"We should move him upstairs." The voice, soft and ever-gentle, woke her. Albus stood over her, one hand planted in the snowy expanse of his beard as he leaned over to look at Severus.
She blinked at him, for a moment unable to string sense out of his words. Then she felt the long, bony fingers laced with hers and stood up, shoving her hair out of her face. "Oh, God, I fell asleep," she said in a rush, flitting her eyes up to Dumbledore's. "There are still things wrong, still things I need to fix."
Dumbledore held up a hand to calm her and shook his head slightly. "Not before we move him upstairs to a bed, somewhere more conducive to recuperation." It was a wonder, the headmaster thought, that the man was alive at all. He'd been hit with the rage of one betrayed and had still lasted long enough to hurt Voldemort. "Mobilicorpus," he said, and led the sleeping man up the stairs and into a bed.
Dea moved to follow, making it only just outside the kitchen before she was stopped. "You're not going up until you eat something," Remus said more firmly than he had intended. He'd slept sitting up all night, and only in snatches, occasionally looking around the house to make sure Malfoy wasn't around. He'd looked in on her several times, watching her sleep for long moments and wondering how, exactly, he'd come to think of her even when he was exhausted.
He'd expected her to argue with him about breakfast, had expected a struggle, but instead she slipped her arms around him and laid her head to his chest, the small movement of trust surprising him. "I'm so worried," she said, her words muffled against his chest. "But I'm so glad they're back."
Moving without thinking, he pressed his lips to the top of her head, the small sign of affection bringing a catchy sigh from her lips. "Are you cooking?" she finally asked, pulling her head back to look him full in the eye. His answer was a tired smile, but he linked his fingers with hers and went into the kitchen.
Outside, a hawk circled the house, screeching in frustration, stirring the air with its heavy wings.
~~~
"The death of our Lord will not go unavenged." His voice droned evenly over the assembled group, and they chanted his words back to him in monotone.
"The death of our Lord will not go unavenged."
"The shape-shifting witch will be made an example."
"The shape-shifting witch will be made an example."
"The boy will be sacrificed, the enemy of Voldemort for these long years will be vanquished." Those words were repeated, as well, and Lucius Malfoy pulled off his mask and drew back his hood to howl the next words.
"The traitor shall do our bidding. Under our power, he will kill those around him and suffer even as he does so!" He closed his eyes to better savor the rage coursing through his veins and whispered under his breath. "I will find them. I will find them and we will bring forth the Dark Lord's vision."
~~~
She'd eaten only a bite of breakfast before thundering upstairs and taking her place at Severus's bedside, the Latin words flowing from her mouth as she directed her wand here and there. By late afternoon, Dea had fixed nearly everything, down to the last bruise and scrape, but still he did not awake. Downstairs she could hear the voices of Dumbledore and Harry and Remus. Harry, she noted, sounded wonderful. He sounded, for the first time since she'd met him, like a teenaged boy. A great weight had been lifted, she warranted. But as she glanced out the window at the barren lawn, she wondered if it had been truly lifted.
The loyal still roamed.
On the bed, her patient coughed. Her attention was drawn back to him immediately, eyes at first hopeful as she thought he was awake and then fearful as she saw what his coughing had brought. Another trickle of blood wended its way down his chin and she whimpered under her breath.
Internal bleeding. While it was at least something you could pinpoint in Muggle medicine, she hadn't the slightest clue of what to do magically. She could command healing all she wanted, but how was she to know where, exactly, the problem lay? And if there was more than one problem, how was she supposed to know?
"Oh, God," she said shakily, using both hands to push his hair back from his face, his skin looking too pale to her, his face looking too wrinkled. She cleaned the blood from his mouth and chin with her hands, absently wiping them on her robes as trembles coursed through her, round after round, until she was shaking uncontrollably and crying.
"Okay," she said, wiping away her tears and leaving traces of his blood on her cheeks. "Okay. If you're coughing it up, that means lungs, so… sano pulmo." His breathing evened a little, but she wasn't satisfied.
"I don't know, I don't know," she chanted to herself, her fingers flitting here and there over his abdomen, his chest. "Albus!" she called, her voice raising. "Albus!"
The headmaster appeared after what seemed like an eternity with Remus in tow. "Yes, Dea?" Dumbledore said pleasantly, laying a hand on her shoulder.
"I don't know what to do," she said, wiping her hand over her face again, this time in exhaustion. "I'm afraid there's things I can't see, things wrong that I don't know."
"What do you mean?" Remus asked, glancing down at the still-sleeping Severus.
"Internal bleeding!" she burst out, shaking her head. "His lungs were damaged, so other things could be, too. His heart, his spleen. Things could be lacerated and bleeding inside his body, I don't know—" When they both merely looked at her, neither of them saying a word, she stood and shoved Dumbledore's hand from her shoulder, feeling the helplessness swamp her, smother her. "What the hell is wrong with you people?" she screamed, not noticing that her volume was making Severus stir. "Isn't there anyone in this realm who studies anything useful? Simple anatomy? God, it's as though you're all completely ignorant!"
"Typical Ravenclaw…" The voice was steady but quiet. "Thinks she knows… everything." Severus didn't open his eyes but left them shut, tilting his head back and drawing in a long, thin breath through his nose. He'd been in and out, each time seeing her next to him, over him. He could feel a strong, piercing pain low in his side, one of many different pains Voldemort had thrust upon him. The blinding, searing pain he recalled was mostly gone, but there was still the one, deep and true, and he knew it would be the most dangerous.
Tearing her wide eyes away from the two men in the doorway, Dea looked back at the now-conscious Severus.
"Dea… I need…" He broke off, his eyes flashing wide and then dropping closed again.
Before he could finish his sentence, Harry burst through the door, his breath coming in great gulps.
"He's here!" he exclaimed, his eyes fearful. "Professor Dumbledore, what will happen if he finds us?"
Not turning around, Dea placed her hands back over Severus, her face set in grim determination. "Well, boys, this is it. Looks like Luscious Lucius is about to join the party, lads. Hope there's enough food for everyone." And she started to mutter again, shooting in the dark to try and find the words to make him better.
~~~
Haste.
Dumbledore took the steps down two at a time, his robes slapping against the banisters in his hurry. When Remus started to follow, however, the headmaster shook his head. "Sunset is nearly upon us, Remus. Take your potion. You'll be of no help if you are trying to hurt both us and the enemy." And before Remus could say any more, Dumbledore leaned down, put his arms around Harry, and they both vanished.
Uselessness.
Remus stood at the head of the stairs, his heart pounding double-time, his mind torn to scraps by the whirlwind of the past days, his heart long since numbed. It was impossible not to see what was happening, that Amadea was so intent on fixing Severus that she'd destroy herself.
And if Lucius Malfoy was coming, he would do just that—destroy her, and then where would he be? The thought, though selfish, coursed through his brain as he knocked back the wolfsbane with a tinge of self-loathing.
Desperation.
She ran out of words, spreading her hands and the now-bloodstained orange wand over his chest, his back, his stomach and trying to heal everything, to make everything better even it had been fine in the first place.
Agony.
He jolted as her hand brushed over a tender spot, a spot that felt as though every nerve ending were raw and exposed, a spot that felt as though every pint of blood he had had been pumped there and nowhere else, pulsing ugly red and angry, and he grabbed her wrist, his eyes clouding and his mind reaching out for hers unintentionally, and he saw—
He saw her back at Hogwarts crying as she ran down the hallway, saw her with her parents, first alive and then dead, saw her together with Remus, cheek-to-cheek, limb-to-limb, heart-to-heart—
Rage.
The bitch had to be here somewhere, the bitch and her pet wolf and her pet traitor and her pet boy, and it was all her fault, for it had been she who'd made a fool of the great Lucius Malfoy, and so it was her fault.
He'd spoken of her to the remaining Death Eaters, but it was he who wanted her. He would take her down, and all the rest of them with her, and then he would be the most powerful.
He could be the Dark Lord.
He prowled the street, peering at the empty space in front of him, first down at the ground, then up at the hawk circling the darkening sky.
Ten, eleven, tw—but there was no twelve, there was only thirteen.
"Clever little bastards," he hissed, centering himself in the empty space. "You hid Number 12, Grimmauld Place."
The door materialized in front of him.
Pain.
"No! Stop, Severus, please!" Dea felt the slight probing, mind to mind, and for an instant she could see what he saw. She muttered a few more healing words in desperation, in the hopes that it would make him release her.
He did, but not before he saw, and in seeing, a new pain flashed in his eyes even as all of the physical pain ebbed away.