CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Her husband's letters to her came in short bursts. Tonks was sure Remus was writing to her every day when he could, but could only manage to send half of them, the ones he thought were better posed, listing why he had to leave her.

Tonks knew this because he had said as much in her last letter to her, and he had been gone now for almost two months. Tonks heaved a heavy sigh and stared at the windowpane as she lounged in her favorite armchair, the one she would nestle up with a blanket, a pillow, and a good book, and had done just that, but could not manage to focus her attention on her copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

'The Warlock's Hairy Heart' in particular was tugging at her heartstrings, thinking that how the story was quite similar to her and Remus's love. How Remus had foolishly believed he would never find himself capable of falling in love with a young witch one day, and he used his condition as a means of pushing people (particularly her) away and keeping her at arm's length.

His friends and family, though disappointed that he viewed himself in this light, and yet still hoping in time, Lupin would change, as a result, said and did nothing.

And then, she had quite literally tripped into his life, he had caught her fall in the hallway of Number 12, Grimmauld Place during her first night in the Order when she'd tripped over that stupid troll leg umbrella stand, and everything had changed.

He met his wife that day, though considering his leaving her while she was pregnant and still adjusting to life as a She-Wolf, was perhaps the lowest thing Remus could have ever done to her. Tonks knew this of Remus.

Much like the story Tonks had been fixated on in her copy of the book now resting open on her lap, she felt as though Lupin himself had been the one to plunge a dagger into her chest and ripped her heart out from within her, taking her heart with him when she left, but she could not fathom existence without him.

He—he was going to be a father, for Merlin's sake! He had a new reason to fight and live for, and he wanted to go off after Greyback by himself?! It was unfathomable, why he had left her, and Tonks failed to understand why he had.

Tonks sighed in exasperation as she looked at the water droplets of the rain outside beginning to form like spots of glass against the water. Nearly two months, going on three, since he had left her that night following her firing from her job, trying to hide her tears as she stood out on their porch after Molly had left, the woods behind the edge of her house a sign of so many things to her, but no longer a future with her husband.

He had chosen his path. To leave her. Tonks had perhaps naively believed that once Lupin had left her to go after Fenrir Greyback on his own, that she could put her husband behind her. To close that chapter of her life and not look back, just as he had done with her when he had so coldly abandoned her and the baby growing within her.

Tonks flipped one of the pages of her book absentmindedly and pulled out the very first letter Remus had ever sent her, folded in two, and being used as a bookmark. His words had been composed with the finest of quill points, so clean and precise, she almost swore it could have been print. Tonks smiled slightly as she traced the ink on the piece of parchment paper with the pad of her index finger.

Of course, she couldn't stare at the words too long for fear her tears would ruin the parchment.

Dora, how can I make you understand this is what's best…You must let me help you, darling, help us, and I can do this by taking on Greyback alone. I won't have you or our baby's lives in danger anymore, sweetheart. Please say something…anything, Dora…Talk to me, Tonks. Please.

Eloquent and polite, as the professor Tonks knew her husband to be, trying to make Tonks understand what he had told her the night he had left her, that it was for the best, in order to protect her life and that of their unborn child's. Tonks stared at the words on the letter blankly before folding it back into two and setting it back its place and slammed her copy of her book tightly shut.

A true Gryffindor through and through, Remus wanted to think of himself as his wife's hero by leaving them, but he wasn't. He was a blind, bloody coward.

He was no hero. Peering outside the window, Tonks saw a flash of black dart by the wooden fence that outlined their home, and she frowned, her brows furrowed. Our home, she thought. Now, it no longer felt like home with him gone.

Strange… and yet, Tonks remained, hoping that soon, he would return.

That monster…who could ever love a man like that?

Tonks flinched as her own mother's words pierced her longing, yearning thoughts, and she startled, like a cold bucket of water had been thrown on top of her head, causing her to sit upright in her armchair, wide-eyed and unblinking as she stared into the fire. Andromeda Tonks had spat those words as if they were poison that had settled and lingered upon her tongue, shortly after Tonks had dropped the ball that Remus had left her alone while pregnant, and had been dismissive of Remus and his actions.

She jumped in her chair as the doorbell rang, echoing loudly. Much to Tonks's annoyance. She groaned and rolled her eyes.

"For Merlin's sake!" she exploded hoarsely, uncrossing her legs, and slamming her copy of her book down on the small wooden night table next to her armchair, rising from her seat and walking numbly towards the front door of their cottage.

The others, Molly and Arthur, and even her best friend, Ollie Brennan, a man older than her by a few years but she had met him during Auror Training when the Borgin and Burkes co-owner had given a presentation once to the recruits identifying the signs of Cursed objects with Dark Magic and what to look for, and the two of them had hit it off during a lunch break and became friends, had warned her while Remus was gone not to open the door for anyone else.

"Who is it?" she growled flatly, only serving whoever was behind the other side of her front door thinly veiled curiosity, not in the mood for visitors.

Her best friend Ollie's voice, sounding deep and thick and curtly annoyed with her, came from the other side of the door.

"Are you really gonna make me say it, Tonks?"

Tonks felt her almond-shaped gray eyes widen in shock and surprise. She'd hardly spoken to Ollie since Remus had left two months ago, and she had expected to hear her best mate hammering on the Merlin-damned door every couple of days, wanting to check on her and see how she was faring without him, just as he had done before his departure, but he had barely stopped by at all.

Before he left…it felt like an eternity. In her melancholy surrounding Remus's abandonment of her, Tonks had almost forgotten Ollie even existed, honestly, and had since coming to the assumption he had moved on with his life.

The last time he had stopped by her cottage to chat over a cup of hot Earl Grey tea, Tonks had been surprised to learn he was now pursuing Norah Jameson, who she had not heard a word from for the last two weeks since Molly Weasley had stopped by and announced that Norah's husband and son were murdered by Fenrir Greyback.

A pang of pity and sympathy wracked her entire body, and it sent a chill down Tonks's spine as she wondered whether or not Remus would survive alone. She had initially disapproved of this news, thinking it was way too soon for Ollie to be going after Norah, considering she'd just lost her husband and son, but he had not seemed interested in hearing it, so Tonks was forced to let it drop.

"What do you want, Ol?" Tonks asked, attempting to sound nonplussed but she knew she was ultimately coming across as apprehensive and reluctant to let him in her house, though Tonks found herself opening the door, nonetheless.

Tonks lifted her chin slightly and forced herself to look into Ollie's bright blue eyes, sickeningly Prince Charming blue, and was surprised to see him flinch away in antagonized hurt at how harsh and unwelcoming his friend's voice was.

"I was just passing by," Ollie started, somewhat awkwardly as he fidgeted with a loose string that was coming undone on his black woolen robes, which was awkward considering her friend, on a good day, was smooth as silk with that languid tongue of his, "and I…er…well, I—I saw you through the window, T, and heard you. I—I promise I wasn't bloody spying on you or anything like that, but it looked like you were crying and miserable, so I wanted to come to check on you."

Tonks felt a light pink blush speckling along her cheeks as she lifted her eyebrows, for a moment at a total loss for how she was supposed to react to this.

"Um, th—that's kind of you, Ollie," she murmured, giving her friend, the former Slytherin, a quick once-over and noticed how exceptionally nervous he looked, twisting his fingers together and weaving them in between his knuckles.

His short thick tuft of black hair was wild and in a state of disarray, clumps sticking up this way and that, and the dark circles underneath his eyes were purple and prominent, clinging to the skin underneath his lids. He'd not slept.

She knew he'd been looking for Norah for the better part of a week since her husband and son's deaths. Ollie wouldn't come out and admit it to Tonks, but she was able to put the pieces together to sense the two had a history together.

Tonks swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat and continued. "But ah," she continued as she grimaced, squeezing her eyes shut at how horribly, painfully awkward this all was, "I'm all right, Ol. Any sign of Norah?"

Tonks knew just by looking at him, the way he flinched and the hurt expression on his face, the brimming, unshed moisture in his eyes, he hadn't.

"No," he said hoarsely, and a muscle in his jaw and behind his eye twitched. Desiring to turn the conversation in a different direction away from the young blonde werewolf and his friend, and something of a not-so-secret crush, he coughed once to clear his throat and continued. "I know you've not been yourself, T, since…he left," he murmured, his own blush deepening at the truly awkward turn their one-sided conversation had taken. "I know you don't want to speak to me of what's bothering you, but please know I know what Remus is."

Tonks had been about to turn on her heel and slam the door in Ollie's face, knowing her friend would forgive her for her abrupt rudeness, but then her friend exclaimed for her to wait, a pleading look in his shining bright blue eyes.

Ollie must have somehow sensed he had gotten Tonks's attention. "Your husband has always been selfish, T, whether you want to hear this or not. He threw you away, Tonks, just as she threw me away," he growled, that muscle in his jaw twitching and becoming more prominent as his blue eyes clouded over.

No doubt he was thinking of Norah.

"You got too close, created too strong a bond for him to handle, just as Norah and I had once," he snarled, no semblance of warmth in his tones anymore. "He severed it, and she did too. These werewolves are not like normal humans and as a consequence, they think themselves unclean, unworthy of our love, and they keep themselves at a distance. It's in their blood, Tonks, it's what Remus and Norah. Cold-blooded creatures. Tonks, you might not want to talk to me about what happened the night that he left you, but if you ever feel like it, just know that you can be honest with me. I know what Remus is, what Norah is, just as you do. You're not stupid," Ollie growled, fixing Tonks with a pointed stare, and the bitterness seeping into his tones was unmistakable. Tonks merely gaped. "Don't feel ashamed to have been tricked by them, T. They are, after all, werewolves."

Tonks blinked owlishly at the poisonous words laced to the brim with bitterness that seeped out of her best mate's mouth, unable to believe what she was hearing, thinking it had to stem from the bitterness of sevral years of his crush Norah rejecting his advances when they had attended Hogwarts together and as she closed the door in Ollie's face without so much as a goodbye to him, Tonks rested her back against the doorway, hearing Ollie's heavy footsteps step down off the front of her and Remus's front porch, and with the loud, deafening crack! of the familiar sound of her friend Disappearing off her property, once more leaving her cottage alone in the heavy, desolate silence.

The world around her turned into a blur, and so did all the sounds. The taste. The smell. Everything for Norah was just…gone. She paused, trying to hold back the strange feelings rumbling inside her, but she just could not contain it.

A lone tear traced down her cheek and just like that, the floodgates opened as she had Disapparated to the roof of the Ministry of Magic itself, this hellish place. So many tears burst forth like water from a dam, spilling down her face.

Norah had always been so self-conscious when she cried, but up here on the roof of the Ministry, she allowed herself to give way to the enormity of her grief. She sobbed into her hands and the wretched, salty liquid dripped between her fingers, raining down onto her black t-shirt and blue jeans. They were dead.

The young blonde werewolf cried until no more tears came, but still, the emptiness and sorrow remained. Dusk fell. On the first light of the day, her still crouched figure remained unmoved, her knees wrapped up close to her chest.

There was nothing left, nobody left, no reason for her to move at all, really. And what was even worse, the article in The Daily Prophet had not mentioned her, yet another final blow dealt to her by the corrupt Aurors that sided with the Dark Lord. She wondered how many Galleons it had taken to bribe the editors of The Daily Prophet not to disclose the full truth that she was alive.

Her sweet Jax, and her Wes, taken from her. Norah sank to her knees, not caring about the grit that dug into her knees. Norah was noisy, her skin blotched, but there was no one there to witness it, let alone to comfort her over her loss.

If she were of a mind to, she could run a mile, Disapparate in any direction, and not find another soul that gave a damn about her in downtown London. Except… she thought through gritted teeth, squeezing her eyes shut.

Ollie. Just the mention of the young co-manager of Borgin and Burkes was enough to plaster as a quiet vibration underneath her skin and she shivered. No.

Norah forced her reeling mind to grind to a fucking halt. She would not think of him. She—she could not.

She had said goodbye to Ollie Brennan his last day of Hogwarts before he had gotten expelled in his seventh year, shortly before his graduation for an accident involving herself and another student who was tormenting Wes at the time, and the fault had been Norah's, how she had gone after the boy in question at the time, though Ollie had stepped in and taken the blame for what had happened, and as a consequence of covering for her, he had promptly been expelled.

Norah gritted her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut, as visions of the handsome man's face flitting through her tormented, fragile mind.

The day Brennan had covered for her and had been expelled, Norah had forced that chapter of her life to come to an end, and she had married Wes instead, not only because she genuinely loved Wes and did care for him, but he had been like her. Also, a Wolf, and she was not about to impose that on Brennan.

No. She wouldn't, and she could never. Even as Norah swore to leave Ollie back at Hogwarts, in the past, having to pass by Borgin and Burkes every day on her way to Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlor, where she would consider herself lucky the man didn't fire her in the next two days, given how she'd run off like that, she had to look into the shop window and see his face, it hurt her.

He was her window to the past, a past she would now sooner rather than later forget, and Norah heard herself sigh in an unrestrained fashion. It didn't matter now, anyway. Ollie would never accept her for what she was. A She-Wolf.

Norah had seen the way Ollie had looked at her in Fortescue's shop. It was in those brilliant blue eyes. A cold, heavy distrust hiding his pain at her rejection. Wouldn't take her back, not even as a friend. He'd be a fool to. No. Norah shook her head, unable to believe she was even entertaining the idea of seeking out her friend to help her take down Greyback. She was going to fucking kill him.

The need for revenge was like a rat gnawing at Norah's heartbroken soul, relentless, unceasing, it could only be stopped by the cold steel of a rat trap, a trap Norah would devise herself. Her need for revenge against Fenrir Greyback was like an abscess on the skin of the soul that could only be cured by the cruel sharp steel point of revenge.

Festering like a septic wound, and the only effective antibiotic was cold hard revenge. Savage. Spiteful. A dish best served cold. Unforgiving. She would bear a grudge until she died or took revenge, whichever came first. Settling old scores. Brutal. Callous. Satisfying. Empty. Pointless. Excessive. Mean spirited. It appealed to her twisted and dark sense of humor.

Norah ground her teeth, balling her shaking hands into fists, and let out a hiss as she felt a single tear trickle its way down her cheek, stifling a loud scream.

Seven hells, but the man wouldn't even want to be her friend after the shit he had endured for her prior to his expulsion at school, and Norah could not give the man what he had wanted in return. Norah knew she was in an endless loop of pain when she had woken up this morning and realized she was truly dead.

Dead and buried, forgotten by those who were dear and close to her, but alive and kicking to strangers, people who didn't give a damn about her life.

She knew she would forever be in pain when she would wake up in the morning with a jolt, to an emotionless face of someone who would tell her nothing but to go out and kill, as Greyback had once, to take another person's life, to let the She-Wolf within her out, or hers would be taken in more painful ways than she could ever imagine.

Norah scoffed, and angrily flicked away the last of her tears with a well-practiced flick of her finger, thinking tears were no stranger to her in her now otherwise hellish life.

It had been two weeks since she had gotten the news of her husband and son's deaths, and she felt so drained. Hopeless. Heartless.

Norah startled, feeling her blue eyes go wide and round with shock, letting out a half-choked sob of anguish and drew in a hitched breath, a relatively poor attempt to calm herself, wondering how she was alive.

Could you lose your humanity in a single moment? Or could she get it back in an instant? Was humanity something that could leave a person forever? Norah knew that as a werewolf, she herself was hardly human, and therefore one to talk over mediating over this particular topic. Did she still even have any humanity left? Did she still even have a soul?

She had been human once before Greyback had Turned her into a being like him. Maybe she had blocked out all of her humanity the day she became a fully-fledged werewolf so she could taste the only thing she now craved against Greyback: sweet revenge.

If she had ever been human after Turning into a She-Wolf, Norah knew she had lost the right to be called that by title. A human stopped being human when a human loses its humanity, and it had taken Norah Jameson, widow to Wes Bryce Jameson, and mother of her deceased son, Jax Jameson, exactly five minutes a few weeks ago following learning the deaths of her husband and son.

A loud, startling crack! materialized on top of the roof behind her, eliciting a startled shriek from Norah, who immediately shoved her white-boned knuckles into her mouth and biting down hard to keep from screaming again.

Norah stifled a groan as she slowly opened her tired eyes, seeing the visions, tear-filled though they were, clear from a slow blur and she sighed again.

"Ollie," she murmured lowly under her breath, not even having to look behind her to feel the tall man's presence as the man stood towering over her.

"Norah," Ollie growled by way of response, sounding thoroughly put off, though Norah could detect the faintest hint of concern laced through his tones. "I've been looking for you. When you didn't show to work today, I thought, maybe, Mr. Fortescue might have…" His voice cracked and he trailed off, swallowing hard past a lump in his throat, and his next words seem to come to him with great difficulty. "I—I'm so sorry to hear about Wes and Jax, Norah."

No, you're not, Norah thought venomously, her molars grinding angrily.

It had been there for a while now, this anger, escaping when she was away from those she loved, but in this case, those she loved had been ripped from her.

Her knuckles were white from clenching her fists too hard and gritted teeth from the effort to remain silent, her curled-in form exuding an animosity that was like a lethal poison—burning, slicing, and potent. Her face was white with suppressed rage, and when Ollie even knelt to set a finger on her shoulder, she swung around, bolted to her feet, and mentally snapped, finally losing it.

When Norah turned and their eyes met, the coals on her light blue eyes were added with fuel spurned on by her friend's unwanted arrival on the rooftop.

She bared her slightly sharpened incisors and growled.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" Norah screamed, and in three rapid steps, without even feeling the need to draw her wand from her back jeans pocket, Ollie Brennan felt the outraged palm that cracked against his face as the blonde wolf backhanded him.

Ollie promptly backed away from Norah, but firmly planted his feet on the ground and did not falter. His jaw stung from where she had hit him and his left eye retracted in blinding pain, filling the rims of his eyes with stinging, hurt tears.

Her sharp, dark purple painted nails had scratched at the surface of his lips and he swore he tasted blood as he sharply turned his head to the side and spat out a mouthful of blood. It hurt like hell. Ollie felt his eyes fling wide open in shock and anger at what Norah had done. In all the years of their friendship, she had never once laid a hand against him like this in violence, not even during that Time of the month when she would transform into the She-Wolf he knew her as.

Norah did not flinch or shirk away, not even as Ollie's temper surged within his chest, sending a spiraling warmth throughout his entire system, coursing through his bloodstream, igniting it and boiling it hotter than dragon fire, and Norah awaited his open and furious fist, for Ollie to retaliate against her.

Though something brimming with Norah Jameson's bright, sky-blue eyes stopped him, and he froze, his father's inherited temper getting the better of him. His trembling hand remained frozen in mid-air as Ollie looked down his nose at the young blonde werewolf who was only two years older than he was.

Ollie felt his pale face become twisted and tarnished with rancor, but he felt the worst of his anger begin to slowly dissipate at the sight of Norah's hollowed gaze. He could feel the thrumming of his heartbeats against his chest.

Norah's cracked and very-nearly bleeding lips were parted, and her eyes glistening with unshed tears that refused to come, and Ollie knew her tears were spent mourning the loss of her husband and her son, and she pierced his own eyes without even knowing the effect that she had on him. None at all, damn it.

Ollie saw not Norah staring back at him, but another sight below. He had seen the same blank stare adhered to his mother and then on Tonks earlier today when he had stopped by her and Lupin's cottage to check on his other best friend.

Remus's absence had affected Tonks more than she cared to admit, and the dull, almost sedated face absolutely trashed with a thousand minutes of physiological and physical agony at her husband's absence was wrought on her face, so much so that Ollie could not stand it.

Her devastated gray eyes awaiting death like it was a much better option than to stay cooped up in her cottage, not knowing if her husband would return to her, and now, he saw the exact same look in Norah Jameson's eyes, and Ollie was quick to decide he did not like it.

He withdrew his hand and promptly lowered it, feeling the beads of sweat beginning on his browbone, and trickling down his temples. "Come on," he murmured, outstretching his hand for him to take. He heard Norah let out a hiss.

Ollie sighed in frustration, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "Nor, I promise. I don't…want anything from you, Norah. Swear."

"Don't touch me, Ollie," Norah growled as she swatted his hand away and clutched at her middle, shivering in the cold night air. "Just go away," she spoke in an angry, shaking voice as she blinked back a fresh onset of briny, salty tears. "I'm done with this. You win, all right? You want me, you—you've got me, Ol, but I certainly don't need you acting like you're my—my knight in shining armor here because you're not. We're both adults. My husband is dead, and so is my son and I…." Her voice cracked and dipped as her resolve faltered. "I—I don't want to be alone," she whispered hoarsely, a light pink blush spreading on her cheeks as she ducked her head, not wanting Brennan to see her in such a state.

Ollie had never his old friend look so entirely defeated and devastated as she did right now, and however angry Norah might be with him now, he was not about to leave his friend alone on this rooftop to freeze and starve herself to death, or worse, just allow herself to slip right off the ledge and plummet to the street below, where a Muggle car would hit her and claim her life and end this.

"Norah, please," he begged, hating hearing the hint of rancor and annoyance in his tones, though he swallowed hard past the lump in his throat and continued. "I—I honestly don't want anything from you, Jameson. I—I was worried about you, that's why I came looking for you. Come home with me, Nor."

Ollie cringed as the words tumbled unchecked from his lips, knowing immediately how they sounded, and he was right. Norah's head whiplashed sharply upwards as her face reddened in anger as she processed his words to her.

Damn, he thought, squeezing his eyes tightly shut, already imagining her lips parting slightly open to speak, and this would usually be the part where she'd start cussing him out, throwing in a good German insult or two, call him a Trottel or even worse, a verdammter Idiot (though admittedly, his personal favorite, as Norah had an adorable way of scrunching up her nose whenever she was angry with him.)

But it didn't come. Norah remained silent, and Ollie's eyes flung wide open, and he almost wished he hadn't, as the young blonde witch and werewolf was looking up at him with narrowed eyes, a look of skepticism on her pale face.

"I—I can't let you stay out here by yourself," Ollie told her with a frown. He knew his one-sided infatuation with Norah wasn't usually compromised of any other emotions beyond rage at her constantly rejecting him, and lust for her.

He desired her, yes, but more than that, he loved her. Truly, and he didn't give a damn what society would think about the two of them. Though he was not about to take advantage of Jameson in her emotionally compromised state now.

He could not do that to her, however easy it might be to take her home, seduce her and bed her, and claim her for himself, but he did not want her that way.

"Come back with me. I don't trust you to be on your own right now, Jameson. Look. I understand. I—I know that you're beyond pissed at what Greyback's done. I—I am too. I know you want revenge on him, but this is not the way, Nor. You don't' have a place to stay. Stay with me, Norah. Please. Just let me…bring you home and we'll decide what to do. We'll go after him together. I promise, but you have to come back with me," he said, holding out his hand.

Ollie flinched, thinking a pause in her responding was nothing he could have ever hoped for, but he simply could not bear to leave his old friend alone out here on this wretched rooftop by herself.

Who knew what she would do to herself in her grief?! He shook his head to clear it, not wanting to think of it.

As much as he told himself that he was a terrible person, he knew it wasn't true. He would always care about Norah, whether or not she reciprocated his feelings in time or not, even if she didn't believe they should be in a relationship, he did not want Jameson facing any kind of danger or pain, because of Greyback.

The thought of her going after the werewolf alone, Disapparating and probably crying while trying to do it, and as a result, not thinking clearly in her mind of where she wanted to go, would throw her off her destination completely and more than likely cause the poor young blonde to Splinch herself, was enough to send poor Ollie into a full-fledged panic attack. He winced, waiting for her.

No way, he thought through gritted teeth. I'm going to look after you.

"Okay," Norah finally agreed, her voice barely above a whisper, and she, with some trepidation and nervous apprehension took her hand in his and gave it a light squeeze, though she did not seem to entirely trust him just yet.

He could live with that. Ollie slowly nodded to himself. He had honestly been expecting Norah to try to hit him again or tell him to go fuck himself, but he was relieved she was, at last, accepting his support and taking him up on the offer to come and live with him, even though he'd hoped it was under different circumstances, and—

No! Ollie gave his head a curt nod to clear his mind. Later…

Norah gave a light little shrug and tightened her grip on his arm, drawing in a sharp breath that pained her lungs as Ollie met her gaze, a solemn look in his eyes. Though he ordinarily, at least while Wes had been in the picture, was careful enough to keep his distance, he could not bring himself to leave her alone.

She was his drug, intoxicating, euphoric, and he could not get enough of it. Of her.

And like it or not, Norah needed someone to be with her while she allowed herself time to grieve over the deaths of her husband and son, and as far as she could tell, she had no one else in her life that could give her what she needed.

Except for him.

As he turned on the heel of his boot and Disapparated with Norah clutching onto his arm as they headed for his house, Ollie could only pray he wasn't making the biggest bloody mistake of his life by doing this for her.