51
OLLIE felt Norah tense in his arms as her pains continued to take hold. A surge of panic and a vent of adrenaline coursed through his bloodstream as he helped her to stand upright. He couldn't think straight, could barely form a cohesive thought.
"What's wrong?" Ollie demanded urgently.
He flinched as Norah shuddered and shot him a pained look. Bullets of sweat had started to glimmer along her scalp.
"It's my stomach," she groaned through gritted teeth. "It hurts. A lot. I—I think that she—your grandmother…gave me…gave me…poison."
Nervous and panicked at hearing her words, Ollie was hardly able to breathe himself as he gripped onto Norah's waist and turned on his heels to Disapparate with her by his side to the only safe haven he could think of to take her, though he knew he wasn't welcome.
He hoped at least the bastard would have a heart, and not turn Norah away when she needed help.
"Hang on, Norah," he explained softly, the moment they had Disapparated and touched down on the solid ground. "I'm going to save you. You'll—you'll be alright," he stammered, fumbling over his words as he spoke them, though he knew his voice lacked the conviction to sell the argument he really wanted to make.
He himself was having trouble believing his own words, and she could tell by the pained expression on her face that Norah didn't quite buy it, either.
"Wait here, baby, I'll…be right back," he stammered, looking towards the front stoop of Grimmauld Place's location, waving his wand, and causing the Order's Headquarters to reveal itself.
Ollie stiffened, feeling a muscle in his jaw harden as he stormed his way up the steps of the stoop, and pounded on the front door.
"BLACK!" he roared at the top of his lungs, noticing how he swore the curtains behind one of the windows gave a twitch. "I know you're inside, and you hear me! I can read your mind, you shoddy bastard. Open the damn door right now or I'll break down the door! I need your help! Please!"
He raised his knuckles to knock harder and was about to kick down the door with the force of his own boot.
If Sirius wanted to prove to him that he wasn't bloody fucking stupid, then he'd better open the damn door—
Finally, the door opened just a crack and the drawn, tautly-pulled, slightly waxen face of Sirius Black appeared on the other side of the door, his lips curling downward into a truly twisted and frightening smirk.
"What?" he barked in a hoarse voice. Ollie flinched as he could practically smell the Fire Whiskey spirits on the man's breath. Sirius, as usual, was drinking. "You've got some gall showing up here after all this time, Brennan. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't hex you after the way you spoke to my baby cousin and her husband. Give me a reason, Brennan, I beg of you, tell me right now," Sirius growled, no semblance of warmth in his voice as his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
His gaze peered over Ollie's shoulder, and what little color was left in his angular face promptly drained of color as he took in the sight of Norah, who could barely stand up and was bracing herself against the handrailing of his front stoop for physical support.
"What's she doing here? You brought that bitch here?" he snarled, his voice rising in anger as Sirius stared.
"Don't call her that!" Ollie bellowed, raising his wand, and pointing it squarely in the man's broad chest. "I should cut out your tongue for what you just said, Black, but I came to you for help, believe it or not. I don't want to duel you or fight you now. I need the location of Remus and Dora's cottage, Black, please."
Sirius continued to eye both Ollie and Norah wearily as though they were dirt stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
"Please," Ollie begged, realizing that he was a man who was not used to begging for anything, from anyone, least of all from a wizard the likes of Sirius.
But if it would get Sirius to help him, then he would grovel at the man's feet and beg if that's what was required.
"She—my girlfriend is sick, Sirius. Please. Don't turn us away. Lupin and Tonks's house is the only safe place I can think of to go, but since they've gone into hiding with their son, I—I don't know where to find them."
He fell silent, praying the stubborn former Gryffindor would take pity upon his cousin's best friend and his injured girlfriend.
Norah needed help, and he didn't care what he had to do to worm the location of the Lupin's cottage out of Black, but this was the one and only time he was going to ask nicely.
Suddenly, the door swung open even wider as a bright flash of red caught the corner of Ollie's eye.
Ollie breathed a sigh of relief as Molly Weasley jostled Sirius out of the way by nudging the younger man's shoulder.
The matronly witch missed the withering look of daggers Black gave Mrs. Weasley, though if she was aware of it or felt it in any way, she pointedly ignored it. She peered into the darkness ahead of her, trying for a better view of Norah and what she was dealing with.
"What happened to her, Ollie?" Molly scowled, furrowing her brows in a judgmental look at Ollie.
"I—I don't know, Molly," he answered, his panic returning. "She—she's been poisoned. I—I think my grandmother might have given her something to give her food poisoning. She—she was held a prisoner under my family's own roof for nine months, locked up in the cellar."
His voice broke as he said the words, as he lowered his head forlornly and blinked back a wave of tears.
"Well, don't just stand out here in the cold, dear, bring her inside now! Quickly, quickly, we'll see what we can do." Mrs. Weasley immediately usurped Sirius's authority, much to the wizard's chagrin. "I'm not going to watch this group continue to tear itself apart. Things haven't been the same since she left."
She glowered, her head whirling around sharply to shoot Sirius a venomous look, and nodded towards Sirius as if to warn the man not to put up an argument.
When Sirius did not immediately respond, Mrs. Weasley ever so lightly jabbed Sirius in his ribcage.
"Merlin damn it," he grumbled, squinting into the darkness and motioning with a wave of his arm for Ollie to bring Norah inside.
Sirius sincerely hoped that Molly Weasley's trust in the pair of them was not about to be misplaced.
"Fine, fine, bring her inside. But I'm not telling you the location of their home. The last thing I want my baby cousin in is to be in danger when she has her family to protect. I'll let you visit, but they'll come here, where the rest of the Order can keep an eye on her, and someone should tell Dumbledore what—"
"—And of course, that someone ought to be you, Black, don't you think, Sirius?" Molly interjected sternly, putting her hands on her hips, and not letting Sirius finish his thought. "I'm sure that man has his own ways of knowing what's happened, but it can't hurt to send a message. I'm sure he'll want to speak with you both, once we found out what's wrong with her, but for now, bring her inside quickly," Molly urged, a frantic note laced throughout her voice as she ushered the pair inside.
Ollie could only comply, keeping one hand firmly wound tight around Norah's waist and guided her towards the Black's family room.
Once Ollie set her gingerly against the sofa, hoping that a softer surface would help her, he looked back to see Molly already sending a Patronus to St. Mungo's.
Ollie wondered if the same Healer who had treated her wounds previously her first night in the Order would return. And low and behold, he'd been right in that regard.
Not even ten minutes after the Patronus had been sent, the same bespectacled Healer appeared in the metal grate of Sirius's living room fireplace, grumbling a curse to himself at the lateness of the hour and brushing the soot from his set of lime green robes.
"You again?" he sighed wearily, pushing his glasses back up against the bridge of his nose as he looked towards Norah's pale and peaky form on the couch.
"We can't thank you enough for coming by on a Saturday, sir," Mrs. Weasley stammered nervously, hoping to supplicate the Healer's grouchy mood some as she nervously wrang her fingers together, waiting.
"No problem, it's my job, it's what you pay me for," he added, shooting a dark, knowing look towards Sirius.
After examining Norah and asking her a number of questions on what she'd had to eat or drink over the last several hours, the Healer announced that she was suffering from a bought of food poisoning.
"Miss Jameson here told me what she had to eat or drink today," the Healer calmly explained to Sirius, Molly, and Ollie as they lingered by the fireplace so he could return back to the hospital via the Floo Network. "Any of those things could have been the cause of her symptoms. I've given her medication for her stomach."
He bid them all a farewell and left Norah with strict instructions to stay in bed the rest of the night and into the day tomorrow.
The Healer shot her a wave.
"You won't get any argument from me, sir," Norah managed to whisper with a weak little smile. "Sleep sounds pretty good to me."
It didn't take her long to drift into a dreamless sleep. When the werewolf did finally regain consciousness, the bedroom she found herself in was pitch black.
Someone—had it been Ollie? —had moved her from the living room to the same spare bedroom that had been hers as an Order member, and she couldn't see a thing.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the pitch blackness. It took a few minutes for the fog of confusion Norah found herself in to fully dissipate. There was always fear. It wasn't the experience of suddenly remembering her situation being consumed with fear after a comfortable confusion.
Instead, it was simply a realization of the cause of the sense of her pending doom. Her body felt covered in a fine layer of sweat, and her blonde bangs clung damply to her forehead.
What time was it? What was she doing in bed?
As she slowly opened her eyes, the sight she now bore made her pupils dilate even in the dark. The room was bathed in shadows, but Ollie's blue eyes burned brighter than midnight torches, and Norah could clearly draw the loathing that spiraled within them, though she recognized the behavior was more directed towards himself, and not at her for what had happened.
At least, that's what she secretly hoped for.
"Are you alright?" Ollie asked, his voice wavering slightly as he stepped forward from the shadows.
He pointed his wand at the window, and the curtains cracked open just a tad to allow a little light to flood the room.
The beams of light from the sun landed on the man's tired face, throwing it into the light and letting Norah get a good long look at her mate she'd pined for over the last nine months spent in Yaga's captivity.
"Fine," she whispered hoarsely as tears stung and blurred at the edges of her lids. Everything came back and suddenly.
There were no holes in her memory missing. None that Norah could remember anyway, and she tried to think about what her next steps would be now that she was reunited with Ollie after all this time and had no idea what to say at all to the wizard.
Her stomach churned and a chill ran through her so deeply as visions of the bloody massacre they had escaped from flitted through the forefront of her agonized mind.
The fear was literally sickening.
It was so bad that she was sure she was going to vomit as bile rose in her throat. Norah forced herself to swallow it.
"Norah, love…" Ollie calmly approached and awkwardly perched himself on the edge of the bedside.
He watched her blue eyes brim with tears and there was a reluctance at first, but then Norah let herself wrap her arms around his neck like he was the only one she had left.
Ollie held her tightly, her warmth spilling through his thick woolen sweater, hearing her sniffle.
Ollie awkwardly patted her coarse blonde hair as she sobbed into his shoulder. "Shh…it's alright now. You're safe, you'll be safe, I—I got you, baby," he whispered. Merlin, but would there ever be a time when Norah wouldn't cry? He just wanted her to smile.
Ollie retracted as they finally broke apart from the embrace. He looked at Norah, at the grief-stricken face which still held a youthful beauty despite her suffering.
"A—are you hungry?" he stammered, trying to smile at her and feeling like it wasn't at all genuine as he allowed worry to worm its way into the pit of his belly.
Norah shook her head as her stomach gave a painful lurch. "I'm not hungry," she moaned, her expression showing nausea her stomach was feeling as her complexion paled and took on a sickly green tinge.
Ollie quickly waved his wand as Norah raised her upper half off the bed. She swung her legs off the side of the bed and into a sitting position, entirely too soon, and instantly, the dark bedroom started to spin wildly.
Her head began pounding and her eyes went unfocused. She could hear Ollie's voice, to her right, but just as Norah tried to turn her head to look at him, she felt nausea churning in her stomach and it lurched.
Her throat tightened and her mouth salivated enough to know she'd made the wrong move just now in trying to get up.
Ollie froze as he saw what little color was left drain from the werewolf's face and he had to find something quickly.
He waved his wand and conjured an empty and clean orange plastic bucket and practically shoved it near Norah's ashen face.
She retched hard and loud into the bowl as her stomach heaved, forcing her to vomit everything up and out. She gripped the bedsheets tightly at her sides, while Ollie steadied his ex-girlfriend as best as he could.
Her palms became clammy with forthcoming sick. Every lurch and throw of her churning stomach left a burning inside and it made the hammering in her head worse.
Her whole body felt battered and weak. Her muscles ached all over and her back stung from where Rookwood had hit her during an interrogation earlier.
Ollie observed with hidden disgust and fear that no contents were entering the bowl.
There was nothing in Norah's stomach to project and he realized with a sinking feeling it was because she hadn't eaten in Merlin only knew how long.
Ollie patiently held the bowl to her for a while after she had calmed and her nausea had subsided, until he felt confident enough to remove it from her. He rested at her bedside, took a cloth he'd conjured too, and dabbed at the edges of her mouth.
Ollie held onto Norah's shoulders firmly and leaned in. He tried to peer into the werewolf's blue eyes, but she was too doubled over and the weakest he'd seen her.
It worried him, but he had to try to reach her, to make Norah listen and understand, that laying still, for now, was the only way she would recover.
"Norah? Love?" he begged as he continued, still trying to catch the wolf's burning blue eyes. "You NEED to lie back. You're not well. You're sick, and you've been a prisoner for Merlin only knows how long. You need to rest and follow the Healer's orders, Nor."
Norah lifted her head weakly and caught sight of the worry on her mate's drawn and tired features. But closed her eyes shortly afterward. She swallowed, trying to moisten her dried mouth and her sore throat.
All it did was make her want to throw up more. Another wave of sickness followed this, and Ollie bolted and backed up, just in case. He also had his hand at the ready with the bucket in case she hurled.
But much to Ollie's relief, she relented and started moving to lie back down again, letting her head collapse against the mountain of pillows he'd seen fit to prop behind her head while she'd been fast asleep.
"Are you alright?" Ollie asked, distressed. Norah bravely nodded after a moment or two in silence without bothering to open her eyes.
The tension between the two of them in the air was unbearable.
With her eyelids still squeezed tightly shut, Norah spoke. Her voice was hushed, faint, and hardly above a whisper. "Why did you bring me…here?" she asked.
"What?" Ollie whispered, confused by her question. He hadn't really had time to decide on their escape.
His only concern had been getting Norah to safety. In his mind, that also meant the safest place. Here at the Order Headquarters, the one place that Baba Yaga would now never go. Norah would be safe.
"I brought you to the only place I could think of, baby. We're back in Headquarters, Norah," he said.
Norah's heart sank to the pit of her churning belly as her chin rose defiantly.
"Here?" she whispered, glancing around the room, and recognizing with a look of shock and horror on her face that she was in her old bedroom that Sirius and the others had put her up in.
It felt strange, to be back here, after so many months. But she wondered if they were welcome here.
Or, to put it more accurately, if she was welcome here again.
Had someone already told Dumbledore? Norah wondered, biting the wall of her cheek in her fear. Greyback and Rookwood were dead, or at least, she thought so, but Yaga was still very much a problem.
Ollie nodded, hoping to assuage her fears. "With the rest of the Order here to look after you, you'll be safe. My grandma won't dare set foot here. She can't. Not with the Fidelius Charm in effect. She'll not be hurting you."
He smiled reluctantly and wished he could feel happier. Norah was safe, but the pain in her eyes was evident.
Norah was quiet for a long moment, looking towards the window at the world outside around them, wanting to run for the rooftop and Disapparate far away from Headquarters, but she knew she couldn't. Instead, she turned her head to glower at Ollie.
"I suppose that's what you want me to believe," she accused flatly, her tone rather cold and harsh as her blue eyes narrowed until they were slits.
Ollie frowned, leaning as near to the werewolf as she would allow.
Confused, he couldn't even begin to follow the direction of Norah's thoughts.
"I don't understand, Norah," he confessed, pained. "All I want is to get us both somewhere safe, away from Baba," he promised, hoping that his tone sounded earnest now.
"Is it?" Norah shot back. Her mistrustful glower practically tore his heart to shreds. "Or was that your plan all along," she accused, starting to pant in anger.
"Plan?" Ollie stared at Norah in bewilderment.
"Yes! Plan!" Norah shot back. "Between you and Yaga," she argued, her tone laced with pure suspicion. "You—to take Wes away from me. She killed him!" she cried, tears brimming at the edges of her lids.
Her face began to crumble at the mention of her friend's name.
"To take…" Ollie tried to repeat her words. "Norah. Baby. No…"
His words would not come to him as he searched the blonde werewolf's nervous face. He'd never seen Norah react to anything with such cynicism and weariness. Something was definitely wrong now.
Before he could press the conversation, Norah grimaced and turned away as another pain seized her stomach, a lingering after-effect, cramps of her food poisoning.
She turned her face away and tried to breathe deeply but could only let out a low whine. It only took a moment for Ollie to reach her bedside again.
He knelt beside her, wanting desperately to help but not knowing how. It wasn't time for her to take her medicine yet. Without even a thought, Ollie reached out his hand and rested it tenderly on Norah's kneecap.
In the midst of her haze of lingering pain, Norah tensed and stiffened away from the Legilimens.
"Don't touch me!" she screamed in terror, baring her fangs.
Ollie jumped, pulling his hand back as if he had been burned. He was upset and angry at himself at whatever had happened to place such fear and doubt in her heart.
At that moment, as it took for the man to return his eyes to her face, he realized he was one of the ones who had hurt her, not just the men under Baba Yaga. All he could do now was watch as Norah's discomfort grew worse. She turned away from him to clutch at one of the pillows behind her head, and Ollie couldn't help but wish that it were his hand that she had reached for.
After several minutes, the cramp in her stomach had finally subsided and Norah looked back at her marked mate with terrified, brimming eyes. Her mind was slowly but surely returning to her suspicion of Ollie's true purpose.
"You're—you're just going to make me think that I can trust you again." She voiced her body as her body had started to tremble. "Then you're going to take me back to that old hag so the bitch can kill me, just like she did to poor Wes!" She nodded to herself, sure of her accusation ringing true. "You're going to let her kill me. You're going to let her slaughter me because your family has hated werewolves."
She began to cry, overcome with fright.
"What?" Ollie asked, growing increasingly more worried for Norah. "Please, believe me, sweetheart." He begged the blonde. "All I care about is getting you someplace safe. Someplace where my grandmother won't think to look."
Norah scoffed at Ollie and rejected the man's earnest and heartfelt appeal to her.
Norah could no longer hold back her anger. "Your grandmother told me that you knew," she interrupted him before he could say anything further. "She told me what you said," she growled, the edges of her lips curling upwards as she revealed her fangs at the man.
She stared at Ollie Brennan with fire and hurt in her eyes.
"Knew about what? Said what? I—I don't understand, sweetheart, so help me to," he begged desperately, his mind struggling to comprehend it all. "Norah, baby, you're not making much sense. Talk to me. Yell and scream at me for how I treated you if you have to but help me to understand," Ollie pleaded.
Through her eyes, Norah watched her mate warily with cautious eyes and a rather guarded expression.
She began to explain the reasons for her despair. "Not long after they caught me and Wes on the outskirts of the Forest of Dean, she came to my cell."
Norah squeezed her eyes tightly shut against the memory. "She said…" Her voice cracked as her words caught in her throat. "She told me you knew I was being kept in the cellar of your own house, but you didn't give a shit about me. That you refused to see me."
Norah recounted the conversation that had spurned her growing mistrust of the man now seated in front of her and then turned to face Ollie ruefully.
"You just left me there, waiting to die," Norah whispered, her eyes dropping to the floor as Ollie's heart fell to the pit at the bottom of his stomach. Then she revealed to him why she had been so afraid of him.
"Yaga told me when she informed you that I was down below, you laughed," she sobbed.
Her tears were falling at an uncontrollable pace now, and shattering Ollie's already fractured heart even further.
"She said you told her that any attraction you might have had for me while we were partners in the Order was just lust, that, in the absence of a pureblood witch and one who wasn't attached to another man, you had no other choice."
Norah hesitantly and finally lifted her gaze to meet his. Her blue eyes were filled with so much hurt, that Ollie flinched as he choked on the sob forming in his throat.
"Norah, sweetheart, no, that's—that's not true!" Ollie pleaded. "You have to know that the bitch was lying." He tried to reason with her. "Think of what you and I shared," he begged, reaching for her hand, but she jerked away and shot him a venomous glower.
Norah's jaw clenched in anger. "I did think of that night together," she snapped coldly. "Yaga's explanation is the only one that could possibly make sense. Of course, what you felt for me must have just been lust." She snorted bitterly and looked away from him. "What else would explain how you quit me so easily and gave me up like you did, Brennan?" she questioned him angrily.
Ollie felt numb as his blood turned to ice in his veins. He could hardly dare to believe what he was hearing, or that Norah had believed such vile words.
"Is that really what you think?" he implored her.
But then Ollie realized that it was exactly what he'd wanted her to think the night she had revealed the truth to him and Dumbledore, about her partnership in the Order being a lie, a plant for Fenrir Greyback to get close.
He'd hoped to hurt Norah so badly, that there would be no chance of her trying to follow him, maybe even to her death.
"Norah, listen to me," he begged, his heart aching to confess to the witch he loved the honest truth. "Leaving you, dismissing you, was the hardest thing I think I've ever done."
His blue eyes clouded as they became distant, reliving that horrible night that still haunted his nightmares, even after nine months.
"Harder even than killing your father's brother," he said, remembering the werewolf's face at the Department of Mysteries that had almost killed Tonks had he not reacted instinctively in the effort to save his friend's life. "I'd have done whatever I could to keep you safe, no matter how angry you made me," Ollie passionately swore. "I'd murder your adopted uncle a thousand times over if it meant keeping you away from harm's reach," he told her. "You're the only thing that means anything to me."
"But you couldn't even kill your own grandmother!" Norah spat back hatefully at him.
Ollie could only hang his head in shame, knowing the witch was right in that regard. He should have killed Yaga when he had the shot. But he'd been too weak, too sentimental, and Norah and poor Wes had paid the ultimate price for it.
"That's not all your grandma told me." Norah looked at Ollie hatefully and her body shuddered in revulsion, not wanting to give a voice to the disgusting reaction which had been reported to her.
She took a deep breath and spat the words Yaga had said to her back at Ollie.
"You said that my—what I am, like this," she gestured to herself in disgust as she pointed to the scars that littered her collarbones as she referenced her lycanthropy, "is nothing more than cancer, a plague to all of wizardkind, worthy only to be the Dark Lord's pets, that we should all be forced to wear collars and paraded around like we're just some kind of—of dogs!"
She dropped her face into her hands and lost total and utter control of her emotions as she spat the last word in disgust and sobbed, utterly inconsolable now.
Ollie practically fell at Norah's feet as he slid off the edge of her bedside and landed on the floor on his knees, unable to believe and process what he was hearing.
There truly was no end to Baba's wickedness.
He wished he'd killed her when they'd left his home. His mind had been so filled with desperation and worry over getting Norah out of there and somewhere safe that he could think of nothing else.
His thoughts raced ahead of himself at the evil that Yaga had spewed at Norah, poisoning her mind and her opinion of him with her vicious, fucking falsehoods.
This was why she'd not been able to look at him when the Death Eaters had dragged her into the dining room. This was the cause of her distrust in him, even now.
Ollie vowed to himself a second time that the old bitch was going to die for what she'd done to Norah, and to her friend, Wes.
He still needed to recover the kid's body to give the other werewolf a proper burial.
Ollie itched to take Norah's hand, he wanted to hold her, to kiss her, to tell her that everything was going to be okay, but he didn't dare to, not yet.
He'd have to earn back her confidence and her love. That had been stolen from him, and which he himself took from her.
"Norah." Ollie's voice cracked and halted with tears. "I—I didn't…baby, Merlin, you have to believe me, that I didn't know about any of this." He tried to explain. "My grandma never breathed a word to me. The last news I heard of you was that you had gone missing," he told her, his entire body wracking with hard sobs. "I almost drove myself insane worrying about you. I tried to find you, but she never left me alone."
Norah merely sat there, trembling and sobbing, still keeping her eyes closed and refusing to look at Ollie.
"Please look at me, baby. Open your eyes and look," he implored the witch. "You know what Yaga is, Norah. My grandmother is more of a monster than anything else that has ever slunk its way through this world. I don't know which of them is worse, her or Voldemort."
He felt Norah flinch at the utterance of the Dark Lord's name, but Ollie chose not to comment on it now.
"Please don't take anything she said to you seriously," he pleaded.
Slowly, Norah opened her gaze to him.
He paused a moment, allowing himself to revel in the joy of having the blonde wolf back by his side.
"I'd give my own hands up before I would ever say anything like that about you, Norah Jameson." His voice trembled as his breaths caught in his throat. "You've come back to me." The smile that he shot her now was like that of a man retrieved from the brink of a dark chasm. "Having you back alive and unharmed is one of the greatest gifts I could ask for," he pleaded, aching to hold her in his yearning arms. "I was a fool to say those things to you that night and to have left you and dismissed you. I'll spend the rest of my life proving that to you, baby, if you'll have me. Can I…will you take me back?" Ollie whispered as he looked at her, stricken with fear that Norah might not want him ever again, and then his heart would break all over again and he would once more be powerless against it. "I love you, and only you, Norah," he promised. "With all of my heart. I'd even make the Unbreakable Vow if you asked me to," he declared passionately to her to showcase to the blonde witch just how serious he was about his feelings for her.
Norah watched Ollie in a guarded manner. His words and his mannerisms seemed genuine to her. She had seen the pain in his eyes.
Up on the rooftop, when the pair of them had spoken so openly and candidly about their fathers, he'd trusted her so implicitly that she'd not been able to help but feel their bond start to grow.
She sighed sadly. That all seemed so long ago. Before she had been held a prisoner for months, threatened, and terrorized, wondering if each day that the sun crept over the horizon was to be her very last.
Norah had been through too much throughout her life not to be vigilant with her trust placed in someone.
She could not look into Ollie's face. Her blue eyes stared into the distance and out the window, over his shoulder, so hurt that the emotions she now felt would not break through the walls around her heart she'd erected the night Dumbledore dismissed her from the Order. She felt dazed as the words left her lips.
"How come you didn't kill her?" Norah asked, the confusion and disappointment echoing in Ollie's now-roaring ears.
Norah was right. Of course, she was.
He should have. Ollie couldn't deny the truth in her allegations.
The weight of his failure settled over him like a dark rain cloud, pressing down until it almost physically ached and suffocated him. He ought to have killed Baba before he'd seen Norah safely off of his property.
He'd been given the perfect opportunity. His fingers should have crushed the very breath from her throat, he wouldn't even need or want magic to kill the witch.
He should have never sent the woman he loved away from him the night she had forcefully spilled the truth.
Ollie stayed kneeling at Norah's bedside, on his knees, hanging his head in shame and utter despair.
"You're right, Norah," he whispered. "My grandma's body ought to be rotting on the ground right about now, and by my hand," he agreed sorrowfully. "Please understand that she still lives and draws breath only because of my desperation to have gotten you here, someplace safe," he added, looking around the bedroom for a moment, before returning his gaze to her. "She was a tool to use to see us both safe and out of there, a bargaining chip to use if we needed it." His blue eyes burned and bore deep into Norah's as he explained. "My thoughts were only on you. Saving your life," he swore, reaching for her hand and squeezing it.
"You could have done nothing greater to protect me than to have killed her back there," Norah protested, sounding angry with Ollie. "Neither of us is safe, Ollie, as long as that bitch still lives," she growled tearfully, as visions of Wes flitted in front of her mind, baring her sharp fangs as her face's color had drained.
Ollie looked at Norah with compassion, there had to be something he could do to ease her mind. Rising to his feet and perching himself once more on the edge of the bed, without waiting to be asked, he gathered the petite blonde werewolf in his arms and just held her.
"I promise," he vowed, burying his face in her hair, allowing the scent of autumn and honeysuckle to flow through his nostrils and calm his agitated mind. "I'm not going to let anyone hurt you, Norah. I won't leave you. I'm right here where I'm sitting. I'm not anywhere else, love. Can I…will you take me back?" he questioned, almost fearful of her answer, yet knowing that he needed to know, one way or another if Norah would have him.
Her arms tightened around him in response, and one of her slender hands drifted into his black hair, smoothing it back away from his face.
"Yes," she whispered faintly, sighing softly, and burrowing her face in his chest, holding him just as tightly. "You're not alone. I'm right here too where I'm sitting still. I'm not going to abandon you. You're not alone. Never…but…" she paused, and pulled back slightly to study his face, a stern expression that hadn't been there before. "You—you broke my heart that night. It's not okay yet, Ollie. Not yet. And…I hope that it will be, in time. I—I don't forgive you, but…I'd like to try…"
She let her voice trail off, and before her resolve could falter, upon seeing the man's crestfallen expression, she cupped his chin in her hands and pressed her warm lips to his.
Her lips were chapped and cracked, but she didn't care. His lips were warm and tasted slightly of mint.
Norah broke apart first, and the two of them held one another, for how long, who could say. They both knew there would be time for words of affirmation and hand holding later.
For now, they just needed to hold one another. To know the other existed and could feel the beating of their hearts.
Leaning down, Ollie kissed Norah gently on the mouth as he noticed she was starting to fall asleep.
This was a private moment between the werewolf and the Legilimens, the Gryffindor and the Slytherin.
The moment was hidden away from the rest of the world who would look upon their relationship with scorn, fear, and even disgust, an acknowledgment of a powerful bond that would put the Unbreakable Vow to shame.
All thoughts of leaving Ollie again were dashed from Norah's mind as she rested against his chest, but she didn't know yet that there was still one other force besides Yaga who would keep her separated from Ollie, and she happened to be downstairs in Sirius's kitchen, chatting with the man.
Dolores Umbridge had come to Headquarters upon receiving an urgent owl from none other than Baba Yaga herself, with an arrest warrant for both Norah and for Oliver.