"And so then we heard what had happened and wanted to come straightaway, but of course there were Death Eaters all around the school. It was quite amazing, Professor McGonagall and Mad-Eye really took care of it all in moments." Hermione chattered gregariously, talking with her hands as they wended their way through the gathered people.
"Where is Albus, Hermione?" Dea couldn't help but be amused by the girl; at her age, at all the childrens' ages, they'd be resilient enough to move on from the trials fairly easily.
"In the kitchen." Hermione stopped just short of the kitchen doors and looked boldly at Dea. "I must say, it's really quite disconcerting to think that even when I'm adult, Professor Dumbledore will be able to summon me whenever he wishes."
"You're a teacher's pet, it won't matter," Ron threw in, immediately dodging the backhanded slap aimed at his chest. After a small scuffle, Hermione looked back at Dea.
"I notice you and Professor Snape seem to have made up." She'd been fascinated by the pair of them, and the addition of Remus, ever since the conversation they'd overheard between the two men outside Dumbledore's office. It was romantic, really, Hermione thought.
Stifling a chuckle at the girl's nosiness, Dea tactfully ignored the comment. "Thanks for all your help, Hermione." Just before she turned, she mouthed "Take care of her" to Ron, following it up with a wink.
She momentarily longed to be back at that age, back when things were more innocent. But those times had been painful, as well, and she thought they were painful for everyone. It had taken her too many years to see that.
Shaking off the melancholy thoughts, she walked through the kitchen doors and stopped short so that the door slammed her in the back.
Would the old wizard never cease his interference? After all, how many times in her lifetime could he ambush her with Remus? It hardly seemed fair that the tactic, which had worked fabulously back in her teens, still worked. The two men sat at the kitchen table, cups of tea perched before them. The kitchen was neater than it had been in months, and Dea had a moment to think that Molly Weasley had been afoot.
"Albus," she greeted him stiffly. "Remus." Her eyes softened for him, but there seemed to be anger in his eyes as he looked at her, his long limbs carrying him across the length of the kitchen, then back. He repeated the process, occasionally glancing at her as he paced.
"Ah, good, we're all here," Dumbledore said, as though oblivious to the tension. "Dea, I just wanted to thank you and Remus for running headquarters so—ahem—smoothly while we were gone."
It was as though he wasn't even speaking, he thought with glee, watching the two them stare each other down.
"We're not finished," Remus said suddenly, as though starting in the middle of a conversation. He shoved a hand through his hair, making it stand in all different directions, and stopped pacing to look at her.
"Quite right," Dumbledore said, nodding sagely. "The two of you are not, in fact, finished. I have a bit of an assignment for you."
"I beg your pardon?" But she wasn't speaking to Dumbledore; she was speaking to Remus. She stared at him in disbelief, thinking of the last time he'd been so insistent—when he'd found out her plan to go to Lucius.
"I've licked my wounds, so to speak, wallowing in selfish self-pity because you were busy healing a man who is more or less your ex, and then it occurred to me that wouldn't do." Remus had been thinking on it, thinking way too much about her and about Severus and about himself. It was ridiculous, really, how much you could think about love in the midst of death and hate. "And I don't care if you still have feelings for him. We started something here, and we're going to either continue it or finish it correctly, Amadea."
Dumbledore calmly conjured a dish of candy and began eating while he watched the scene play out in front of him.
"I was healing Severus because that's what I came here to do, Remus. Heal. And he's not my ex, and even if he were, what the hell would it matter?" She wondered for a moment what was pumping them all full of childish idiocy, but her anger was rising so quickly she couldn't stop it.
"You've both been through a great deal in the past several days, no one faults either of you if you acted irrationally or perhaps insensitively." Dumbledore regarded a lemon drop as he said this.
"Stay out of it!" Dea burst out, looking at the old man in exasperation. "Good Merlin, Albus, must you be such a yenta?"
He seemed to think over this for a moment, then nodded. "Yes."
"I'm in love with you," Remus half-shouted, wondering if it were even humanly—or werewolvely—possible to get her attention for more than a few minutes at a time. "Damn it, Amadea, why is it that when I most need you, you don't hear what I'm saying?"
She'd heard that, though, loud and clear, and it had her eyes going stark and wide.
Need. Love. They'd been words of another time for her, definitely words of another time.
This is so messed up.
But it had been him all those years before who had come to her in need, in pain, and she'd fixed it, binding them both together.
"You Gryffindors and your big productions," she said quietly, her ears ringing a little. "You can't just say it like a normal person." For a moment, she thought smoke was going to curl out of his ears, and she laughed softly, shoving her hands through her hair and wrapping her arms around herself, afraid to move, afraid to approach him.
She'd longed for adolescence again, and she figured you had to be careful what you wished for, because suddenly she felt young and foolish and awkward.
"You know, for instance, a Ravenclaw would state the matter rationally. I've thought everything through, we've been through hell and back the last few months and still things seem good when you're there, so the logical conclusion is that I love you, Remus." She said it slowly, nodding her head in affirmation as she did so.
They stared at each other in silence, both of them unsure of what move to make next.
Then Dumbledore spoke.
"As I was saying, I've a bit of an assignment for you. Only Dea, I believe you'll need your wand for it." When he saw that the two of them were going to do naught but stare at each other like a couple of fools, he gestured with his hands. "Well, Remus, it isn't as though I have the wand."
"Ah… yes." Remus moved forward quickly, the bright orange wand extended in front of him, and instead of grasping the wand directly, she put one hand over his and the other over the wand.
And with a broad, mischievous smile, Dumbledore pointed his wand, activating the Portkey he'd made of Dea's wand.
He figured the two of them would have a fine time in America.
EPILOGUE
She was laughing. That was the fact he registered first even as his feet touched ground. His hands were reaching for her before he was balanced, but he was comforted by that laughter. He'd heard it so rarely, but it sounded good.
Remus looked around as she grasped his fingers in hers, her eyes turned wonderingly up to the sky. There were people all around them, walking on the strange stone walk beneath them, jostling the robe-clad couple as they passed.
"Hey, you crazy schmuck, how 'bout you stand in the middle of the sidewalk?" a portly man asked as he shoved past them.
"Where are we?" Remus couldn't bring his voice above a whisper, the noise and bustle around him taking his voice away.
"America," she said, feeling her heart in her throat. "Actually, we're right outside the American Ministry." She glanced at the small, abandoned bookstore in front of them and was flooded with memories of her parents taking her to visit there before she'd went away to Hogwarts.
"We want you to see what you'll be able to do one day," her father said, boosting her onto his shoulders as he pressed a finger to the lock on the grate closing off the shopfront.
"It's really quite amazing," Gaylee chimed in, tugging at a long lock of her daughter's sable hair.
The lock depressed a bit and a chiming sounded deep inside the store. In moments, they were opening the grate and stepping through, then—
It was a different kind of bustling than outside, Remus thought. A more familiar bustling. American witches and wizards swarmed through the lobby of the building, just as elaborate as the English branch, if a bit smaller.
"Ah, there you are!" A pudgy, older blonde witch hustled up to them, eating French fries out of the familiar red-and-yellow cardboard container that made Dea smile. "You're our new ambassadors, I warrant! Come this way."
"Ambassadors?" Remus repeated.
"We need good people to be here, people who know the Death Eaters," the witch dropped her voice to a stage whisper as she said the last two words. "So you're giving us a hand with that."
"Ah, there you are!" The same witch, not quite as pudgy but drinking a milkshake, reached up and patted young Dea's cheek. "You're the little visitor for the day, I warrant! Come on, I'll show you around."
And how her mother and father smiled, so proud of their little girl who had escaped their handicaps…
"Amadea, are you all right?" Remus stopped, oblivious to the witch leading them. They'd traveled miles together, they'd risked death together. They loved each other, he reminded himself with a smile. The witch could damned well wait.
"I'm fine," she said breathlessly, facing him and knowing that it was right, for her to be here and for her to be here with him. She caught the sleeve of his robe before he could walk away again and gathered the material into her hand. "Remus, why do you do that?"
"Do what?" he lowered his head to better hear her and, to try and sate the urges he'd had for days, he brushed his lips over her forehead.
"You never call me Dea. Only Amadea." She'd wondered on it now and again, but had never questioned it. She liked the way it sounded on his lips.
"Because you are, you know?" When she shook her head in incomprehension, he grinned. "Beloved."
And when she stood on tiptoe to kiss him, she heard Severus telling her the same thing and saw her parents in her mind's eye, and she knew things were at least starting to be right.
The war was over.
Stay tuned for a peek at the last story in the "Beloved" trilogy,
"Wounded of a War"