[A/N: Keayalnea did not want to tell me this one. I hope you enjoy it anyway. The fur… feathers… will fly.]

"I am nothing no one nobody no more
These are her mountains and skies and she radiates
And through history's rivers of blood she regenerates
And like the sun disappears only to reappear
Maria she's eternally here
Her time is near
Never conquered but here"

- Rage Against the Machine, Maria

Something had seemed wrong all morning. It was still morning. It was very much still morning. Maybe it was the fact that he had spent the night under the same roof as Sirius Black. That could have something to do with it. Maybe it was the fact that Dumbledore was nowhere to be seen, and they had a meeting in two hours. That could also have something to do with it. He hadn't eaten anything since he got here. That could have something to do with it.

He really didn't trust the bathroom here, and it seemed extremely indecent to go outside. That probably had a lot to do with it.

So he sat quietly on the couch, contemplative. A fleeting smile passed over his features, and it was malicious to anyone who did not know him well. She did, and a soft smile flitted over her features before they froze again. She shut the door quietly behind her, watching his face for any sign of recognition, acknowledgement. Deep in her subconscious, she craved his companionship in the lonely road she would soon take. She could not admit that openly, and in the darkness of the predawn twilight, before anyone, or anything, outside of the damned and the damned at heart stirred, she could look on him with a softness that had been reserved for only two other souls in her life. He was exquisite in his pain and dignity. Carved of onyx and ivory, smooth and flawed and burning at the touch. To lock horns with him was almost a sexual euphoria. She missed it. She missed the quiet moments where they had held each other up, lost in the storm of their own making. When no one was looking. They were close. Why the intimacy evaporated in public light, she could not answer. Her downfall could very well be the incapability to let him go.

"I will die loving you," the thought was so strong it articulated itself, almost noiselessly, before she could stop it. Either from the strength of the thought, or the near silent ripples of her words, he turned to look in her direction, rising.

"Keayalnea…" he stepped forward, reaching to her, but she held a hand to ward him away.

"Don't touch me- I'm not the same," she feared breaking down at physical contact with this man. Her mind was spinning. Love? What had possessed her to use that word?…

"You look as though you found some well deserved rest over the course of the past months." Why so distant?

"I've not seen myself since long before I left."

"Why did you return?"

"I don't know."

"The most foolish of reasons."

"I'm allowed." The statement was final, her voice quieter, yet more authoritive and velvet than when she'd left. "I could ask the same of you."

"After you left, they sent scouts looking for you. They thought you'd make good on your threats, to destroy the Order. He wouldn't let me go. I looked anyway." He drew a long white flight feather out of his robes, slightly disheveled, but intact. "I feared for you." He moved as though to give her the feather back.

She stopped herself from taking his hand in hers. "You needn't ever fear for me again. Keep it." She paused, searching for words. "Keep it, and promise me that, no matter what happens, you will not get in the way."

"Such melodramatics from such a small person."

"I have a right. Promise me."

"Why does it mean anything?"

"Promise."

"I can promise you nothing," his voice was so close it came to her in bittersweet kisses, "until I know the exact terms of my bondage. Therefore I promise you, should anything happen," he smirked as icing to the sarcasm, "I will not get in the way. But I hold the stipulation that, no matter what, I will act as I see fit, as we have proven the lack of validity in your judgment time and again."

"Fair enough," she closed her eyes in acceptance of the blow. Should she dip to her sarcastic banter with him, things would take on an air of normalcy. And things could not be normal between them. She had chosen her path, but he could not walk it. "I leave you decision over your own fate. Do not presume to control mine."

"You remind me every few seconds that it is your own," he drawled, stepping back. "Shower, and get some fresh clothes. I will inform them to expect your presence at the meeting this morning."

"When?"

"Two hours hence. Provided that Albus concurs to grace us with his presence."

***

Keayalnea stepped into the bathroom, quietly shutting the door behind her. She looked around, quietly, analytically, at what had once seemed the most peaceful room of the house. Her hands quietly and methodically locked the door behind her, several small spells sliding off of her hands and into the wood during the process. She'd laid a fresh pair of clothes, and made sure everyone was asleep. At six in the morning, no one was really inclined to be up. Snape had resumed his meditation. She walked toward the center of the light, tiled room, chilly and dark, not foreboding, but oppressing and gray. She unzipped her blouse, and then reached behind her to undo the clasps that held the slits for her wings together, pulling the whole ensemble off her back and over her head. She finished undressing herself, tossing the discarded items into a corner, quite assured that Kreacher, upon finding them, would unceremoniously toss them out.

It was then she noticed the mirror.

She hadn't looked at her own reflection since before she'd left- the only mirrors in the Sphynx's world were her eyes, and Keayalnea had been far too busy watching those eyes to notice her reflection. It was past Christmas. Her skin had paled, her freckles and scars almost comical in their prominence- even the older scars had red rings and violet undertones, the freckles that brushed her cheekbones having darkened and multiplied. Her skin was almost yellow. Her wings shone gold even in the pale light, surreal in and of themselves. Her hair had darkened, from a fire red to that of dying embers, stringy now, and coated in fallen leaves and grime. Her irises had darkened as well, to an orange- bronze texture, the whites muddied and slightly red. She'd lost what looked like thirty pounds, her face being terribly sunken and every rib accounted for. She'd once been very proud of her figure, her looks. Studying herself in the mirror, it didn't seem nearly as important, and she absently marked the change others would berate her for. No big deal.

She stepped into the shower, letting the hot water scald and purify her in her own little ritual she'd been denied for months. She scrubbed the Sphynx's world vigorously off her skin, out of her hair, but she was still thin, still change. Still unlike herself. She leaned against the wall momentarily, taking a deep breath. She had scarcely been sustained in living, and her will was nearly crushed. She was furious, at the Sphynx, now, for tearing her into someone who was not really herself, this bundle of anger and pain, however necessary it may have been. She shut the water off vindictively, and shook her wings and head, drying both sections of her anatomy instantly, and drying her torso and legs with a quick sweep of her hands, repelling the water as though she were a duck.

She opened the shower door and stepped into the slightly fogged bathroom, her eyes darting almost instantly to the dark figure standing in front of the closed door. She shut the shower door behind her, her eyes never leaving him. He quietly noted that she made no move to cover herself, nor seemed in any way embarrassed by the predicament she was in.

"I locked that door," she stated questioningly.

"I know," he replied.

"Why are you in here?"

In reply, he slowly walked forward. Her wings spread slightly in an instinctive defensiveness, but she made no move, nor said anything, to stop his progress. He was inches from her when he stopped, his eyes boring into hers, and vice versa. His eyes burned with something she couldn't quite place. It wasn't lust, it wasn't anger. He bit back the urge to slap her in the face for her cold, antagonizing study of him. His expression softened slightly as his gaze dropped to the long- gone scar that followed her jugular, now looking fresh and raw. He traced it gently with his fingertips, continuing the motion from one scar to another. He leaned in to kiss her, and she pulled away, startled.

"Thou shalt not," she growled, and the anger in her eyes and voice snapped something in him.

Without a word, he slammed her back into the shower door, pressing himself against her, his mouth demanding of hers sensations and responses she'd never known existed. A strangled moan escaped her, and he chuckled slightly, moving back till he wasn't an inch away from her face, his hair forming a halo around the two of them.

"You go, girl," he whispered, his voice catching in his throat, "and tell whatever force that has laid claim on you, that there is nothing they can do to you, that I cannot undo."

With that, he turned and walked out the door, closing it behind him as he continued walking toward the kitchen, almost terrified to know where that drive in him had come from- and why would he want to go back in there and finish what he had started?

At the same time, Keayalnea dressed quickly, and sunk to the floor, almost as though shielding herself from unseen force that threatened from above.