8
UNBEKNOWST to Molly, Tonks, and Lupin, Ollie had stood outside of their spare bedroom window, shrouded under the cover of night, watching from the outside as Norah fought and struggled to bring his baby into the world.
Ollie did not know how long he lingered outside the window of their spare bedroom, floating in midair, his black robes billowing around him haphazardly in the breeze, much like a Dementor's robes would.
He was rooted to his spot, unable to move, bitter tears streaming down his face that formed into ice crystals. He did not feel the icy cold sting of the blizzard, nor did he care that it was Christmas Eve.
All he was aware of was the aching in his heart for Norah, and the healthy baby boy she had given him, whom he would never know but once a year. The baby he'd seen from a window.
His shame consumed him and numbed him. Ollie longed for the things he knew he would miss.
The taste of blood surged into his mouth from his raw throat as he bit down on his tongue.
He had not been there while Norah carried his child. He'd not watched his wife's stomach grow with the life that he had put there within her.
He'd not felt their child move or kick once. His was not the hand Norah had clung to tightly as she pushed his baby toward life, but Tonks and Remus's.
He'd seen the whole thing and stayed right by this window for the entirety of the day.
His words of love and tears of joy were not whispered into Norah's ears, nor could she see the tears on his face as he looked at their baby for the first time.
Ollie could hardly fathom her burden as a widowed witch and werewolf, bringing the son of a well-known Death Eater of Lord Voldemort's into the world.
The histories would remember the Brennan family name, and not exactly in a good way, either. Had the knowledge that she would be the mother to the child of the man who had become Death be welcome if Norah welcomed him back?
Ollie thought there was no greater hatred in the world stronger than that Ollie felt for himself.
When he couldn't stand lingering out in this wretched blizzard any longer, when his tears were spent and he had no more left in him to give, Ollie slowly floated back to the solid, snow-coated ground.
Though it felt like Ollie was barely able to support his weight upon his own shaking legs.
He didn't want anyone to know he was there. He hoped one of them, preferably Tonks, had stayed with Norah tonight in case she needed something.
Ollie's only wish was to see his wife, and the baby boy she had given him. He trembled as he trudged to the door, almost afraid to hope.
His shaking slender, white-boned fingers wound around the doorknob of the front door to their home like it was a lifeline and held his breath as he twisted the metal in his palm.
Ollie exhaled a shaking, relieved little laugh as the door burst open, revealing the dark interior of his family's home.
Norah or Tonks or Whisky hadn't thought to lock it or put up any kind of protective enchantments.
He was too elated upon this discovery that Ollie did not think to wonder why. Cautiously, he crossed the threshold of the door and stepped into the darkness, toward Norah.
Silent like the specter he had become, Ollie slipped through the shadows of his family's manor.
Spurred on by his love for the woman for who he'd given up everything, he kept on moving. Death marveled at the awareness of his thoughts as he kept to the shadows as he climbed the stairwell that would take him to the second floor, to the spare bedroom where Norah and their baby were sound asleep.
He only needed to step through the doorway and then he would see his Norah, finally be near her, after all this time apart.
What he would say to his wife once the initial shock of his having returned to her side had worn off, Ollie wasn't entirely sure.
How Norah would react, the man couldn't even begin to guess.
His only main concern now was reaching them. Ollie hoped the rest would take care of itself. Each step he climbed rendered his feet in his boots feeling heavy like they were full of stones.
As he rounded the corner, the entrance to their spare bedroom stood before him. His pounding heart thundered relentlessly in his chest.
Forcing his racing heart and gasping breaths to quiet down as much as possible, Ollie silently pressed his ear against the oak of the bedroom door.
No sound of his wife's breathing or the coos of their baby could be heard from the other side.
Ollie couldn't explain why he was wracked with a sudden onset of guilt and fear.
As he'd quietly crept through their house, not disturbing a single floorboard, or causing the foundations of his family's manor to creak, his sole focus had been on envisioning his joyous reunion with his Norah, which he'd longed and ached for these last seven months.
Now, when he realized he was so close to her that he could almost feel her, Ollie realized his wife might not be as elated to see him as he hoped.
The weight of the realization that she had spent almost an entire seven months thinking that he didn't care for her hit him square in the chest like he'd been hit with a good Knockback Jinx.
He almost wished for a moment that someone had. Ollie didn't know what he would do with himself if Norah couldn't find it within her heart to forgive.
He fought against himself to not lose his resolve, wishing he'd been sorted into Gryffindor instead of Slytherin during his Hogwarts years. He could use some of that famous courage about now.
Though in this moment, above the shreds of doubt that threatened to rip him apart from the inside out, through the worst of his nightmares, there was one thing Ollie Brennan was certain of.
He loved Norah as no man had ever loved a woman, and he needed to see his wife and baby.
He'd gone through the seven hells and back just to be with her. His father, Jack, had tried to arrange his marriage a few years back to one of Bellatrix's second cousins twice removed, a real bitch of a witch whom he hoped never to see again.
The whore had caused more than enough trouble for Norah and Tonks than he cared to admit, and if he ever saw her again, she'd be dead.
Ollie exhaled a deep breath and gingerly turned the knob, feeling frustration rise within himself at the former shrouded figure of Death.
Were there had been any other way but this… He sighed, shaking his head to himself as he stole into their spare bedroom they typically used for guests, but tonight, Norah slept here alongside their baby while she recovered from her labor.
Standing as still as one of the Hogwarts' knight statues that had guarded the castle during Lord Voldemort's attempted siege, Ollie took a moment for his blackened eyes to adjust to the darkness, though the pitch-blackness was familiar to him, as Death.
What kind of an impression would he make on his wife, knocking over a piece of furniture and scaring poor Norah half to death?
Slowly and steadily, his vision adjusted, coming to him with help from the illumination of the dying fire from the fireplace on the opposite wall.
Ollie squinted, peering, straining to see into the darkness, the dancing shadows cast by the fire in the hearth sent its shapes along the walls.
He didn't hear anything, not a peep from Norah.
Given how exhausted his poor wife must be, he didn't fault her for turning to sleep.
She'd never been one for lingering too long into the night, except in the early days of their growing affection for one another, when his heart had first started to thaw.
Sleep usually found his wife early on. She would sleep soundly, lost in the throes of dreams.
He smiled, recalling how on more than one occasion, he would lay awake beside her, content to just watch Norah sleep for hours, never wanting to be anywhere but by the blonde werewolf's side, never imagining one day he would be forced to leave, not after all the hell the two had endured.
But he had left. He'd made his choice, and he'd chosen to sacrifice himself so that Norah and his baby would live.
And he'd do it over again in a heartbeat if Norah would have asked him to.
Ollie swallowed down hard, shoving his remorse deep into his chest and shuffled towards the king bed.
His heart melted, to see that alongside the head of the bed, made of the finest dark oak wood, stood a lovely delicate bassinet.
Ollie didn't even feel his legs move as they took him closer to the sleeping forms of his wife and child. His eyes never left Norah's sleeping form. She looked exhausted.
But he didn't pay attention to that. Visions of their lives together flashed before his eyes like a pleasant memory he wished he could see forever.
He felt the familiar fiery ache in between his legs at the thought of moving inside of his wife. He longed for nothing more than to hold Norah again in his arms.
But tonight, he would simply be satisfied to just gaze upon his little family with love and pride. Every nerve, every fiber of his body held a memory of her. His skin still felt the cool tingle of the werewolf's touch, cold against his searing skin.
For now, he needed to know they were fine.
As he stood beside Norah at the edge of their bed, all Ollie could do in this moment was stare. The delicate angles of her petite features were tainted amber, illuminated by the red and orange hues emanating from the fireplace as the fire died.
Her shoulders softly rose and fell while she slept soundly. He closed his eyes and lost himself while he listened to the gentle sounds of his wife's breathing, remembering how many countless times he'd fallen asleep listening to her murmurs.
His fingers twitched as he fought back the urge to wrap his arms around his wife in a gentle embrace. What a fool he'd been to make this deal.
Were there had surely been another way, he would have taken it, though Death, that bastard, had not given him another alternative to explore.
A tiny rustling sound drew his eyes towards the crib next to Norah. Their newborn son stirred in his sleep. He drew in a breath of warm air that pained his frigid iced-over lungs as he regarded the sweet precious child that their love had created.
Their son took his breath away. Never before had Ollie thought he'd seen a baby so perfect.
Not even Teddy when he'd been born had been as beautiful as the child Norah had given him.
Ollie cautiously inched closer to them, physically aching to take his place alongside them as husband and father, if he could find another soul to take his duties over as Death, then he could return to his wife and son's side permanently, and he would promise them that he'd never let them go.
For that long moment in his mind, Ollie felt he could actually live out the sweet dreams that filled his mind.
Almost as if he could sense his father's thoughts, his nearness, the newborn infant Rhys stirred.
The baby opened his eyes and blinked up at Ollie, cooing as he did so. The sweetest sound Ollie thought he had ever heard.
It almost seemed that the baby recognized him, Ollie thought wildly.
He stared in awe as his own face, but with Norah's cute little nose and her ears, stared right back at him, with his eyes.
Forgetting himself, Ollie reached down as gently as he could and rested his ice-cold hand on the baby's chest, hoping the swaddling he was wrapped in would protect his new son from the coldness of his father's embrace.
He smiled warmly as the baby settled underneath his strong hand.
The feeling of his heart being stolen from his chest was one of the happiest feelings Ollie had ever experienced.
The second being the day that Norah had said yes when he'd asked her to marry him in a secret ceremony.
It was at that moment that Rhys cooed sweetly, reacting to the happiness in Ollie's face.
Unfortunately, this sound did not go unnoticed. Vigilante even in the thick of sleep for any change in her newborn son, Norah woke up.
Upon sensing movement out of the corner of her peripherals, the blonde werewolf and protective new mother immediately went on high alert, her hackles raised as she was roused from her first peaceful sleep in the last nine months, her blue eyes unaccustomed to the darkness of the bedroom.
The only cognizant thought that formed in Norah's mind was the image of a black-cloaked figure, an intruder, in her and Ollie's spare room.
The figure loomed over their bed, his strong hand reaching into Rhys's crib, as if to take him.
Thanks to the shadows and the darkness, there was nothing to identify Ollie to Norah. His face was obscured by the folds of the thick black woolen fabric of his robes he now wore as Death.
In the span of a breathless moment, a white blur flashed before Ollie's black eyes as Norah hastily shoved aside the bedcover and the thick quilt, and bolted upright, groping for her wand.
He could not steady his balance thanks to how her movements had caught him off-guard. Ollie stumbled backward as Norah summoned a little of the wolf's strength within herself as she violently shoved him backward away from Rhys.
Norah's wolfish strength propelling her towards him, she jumped from the bed. Before he could react, much less part his lips to say something, a flash of red light whizzed past his ear, and would have hit him too had he not ducked at precisely the right moment.
The jinx hit the wall and rebounded, breaking a small blue vase made from clay, causing a dozen shattered fragments of the jar to hit the floor and break into even more smaller pieces.
The noise alerted Rhys, who began to whimper and wail from his crib, scared by the loud noises and wanting only his mother's comfort.
He was pushed farther from the room, ducking, and dodging the jinxes his wife hurled at him in her wild hysteria and fierce, wolfish desire to protect her Pack, what was left of her family.
"Who are you?" Norah shouted hoarsely, her throat sore and her voice faint from screaming herself raw earlier during her labor. As a result, her question didn't come across as nearly as intimidating as she'd hoped and sounded pathetic.
Norah fought to chase the sleep from her brain. "What do you want?" she shouted, keeping her wand trained at the man's eye-level, though thanks to the hood of his cloak, it was almost impossible for her to make out any details of this stranger's face.
From what she'd been able to see, it was clear to her what this stranger had come for.
Her baby. Well. She wasn't going to stand by and let that happen, no matter who it was.
"Did someone send you? Was it—are you Jack's?" she shouted, her face paling in outrage at the thought that Ollie's father, may Merlin let him rot in Hell where he belonged, had sent someone to dispose of her and his grandson, despite being currently locked up in Azkaban.
This man had better hope he killed her first because he was going to have to kill her to get to Rhys.
She vowed to herself that she'd take his head. Again, she sent a well-aimed Cruciatus Curse at the man's face, but he ducked, though she came to a hair length away from managing to hit her intended target.
Letting out a growl of agitation, Norah stalked her way towards him.
Hearing his mother's frustration, Rhys began to whimper and scream for his mother.
In the pitch-blackness, Ollie lost his footing and fell to the hardwood floor.
He was relieved to realize that after all this time, his reflexes were still lightning quick, he'd not lost his agility in that regard now that he was Death.
He rolled out of the way of Norah's spells, one right after the other, she sent.
A shower of red and green sparks hit the wall behind him. Ollie knew Norah would run him clean through before he had the chance to reveal himself.
She had no reason to imagine it was him.
In her mind, he had left her. Ollie knew he had no choice but to reveal himself to his wife.
Frantically, Ollie rose to one knee, shielding his face from her next jinx with his arm.
"Norah!" Ollie bellowed in a hoarse voice. "Norah, baby! Sweetheart! STOP! It's me!" he called. "It's me, baby! Lower your wand, honey!" "It's me!" Ollie repeated frantically, finally pushing his hood off his face as Norah raised her wand, prepared to deliver a final blow straight to his face.
Norah was just about to send a Cruciatus Curse straight to this would-be assailant's heart to make him squeal, to tell her if Ollie's father had hired him when she realized she knew that voice.
Norah felt her arms go weak. She was hardly aware of her tight grip slackening, or of the clattering sound of wood against wood as her wand slipped from her fingertips and fell to the floor by her feet.
She fought to make sense of what was happening as her lungs burned, refusing to fill with air, there were no words in her throat or upon her tongue. Norah blinked owlishly at the ghost on his knees in front of her.
Was it true? Was this Ollie?
He—he was…alive. Her mind reeled as it raced in uncontrollable directions. But…how?!
"It's me, baby," Ollie whispered faintly, his eyes begging her to cast aside doubt and trust him.
Norah felt her strength give out beneath her knees as they buckled, and Norah soon joined her husband on the floor as she fell to her knees in front of Ollie.
To his utter relief, her burning blue eyes softened, and he could almost see the love brimming beneath her glistening, unshed tears. But Ollie could also read the copious amounts of confusion.
With violently shaking fingers, Norah cautiously lifted her hand to his face, caressing his strong angular jaw in the way he'd always liked.
He flinched as he heard his wife let out a hiss at how cold to the touch his ice-cold flesh felt, but neither did Norah make a move to pull her hand away.
Hoping that he could hold onto her, just for a moment, Ollie nervously lifted his hand and pressed her hand to his chilled skin, his black eyes filling with joyful tears as Ollie swallowed hard.
"Y—you're alive?" Norah squeaked in disbelief and abject horror as she took in the much-changed appearance of her husband, not liking his eyes.
She couldn't yet find her voice for the dozens of questions that circulated within her mind at his re-appearance by her side after all these months.
"All this time?" she hoarsely breathed.
For a moment, Ollie thought his wife's tears would mingle with his, and they'd have a beautiful reunion, which was more than he could have hoped for.
But at that precise moment, Rhys, alone in the darkness and fearing his mother's silence meant to the newborn baby that she had left him, let out a piercing scream in search of his mother's nearness.
Norah immediately turned her head and peeked over her shoulder, checking on her baby.
Ollie's gaze followed his wife's by way of a concerned response. In her mind, Norah saw herself standing in the living room downstairs of their home, pleading with her husband not to go.
That in her current condition, she shouldn't fight, her desperate sobs pleading with Ollie to stay. She felt again, that horrible, awful pit her heart had become as he'd kissed her goodbye, his hand resting on the then-flat of her abdomen, promising to return to her, and Disapparating.
And then he had—he had died, Tonks had said so and—oh, Tonks! Had everyone lied to her?
Why? Why had they done it? To protect her?
Did they really think she couldn't handle it?
She remembered the immense waves of fear she felt at bringing their baby into the world without ollie by her side.
Her difficult labor and delivery of Rhys still fresh in her mind, hours old, and her determination to make a life for her beyond the label of a Death Eater's son consumed Norah.
When Norah slowly looked back around front to face Ollie again, the softness in her pale blue orbs had disappeared, her face had hardened.
She narrowed her eyes and glared bitterly at her husband. His face quickly fell, crestfallen, as he lost his hopeful anticipation that she'd forgive him.
Norah violently pulled her hand back angrily, and as hard as she could, let loose her pain and fury as she backhanded Ollie across his cheek, as a burning blue fire flashed within his wife's eyes.
Ollie felt no pain whatsoever from her slap, as the agony and pain of his heart was greater now.
"Get out of here, Ollie!" Norah seethed through gritted teeth, staring at him incredulously, as though she couldn't believe her eyes.
Ollie vehemently shook his head, not wanting to move an inch.
He had to make her understand.
"Please, baby, just—just let me explain," he begged, but he could already tell it was no use.
"GET OUT!" Norah screamed, beating against his chest with her curled fists, slamming her palms against his jaw, hitting every inch of her husband that she could for his ultimate betrayal.
Finally, she shoved him as far from her as she possibly could, kneeling, defeated, on the floor.
"Baby." Ollie tried to plead his case with his wife, his voice wracked with pain. "Please, Norah."
Norah ducked her head, blinking against the onset of fresh tears she knew she couldn't fight against, as they poured relentlessly down her lids.
Slowly, she lifted her gaze, and her wary blue eyes searched her husband's still-handsome face, looking for a reason to justify what he had done. Whatever that was, but Tonks knew, and she aimed to find out the bloody fucking truth in the morning.
"Get out, Ol," Norah sobbed hysterically.
The immense confusion and crushing sorrow Ollie took note of in Norah's expression sent another layer of salt onto the already tender wound that was the man's broken heart.
He'd done this to his wife, all of it.
He'd inflicted this pain on the woman who would always have his heart. Her distrust, her anger, her hatred of him, he'd put there within her own heart.
Ollie couldn't torment her like this. If she needed him to leave tonight, then he would go. He'd try to win her back another way.
But for now, he would give Norah the only peace he could, his absence. Ollie rose shakily to his feet, fumbling backward towards the doorway.
Ollie couldn't take his eyes from his wife's form as she knelt on her knees on the bedroom floor.
She couldn't seem to stop her tears from falling. Rhys continued to scream and wail from his crib, the need for his mother growing more frantic.
Ollie's reeling brain commanded his body to continue his retreat, though his heart ached to stay with his wife and child, he knew he had to leave.
He clung to the doorframe, wanting nothing more than to take his Norah into his arms, a frown creasing his otherwise smooth, bone-white forehead. He felt sure his entire self was in as much pain as hers.
"I—I'm sorry, baby, but this was the only way I knew to bring you back," he wept, choking out a strangled cry before disappearing around the corner, making his way to the door of their room, leaving Norah and their new son alone.
Norah sat rooted on her spot to the floor, trying to regulate her breathing back to normal, struggling to collect her thoughts as her mind felt like it was reeling.
Ollie was alive. Her husband, her mate, had been alive all this fucking time?
While she'd birthed and carried their baby, he lived. He lived and he'd made no attempt to see her, even once.
But… that meant that he didn't really want to be with her anymore, did that mean he didn't want her anymore?
But why come to them now? What purpose would he have gained by showing himself?
She couldn't answer the questions that taunted and howled in her mind as the savage wolf within her growled and paced back and forth, restlessly.
She knew of someone who could, though.
"Tonks," she growled through gritted teeth. Her best friend and her husband had lied to her, and the first thing she would do tomorrow after breakfast was to plan to pay their cottage a little visit.
But before she could ponder this revelation any further that Tonks and Lupin had to have known the truth all along, there was screaming.
Screaming, somewhere near to the heartbroken werewolf's haze of awareness, there came shrieking.
Rhys. Norah let out a horrified gasp and bolted to her feet. She rushed to her child's crib and lifted the newborn baby comfortingly in her arms.
Norah protectively wound her arms around Rhys as if she thought that would protect her baby from the unseen ghosts that haunted her past, and the doubts that plagued her, the sickening fear and realization that came with knowing her best friend had lied to her about her husband's death.
She held onto her newborn baby like a beacon in a storm and cried throughout the night until sleep came for them both and mother and baby rested in the bed, exhausted, not knowing that Ollie was already barreling towards the Lupins' cottage at an alarmingly ferocious speed, a murderous expression in his black eyes.
Though it didn't go exactly as he hoped, at least Norah knows her husband is alive, for what good it's worth.
Coming up, Lupin and Tonks are confronted by both Ollie and Norah over their choice to not reveal to Norah that Ollie was alive, but how will the couple react? Stay tuned for more!