"I don't understand." Kahina Sulieman's hands were still outstretched, frozen in place, her eyes, though calm, holding a warning edge. The child, her son, was being held across the room. He was too far. He couldn't feel her warmth, and she couldn't feel his. Her skin crawled with maternal longing.

Albus Dumbledore stood in one corner, his face long and withdrawn. He looked more ancient than she'd ever seen the old man.

Tired, her mind whispered, they were all tired.

"We have discussed this, Miss. Sulieman," he began gently before he was cut off with a harsh scoff.

"Do not patronize me, headmaster. I know well what must be done; I was the one who put it forth." The warning edge was now a blade. "What I didn't realize was that it meant I couldn't even give him my blessing. When did this become a part of the plan?"

"Severus thought it would be better for all involved."

At the mention of her only in name husband, Kahina sat up further with a cringe. The room fell silent; her son's screeching fading into faint mews. A lump of cole had settled in her chest, and she subconsciously caressed the bracelet around her wrist with an uncharacteristic feather-light touch. A million questions laid on her tongue. Where was he? Was he alive? Was he working hard? Had he been found out? Did he finally clean that cauldron she had been hounding him about for months? The last question broke her out of her stupor. She gripped her hands tightly.

"Why wasn't he here?" At her grumbled question, Albus' eyes, already dim, grew dimmer in the half-lit room. He didn't need to say anything. She knew the answer.

Severus was with him. The self-proclaimed Dark Lord. Voldemort.

With closed eyes, she fought past the pain the mere thought summoned. Be calm, she chastised herself. Be strong. Be—

That bastard stole them. First her identity, next her partner, and now...her child. The one thing she hadn't realized she wanted until her hands clawed for his tiny, fragile body, irrational fight singing through her body off-beat.

It was as her mother had said. You didn't realize the range of your love until it was too late to give. Far too late.

Slowly, reluctantly, she opened her eyes again. It was gone now, that blade, leaving nothing more than dull, useless metal. "I can't hold him." Gone were all her questions, gone was that last sliver of fire.

They were all tired. She was tired.

"I'm truly sorry, Kahina. This war asks—"

"Too much," she finished lowly.

Albus nodded gravely, his eyes as lifeless and conflicted as hers likely were.

For the first time since she jumped head-first into this war, she doubted what it was all for. All it brought was death. Death and destruction and heart-wrenching pain. Why couldn't she have seen this coming? This terrible present. She prided herself on practicality, admonished a young Severus for not having it, and yet there she was, bringing a new life into a war-torn world with an uncertain end. If it ever ended. She was finding herself more and more unsure as the days drawn out.

Would it have been easier to give in? As this unspoken treachery strewed in her mind, the medi-witch stalked for the shack's door with the boy clasped anxiously in their arms.

Kahina couldn't watch anymore. She pressed her still tightly clenched hands onto her eyes, willing, demanding, herself not to cry. The coal cooled and numbed inside her ribs. She was unnaturally still, save for a small tremor in her fingers she couldn't control no matter how hard she pressed.

It was a weakness a soldier couldn't afford.

Slowly, with movements so smooth it had to be tightly controlled, she dropped her arms at her sides. With head down, she blindly asked the room, "Am I still fighting, Albus?"

"Only if you wish it. No one will blame you for stepping away."

She nodded. For a brief moment, she imagined jumping back in. Nothing more than fantasy. Of course, she couldn't return; the risk was too great. What if her wand clashed with Severus? In her wordless sorrow, she knew Albus knew as well. There was no way the man didn't. He was the one who backed her plan, he was the one who helped solidify it.

The floorboards of the rickety shack creaked, and her ears instantly strained at the noise. An instinct battle won.

He was leaving now. It would've been met with indifference had she been in her right mind, but she wasn't quite in her right mind. She bit harshly at her cheek to hide a bubbling whimper.

Albus knew that as well she had no doubt, as the man just had the talent of knowing or perhaps perceiving. From teaching countless students or from something else entirely, he was an observant fellow.

She despised him for it. All that knowing, all that seeing, and he still couldn't stop this war from happening. If he had only been stronger...

The bitterness drained from her as the door opened for the second time. Her complete and utter exhaustion left her body jelly-like and sluggish.

"Turn on the light before the darkness swallows you whole. This war will not last; there is an end in sight. We merely have to grasp it." With that last, vague advice, Albus Dumbledore left the room as silently as he had entered.

Kahina was alone.

It was three hours before she could gather the strength to apparate to another safe house.

"Is it done?" Kahina's mother's voice was the first thing she was met with before the overpowering smell of smoke introduced itself to her chilled lungs. The older woman was leaning against the wall beside the staircase, cigarette held precariously in between two thick, short fingers. Those same fingers had ran through Kahina's hair countless times, and she felt the childish urge to beg the woman to do it now.

All of her defenses fell apart in that one instant. "Mama..." It was enough of an answer for the older woman.

In five quick strides, Kahina was collapsing against a broad chest.

"Let it out, let it out," was muttered deep somewhere in her hair. "You'll feel like shit tomorrow but that's tomorrow's problem."

This was what she had been unintentionally waiting for—permission to be frail, to break loose the coal that had settled, hard, inside her. She let the tears escape freely. Laughter was the unfortunate companion. Where did it come from? She didn't know; there was no humor to be had, but still it beat at her already battered body until it transformed into a near-inhuman wail.

And through it all, her mother rocked her, short hands rubbing circles into her shoulders with never-ending patience that was only taught through the harsh early years of motherhood.

"Damn him! Damn him!" Kahina growled while wildly lashing out with her arms, her body, too, transforming into the mourning creature she never realized lurked just beneath her skin. She wasn't sure who she was damning anymore. On if it was Severus, Albus, or Voldemort.

Or her son.

She hid her face in her mother's dressing gown, her face growing warm with her shame.

The rocking continued with barely a stutter in the rhythm. "Let it out, let it out." It was becoming a sort of song the longer her mother repeated it. A stupid, relentless song and she almost hated the way it grated at her open wounds. It was sharp and it left her raw.

Gradually, the screaming died down and the tears flowed slower. She was left staring without seeing at the floral wallpaper—the muted colors melted into a muddled mess—and she took in shaky, broken deep breaths. The coal was gone, the fire was gone, all that was left was the ice in her ribs. She wondered if that would ever melt or if her insides were forever meant to be an ice age.

She hadn't been able to name him. The realization hit her harder than anything else ever had. As the abrupt pain threatened to undo whatever comfort she had, her mother's arms tightened as much as they could. Not a cage, but a nook where she could hide if she needed.

Ravenclaw had plenty of those hidden around Hogwarts.

Hogwarts. She'd never see her son off. This time she held onto that thought, that pain, and let it sit, stewing amongst the ice castle that was being built around it.

"I hate it, mama. It hurts so much and I can't make it stop." Her words were muffled, but the woman hummed in ready agreement.

"That's how it goes. At first."

"When will it stop?" Kahina whispered.

Her mother sighed deeply. "Oh, it doesn't. But you'll be able to move forward without breaking down. On the outside more than on the inside. You won't forget if that's what you're asking."

"I could forget." The rocking came to a stop.

"Is that what you want?" Through the blessed darkness of her vision, she could sense the disappointment and could hear the unspoken added, I raised you stronger than this, girl.

Kahina pushed away, her hands, once again, gripping themselves. "I...I don't know," she whispered. "Mama, please, tell me what to do." She brings her hands up to her face as though in prayer.

She never prayed before, but her mother used to when the older woman had been in Hogwarts herself. An old comfort of an even older time, she had told her daughter.

Soft hands, calloused from both work and hobby, encased her own.

"No, sweetheart, no. This isn't your way." Her mother gently pried her fingers apart until they hung limply in her lap like a rejected thing.

The loss was gaining on her, the cost of what was done just hours ago. War had—

She had given up her son.

Admission, even silent ones, held no less of a bite, and she flinched. The words danced on her tongue, compelling her to confess. She clenched her jaw at them. No, not this, not yet; she can't speak it. It would make it real. Completely, utterly real. As though it wasn't already. The oddness of it wasn't lost on her, even with the empty shell she now was.

What she was going to confess was worse.

"Mama..." she choked back on a sob, "Why did I have him? Why now?" Before the woman could answer, she powered through before the shame rose up and forced her quiet on this too, "I wish he hadn't been born."

The near-silence of the safe house was carried with it a weight she had been carrying since she found out about her pregnancy.

She closed her eyes and lifted her head. This wasn't the crying monstrous rage from earlier. Instead, it came from that icy palace and emitted a slow, low whine that shook and rattled the structure. It was out now. She had said it—those words she could hardly mutter to herself.

A monster, she was a monster for bringing a new life into this war.

Kahina's mother wrapped her arms around her and once more began to rock. "There you go. Let it out, let it out."