A/N: So I know I left poor Nollie (I really can't think of a ship name for these two, but they're really growing on me) hanging, but this chapter is an Ollie POV (Merlin bless this man, he really is a character who has grown on me) and it kind of back-tracks a tiny bit to the point where he got on the roof, so we can see what the heck Ollie got up to.

It has me super tempted to write my own Ollie spin-off after I'm done, though not sure if I would post it yet because he's a minor character so far, a huge part of Tonks and Remus's life and I think it might be fun to kind of explore those parts of his life that I kind of merely alluded to. Who knows if I'll write it yet. Maybe one day!

Anyway, rant aside, I hope you enjoy it!

On with the show!


1O1

Bloody chaos ensued when the barrier west of the castle was destroyed by what remained of Lord Voldemort's faithful followers, and Death Eaters swarmed the grounds of Hogwarts, murdering students and staff alike left and right, spilling blood in the name of the Dark Lord himself.

As the lush green grass beneath their feet turned garish, sticky red, and Hogwarts drowned in the screams of the dead and the dying alike, the castle was reluctantly forced to welcome plunder, though the staff, namely, Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Flitwick, and Sprout, did what they could to prevent the siege.

The Death Eaters raved their path as they advanced without giving a chance for the Hogwarts Professors to recuperate, much less prepare themselves for such a fight.

The ambush that took place was a glorious slaughter bathed in blood, and by the end of it, the tip of Ollie Brennan's wand was coated in the stuff, he spent his fury at not knowing if his friends and family were still alive—if Norah was still alive, if she was even here at Hogwarts, fighting amongst the rest of the Professors—in a sea of men, all bearing Crouch's face.

It did not matter that his methods for ending their lives were violent and vicious, the last remnants of the Obscurus that clung to him, he guessed. But Ollie did not care. He welcomed it. Wanted them to suffer.

Ollie severed through the flesh and bones of Voldemort's followers, much like a deranged and starving dog would have torn through lambs. The former Slytherin and best friend to Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin warred his way down the Grand Staircase, firing jinxes left and right ungracefully, though they hit his targets. Rookwood, then Rosier.

His pale skin was flushing with both terror and excitement as his black leather boot crashed open the door to the dungeons, the last place he had seen Norah all those months ago, with the strength of ten wizards.

He roared her name, hoping that somehow, even if she were just a phantom, that the young blonde werewolf would be here.

"NORAH!"

The dungeons near the Slytherin Common Room were empty, and Ollie slowly felt his rapid breaths die down. The dungeons of Hogwarts were cold and shadowy, the only source of light coming from the torches in their sconces at each intersection of the passageways. Ollie had not been down here since the night Norah left.

It was truly the ugliest side to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, of that there was no denying it. As Ollie breathed, a fume escaped between his lips, and he was not sure what he was doing down here, when the battle still waged war on the courtyard outside, though, from the victorious shouts of the various Hogwarts Professors, it sounded as though, from the inner thoughts screaming inside his mind, that Harry Potter had just defeated Lord Voldemort, for the final time.

He was dead. Lord Voldemort was…dead. Ollie knew that he should have been upstairs in what was left of the Great Hall, rejoicing with the others.

But Ollie could not manage to pretend to care. He didn't give a damn.

His footfalls were careful, quiet as a mouse, and he tightened the hood of his black robes that shrouded his head and veiled his tall but lean body from view.

Its hem scraped against the rough, cobblestoned floor. He bolted towards Snape's classroom, the cause of his fury, why Norah had left.

It was where she had been held, that pink-wearing old hag, that witch, the vicious short, stout little old bitch.

Wrenching the door open to Professor Snape's classroom, he was dismayed to find that Norah was not here.

Ollie felt the rage rekindle in his bloodstream at Norah's absence, at not knowing if Jameson was safe.

There were days he filled with chaos and noise to keep her ghost at bay. There were days Ollie spoke to Norah, fearful to lose her all over again.

To feel her presence, to swear he could hear her thoughts, and only to see an empty room, to reach out his hand and feel only the cold air, shatters his already fractured heart all over again.

Yet, stay, please. Stay.

Ollie, these days, had taken to retreating to the chaos because his feelings for the young She-Wolf were so strong, it had started to break him in ways that were difficult to mend, ways that he felt sure Tonks and Lupin simply would not understand, so he could not burden them of it.

So, here he stood, between chaos and a fondness for the woman, both of them hurting, both of them helping. The difference was, Ollie thought he could be happy with just Norah's presence by his side, whole and well. And yet, the chaos alone would kill him.

Ollie's gaze wandered the length of Professor Snape's empty Potions classroom, his eyes narrowing.

His rage held all the power of a wildfire, if you were to stumble across Ollie Brennan at this particular point in time, you could practically see the flames roaring in his cerulean, narrowed blue eyes, ready to ignite anything he came into contact with.

Ollie clenched his teeth, his jaw locking in anger, fists curling and un-curling at his sides.

He made short work of his old Head of House's office, thrashing Severus's desk, overturning the tables and chairs, wrenching open the drawers of the man's desk, looking for some clue, some whisper of any sign of Norah's whereabouts.

His rage spent after several minutes of trashing Snape's office, forcing himself to repress the taut of worry, Ollie slumped against the cold cobblestoned wall of the classroom.

The last space she had been.

The last night he had touched her, his hand on her right shoulder. Slowly, gently, he traced the outlines of the lines on his inner palm, not caring that they were stained with the fresh blood of several Death Eaters.

Ollie sat slumped on the floor of the Potions classroom, amidst the ruins, the wreckage he had made of Snape's office, not caring if the man himself were to walk in and see the mess.

He was no longer a student here at Hogwarts and considering the mess the rest of the castle found itself in at the moment, he figured Snape had much bigger problems to deal with.

The raven-haired blue-eyed former Slytherin remained unstirred on the floor of Severus Snape's classroom, contemplating where Norah was.

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, trying to shut out all of the voices, to see if he could listen to any thoughts that belonged to her.

Just her… Ollie hoped that if he were to see her again, if she were, by some miracle of Merlin, to show up on Hogwarts Grounds tonight, to imagine her agony at not knowing if Ollie was alive, revel in the shock within those electric, bewitching blue eyes of hers once Norah sees him alive and well.

His fingers curled into a tight fist over the handle of his wand as his ears practically perked up at the sound of boot heels against cobblestones.

He perceived a new ghostly, timorous presence somewhere in the dungeons with him, and it made poor Ollie's hackles rise in defense. Though he did not move.

The whispers and cries of the students' thoughts as the Legilimens was unable to shut them out filled his ears.

As such, it sent him back in a temporary haze, and Ollie sanguinely lifted his head to see none other than his old Head of House in the doorway, his already pale face turning white as if Snape had seen a ghost.

Oh, but he was seeing one. Ollie glowered, noticing Snape's thin lips part open to speak as he scowled, surveying the mess his former student has made of his office. "Where. Is. She?" Ollie barked; his tone harsh.

Ollie was not able to dip into Professor Snape's mind, which meant the sallow-faced, raven-haired Potions Master was keeping something from him, and he knew of only one matter in this life to conceal from him.

Shakily, Ollie rose to his feet, almost tripping over the hem of his long black robes, having to use the wall behind him as a support brace, his fist tightening over his wand handle, calculating his chances of self-defense or escape as he saw Professor Snape slowly raise his own wand at Ollie.

Though Ollie made no move to attack his former Head of House, merely watching and blinking owlishly at the Head of Slytherin as the man silently waved his wand and righted his office of the mess Ollie had made in his fit of anger towards Norah's disappearance, and at Crouch.

When Severus had finished, he pocketed his wand into an interior pocket of his black, billowing robes and calmly folded his hands across his chest. His black, narrowed eyes shone like glass reflected with wildfire.

Tonight, during the Battle of Hogwarts, this blood-soaked red dawn as the sun rose and spat red and orange and yellow venom, they glimmered much more than Ollie had ever seen in his Head of House.

Severus Snape's face remained infuriatingly impassive and calm, despite the fact that one of his best and brightest former students, in spite of the tragic home life he had escaped from and the hellish torment he had no doubt suffered under the hands of a classmate of Snape's when he had been in school, Barty Crouch Jr., he had, for all his hardships thrived.

Professor Snap felt his breath catch in his throat as he looked at him. Ollie Brennan, at age twenty-six, now donned the face of a bloodthirsty savage, and Snape could not help the blood that curdled within his veins.

Half of the boy's short black hair, disheveled and stuck up in thick tufts every which way, not unlike that of Harry Potter's, was caked with drying blood, and a crimson line of Evan Rosier's blood made his way between Brennan's tensed jaw and his distressed, shining sky-blue eyes.

Severus furrowed his dark brows into a frown at the stench of a bloodbath that his former student emitted, and he snorted in light jest. "Well, well…Brennan…I see that you have enjoyed this even better than I did," he growled, a slight mocking lilt to his voice as he scrunched his nose in disgust at Ollie's haggard and blood-soaked appearance.

Ollie clenched his jaws, tightening the grip on the handle of his wand, thinking that the longer he wasted time in this bloody forsaken dank classroom, there was a chance that Norah was here at Hogwarts.

Alive. He shivered, unable to repress the violent tremor that shot down his spine. Just that thought plastered a quiet vibration underneath his skin.

"What do you want?" Ollie managed to croak out hoarsely.

Severus sniffed, huffing in frustration. "For you to listen to me, Mr. Brennan. Considering the redecorated mess you have just made of my Potions Classroom, Oliver Brennan, I am in something of a vicious mood, and you are lucky that I do not raise my own wand against you for this insolence, boy," Severus Snape snapped, narrowing his blackened eyes even further until they resembled that of a pit viper's slit-like pupils. "And you will listen to me or Merlin help you, you will find that you—"

But Ollie did not give Snape a chance to respond as he let out a low warning growl deep from within the confines of his throat.

He knew Snape knew something about Norah, and Merlin damn him, he was going to talk, or so help him, not even Dumbledore would be able to save him.

He stalked towards his old Potions Professor and Head of House in two swift movements, his black woolen robes billowing behind him as he stormed towards Snape, who was a good at least three heads taller than he was, but Ollie thought, given his status as a former Obscurus, who still fought against that dark feeling repressed deep within, to be much more intimidating.

He reached out a hand and grasped a fistful of the man's black robes, pulling him down to his level and thrusting his pale face pulled tight and taut with rage to Snape's impassive one, utterly seething.

"You—you're hiding her from me! Tell me where Norah is! NOW! The longer you stand there not talking, the shorter I'll make of your bloody fingers, see if I don't!" he screamed angrily. "WHERE IS SHE?"

It was not a question and it was not about to be denied. Ollie was not in a patient mood, and he was not going to tolerate Severus Snape's tricks.

He wanted Norah and this damned bloody shell of a man was going to tell him where she was, if she were here in Hogwarts or not, what he was hiding from him with his Occlumency or Merlin help him, he would—

"Ollie." An aging woman's voice rent the air, clipped, and angered.

Ollie looked up sharply, about near his breaking point, and ready to warn everybody whoever had spoken that he was not about to be kind to anyone who would deter him from finding the young blonde werewolf, when he blinked, discovering that it was Norah's old Head of House, Professor McGonagall, who had spoken, the edges of her voice hardened.

"What?" Ollie barked harshly, his tone dark and his pale blue eyes alight with a smoldering, fathomless rage, making no move to relinquish his ironclad grip on the fistfuls of Professor Snape's robes he had seized.

He was not in a patient mood and McGonagall had better speak fast.

Despite the darkness of Professor Snape's dimly lit classroom that shrouded the three of them, Ollie swore he saw Severus's lips twitch, with his black eyes that resembled that of pity, and he knew he did not like it.

Though, for the moment, Ollie chose to let his gaze remain fixated on Professor McGonagall, who was peering at the broken shell of a young man through her silver spectacles and giving a curt shake of her head no.

Ollie suddenly did not want to see the disappointment ridden in Professor McGonagall's eyes, closing his eyes against her aloof judgment of him that she has surely made upon walking in and witnessing…this.

He prayed to Merlin and anybody else up there who might take pity on him that he would find Norah at last.

Nine months since he had seen her, and there had been much left unsaid between the two of them, he thought. Nine months since Norah had abandoned him. Remus. Tonks.

Taking a deep breath, trying will his temper to quell, he tried again.

"Mr. Brennan. Open your eyes. Look at me, please," McGonagall commanded, a hint of steel laced throughout her slightly warbling, aged tones that told Ollie he had to listen to Norah's old Head of House now.

He almost wished that she had not focused her attention on him, and the same went for Snape.

Since Master Crouch had forced himself to reveal to Tonks that he was still alive that fateful night of that wedding they had crashed, he no longer felt the need to hide behind the hood of his robes or slink in the shadows of darkness like some demonic entity.

But after what McGonagall had just walked in on now, a measure of his old self-consciousness was back, and he wanted nothing more than to turn away from the two Heads of House, Gryffindor, and Slytherin, but he slowly opened his eyes, lifted his chin, and forced himself to look at her.

To his immense surprise, Minerva was regarding him with a serene and yet curious expression, her eyes betraying none of her surprise.

If she was at all shocked by Ollie's rather violent and brash behavior towards his former Head of House, a man that he respected and admired over the years when he had been enrolled at Hogwarts, she hid it quite well, her expression stern and unreadable.

When McGonagall addressed him, she was much too calm for Ollie's liking.

"You will unhand your former Head of House at once, Mr. Brennan. I understand the uncertainty you must feel, but this is not it."

Ollie felt his fingers slacken slightly, though he did not let go of Snape's robes, though he heard Severus exhale in a tense release of frustration.

"I—I need you to—to tell me…please tell me…" Ollie begged, biting his bottom lip and having eyes only for Severus as he swiveled his gaze back around to look deep into those black, soulless pits that were Snape's eyes.

He was fed up with the riddles, his limitations testing him. He swallowed down hard past a growing lump in his throat, parting his lips slightly to speak, though he did not get a chance as a faint chill of wind wafting from outside the corridor and into Snape's classroom caressed him tenderly, its icy tendrils sending a chill down Ollie's spine.

Ollie leaned forward so far that his and Severus's faces almost touched. "Tell me, Snape," he begged, careful to keep his lilting, shaking voice low. He squeezed his eyes shut, already anticipating the very worst.

"Your She-Wolf. Norah Jameson," Snape spat with no small measure of disgust and contempt. "She is here. She's on the roof of the Astronomy Tower, Ollie. She is alive. That should satisfy your insatiable curiosity."

Ollie froze, answered by the paling of Professor Snape's pallid face. He blinked owlishly at Professor Snape, feeling certain he must have misheard him, feeling a hollowing on his throat and a will to scream, but his heart was beating so fast in its cage in his chest it made him tremble.

Ollie felt a muscle in his eye twitch, his feet planted on the floor as he listened to the deep, labored breaths.

It took him a moment to realize that those breaths he was hearing, they were his own, and as if in a daze, as if by the Imperius Curse, he felt his hands relinquish their grip on the front of Professor Snape's robes.

"Wh—when?" Ollie croaked hoarsely, his gaze flitting from McGonagall to Snape, watching in the vehement struggle as Snape brushed his hands on the front of his robes, looking thoroughly cross and angered.

The former Slytherin student turned his back on both Heads of Houses, hellbent on storming up to the Astronomy Tower and getting Norah out of this crumbling castle of carnage when Severus's quiet, reserved voice shattered the thick, uncomfortable silence between them.

"I spoke of your being alive to Miss Jameson via our way and asked whether she would like to see you. Miss Jameson had refused you, Ollie," he murmured, his black eyes narrowing slightly as he dipped into Ollie's mind, reading him.

The pain in his former student's face made Severus frown. He stared at him, absorbing the unspoken grief in his blue eyes.

Severus furrowed his brows in intense concentration. Of course, Ollie Brennan was bothered….of course, the boy was angry, the younger man was tormented by years of abuse at Bartemius Crouch Jr.'s hand, and then learning that wretched little succubus, Tonks, had fallen in love with the werewolf had almost been enough to break his spirit, then, and now, that the new object of his affections had so coldly spurned him, the boy was a riot of emotions burning inside, just waiting to positively explode.

He had so many answers but none on how or why this blonde She-Wolf, Norah Jameson, was taking the last shreds of Ollie's sanity.

"Stop—that!" Ollie growled through gritted teeth, his entire body convulsing, shaking with the effort to restrain himself, to which his insistence received a snort from Professor Snape as he rolled his eyes.

Ollie was sure the sudden crippled emotion was evident on his ashen features much too quickly, seeing how Snape and McGonagall looked at each other.

He ingested Snape's poisonous words like glass being ground by his teeth, and before his own tears could give away his warring emotions, he ducked his head, grinding his teeth in despair and rancor.

"You need not worry, Mr. Brennan," Severus barked harshly. "Your mind is an open book, Oliver, but there aren't many chapters, boy."

The fine hairs on the back of Ollie's neck stood up as he bristled silently at the insult, wondering just how much rudeness he would be forced to endure from his former Head of House and be expected to take it.

Though in the end, Ollie favored silence as the only apt response.

Severus had information on Norah, and he suspected provoking the man's wrath was not about to bring him one step closer to finding her.

Ollie squeezed his eyes shut, and shoved Severus's chest, hard, listening to the sounds of the corpses scraping against the grounds of the castle, to those who were left alive, gathering in the Great Hall to heal and mourn the loss of their dead, loved ones, family, friends…

He felt…cold. A horrible, bitter cold as it settled and nestled within his heart, making itself feel right at home, inspired by the anguish and torment of Norah's disappearance and the sheer iron will of that young werewolf's heart. It was undeniable, the hurt that tormented him.

She—she was here?! And she—she did not want to see him?! But why? Why not?!

"You surely love this girl." Ollie flinched at hearing Professor McGonagall's soft tones, watching as the Transfiguration Professor moved to stand next to the Potions Master and regard him, almost pityingly, and Ollie felt certain that he could take no more of this torment.

"What difference does it make?" His words were sour and bitter, though before Ollie could open his mouth to speak again, a muffled grunt emitted from the back of Severus's throat, causing Ollie to look up at the Potions Professor in alarm with raised dark eyebrows. "What, sir?"

"Shut up and go see her," Severus commanded of his former student. "The girl is on top of the Astronomy Tower, and the only reason she did not wish to see you is that she is gravely injured and she is dying, boy. You are a savage, Mr. Brennan, given what Crouch has done to you, the things he has forced you to do over the years, but you are not an idiot. You are a monster in love, and Merlin spare us all, what a horrid thought, and that is even worse. I would see you do something about it before you destroy yourself, Brennan."

Severus pulled a face, ignoring Ollie's growing look of disbelief, though Ollie swore, though Professor Snape would never admit it, he almost—almost—smiled at his former student.

"Go. See. Her. Save her. And when you do," and it was here that Ollie swore he saw those black eyes soften, just a smidge, "do not even think of crying in front of her. Jameson is tough, just like the female bitch I always knew her to be," he growled, to which Ollie and Minerva both shot him a dark look for the degrading term Professor Snape used to describe Norah's lycanthropy. "She does not need to see another depressing fool. Find her. Save her."

Though Ollie did not know it, Professor Snape as he spoke the words, heard his own voice falter and crack, as did his resolve, as he wished he possessed a Time-Turner, so that he could turn back time and tell his younger self to do whatever it took to save Lily Potter nee Evan's life.

Ollie, much to Severus's chagrin, merely stood frozen, rooted to his spot in front of Severus, still looking up at his old Head of House silently.

He was staring at him again as he had done a few moments ago when Severus had dipped into the younger man's mind.

That look of curiosity.

"Y—you loved her…Lily…" Ollie breathed, low enough so that Professor McGonagall did not hear him, his cobalt blue eyes widening in shock, and now, it was Snape's turn to feel quite flustered in his presence.

Severus's head whiplashed sharply upwards to regard the natural-born Legilimens with no small amount of horror and aghast disgust in his black eyes as he felt them narrow until they were nothing but mere slits.

It was clear, judging by the fear in the younger man's eyes, that Oliver Brennan saw nothing left of Snape but an empty shell, just a monster. And of course, he was right.

"Get. Out," Severus whispered, his voice dangerously low and quiet, feeling moisture in his eyes as he strode towards the flung-open door of his classroom to make to head upstairs.

Headmaster Dumbledore would need as much assistance in clearing the rest of the castle and Grounds of what remained of Lord Voldemort's followers as possible, and he motioned for Minerva to follow him at once. Ollie remained unstirred, still frozen in place by his accidental revelation of Snape's deepest, darkest secret, blue eyes round with shock.

Snape decided that he could not stand it. He wished for nothing more than for Ollie Brennan to remove his presence from his classroom before the boy saw fit to trash it again in a rage and for Ollie not to look at him.

Not as he was at present, a complete and utter wreck at the thought of another aside from Professor Dumbledore discovering the best of him.

"Get out!" Severus roared, looking down at the cobblestoned ground beneath his boots in defeat, and yet causing poor Ollie Brennan to flinch.

The younger man did not need to be told for the third time.

He blinked and shook his head to clear his mind of the stupor, ducking under Severus's arm, fleeing the Potions Classroom as quickly as he could, unable to bloody believe what the hell just happened, but he didn't' give a damn. Norah was alive.

And he was coming to save her. Feeling a surge of hope ignite in his chest, sending a spiraling warmth throughout his entire body, Ollie ran, rejuvenated with a new sense of purpose.

Norah was alive. There was a bloody new reason to fight and live for, after all…

Ollie felt hot tears marring and blurring his vision as he ran as fast as his long legs could possibly carry him, bolting up the Grand Staircase, quickening his pace to an all-out sprint, taking the stairs two at a time.

The pounding noise of his boots resonated off the walls of the deserted upper levels of Hogwarts, with a clanging echo that matched his heart currently throbbing inside of his chest with the thick grief and fear he felt as he ran, wondering what Norah would say when she saw him.

Bloody hell, Merlin's left…what he would say to her? What could he?

Though before he could ponder this further, a horrible scream tore through Ollie's entire being like a great shard of glass.

The first cries were undoubtedly ones of terror, the kind where your eyes were locked wide and every muscle rigid.

The second one that followed were of pain, garbling and pitiful, fading. Ollie froze, feeling his eyes widen and his pulse quicken, his heart thudding like a rock rattling in a box as he ran. The woman's scream came again, desperate, terrified, and human.

His blood curdled, turning to ice in his veins. He knew that voice. Her voice.

"Norah!" he exclaimed, cursing under his breath, feeling as what little blood remained in his face completely drained, and before Ollie was even aware of making a conscious decision, his legs were pounding furiously on the uneven staircase as he headed towards the Astronomy Tower. "Merlin's left….one of these days, I'm going to stop chasing this woman!"

Ollie swore under his breath as his ears strained for more sounds, more clues as to where it had come from.

He had no clue as to what he would do when he got wherever Norah was, if she were even still at the Tower anymore, only that she was hurt, suffering, dying, and in trouble.

And that he had to get there. Fast.