," he added in a somewhat softer, almost gentler tone that made Norah shiver, but not with fear.
How quickly the man's countenance could shift from a wave of terrifying anger to such a gentle tenderness, the likes of which Norah had never been fortunate enough to experience for herself. She'd dreamed of meeting a handsome enough man like Brennan one day.
If only he were nicer, she thought sadly.
Norah felt her heart sink to the pit of her swooping stomach. Now it was just her and him alone in the bedroom together.
The thought made her nauseous, and the young blonde swore she could feel her face paling before turning an interesting shade of green, and she tasted bile as it rose to the back of her throat.
She'd seen the way the man had been eyeballing her during dinner when he thought she wasn't looking.
Norah could not help but wonder what her partner was thinking as he turned almost slowly and methodically to stare at the Muggle-painted oil painting of Jack Brennan's likeness.
Did he feel any kind of remorse or sadness at all at his father's passing?
Probably not, Norah thought darkly to herself. The young blonde wolf silently prayed that he would leave the room.
That he'd go away soon, and she could go to her humble bedroom just down the hall that Molly and Tonks made for her.
Which now seemed like the safest place in the whole world.
Free to escape this hellish nightmare she'd made of her life. Norah drew in a breath and held it, waiting with bated breath for the man to turn on the heels of his boots and leave.
As she waited, however, Norah's thoughts inexplicably wandered back to the sigh she had heard the man give off just now. He'd sounded utterly exhausted.
She might even go so far as to call the man depressed. She wondered if she could help him—
"Jameson. Did you really think I didn't know?!"
Oh, damn. Norah felt her breaths catch in her throat as they stopped and died in her lungs. The werewolf swore her heart stopped beating and pumping blood to her veins too.
What followed next was positively the longest pause in Norah's life. She could hear her own frantic breaths and racing heart as it pounded relentlessly against her chest.
For a moment, Jameson wondered whether she had possibly imagined the man speaking.
"Did you really think I didn't hear you, wolf?" murmured Ollie Brennan, his rough voice sounding dangerously quiet, calm.
Norah wracked her brain as she tried to think her way out of this mess, an ability she normally prided herself on, as she was quite good at it.
But perhaps for the first time in her adult life, Jameson found herself at a loss for what to do, much less how to respond.
Norah could not even form an adequate enough reply. It felt as though she'd lost the ability to speak, for when her lips parted open to try to speak, all that came out was a strangled attempt at speech.
She debated whether or not she was having a panic attack or a heart attack. Both seemed plausible, given her paralyzed state.
This could not bloody be happening…
Oh, but it was, and Norah very nearly screamed in surprise and fear when his voice, accusing, rent the silent air between them.
"Did you honestly think I didn't hear you, Jameson? I'm a Legilimens, Jameson, I can read your thoughts whether I like it or not. Did you think you could just hide there and get away with this? Get out here right now," he snarled, the edges of his voice hardened.
As Brennan's voice rose and became rougher, grating, with anger as his temper rapidly swelled to the surface, Norah suddenly felt a rush of cold wind hit her face as Brennan slammed the door shut, exposing her vulnerable position to him.
Norah felt herself being dragged out into the middle of the room by her arm and made to stand facing him in the middle of the room.
Norah let out a muffled whimper of fear as she felt the hot burn of the lighted tip of the man's wand suddenly being thrust incredibly close to her face, and she had little if no time at all to react, her line of sight now completely obstructed by the blinding white light that was causing her to keep her eyes squeezed shut.
She wished Tonks would have stayed. She could have used a helping hand in getting this man off of her and calmed down.
Feeling the ironclad grip of her new Order partner's hand-wound tightly around her left shoulder, Norah's eyelids slowly fluttered open as the man lowered his wand that he had thrust into her face.
Her vision slowly but surely cleared, letting her see. Ollie Brennan's face was thrust so closely to hers, he was close enough to kiss her if he were of a mind to, and she sincerely hoped he didn't, otherwise, she'd have no choice but to bite him. His short raven-black hair was wild and disheveled, stubble from his close-cropped, rough beard clung to his strong and angular jawline, chin, and upper lip, suggesting he hadn't shaved in a couple of nights, giving him a rugged look.
But even Norah had to admit, despite the hideous, grotesque-looking burn mark that twisted and marred the flesh underneath the bloke's right eye, Brennan still remained a handsome man.
Yet, his eyes captured Norah's attention the most, however. Now that she was up close and personal with the man for the second time in one night, never before had she seen such a piercing crystalline blue before.
They reminded her of stormy seas. A smoldering, fathomless rage seemed to shimmer, lurking just beneath the surface, which, in her mind, spelled danger. A wave of anger and fierceness so breaching, it felt like waves crashing against volatile cliffsides in retaliation. These were the eyes of a man who yielded to no one but himself, Norah knew.
A person assertive and strong-willed, and it frightened her. Once again, Norah Jameson found herself face-to-face and locking her gaze with for the second time tonight, at a loss.
Unbeknownst to the two of them, just outside the bedroom door, Moody and Tonks were watching the pair of them, interested, and waiting to see how the situation unfolded.
Well, more specifically put, Mad-Eye's swiveling magical eye remained fixated on the door, able to see through it, and he was whispering in hushed tones to his protégé what happened.
Tonks and Moody stood just outside the closed bedroom door of her best friend, both of them wishing they had a pair of Extendable Ears to hear what Norah Jameson was saying in a faint voice in response to Ollie's loud, hoarse shouting.
After a moment, Tonks motioned to turn away by clapping her hand on the grizzled old Auror's shoulder, motioning for Alastor Moody to hobble his way down the stairs and to follow her outside, where Remus was waiting for her.
There was a crooked smile on her face. "Huh," she muttered, her thoughts lingering on Ollie's new partner as she and Moody slowly made their way down the stairwell and out into the cold night air to Disapparate to their respective homes. "Interesting. Looks like Jameson might be just what he needs."
Tonks, you sly witch, you! Coming up in 15, is one of my favorites, as Norah deals with Ollie's bad mood (yet again) and attempts to talk him down from his...current state.