Chapter 62 - "C'mon, Kid. C'mon. It's one foot and then the other." / "I danced myself into the tomb."
Minerva could hear Circe screaming at Severus from down the corridor. She would have tutted or exclaimed in outrage, but she was too forlorn and empty-feeling to care much. It had been a long night for The Order and the news had broken of Voldemort's return in that morning's Daily Prophet.
"SEVERUS SNAPE YOU TAKE THIS LEGLOCKER CURSE OFF ME THIS INSTANT!" she heard Circe cry, followed by a deep thud as Circe presumably rolled onto the ground.
Severus muttered something back to Circe that obviously infuriated her further, eliciting a grunt of frustration from her.
"ACCIO SHOES!" Circe screamed.
"Circe… CIRCE!" Severus shouted after her.
Minerva rolled her eyes.
Mcgonagall strode into the room, her temper short and her eyes tired.
"What on earth is happening here?" She asked, entering upon a strange tableau: Circe was crawling across the floor of her bedroom, red faced, wand clenched between her teeth and desperately trying to wrestle her boots from out of Severus's hands. He too was splayed out on the floor, but it seemed he'd reached Circe's Doc Martens first before her spell could retrieve them, but not before Circe had made a grab for his leg.
"Minerva, tell him!" Circe grunted, her words slurred from her clenched jaw. "I'm going to Grimmauld Place!"
"You need to rest!" Hissed Severus, "You aren't going anywhere in the condition you're in."
"You aren't my nursemaid, Severus! And you can't force me to stay here." She cried, grabbing a boot from Severus's grip.
"I can't? Watch me." Severus growled, snatching the boot back from Circe's hand and standing up to his full height. Circe screeched and turned onto her back, her legs still firmly locked together.
"I'm not made of glass! I feel fine. I want to be with The Order… with Harry. I need to know Tonks and Remus are alright…" Circe said, sitting up and trying to make a grab for her shoe.
"Oh Severus, give her the boot for goodness sake." Muttered Minerva, striding forwards and pulling Circe up to her feet. "If she wants to go, then that's her choice to make. It is not your place nor your privilege to bar her."
"That bloody owl. I'll turn the damn thing into a feather pillow…" Severus grumbled.
Ziggy had flown into Circe's conservatory at the breaking of dawn, carrying that day's Prophet in his beak. Circe had woken from within Severus's embrace with salty cheeks and an aching heart, both of them having drifted off into an exhausted sleep when the stars had finally faded from the sky. Circe had been awoken by the bird's gentle preening and had quietly risen from her blanket to take the paper from Ziggy's beak. Severus had just been beginning to stir, feeling the cold absence of Circe from between his thighs, when he saw her staring dumbfounded at the newspaper in her hands.
"You leave Ziggy alone! It's not his fault you lied to me about what was going on last night." Circe retorted, pointing a finger at Severus.
"I did not lie. I just chose not to tell you." Snape muttered.
"Severus Snape, you bloody hypocrite!" Circe shot back, placing her hands on her hips. Circe wobbled a little on her stiff legs and she leant heavily on Minerva before she could fall over.
"Oh Circe, can't you see Severus wanted to keep you out of last night's antics to protect you?" Minerva said shortly, fixing her with a reproachful look from over her spectacles. "All soldiers need to recuperate after an injury, even you."
"I wasn't injured…" Circe whispered, her throat tightening.
"You suffered a wound, all right." Mcgonagall huffed. "Not a physical one, but one that earned you the night off at the very least."
"Since when do you two decide how I can respond to my own bloody miscarriage?!" Circe asked indignantly. Severus noticeably flinched at her rather blunt phrasing.
"Circe, please…" Severus breathed. He waved his wand and her legs unlocked instantly. "Let me go. I'll find out what happened last night without all of the Prophet's fear-mongering and spin stories."
"The headline is "He's Back!", Sev. And I don't think they're talking about Mark Morrison!" Circe stated flatly, pointing to the crumpled mess of the Prophet on the conservatory floor. She strode towards him, stopping only when he was close enough to see her mascara still black and dried on her face. "The Minister saw Voldemort last night. Dumbledore is cradling Harry in his arms. And that's just the front page... I haven't even got to the "more on page 3" stuff yet. What part of that so far do you think is spin, Severus?"
"So we wait! The Dark Lord...we should be expecting summons from him soon anyway."
"Severus, Lucius obviously failed spectacularly at whatever he was trying to pull off last night.
Do you really want to be around Voldemort when he's angrier than he probably ever has been this side of October 1981? I'd wait for a summons, if I were you!" Circe scoffed.
Severus turned to Minerva, his black eyes imploring her for help.
You were all for keeping Circe in the dark last night too! He thought with a frown. You were weeping on her bed, folding her soiled clothes away not twelve hours ago.
"So let me guess…" Severus hissed, his anger bubbling up inside him. "You want to drop by and check in on the remaining Marauders? Is that right? Make sure dear Remus and licentious Sirius are safe and sound?" He asked, his desperation to keep Circe at Hogwarts to recover making him resort to this rather low punch.
"Oh for God sake, Severus…" Circe muttered. "Remus is my friend and I told you, the whole thing with Sirius was-"
"I swear by Merlin's beard, Circe... If you're going to Grimmauld Place to prioritise Black's well-being over your own, then-"
"Severus…" Minerva whispered, her voice low and pained.
"-then that dog has managed to take your affections from me, hasn't he?!" Severus said hurriedly.
"You know that's not true!" Circe shouted.
"Severus!" Minerva screeched. Both of them fell silent as they turned to face Mcgonagall. Circe suddenly realised just how forlorn and grey her friend looked and she knew something else had happened. Something the papers hadn't reported on…
"Sirius is dead." Mcgonagall stated miserably.
Grimmauld Place was as quiet as a graveyard. Even Walburga Black lay silent from behind her drawn curtains. Circe stood in the hallway of the London house feeling a little dizzy and out of place. She had not fought at the Ministry last night. She had not participated in the battle so it felt strange to her to be at the war-camp. But nevertheless, the first person to come investigating when the door banged shut was Tonks. Her pink hair seemed to be slightly muted and faded, her eyes sore and red. Tonks burst into a stifled sob when she saw her friend and leapt down the last few steps to take Circe into a tight embrace.
"Are you alright, mate?" Circe whispered into Tonks's ear.
"I'm fine. I'm just dandy…" Tonks muttered solemnly. "But Sirius… he's-"
"Dead. I know. Minerva told me."
A black shadow descended over Tonks's wet face and her eyes darted back to the front door behind Circe. Severus hovered into the grey light streaming into Grimmauld Place through the glass in the door and he paused, realising both women were staring at him now. Tonks regarded him coolly eyeing up his imposing black silhouette with a look of suspicion.
"I've gotta admit, I'm happy I didn't see either of you two there last night." she said to Circe.
"Well… we couldn't be there, could we. It would have compromised-"
"Compromised your cover. Yeah, I know."
"I wish I was though…" Circe muttered hoarsely. "One more man on the ground could have made all the difference."
Tonks began crying again, a flash of last night's memory playing over her young face.
"How did it happen?" Circe asked, feeling her guts seize up inside her .
"Bellatrix." Tonks spat. "She killed him, Cee. Her own cousin."
And she would have killed you too, her niece, if she'd have been given the chance. Circe thought grimly.
"Is he here?" Circe asked, her eyes darting up to the upper floors of the house.
"No, he…. He fell." Tonks replied, her voice becoming wispy as she looked dreamily at the dead space in front of her. "It's weird, Cee. there was this… archway thing. And… and I could hear voices coming through it. Speaking to me, whispering to me. And it was covered by this sort of-"
"Veil?" Severus asked, cutting in swiftly.
Circe almost jumped, hearing Severus's voice pipe up suddenly behind her.
"You've seen it?" Tonks asked, her eyes snapping to Severus in a lightning fast flash.
"I'm surprised you haven't. Given how long you have worked at the Ministry." Severus replied coolly.
"You don't mean, The Veil?" Circe asked as a lump rose in her throat.
"How do you know of The Veil?" Severus asked with a raised brow.
"The Veil is ancient. The Ministry was built around it. Not the other way round. It's part of our history, for goodness sake! Merlin built it to commune with the spirit of Uther Pendragon and even he was scared of its power. Even Merlin knew that he had to bury it and hide it away from the world."
"Then why don't I know about it?" asked Tonks.
"You were probably asleep when Professor Binns taught you about it…" Circe muttered, mustering a small sardonic smile for Tonks. "And the Ministry likes to closely guard information that gets passed around about The Veil. It's a portal to the other side. It's a rip in the fabric that separates this world from the afterlife. It's probably the most dangerous and volatile magical place in Britain."
"Dangerous? Dangerous why?" asked Tonks.
"Nobody who has stepped through it ever returns. And… And I'm guessing Sirius fell through The Veil?"
"He was pushed. Bellatrix hit him square in the chest with this nasty stupefy and he sort of stumbled back through it. And I was just waiting for him to walk back through the arch… and he never came back." Tonks whispered. "It was only when Remus started sobbing that I realised…"
Tonks descended into unutterable sobs and Circe drew her close again, letting her cry freely onto her shoulder.
"So that's why The Prophet made no mention of his death." Severus mumbled. "No body to recover."
"I can't stop seeing it, Cee. Remus holding on so tight to Harry. Both of them screaming and crying…"
"Where are they?" asked Circe.
This was the reason she had come to Grimmauld Place. For Harry and Remus. She knew that they would be the two people who would have suffered the most from the consequences of that terrible night. And something within Circe was compelling her to them. Something about her own sadness that drove her to them, like the drawing of two charged magnets to one another. She had her tunnel vision on, fixed solely on Harry and Remus and the path leading her to them. If she strayed from the path she'd plummet off into the darkness. If she stopped,or took her focus off them, then she'd sink into despair.
"Harry's on the top floor. Remus is in the Living Room. Both of them are awful, Cee. Remus won't even look at me. He's so angry... throwing things around the room and snarling like he's about to change. I've… I've never seen him so angry, Cee."
"I don't think I've ever seen Remus angry, full stop." muttered Circe. "Where's everyone else? Where's Dumbledore? Moody? Kingsley?"
"They're still at the Ministry. Dealing with the fallout of last night. They're already calling it the "Battle of the Department of Mysteries". We made quite the catch of rats last night."
"Arrests? Who?" asked Severus, folding his arms across himself.
"Lucius Malfoy, Antonin Dolohov, Augustus Rookwood, Walden Macnair…" Tonks sounded off the names almost as if she were listing the Death Eaters who had sat around the table at Pettigrew Manor. "Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange too."
"Oh for goodness sake…" sighed Circe. I just bloody well got them out of prison. She thought to herself.
"And Bellatrix?" asked Severus.
"She escaped. As did the Big Cheese himself."
"And The Prophecy?"
"Smashed to bits." Tonks said with a shrug. "Malfoy dropped it when I hit him in his smug little face with my stunning spell. Bastard."
"Bastard." Circe echoed, a wave of pride rippling through her body. The thought of what silver-haired Lucius would have looked like coming face to face with one of Tonks's disarming spells and again she found herself wishing she could have been at the Ministry to see it first hand.
An almighty cry of pain echoed through the house at that moment. It sounded like the half-feral scream of an animal stuck in a bear trap. The sound was so roar, so completely unfiltered in its grief that it caused Circe physical pain within her to hear it. She shrank back from the wall, fearing that Walburga would be triggered by the noise and begin her ravings, but all she heard from the portrait was a soft whimper.
"Jesus, was that-"
"Harry." Tonks said with a sniff. "He's been feral since Dumbledore brought him back here. Just screams like that every so often and tries to charge for the door. I had to put a locking spell on Sirius's bedroom to stop Harry from leaving! He says he wants to kill Bellatrix. That's all he says. "I want to kill her. Let me find her". And between him and Remus, I feel like I'm trying to hold the leashes of two mad dogs at once!"
"What happened to Harry? Why did he go to the Department of Mysteries anyway? After all The Order have done this year to protect The Prophecy and keep it hidden… Why would he walk straight into Voldemort's hands and almost give him what he wanted?" asked Circe.
"Because he fell for his trap." stated Severus in a low whisper.
Circe turned around to face Snape slowly. "Something else you know that you're not telling me, Sev?" she asked shortly.
Severus cleared his throat awkwardly, watching Tonks's cheeks colour red at his second-hand embarrassment.
"Harry was shown a false vision of Sirius in danger. The boy wanted to help his Godfather, no matter the dangers to himself. I hoped that he'd at least have come here before running headlong into The Ministry on his own."
"Not on his own. Some of the others were there too. Luna, Hermione, Neville, Ron-"
"But wait, wait…" Circe cut in brusquely. "Has no one actually taken a moment to think how The Dark Lord knew about Harry's visions?"
"As far as I am aware, there were only a select few people who knew about the visions. One of whom is now dead." Severus stated flatly.
"Great. More problems. More betrayals." Circe sighed.
Harry screamed out again, making the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling shiver with the utter noise of his cry. Circe felt herself come close to tears as she stared up at the roof, trying to imagine the sheer torment the young boy must be in to make a noise like that. She didn't have to imagine very hard…
"Who do I see first, Tonks?" She asked, swallowing the hard lump in her throat.
"Harry. He's a kid. Remus has got me, and he knows that. Even if he's trying hard to forget it at the moment. Harry must feel so alone..." Tonks's words left her, a single, bitter tear rolling down her face.
"Stop it. Otherwise you'll set me off too." Circe mumbled, feeling the lump in her throat bob up like a persistent ice cube.
Tonks nodded, wiping her face with the sleeve of her cardigan. "Tea duty for me, then." She said with a weak smile.
"Take Sev with you. He'll tell you a good riddle about tea." Circe added, turning to Severus just in time to see his pained scowl.
"Gotcha. Come on, you." Tonks said, grabbing Severus by the sleeve. "Maybe you can find Kreacher and ask him how the stove works."
Severus was yanked past Circe, causing him to almost trip over his long black cape. Tonks stifled a small giggle as she turned and headed for the kitchen.
"You know, I'm still getting used to the idea of you and Circe being…. y'know. Turning up to places together and the like. I was only just over the little scuffle you and Padfoot had at Christmas." Circe heard Tonks mutter to Severus.
"Well I'm afraid it shall be rather difficult for me to repeat the performance." Severus grumbled back.
"What? Only play by Queensbury rules, do you?" Tonal chuckled.
Circe smiled to herself as the door to the kitchen closed behind them, but her expression soon fell back into a somber mask as she cast her eyes back up the stairs. She moved silently up to the first floor, cringing each time her shoes made the floorboards squeak. She approached what had once been Sirius's room and paused as another one of Harry's soul-crushing cries came from behind the door. She shut her eyes tight, pressing her forehead to the wood and tried desperately to stop the rising pool of emotion in her chest. Harry seemed to vocalise all she felt within and had she been equipped with the strength and the freshness of her loss, she too would be raging into the abyss like Harry was.
"I know, kid. I know…" she whispered to the wooden door. Circe took a long breath in, laying her palm against her stomach, and knocked.
"Leave me alone!" came Harry's distraught voice. "You've pushed me away all year! Left me to fend for myself! Why are you bothering now, Dumbledore?!"
"Harry, it's Professor Smith." She answered quietly. Her eyes were already pricking with tears, hearing the boy's bleak but accurate summary of how he'd been treated that year by the people he was meant to trust in.
No reply came for her. Circe summoned her courage and opened the door.
"We shall have to start interrogating everyone. Right down to Figg and Mundungus. It could be someone overheard something or found out without us realising. I've told Dumbledore that the security around here is lax at best…" Muttered Severus. He sat at the kitchen table whilst Tonks fiddled with the stove, his arms crossed across his chest as he settled into conversation with the young woman. He was half working through the thoughts in his mind, half watching the pink-haired woman meddling with the kitchen appliance.
"No. Figg is unassuming but she's one of Dumbledore's staunchest supporters. And Dung is a cretin, but he hasn't stuck around here long enough to overhear something like that. He's out the door before most people have put their coats on."
"Well somebody who has graced these halls went to The Dark Lord with what they knew." Severus replied irritably.
"Ahh, bollocks!" Tonks exclaimed, jumping back from the hob with a start. "Bloody burnt myself on the gas ring."
"Leave it alone!" Severus chided her. "I told you it's probably enchanted to only respond to Kreacher. I'll boil the water with a spell."
"Well where is the rude little thing?!" Tonks asked, waving her scalded finger in the air.
Severus tutted and stood to inspect her wound. Silently he extended his own hand and gently curled his fingers towards him, gesturing for her to offer up her own hand. Tonks compliantly handed over her red palm and silently waited for Severus to finish his inspection.
"Put that under the cold tap. Is my Essence of Dittany still here?" he asked.
"Uhh, yeah I think there's still some in Walburga's old bedroom. It's still on the side table from when Circe was…. How did she get that injury on her arm?" asked Tonks.
"Order business." replied Severus evasively.
"Yeah, I know. I thought at the time it might have been a bad raid or a run in with a particularly nasty Death Eater. But since we found out you two were spies, Dumbledore's men on the inside…"
"You know I can't tell you." Severus said in a low voice.
"No. I thought that might be the case…" Tonks muttered. "Loose lips sink ships et cetera…"
"And loose lips have already cost us somebody." he muttered back.
"But… you are looking after her aren't you, Professor?" Tonks said hurriedly. "Severus." she corrected herself with a small smile. "Circe, I mean. It still boggles my mind that you two are-"
"Miss Tonks, I would prefer to keep my private life private. The Order already knows too much because of my outburst here last Christmas…" Severus cut in quickly, making Tonks's playful smile wither away.
"But Circe's my mate. She's my sister. There was a time when we told each other everything."
"I know she wanted to tell you." Severus said gently. "It pained her to keep the secret. She told me often just how much it weighed on her that she couldn't tell you about her and I."
Tonks's smile returned to her lips and she looked down at her hand bashfully. "Well, Circe doesn't have a big brother. And Myron's not around to pretend to be butch. So, I'll say it. I'll be her big brother and give the big brother speech."
"Which is?"
"If you hurt her, or break her heart… I'll break your legs." Tonks stated flatly, a playful twinkle in her eye.
Severus raised a single brow at her, his lips pursing together as he tried to fight down a chuckle. Nevertheless, he found himself completely believing Tonks's warning, despite the rather jovial delivery. And he did not for a second underestimate the ability of the pink-haired, five foot four girl in front of him, to completely break his legs like a couple of matchsticks if she wanted to.
"Under the cold tap, now." he stated levelly, pointing at Tonks's hand. "I'll find the Dittany."
Tonks grinned to herself as she strode over to the sink and turned the running water on. Severus cleared his throat awkwardly as he left the kitchen, off on his quest to retrieve the healing potion from Walburga's bedroom.
Harry was laying across Sirius's old bed. His face was buried in his Godfather's scarlet Gryffindor pillows, still and stifled. The whole bed was a ruby in an otherwise emerald-coloured house and it almost appeared gory. Like Circe had just walked in on a murder scene, with Harry laying dead on the covers. For a split second, Circe was reminded of the crimson colour of her fingers, the stain on her old tartan coat, all that blood and all that pain… Circe stood stock still in the center of the room, her eyes closed tight shut and her heart profusely aching and for a moment she wondered if she had expected too much of herself. Should she be here? Was Severus right? Did she have the strength inside her for this now? But as she opened her eyes, she found Harry raising his gaze up to meet her and she was left breathless by the hurt and grief in his eyes. For a moment, all time and sense and space outside of Sirius's room ceased to exist. All there was between Harry and Circe was the bittersweet recognition of one's pain in another. Like they were broadcasting the same signal at exactly the same frequency. It left both of them speechless, because there were no words that could fully describe what they felt or even the strange bond of fraternity they both sensed in that moment.
"Hey, kid." Circe smiled weakly, perching on the end of the bed. "You had us all worried for a while there. I heard it got quite ugly."
"He's dead. Sirius is dead." Harry whispered, staring back down at the crimson pillows beneath him. His glasses glinted in the dim light, the lenses cracked and covered in tears. There was none of that teenage-boy bravado that most boys Harry's age tried to front. None of that hard man, "boys don't cry" facade. He didn't even try to hide his distress from Circe. He didn't even attempt to hide pain from her. And that alone brought Circe close to tears.
"I know. I'm sorry, Harry. I'm so sorry." She whispered, laying a hand on his squared shoulders.
"Did Dumbledore send you?" he asked, the hurt plain in his voice. He wrenched himself free of her hand, staring up at her through his cracked glasses. He looked so much like a man, an angry young man, in that moment and Circe found herself flustered
"No. I… I don't know why I came really." Circe answered weakly. "I suppose I just wanted to make sure that you're alright. I know you're not alright. Stupid question, that…" she muttered hurriedly. "If you want me to go, I'll-"
"Every person I have ever loved has died for me." Harry stated flatly, the look of a boy returning to his pained face. His green eyes stared into nothing. "My Mum, my Dad, and now Sirius."
Circe sat quietly as her eyes danced around the room. She tried desperately to find the right words for Harry but found instead herself coming up woefully short. She stared at the long, thin window, casting it's pale light over the crimson bed through similarly blood-red curtains. Sirius's walls were lined with pictures much like his brother's, but instead of a patchwork of Voldemort's exploits, instead the faces of Bowie, T-Rex, Lou Reed, Queen, Playboy girls, and Harley Davidson's stared down at them. It was an immortal teenageer's bedroom, forever a shrine to Sirius's defiant youth. And now it felt strange that Sirius's persistent, defiant energy was gone forever. Sirius had survived his Mother, he'd made it out of Azkaban, lived through months of hunger and starvation on the run from the Dementors, and all of that tenacious and audacious spirit was now gone.
"It's natural for you to feel distraught. Lord knows I feel terrible for you… But this did not happen because of you. Not because of anything you did, but because life is cruel." Circe said finally, her lips echoing what Severus had told her not so long ago. She recognised the hypocrisy in her words, but she found herself wanting to be kinder to Harry than to herself. Circe wasn't sure if she herself believed Snape's words, but it felt like the kind of thing that might bring Harry comfort to hear. She couldn't quite see the truth of Severus's words when it came to her, but Harry certainly didn't deserve to feel like he was at fault.
"I don't feel upset. I feel angry. I wanted to kill Bellatrix for what she did. I still would if she were here right now. I would kill every last one of them if Tonks would let me leave this place…"
Circe shivered upon hearing Harry talk so freely and openly about killing. As if it were nothing. As if he were someone who flirted with death often.
Severus found himself lingering by the door of the living room, listening to the song currently playing on the Black family Cantuscope. He stood still, lost in a memory of a summer day at Hogwarts long ago.
"I was dancing when I was twelve
I was dancing when I was twelve
I was dancing when I was aaah
I was dancing when I was aaah"
He could almost see the record spinning softly on the enchanted turntable. The sun had been warm, the grass had been soft and The Marauders had been lounging across one another in a tangle of limbs, like a pile of dogs. He remembered passing them by, their white school shirts untucked and dazzlingly bright in the sun, their red Gryffindor ties loose about their necks, all smiles and laughter, revelling in their youth and their friendship. He remembered how he had scowled at them all, cursing under his breath for the unnecessary and distracting noise The Marauders had created that peaceful summer's day by the lake.
"Come on." he remembered saying on that day. "Lets go."
He remembered, as he had gathered his books up and gone stomping angrily past them, how Lily had lingered. Drawn to the music and the softly spinning vinyl like a moth to a flame.
And now, on that day in Grimmauld Place, Severus too found himself drawn to the music. He lay a cautious hand on the handle and eased open the door as slowly as he dared. Remus was quiet, and Severus wondered if Tonks had been lying when describing Lupin's smashing and growling. However, as the gap in the door grew wider, Severus could see the shattered furniture and smashed glass on the floor. But the music continued playing. Slow and soporific. A nostalgia gut-punch. Beautiful in its simplicity, like that memory of that perfect and distant summer's day.
"I danced myself right out the womb
I danced myself right out the womb
Is it strange to dance so soon
I danced myself right out the womb"
He could not see Remus, but nevertheless he flinched as his feet crunched over the broken glass beneath his shoes, just in case the wolf sprang upon him from the shadows. Instead of waiting for the hunter to spring upon him like a meek forest deer, he summoned his courage and called out into the smashed remains of the living room.
"Remus?"
"Severus?" an unsure voice replied from behind an upturned armchair. Lupin's red-eyed face bobbed up from behind the snapped leg of the chair. It was clear that he had been in a moment of deep sorrow and Severus had interrupted it. He almost turned and left at that moment, but was stopped by Lupin's questions.
"Is Dumbledore back yet? Where's Harry? Is he alright?"
"Dumbledore is still indisposed at The Ministry." Severus answered coolly. "I imagine he will be gone for most of the day."
"And Harry? I… I couldn't be around him after we returned back here. It hurt too much to see him."
"No. Quite a good thing you weren't around him going by the mess you have wrought in here." Severus mumbled, casting a judgemental eye around the wrecked room.
Remus looked sheepishly down at the floor. He ran a bloodied hand through his hair and scrunched his eyes tight as a wave of sadness swept over him.
"Oh God... " he breathed out through a surge of tears. Remus sank back to the floor, sitting on top of the remains of the coffee table and pulling his knees up close to him. "I… I couldn't stop the wolf from doing this, Severus. He was angry. He was so close to the surface… and it's not even close to the full moon."
"Lycanthropes often find it difficult to mask their… affliction in emotional times."
"I could have killed Tonks, Severus! I could have torn through this whole house and destroyed everything in front of me!" Remus cried.
Severus glided over to Remus's side and looked down on the man as he wept into his knees. His shoulders shook with each sob and Severus felt the stirrings of pity deep within him. Remus had lost a friend, a loved one, a part of him. Severus remembered that tangle of Marauders, spread out over the grass on that summer's day. How Remus had lay his head in Sirius's lap as Cosmic Dancer had floated on the wind around them. The wolf and the dog. One domesticated and one wild, but both mirrored in the other's animal form.
"Is it wrong to understand
The fear that dwells inside a man
What's it like to be a loon
I liken it to a balloon"
Severus lay a nervous hand on Remus's shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Lupin." He muttered sadly. "No one should have to see someone they love die."
"You hated us both, Severus." Remus shot back haughtily. "You are not sorry that Sirius is dead."
"Yes, I hated you both." he replied honestly. "But I take no pleasure at seeing anyone suffer. Even you."
"Even me..." Remus echoed with a sardonic chuckle. "Even me, the monster. The beast that almost tore your throat out once long ago. Even me, the ignorant boy who looked the other way whilst his friends tormented you."
"There is a lot…. a lot that I will never forget. You and I will never be "friends", but aren't funerals meant to be a time of truce between warring factions?" Severus asked sitting down on the floor beside Lupin.
"There won't be a funeral. There's no body, is there. Sirius won't even have a funeral."
"Then what's all this?" Severus asked, pointing at the Cantuscope still playing in the corner. "Doesn't one have music at a funeral? The songs and the people who you knew in life, gathered to mourn your passing?"
"There should be more of us…" Remus muttered softly, the tears springing from his eyes. "James should be here. And Lily too. All of us old and worn from a life well lived."
"You are here. You, who were possibly the most important person in Sirius's life. And me-"
"His greatest enemy." Remus whispered, looking up at Severus from his knees.
"Well then between the two of us, we've got both ends of the spectrum covered haven't we."
"Harry, do you really think that that's what Sirius would want of you? To become a murderer? I know you're angry, and right now you feel like you've got something to prove by striking them back... but it won't bring Sirius back."
"It would make me feel better." Harry muttered through his firmly clenched jaw.
"No it wouldn't. Trust me on that, kid. Pain just begets more pain."
"I thought you would understand." Harry stated hoarsely. "You taught us how to fight. It's because of your training that we all didn't die in the Department of Mysteries last night. If you told us how to give the Death Eaters what they deserve, why do you not want us to use it?!" Harry asked, his words choked and rage-filled.
"Harry, I taught you all how to duel to protect yourselves. Not turn you into soldiers and killers." Circe replied, her stomach turning.
"So, what are you gonna tell me? That I should show them kindness when they have taken everything from me? That I will always have my friends? That love really is "all we need"? That I'm never alone as long as their memory is with me? Some other meaningless poster quote?"
"You sound like someone else I know." muttered Circe as a small smile pulled at the corner of her mouth.
All Severus's leftover resentment and hatred for James, and he and Harry are almost in each other's mouths…
"But you can't look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't feel the same way as me. That you wouldn't want to do exactly the same as me, can you." stated Harry.
Harry was right. Circe couldn't find a target to direct her anger and grief at because there wasn't one. But for Harry, his target was clear. If there was somebody to blame for Circe's sore belly and aching heart, then she would want to tear them apart. She wanted to tear herself apart.
"No I can't. Truth is, Harry, I see a lot of myself in you. You and me we're both lemmings." Circe couldn't help but let out a small chuckle. "We go looking for trouble. Or vengeance, or to set things to right, or whatever we feel like calling it at the time. And sometimes it works out fine for us, sometimes it lands us into even more trouble. But we do it with the right intentions. Like I know that you went to The Ministry with the intention of saving Sirius. You didn't do it for the glory or the kudos, but because your Godfather was in danger, or so you thought. You're a good person, Harry, and someone took advantage of that. And yeah, you're probably right. If it was my Godfather or someone else I loved, I would have charged into the mouth of Hell to try and bring them back to safety. Acted then and thought later."
"I keep thinking… over and over again…. If there was something else I could have done that could have made a difference." Harry sobbed, clutching one of the scarlet pillows close to him.
"And you might never stop asking yourselves those questions. But do you really think killing Bellatrix will help you answer those thoughts?"
Harry shook his head.
"So what do I do? To stop myself from feeling like this?" he asked desperately. "Cause if I don't do something, this feeling will kill me. After Cedric died, I felt numb… like it was all happening to someone else but me. Now, I can't feel anything inside me but rage. And I can feel it eating away at my insides. Tell me what to do, Professor! Tell me how I survive this."
"Harry, there is no right way to process grief." She stated solemnly, her heart breaking for the boy.
"But I can't become Him!" Harry roared. "I'd rather die than be like Voldemort. But you know what's the worst part of all of this? Now I understand Him. I understand how all of that rejection and loneliness and sorrow changed Him. I can see how it cored Him because I can feel it happening inside me!"
The young boy choked on his sobs and Circe drew him close into a tight hug. She stroked his back and soothed him as he wept onto her shoulder. She wept too, her soul crying for Harry and herself all at once. His pain amplified up to full volume in that moment and Circe was powerless to stop herself from mirroring his outpouring of sadness.
"You listen carefully to me, kid…." Circe stated forcefully, her voice straining under the weight of her tears. "This is what you're going to do. You put one foot in front of the other. And then you do it again. And again, and again until you've gone far enough that you feel brave enough to look up and see how far you've come. That's all you can do. And if you need someone to walk with, to put one foot in front of the other with, then you lean upon them. And you have so many people to walk with, Harry."
"Sirius promised me that he'd be there to walk beside me. He told me I never needed to be alone again with him around. And I believed him..."
"I know. And I know you wish you had him to walk with more so than anyone else. But that's what makes you different to Voldemort, Harry. He wouldn't know love if it hit him in the bollocks. You have more of that stuff in your little finger than Tom Marvolo Riddle has in his whole body. You hurt because you loved him. Do you understand me, Harry Potter?" Circe asked, a quiver in her voice. "It hurts because you aren't like him."
"Every single one of them?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"God, what a shame... " Remus sighed, taking a swig on the only unsmashed bottle of liqueur that had survived the destruction of the drinks cabinet. "That was a lifetime's worth of record collecting."
"Circe felt quite awful about it. She wanted to boot Umbridge up her wide, pink arse for destroying all of them."
"Ah, well that explains why she never brought my gramophone back here."
"She knew you would be upset. She didn't want to tell you that they'd been destroyed under her watch."
"They're just bits of plastic at the end of the day…" Lupin sighed. "And it wasn't her fault. Have you ever heard that Jean-Michel Basquiat quote, Severus?"
"Remind me." he responded dryly, taking the bottle from Remus.
""Art is how we decorate space, but music is how we decorate time"." Lupin recited faithfully. "It's not the records that mattered, or the songs themselves really, but the memories. That bit of time that they decorated and made all the better."
Severus nodded slowly, taking a long drink from the bottle. It was port. He hated port, but nevertheless swallowed it down.
"Sirius Black: a life decorated with the revs of motorbikes and Marc Bolan." Snape muttered sardonically.
"And Bowie, and Freddie Mercury, and Walburga's indignant screams, and Robert Plant, and the howling at full moon, and Roger Daltry, and so, so much laughter…"
"One can only hope to have a life just as richly decorated." Severus said, glancing at the Cantuscope with a small smile.
Remus and Severus settled into something of a comfortable company as the machine played old song after old song, each one connected to a thousand memories. Some of them Severus knew, some of them he didn't, but Remus was quick to fill him in and Snape was happy to let him talk. Sometimes Remus would mention Lily in his tales from the Gryffindor common room and he would be quick enough just to see the lightning-quick flash of pain show on Severus's face before it was buried again. Yet he left no detail out as he told the story of the Marauders and all that had known them.
"Do you truly think we will never be friends, Severus?" asked Remus after a moment of quiet listening. "Not even with Circe to bind us?"
"Remus…" Severus murmured.
"No. You're right." Remus cut in hastily. "I let James and Sirius get away with too much when we were young. And I played along with it because I was desperate for the acceptance they showed me. But they couldn't extend it to you... I don't blame you for holding a grudge."
"Remus, you and I have both been given multiple second chances. And against all the odds, now we both have people who have persevered with us, time and time again. You, the wolf and me, the snake. Every step of the way I fought against the lessons Circe tried to hammer into me and maybe now I'm just about starting to listen. Perhaps not today, perhaps not now… But maybe I need to learn not to snub a hand of friendship when one is extended to me." he stated with a small smile.
Severus stood to his feet and extended a hand down to Lupin. Remus watched him astutely, almost as if he were expecting a trap, but eventually took Severus's hand and was yanked to his feet. Snape pulled out the vial of Dittany from his pocket and handed it to Lupin.
"Now, I think you should go downstairs and give this to Miss Tonks. She's probably still messing around with that stove and she's so bloody clumsy…"
Remus chuckled and took the potion from Severus. "She is. Did she tell you our first proper date was cut short by… last night?"
"I… had heard."
"Perhaps once my self-loathing and crippling guilt have died down enough, I'll get round to asking her if she fancies a second one." Lupin said jovially. "No doubt Circe and Tonks will be conspiring behind our backs to get us all together."
"Remus, there isn't a herd of wild horses that could compel me to... double date with you." Severus grumbled.
Remus laughed. It was a sad laugh, but one that nevertheless hinted at a faint glimmer of hope for the future. Lupin turned on his heels and shuffled out of the living room, stepping over the glass and destruction of his temper, off downstairs to find Tonks. Severus waited for a moment, listening to the sound of footsteps moving on the floor above him. As he moved to the living room door, he caught Circe also on her way back downstairs, wiping the last of her tears from her face with the back of her sleeve.
"Is Remus-"
"Downstairs. With Tonks." Severus responded quickly.
"You…. Did you…?" she asked, peering inside the destroyed living room and spotting the half-dunk port on the floor. "You spoke to him?"
"We… called a truce." Severus said with a heavy sigh. He reached out and took Circe's hand in his own, pulling her close and tucking a curl behind her ear. "How are you feeling?" he whispered, laying the back of his hand on her forehead.
"I feel as dry as a prune." she answered with a little sniff. "Like I've cried out all the moisture in my body. But fine. Well… not fine. But not dying."
"It doesn't feel like you have a temperature." Snape stated, running his hand back down her still pale and puffy face. "But now you've seen to Harry and Remus's wellbeing, will you please see to your own?"
"I'll have a cup of tea downstairs with Tonks and Remus." she responded coquettishly.
"Circe, you don't need to be the strength of all of us. You trust me, don't you?"
"Of course I do, Sev."
"Then trust me enough to lean on me. Completely."
Severus bent forwards and kissed her. And as he pulled away, he felt Circe's hand at the back of his neck, pulling him in for another deeper, desperate kiss. She clung to him, almost as if she was afraid that he would slip from her grasp. He could feel the hot tears on her face and he kissed each one away until she ceased crying.
"Sev…" she whispered to him, her fingers softly playing with his black hair. His nose traced over hers. Her breath was hot and sweet on his mouth. "I keep thinking of what you said to me after Azkaban. After I ended up here with my arm almost eaten away."
"Oh yes? What exactly?"
"This war can try and tear me into a thousand pieces, and reform me into something else entirely. And even then I will love you." she whispered. "And it's bloody well trying, Sev."
Her lip quivered, and before she could begin weeping again he kissed her.
When they parted, Circe looked into his dark, deep eyes and found her strength there. He cradled her face gently between his hands and when she nodded, he pressed his forehead to hers.
"I love you." he whispered to her. "You silly git."
"Hey, that's my part…" she chuckled.
"Tea and then back to Hogwarts. And until you're back in your bed, resting, a "silly git" you shall be."
"I love you too. I feel like I don't say it enough." Circe muttered back.
"You say it every second you are beside me."