102
Tonks slept for a good part of the evening after she had delivered their son. She woke to feed Teddy when he was hungry and would hold their son close to her, reveling in the child she and Lupin had brought into this world until fatigue and soreness would claim her, and she'd sleep.
Although Tonks was exhausted, she was restless and fitful in her sleep.
Remus did not want to imagine what horrible visions plagued her dreams. He could not help but wonder how much of her weakness was the result of her giving birth to their son, but he allowed Dora to sleep.
Lupin had gone downstairs to put a pot of tea on the kettle so his wife would have something hot to drink when she awoke and was not present in their bedroom when Tonks woke from her uneasy slumber.
Her heartbeat, now a throbbing mass of corded muscle, pounded relentlessly within the confines of her chest, her body cold, feeling like ice as she fell.
A flicker of crimson, that garish rapid color, and water-filtered echoes, half-choked sobs wracked her entire body as if a dagger had been thrust deep into her chest and straight to her heart. A tiny, muffled sob found its way to her lips, yet her tongue refused its release as she dreamt.
Tonks sent it away with a painful little swallow, crumpling in their bed, twisting, and curling herself further in her and Remus's bed, willing for the scent of thick black, curling smoke to leave her nostrils, the thick coppery smell of blood lingered, and Tonks swore that she could taste it.
Another sob, this one set willfully free from her throat, escaped her lips and Tonks buried her watery, red-rimmed eyes within the smothering silk of her pillowcase, seeking refuge from the image of Norah's death, watching as the gravely injured woman fell to her death.
The dream of the blonde werewolf's death was as vivid as a long-forgotten memory. She dreamed of blistering heat and scalding cold. A heart of fire, and one of ice, both on Hogwarts Grounds.
The heart of fire, that was Norah's, had burnt, raged, and smoked for the last six years since the death of her husband and infant son at Dolores Umbridge's hands.
An inferno that almost threatened to suck the very life and magic out of her, and all the while the cold heart that was Ollie's slept and waited. Ollie Brennan waited in the shadows of Master Crouch's estate, wanting and unable to reveal himself to Tonks, and he had been asleep.
No, asleep was the wrong word. Rather, he had been imprisoned. In a dank dark prison cell in a dungeon that smelled of mold, blood, bodily fluids. It had become so hard to breathe, so hard to even move in that cell.
He had fled Crouch's estate to come and find Tonks—to see her. She dreamed of Ollie, he was…he was running, the cold of the night air creeping up on him, sucking the very last strength as he followed the sound of enormous black wings.
It felt like the magic of his world was dying, and Tonks squeezed her eyes shut as visions of Norah's face flitted as mere flashes of memory, each one no more than a second or two, in the front of her mind.
And his world now was Jameson, and she was dying. Ollie was turning to the cold, the ice that was now his heart, what was left of it, and this cold was threatening to become his new prison.
Ollie had been so strong, but this cold of his broken heart was engulfing him completely, sapping his strength bit by bit.
The ice was becoming his cage, though if the blonde She-Wolf could be saved, then the wall of ice that surrounded his heart would start to thaw, to melt.
Tonks dreamt of this ice and fire, dancing around each other to the sound of the harps that Dumbledore had conjured at her and Remus's wedding.
And then she dreamt of enormous black wings as a shadow, smashing through the rubble of the now-ruined Hogwarts courtyard, pounding with the force of a storm.
The air cracked with the sound of thunder, and then the beast was flying, she was rising and up in the sky—
Tonks awoke with a heartbroken cry of utter hopelessness, ripped from her lips, her hands finding purchase in a twist of their bedsheets as her shaking arms lifted herself up slightly, bracing her body against the mattress.
Tears fell in rapid sequence, drenching her overly large t-shirt.
She shook, rattled, as the vividness of the nightmare flowed through her. A hitched breath, a poor attempt to calm herself down, escaped her.
"Dora?" Lupin's concerned voice came from the doorway, baby Teddy swaddled and fast asleep in his arms. "Are you ill?" he murmured, closing off the gap of space between himself and his wife in two swift strides, setting himself down on the edge of their bed, his brows came together in confusion as he gingerly transferred Teddy from his arms to hers. "What is it?" he demanded, a note of urgency in his quiet voice as he took in the sheen of sweat that had started to perspire on her temples.
"Ollie," she breathed hoarsely, a hand over her racing heart, squeezing her eyes shut and willing her breaths and heartbeats to regulate to something that resembled normalcy. "He—Norah—she…"
But her voice trailed off and she shook her head, a curl of her hair tumbling in front of her face as Tonks ducked her head in utter shame.
Tonks began to grow apprehensive as she sat up, shifting Teddy so their baby's head nestled in the crook of her elbow, giving him support. She grew terribly bothered by a lingering thought: Was Norah dead?
And Ollie, oh, Ollie! If she was, how was her best mate taking her passing? Tonks remained motionless in their bed for a moment, glancing down at Teddy in her arms.
But of course, she could not go tonight. She was much too exhausted and there was Teddy to think of, but she could not stand staying here and not knowing what happened to both of them.
The young witch and new mother pondered the whereabouts of her best friend and the blonde werewolf, thinking if she were still alive, Ollie would be a lucky man indeed. Norah Jameson was a lively thing, spirited blue eyes, luscious lips, and a shapely form that any man in their right mind would be attracted to. But they had not seen her since the night of Umbridge's attack.
Nonetheless, Tonks was plagued by her nightmare.
Were Ollie and Norah safe? Was Norah alive and safe? Is she…dead?
Slowly, Tonks tore her gaze away from her and Remus's sleeping son and lifted her gaze, meeting her husband's concerned light brown eyes with her own, swallowing down hard past the growing lump in her throat.
"Find her, Remus. The—the edge of the Forbidden Forest, that's where I—I saw them," Tonks begged, blinking back briny tears. "Save her. Bring them home, bring them here, let Norah heal here, I don't care. I—I have to know Ollie is safe. Please," she pleaded, a tear escaping her lid, and she shuddered as Remus nodded in understanding, rising from where he sat at the edge of their bed, leaning over and wiping away that single tear with a flick of his finger. "Bring them home, Remus. Please…"
If Remus was surprised by his wife's desperate request, he hid it well. Lupin quickly nodded, planting a brief kiss on Tonks's lips and pressing his lips to his newborn son's forehead, and then proceeded to dart across the room, and grabbing his traveling cloak where it rested on a coat rack just behind their bedroom door.
"I will," he promised, declaring to the love of his life he'd save them.
And then he turned on the heel of his shoe and Disapparated from their bedroom, leaving Tonks alone in their bed with his newborn son.
It happened so fast; Ollie didn't even have time to think until the last possible second. Watching Fenrir Greyback threw Norah over the edge of the Astronomy Tower's ledge felt like watching it in slow motion.
Never before had Ollie noticed how much time was like water.
That it could pass so slowly, a drop at a time, even freeze, or rush by in a blink. The clock says it is measured and constant, tick-tock, part of an orderly world; the clock lies.
The past three days had passed like thousands of camera frames per second shown one at a time. In this slow time-bubble, the coldness was colder, and the muted colors of the surroundings near her were brighter.
All the while Ollie's insides felt as if there was nothing there, nothing to need feeding, nothing to have need of anything at all.
As Greyback managed to grab hold of a fistful of Norah's black leather jacket, Ollie, without even having to think, lurched forward and tried to seize her hand before Norah Jameson could fall completely over the side. And he missed.
He was a fraction of a second too late to catch her, because just as the tips of his fingers brushed against hers, Norah fell.
"NO!" There was a horrible scream from deep within that forced its way from his lips, it was as if his terrified soul had unleashed that demon.
And just for a moment, he wished that Newt Scamander and Dumbledore had not been successful in their attempts to remove the Obsurcus from his soul, because Ollie, he needed it now more than ever.
The scream that poured unchecked from his lips, it made the hair stand straight up on the back of his neck as his skin crawled. It was the loudest most piercing scream he had ever heard.
It sounded like a scream of wild panic. A scream of mass hysteria, of disbelief, bordering on terror.
Ollie leaned over the edge of the railing, trying to see what he could, watching in horror as her petite frame descended to the wrecked courtyard below, into the flames, and then he couldn't even see her at all.
At first, his mind couldn't comprehend what the hell just happened.
Ollie watched the fires of the Hogwarts Grounds blaze below as if it could burn up the inner rage at what Greyback had just done as if his frustrations and anger were the fuel that would turn into black confetti.
He could feel the heat from the fire dry his skin, scorching, ordering him to take a few steps back from the rooftop's ledge, but he didn't do it. He watched, eyes fully open, posture square to the flames of the fire.
It was like a vexing of the soul for what Ollie felt was not human, it was twisted and distorted, but it was something strong.
It burned so bad like fire lacing his veins and creeping up his spine, his skin was a sore looking red, but all Ollie could feel was desire; the desire to hate.
He was intoxicated with emotion Ollie had no intention of ever feeling, the acidity of it was residing in his twisting and churching poor stomach waiting to be spat out of his mouth in foul and vulgar words that he knew he would be stared at for saying, except Ollie wasn't going to say them, bloody hell, no.
Ollie knew he was going to screech them with every ounce of breath that dwelled in his lungs. What few Death Eaters below remained that had not yet fled for their lives following the Dark Lord's defeat raved their path without giving a chance for those who protected Hogwarts to defend themselves.
The ambush was a glorious slaughter. Ollie clenched his teeth and ground his teeth in anger, turning towards Greyback, his wand hand curling tightly into a fist and spent his fury at Norah's death well vented in a sea of Death Eaters as more had clambered up on the roof to join Fenrir.
All of them were masked in Master Crouch's face, every last one. This...was his fault.
Red. Everything went red. Ollie's vision blurred as a flame curled in the pit of his stomach. His brain went on overdrive as it picked every moment that he'd spent crying, the torture he had endured at Crouch's hand.
The memories weighed down on Ollie but instead of breaking even more, what was left of his heart had turned ice cold and slunk into the shadows as his brain took complete control. The flames in his stomach rose up to his chest and crawling through his veins, took over the rest of his body, severing the flesh to bones of these damned Death Eaters.
Amidst the havoc, he warred his way towards the rooftop's exit, sending jinxes left and right, all manner of Unforgiveable Curses, ungracefully, squarely at Greyback's chest, because in Ollie's mind, what Fenrir had done, was unforgivable.
A fitting curse for a fitting act.
His pale skin was flushing with both terror and excitement as Greyback, finally, crumpled dead in a heap at his feet, and Ollie scrunched his nose in disgust and kicked the werewolf's body off the roof.
"Mr. Brennan!" A voice behind him spoke up, startling him out of his daze.
Off to his immediate right, Ollie swore he saw something move out of the corner of his eye, something black and imposing, but he was too shell-shocked to think of reacting to it, his fury well spent on Greyback. If he were being honest with himself, it was a miracle of Merlin he could even think at all.
His mind wasn't thinking properly, not able to respond. Ollie knew he needed to make a beeline straight for the courtyard, to recover Norah's body and give her and anybody else they knew who had died at the time of this blood-soaked dawn a proper burial.
But he couldn't even get his legs to work. It felt as though someone had pointed their wand square at his chest and ripped his own heart out.
Agonized, Ollie slumped against the cold stone wall of the Astronomy Tower, not even feeling the sweet relief of the cold night air as it tousled his thick tuft of black away from his forehead. He couldn't breathe.
Everything was spinning and it felt as though the floor beneath his feet were bloody melting. He collapsed onto his hands and knees, his breathing become shallower, quicker, rendering him feeling breathless.
He could hear someone saying something to him, but whoever they were, they sounded distant and muffled. His stomach flipped, churning.
Ollie heard his name again, but at first, he wasn't even sure if they were calling his name yet at all. What was his name? Who the hell was he?! He didn't know anymore.
All he could seem to focus on was Norah falling away from his hand. Tumbling down into the fiery pits below him.
She was well and truly gone for good, only this time…it was his fault.
Ollie hadn't been able to catch her. Norah had looked up at him with her blue eyes wide, brimming with fear and such terror, praying for him to save her, and he hadn't been fast enough. He had let her fall to death.
He…he had killed her, not Greyback. And Norah was dead, because of him. Norah had given Ollie the one thing that he had never asked for.
Her life. "No…take it back, take it back, I…if this is love, then I don't want it," he whispered, his voice hoarse. Norah's serene eyes drenched his memory.
He never would have imagined another woman aside from Tonks could invoke these old foreign feelings that nestled within his chest, yet, here he sat slumped against the wall, head buried in his hands, broken, a battered wreck, scarred, and beaten, but very much still feeling, and hating himself for it.
These feelings that he felt for the young blonde werewolf were new, but they had a familiar, yet foreign ache to them, almost overwhelming, like whenever he would spend time around Tonks.
Ollie did not want her life, did not ask for it. From that one brief moment, when he had flung open the door to the Astronomy Tower and had found Norah at the edge of the roof, he had almost felt so…elated.
That she was still alive. That she was here. And then…and then…this.
No! Merlin's Beard, no! No, no, no, no! He did not want Norah's life! He should have been the one to fall into the fires below, not Jameson! It should have been him.
Why couldn't it have been him?! Why Norah?!
"Mr. Brennan, snap out of it!" A woman's stern voice snapped, and suddenly, Professor McGonagall's face was inches before his, kneeling before Ollie, with both her hands resting firmly on his slender shoulders.
McGonagall peered at Ollie over the rim of her spectacles and gave him a good, firm, hard shake. She looked almost as frightened and confused as he felt, and yet, her voice remained confident and strong.
"Follow me. You're going." Her tone was clipped and hardened.
"G—go?" Ollie whispered hoarsely, amazed he could even find his voice after that, his brain only able to pull together fragmented sentences.
He was still in shock. He recognized that, at the very least. "Where?"
"To Norah," Professor McGonagall responded quietly, groaning at the stiffness in her joints, courtesy of her arthritis and lumbago at her age as she somewhat shakily rose from her kneeling position and back upright again, and pulling Ollie to his feet with her.
She peered at him again with an unusually stern look that would have made a fully bloomed flower wilt.
"You will see the poor dear, won't you, Mr. Brennan? Yes?"
Ollie blinked. He did not understand. Norah Jameson, she was dead.
Professor McGonagall, Merlin bless her soul, put together his confused, shellshocked expression and his feelings because she quickly slid her glasses from falling back up the bridge of her nose and continued speaking, stowing her wand in an interior pocket of her robe, sighing.
"Your good friend, Mr. Weasley, managed to catch her, Mr. Brennan. Just there. Charlie Weasley was airborne on a Hungarian Horntail, the very same beast they flew in for the Triwizard Tournament when Mr. Greyback dropped Miss Jameson off the roof of the Astronomy Tower. Norah is safe. For now, I believe," she grumbled, letting out a tiny shudder.
She gave a jerk of her head towards something hulking, massive, and black in the sky.
That was all it took. The former Slytherin student lurched to his feet, almost tripping over the hem of his long black robes, and bolted for the Astronomy Tower stairwell, not bothering to wait for Minerva, who hollered after him something incoherent.
Norah—she—she was alive!
Safe! She was here! She hadn't fallen to her death into the fires below. It was those thoughts that propelled him forward, following the sound of flapping wings in the sky, the Hungarian Horntail's scales glistening and glittering even in the moonlight as she stretched her limbs and her wings.
Ollie thought he faintly heard Charlie Weasley shouting something, but due to a horrible, fatigued ringing in his eardrums, he couldn't make any of it out. He felt a sense of rejuvenated hope ignite in his chest as his feet pushed him forward, no longer taking directions from his brain, knowing already where Charlie was leading the dragon.
To the edge of the Forbidden Forest. But with the news that Charlie had been the one to save Norah from plummeting to her grisly death, Ollie swallowed as he felt bitter acidic bile rise in his throat and linger on his tongue.
His friends, Charlie, Tonks, and now Remus, too, they made up for every mistake he had ever made. Not trying to get help sooner.
Not telling Tonks that he was alive for all those years, causing her pain and suffering by allowing Dora to think that he was dead, too scared to confront her until Master Crouch commanded him to by means of the Imperius Curse.
And now, too scared to tell Norah his true feelings, and now look! She—she was dying, and this was all his fault.
He hadn't saved her! It seemed to him that wherever he tended to fall short, his friends were always there to pick up the slack.
His friends, Charlie, and especially Tonks, were everything that he was not and perhaps…perhaps he had been chasing nothing more than a dream.
Ollie growled in frustration. No. Don't think like that, he scolded himself as he followed the large shadow Charlie's dragon cast as a hulking shadow over the Grounds.
If it took a lifetime of atonement, he was going to figure out what he had done to piss Norah off and cause her to flee from him, and he would find a way to win her back, and it was this thought that gave Ollie hope.
Not very much, admittedly. Just a small flicker, a flickering ember flame against the winds of his despair that fought for control of his heart and mind, but it was more than enough, and as he ran, following Charlie and the Hungarian Horntail, Ollie felt like his mind was plagued with the choice that he had made, that night he had left Norah all alone.
And now, where his heart used to be was a gaping hole in his chest. Whatever condition Norah was in, was bloody well and truly his fault.
Ollie felt a muscle in his jaw tense, his pale face ashen and devious, distraught with sleeplessness and despair and not knowing the state of the young blonde werewolf's condition.
The thickening blush of two-day stubble had begun shadowing his jaws, but Brennan ignored all of that.
He could only think of her. Ollie's hands as he ran were trembling so badly as he followed Charlie and his precious Hungarian Horntail to the Forbidden Forest's edge, that he could barely hold his wand straight.
Ollie let out a growl of frustration as the dragon landed at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, and he faintly watched Charlie dismount the massive beast's back.
He drew in a sharp breath of cold night air as he swore a familiar figure limp in his other best friend's arms. Norah.
And then there was something cold on his face, running down his ashen cheeks in continuous tracts.
Tears. I'm crying, he thought softly. Such a strange thought. He could never recall crying in his life. His father had not allowed it, growing up, though his father was a monster. Ollie's monster, he had loved.
He played Quidditch with him in the backyard of their manor as a boy growing up, and when he was younger, his parents had spoiled him with lots of gifts.
His father's eyes were a deep, rich brown, and a smile nearly identical to his own.
This was true. The only thing sharp about him was the knife that made the gashes that littered his arms. It was why he favored his long black woolen robes.
To hide his scars. His dad's a bit of a drinker. It's how he got his bruises. At least, the ones that weren't caused by Master Crouch.
And, theoretically, his self-induced scars. But what hurts worse is the insecurity. The internal brokenness that only a person exposed to abuse can experience.
It's like this: those mental scars are a tapering factor in the serenity of domestic life. They cause agony that can only be seen on the inside. The pain that no one else sees because… no one else cares.
There were nights when Ollie, growing up, would lay in his bed listening to the sound of fighting. His mother would shout, his father would begin laying into her and the screaming would start.
She cried, he seethed, and Ollie remembered pushing his face into the plush toy snake his three-year-old body was wrapped around.
He would think to himself how when Mother left Father for good this time, you'll see, he would leave with her, flee the violence, flee Father. Then one day she did leave... and Ollie remained right where he was with just a toy snake to comfort him.
He had thought that he would never be happy. It was not his plight in life, especially once he had learned Dora was marrying the wolf, Lupin.
At least that's what he had believed. Until he met and became acquainted with Norah. He had been drawn to her aura and her mind.
She was hiding something, and from something, though she had never revealed to Ollie what it was.
He wondered if that it had a hand in her disappearance. Whatever had caused her departure, to flee without a word to Remus and Tonks and him, Ollie knew he had to be able to walk through Hell and back if that was what it was going to take to make Norah see sense. He resolved that's exactly what he would do to win Norah back.
Ollie drew in a sharp breath as he watched Charlie slide off the back of the dragon, and pried an unstirred, unresponsive and limp figure from the Hungarian Horntail's massive claws, talking to the towering, hulking, winged creature in soothing tones, before backing away and allowing the beast to take flight.
Somehow, he could not shake the feeling that this was all his fault. His body felt hot and sweat started trickling down his neck.
He could feel the throbbing of his own eyes, the ringing screams still vibrating in his eardrums.
The thumping of his own heart against his chest, so audibly loud that he was sure Charlie Weasley could hear it. His fingers curled into a fist, nails digging in his palms.
He couldn't hear his rapid breathing, but he felt the oxygen flooding in and out of his lungs.
Hesitantly, his eyes looked at the lifeless figure before him.
"Is she…?" he whispered, his voice breaking and cracking. He swallowed hard down past the growing lump in his throat. "Charlie? Who is that?"
It seemed to take Charlie ages to find his voice, and when he did, his voice sounded muffled and subdued, as though underwater.
"Ollie, listen to me, you need to leave. It's not safe for you right now. I need to get you both to St. Mungo's, you don't need to be here for this. I don't want you seeing this, Ol, it would only hurt you," Charlie barked hoarsely, no warmth in his voice, kneeling on the forest floor to tend to the woman, and Ollie blinked, startled, as his other best friend threateningly raised his wand, and the man's features hardened and turned quite cold when Ollie made no move to follow his orders. "You don't need to be here right now, Ol. It would only hurt you. Go. LEAVE!"Charlie bellowed, not wanting to fight his friend on this, but would if it came down to that.
But Ollie was cut off as the cloud moved out from in front of the moon and a single ray of light fell on the young blonde's pale face, shrouding it in a swath of pearly white light, and Ollie froze, feeling the blood drain from his face as he recognized the figure beside Charlie.
"No…" Not her. Not her. Oh, God, oh, Merlin, seven hells, not her!
"Ol, no, no, listen to me!" commanded Charlie gruffly, though he made no attempt to move from his crouched position on the forest floor, where Norah lay on the ground, lifeless and unresponsive. "Your—your friend, the werewolf, is still alive, a—and she—she's going to be fine, she's got a pulse, but she needs to get to St. Mungo's. You both need to get to St. Mungo's."
Ollie heard none of his best friend's words as he deeply inhaled frigid cold air into his own lungs, his cracked and bleeding fingers feeling like they clawed at the ground beneath him. In his intense silence, he somehow screamed with his whole body.
The eyes wide with horror, the mouth rigid and open, his chalky face gaunt and immobile, the fists clenched with blanched knuckles and the nails digging deeply into the palms of his hand, and he practically fell against blood-stained earth in his mad scramble to appear at Norah Jameson's side.
"No…"
Tonks had teased Ollie, always said Ollie tended to love those he cared about, the family that actually gave a damn about him, like a hurricane. He was right. And in this instance, Ollie knew she was right.
"What have I done?! I…I didn't catch her, I missed..." He screamed it more to himself than to Charlie, and he barely felt Charlie's calloused and strong hand grip onto his shoulder as he used the trunk of an old oak tree as a brace for his back as he gently lowered himself to the floor, cradling Norah's lifeless form in his arms.
"Greyback threw her from the roof. It wasn't your fault, Ol. It wasn't you that did this, Ollie. It was...Greyback. It wasn't your fault, Ollie," came Charlie's voice, though it sounded coarser, rougher than before.
But Ollie could hardly register his best friend's words. All he could focus on was Norah.
She looked like Death. Her skin was entirely too pale, absent of color. Ollie blinked back tears as lifted a shaking hand to the grotesque-looking burn mark on her leg.
He held his hand to the burn, careful to be gentle, feeling at a loss for how to help her.
Those moments he spent pleading with his friend to look at him, to stay with him, feeling the very fluid of her life drain away over his cold hands, Ollie felt nothing at all.
Time itself had become irrelevant; the seconds could have been hours, or hours mere seconds Not to have Norah right there was a torture to his fractured soul.
Ollie didn't break quietly, it was like every atom of his miserable, wretched, murderous being screamed in unison, traumatized that he should exist without his friend.
When the wracking sobs passed, he cried in such a desolate way that no-one could bear to listen for long, not even Charlie, who pointedly looked away, feeling as though he were intruding upon something private.
Ollie had gone from gregarious to hanging by a thread, a transformation no-one knew how to reverse, not even Charlie.
A choked sob worked its way up to his throat. This—this was not supposed to happen. Not Norah. Not her. Why she had done it? She should not have provoked Greyback.
She should have…stayed away. This was all his fault. Why had she interfered? To watching Norah Jameson, go from vibrant, full of life, and alive, to this.
It played repeatedly as if his brain was unwilling to let the images go and its attempts to analyze them, made Ollie see them all over again, when he just wanted Norah back, the way she was, for their lives to go on as they had been.
For her to see that he wasn't going to let her abandon them again a second time, but he would not get that chance.
She was not responding to the calling of her name as her name left his lips, urgent, frantic. He knew the more he tried to repress it, the more it would just play again, but he couldn't help it.
Streaks of fire burned his cheeks as he cried. Each new wave a hot trail of agony as he gently rocked Norah back and forth in his arms, as if he could force her to wake up that way.
The fire of shame and anger at his failure to protect the woman most important to him burned just underneath his pale skin and a deep emptiness filled his heart as the sentiments brewed over and boiled past the seams he could no longer hold together.
There was no hope for a man who cried to his death, drowning himself in the tears of his personal hell.
"Look what he's done to you," he wailed, burying his head in her hair. He was grateful she wasn't awake to hear him cry like this, and that Professor Snape wasn't nearby to see this, but what Norah would say to him if she could see him like this, he thought of it.
She'd always hated it, she had told him, a sign of weakness, and it was rare that he did, and he reviled the act, considering it a sign of weakness during times of immense stress, but this definitely counted as a stressful situation, and he felt that it was highly warranted this time.
I'll get you out, Norah. I promise…
A stray tear slid down Ollie's cheek. He was crying for her. The first time in perhaps his entire life, he was crying for a woman that he loved. Someone that wasn't Tonks.
He cried, and Norah wasn't even awake to mercilessly tease him about it.
Ollie gingerly raised a hand, smoothing back a stray strand of short hair behind her ear.
Her spirit was gentle, and her very presence was like the sun itself, and without it, his miserable life was nothing.
How could he be expected to continue, when he would never see her smile that beautiful white, infectious smile that lit him up from the inside again?
Lifting her limp form just so, burying his face in her hair, allowing the sweet scents of lavender and honeysuckle to fill his nostrils, his jaw rooted shut. Clenching his eyes shut, his teeth rooted in the effort to stay calm. But he just couldn't.
The dam broke, and suddenly, he felt his tears begin to slide down his face. It was more than just crying. It was the kind of desolate sobbing that came from a person drained of all hope.
He was only vaguely aware of Charlie kneeling and wrapping his arms around his middle as he knelt on the ground next to Ollie, knees digging into the mud and grit of the earth, doing what he could to convey some small measure of comfort.
Charlie didn't give a damn that blood from her various cuts and bruises that soaked his shirt or stained his palms.
His best friend's gasping screams echoed around the woods, reverberating, worse than anything he'd ever heard before.
The pain that flowed from Ollie Brennan at what he had lost, was as palpable as the frigid nighttime air and soon the only other being at his side was Charlie, struggling to keep his own tears silent, looking down at the lifeless form of his friend's friend in his best friend's arms. Ollie had to believe that she was safe somehow, comfortable.
"I…never wanted this." His voice broke. Ever since they'd begun listening to each other, he could not bring himself to say it, because then, it would be real, and he wasn't even sure if Norah felt it, too.
It was far too intimate a saying for him to just say every day like he saw other couples do, sometimes he wondered if they truly meant it, as he felt for Norah, and he meant every word.
But if there was a chance that saying it would bring her back to him…
"I love you," he whispered into the shell of her ear, choking back a half-sob.
There. He'd said it, the thing that he never thought he would utter once from his lips in his lifetime, this foreign, unfamiliar feeling that had been churning inside him for weeks now.
Hard, wracking sobs shook his frame, yet he no longer gave a damn.
He was only barely aware of the sound of Charlie saying something. "She…she…" But he could not make himself say the words.
Not again...
He didn't care if Charlie saw. The look of heartbreak in his best friend's eyes was almost too much for Ollie to bear to look at.
Sensing Ollie needed a minute, Charlie murmured something under his breath about alerting Remus and the others, and to expect them.
With a loud crack! as Charlie stood and turned on the heel of his boot, he Disapparated, giving Ollie a moment alone with his friend, time to grieve. Ollie nodded, hardly hearing his best friend's words.
He let out a hiss through clenched teeth and rooted jaw as his fingers curled into fists in her short blonde hair.
He was not certain he had ever experienced grief this bad before, though now, it snuck up behind him quietly and took him under its arms in an instant.
He felt so lost, so alone. He was lost mostly because he had lost a part of himself that he knew he could not get her back.
Yet he wanted her back so bad as his very life depended on Norah being by his side, but it was gone. She was gone. Vanished.
At first, Ollie thought as he buried his face in her hair, fighting back his tears, that grief was something so depressing and bad that it took him ten feet under the earth, but right now, he learned that it was just the price he had to pay for daring to learn how to love someone.
His glistening, grief-stricken blue eyes flung wide open as he felt the slightest shift of movement within his arms. "What…?" he breathed. And then he heard her voice.
"I love you, too."
