Friend or Foe by TATU

So, are you friend or foe? 'Cause I used to know,

Is it too late, Nothing to salvage?

You look away, Clear all the damage

July 22nd, 1979

Ivy hated her Death Eater mask.

She was well aware that they were used for anonymity, but fuck, were they bothersome. Being sent out to do the Dark Lord's bidding on a broom was one thing, as it kept the wind from blinding her. Standing in a dark forest that surrounded a long-grassed field in the dead of night, was quite another.

Her hot breath made the inside of the mask steamy and damp. Not to mention, her visibility was atrocious, as seeing anything out of the corner of her eye was difficult. Perhaps there was a spell that could make the material pliable, make it feel more like a second skin instead of a chunk of metal strapped to her face…

Ivy peeked around the tree she was hidden behind.

All was just as it had been the last time she'd checked; the field was empty, and the forest that encompassed it was dark enough that she and her fellow Death Eaters were invisible. She knew they were out there, just inside the treeline, but she could see nothing.

The wind was strong, blowing the trees, the bushes, the grass beneath her feet. She found it rather distracting, which was not ideal considering how thick the forest was. Fortunately, her and the other Death Eaters had arrived an hour early to ensure they knew the area. There were a few fields nearby that would be easy enough to find, assuming she didn't get completely turned around.

A loud whooshing made her jump.

Moving further into the protection that the trees offered, she watched as the Portkey whirled down from the sky toward the centre of the field. Its landing was soundless, aside from a single, loud groan of pain that rang throughout the terrain. She didn't know how many Order members had come down with it, as their transition from the initiation to the field had happened in a matter of seconds. Her plan had been to count their heads as they popped up from the grass, but none did.

Ivy waited behind a tree, watching keenly.

When the field began to move, a rush went through her blood. Lines in the grass formed rapidly, leading from the middle outward in every direction. There were dozens of them, and several were headed right for her.

"Oh, hell no," she breathed.

Whipping around, she darted further the forest as fast as her feet would carry her. It wasn't long before footsteps sounded behind her. Despite the thickness of the wood, she looked over her shoulder to see if anyone had spotted her. Deciding that they hadn't, she had just turned forward again when a low hanging branch tore across her face, ripping her mask off.

Ivy yelped on contact.

"I heard one of 'em!" A man shouted. "This way!"

"Shit, shit, shit." Cursing under her breath, she snatched up the fallen mask and resumed her sprint, replacing it over her face as she went.

Dodging trees and scraping her legs against thorny bushes, she ran until she couldn't anymore. Feeling as though she was going to pass out, she eventually ducked behind a fallen trunk and made herself small. Wrapping her arm around her face, she breathed harshly into the fabric, effectively muffling the sound.

Trying to regain her breath, she remained there for countless minutes, twitching at every leaf that dared to shift. Just as she'd thought, the wind was not working in her favour; she'd run far, but she should still be able to hear duelling in the distance. Instead, the forest appeared to be masking it all.

"I swear, whoever it was went this way," whispered a female voice behind her.

Inhaling sharply into the sleeve of her robes, Ivy stilled. The woman was just on the other side of the felled trunk, likely within grabbing distance. She'd always loved wearing black, but never more than at that moment, as she blended in with the dark forest sublimely.

"I don't think so," a man said in a hushed tone.

"Wormtail's right," another man spoke softly. "Anyone with sense would've veered off in a different direction by now."

"Who says they've got any sense?" Someone else laughed lowly.

"Yeah." This voice belonged to yet another man, though he sounded older than the others. "They're Death Eaters. Stupidity is in their nature."

"Still," the woman continued quietly. "We should cover the entire forest, not just sections. Dumbledore ensured they won't be able to Apparate, so it's not like they've fled."

"You continue on," a fifth man conceded. "The rest of us will spread out. Be careful out there, all of you."

"Believe me," one of them muttered. "None of us want to wind up looking like Moody."

"Go," the fifth man hissed. "Chit-chat can wait, our lives are still on the line."

Her heart raced as she listened to them leave.

When she looked up, she caught a glimpse of the woman, who continued on in the direction Ivy had been taking. She was certain by the red hair and her stature that she was watching Evans.

The others had dispersed, and the forest resumed its rustling.

Lowering her arm from her face, she waited a few more moments, trying to figure out what to do now. She was going to encounter someone sooner or later, and apparently, there was some kind of Anti-Disapparition Jinx in place.

The grass crunched behind her and she stilled, hoping that Regulus and Severus were having better luck tonight than she was. When no further sound reached her ears, she debated whether to put it down to an animal or the creaking of the trees.

Then, Pettigrew appeared in front of her.

He wasn't facing her, but looking after where Evans had gone.

He was stationary, before following her.

Once he'd gone, she got to her feet and followed him through the thicket, keeping her distance as she went.

Perhaps it wasn't the wisest choice to involve herself, but she couldn't help thinking about what Evans had done for her years prior. Asking her enemy if she'd been touched, and promising to take care of her if such a thing had occurred, was not a kindness she was going to forget so easily.

And she'd be damned if she'd let Pettigrew have a similar opportunity.

Creeping after him, he continued in a straight line for a while, ducking when branches came near to his face and walking through the same thorny bushes that had scratched Ivy's legs to hell. When he suddenly veered off to the left, she found herself stuck between him and a thick-trunked tree.

Worried that he'd caught on about being followed, she stayed where she was until she could be certain that he was gone. Not that she could really be certain of that. A few minutes passed, and when she looked beyond the wide tree, there was no sign of him.

A twig snapped somewhere nearby.

"Expulso!"

Ivy dove for the ground, the fringes of the spell singing a hole in her robes as the hulking tree exploded. Covering her head, bits of wood rained down on her. She barely had time to draw her wand and scream out a Levicorpus, which prevented the top half of the tree from crushing her. It dangled in the air and she scrambled to her feet, trying to hold her wand steady until she was safe, at which point she let it fall.

When it crashed to the ground, spraying leaves, dirt, and grass, she let out a shriek of anger. "I'm going to kill you, you slimy little worm! I've been waiting to snap your neck and you've finally given me a solid reason to! Come out and face me, you piece of human waste!"

"Selwyn?" A voice came from directly behind her.

Leaping away with a start, she thought to whip out an impulsive Confringo, before realising who had spoken and lowering her wand to her side. "Evans, fucking hell - you're stealthier than a cat."

"It's Potter now." The redhead toyed with her wand, looking about as close to using it as Ivy was.

"I prefer Evans. Potter sounds so…" She narrowed her eyes. "Self-righteous."

"Then I'll prefer Selwyn when you getmarried. Black sounds so…" The corner of her mouth twitched up. "Arrogant."

"You won't hear me complaining," Ivy shrugged.

"Did you use a Dangling Jinx on that tree?" Evans raised a brow.

"I-" She hadn't realised until that moment that she'd uttered Levicorpus instead of Levioso. "I guess I did."

"Hm," she cocked her head. "Think we ought to duel now?"

"I suppose," Ivy sighed. "Just give me a moment, I think I pulled something."

"Alright, but be quick. Never know who might be lurking out there."

Giving a grunt, she rolled her shoulders and pressed two fingers hard into the side of her neck, quickly working out the kink. Rolling her shoulders once last time, she raised her wand. "Back to it, then."

Evans narrowed her eyes with a small smile.

Both were still, before hollering their incantations.

Jets of colour burst forth as they slung curses and hexes. Neither of them were trying particularly hard to wound the other, as the unspoken challenge was simply to duel. Spells flashed and were deflected, before more were sent to replace them. The surrounding forest lit up in a kaleidoscope of brilliant colour, even though the shadows cast felt distinctly ominous.

Ivy could hardly believe it, but she was starting to have fun. Evans was quick to make her sweat and as time went on, she decided that the redhead was the most gifted dueller she'd faced. The woman was terribly fast and indeed, stealthier than a cat.

Red shot from her wand, making direct contact with the blue spell Ivy had sent her way. The combination shattered into purple, then white as the collision exploded, flinging both of them backwards.

Head thwacking against a branch as she fell, Ivy landed hard and gasped to find that she couldn't breathe. With the air knocked out of her lungs and her head spinning, she struggled to move into a sitting position. Propping herself against the tree trunk, she groaned in pain.

Eyesight hazy, she blinked until it restored itself.

When it did, she noticed Evans getting to her feet, though she seemed to have also been injured, as she swayed the second she was upright.

Just beyond her, a pair of eyes appeared, and with them, came the rest of Pettigrew.

The redhead turned just in time to see him raise his wand and hiss: "Avada Kedavra!"

Before it could land, an invisible force knocked her aside. As the witch fell, the burst of green light rocketed past where she had been and hit the tree Ivy was slumped against, a few centimetres above her head.

Breathing hard as she stared up at the black mark scorched into the trunk, she tried to stand against the fuzziness in her head, which was dissipating slowly. Her attempt was a failure, and she fell back to the ground, bark gouging into her back.

Digesting the horrified look on Pettigrew's face, she looked to Evans.

Potter had materialised out of nowhere and was laying atop his wife, who appeared to be unconscious. But the bottom half of his body was gone. Trying to make sense of what she was seeing, she watched as he got to his feet. The bottom half of his body came back into existence, like a Disillusioned sheet was sliding off.

He wasn't cut in half, he had merely been… covered?

The wizard didn't seem to have noticed Ivy, as he was too busy giving Pettigrew a hard shove. "Why the fuck would you do that? You nearly killed Lily - she was directly in the way! And using an Unforgivable! We are not them! What the hell is wrong with you?"

A jet of white light shot at him from somewhere behind her.

Potter ducked, narrowly missing the spell that fried the leaves off of a low-hanging branch. He stayed crouched as a rapid succession of spells were propelled at him. Heaving Evans over a shoulder as the wandfire continued unrelentingly, he shouted at Pettigrew: "Get the cloak!"

When a figure, a Death Eater, walked past Ivy's spot in the dirt and advanced on them, Pettigrew turned tail and fled. Potter hesitated, but when a jet of green light -which was, to Ivy's eyes, definitely a Killing Curse- he ran as well.

Some part of her lagging mind knew that it was time to go, while the Death Eater continued to shoot curses after where they'd gone.

Looking around blearily for her wand, she spotted it in a nearby bush. Crawling towards the beaten hazel wood, she allowed herself a moment of respite once she had reclaimed it, as the one-sided battle had ceased. Wand hand dropping to her side, she breathed raggedly.

Two legs appeared in her line of sight and she tilted up her still-masked face. She couldn't tell who had found her, nor whether they were going to help, as they merely stood there. Whoever it was seemed to have the countenance of a man, and the longer he remained there, staring at her, she began to wonder what his intent was.

Looking beyond him towards where Evans, Potter, and Pettigrew had disappeared, she clenched her jaw. She'd spent much of her life wishing that they in particular would be gone, but now that they were, she was worried. She was an incapacitated woman, alone with a seemingly unharmed man, who was just standing there, staring without uttering a word.

I have my wand, she reminded herself. And full function of my hands.

Ivy was about to inquire of him when he knelt down and reached for her face, pulling off her mask. "Selwyn," he sounded shocked. "You- Selwyn?"

"Yes, that's me," she croaked. "Who the fuck are you?"

The Death Eater only watched her, before tossing her mask into the dirt. "Can you stand?"

As he began to take off his outer robes, a heavy stone of fear dropped into her stomach. She'd never been close to being raped before, but she was certain that this was what it felt like. "You gonna help me or what?"

"Now, why would I do that?" He laughed. "After all, you were practically having tea with that Mudblood a few minutes ago… Traitor."

Ivy made to slash her wand at him, in an attempt to slit his throat with her Slicing Spell, but his boot had already found her wrist. He pressed down, hard, and she cried in pain as he snatched up her wand.

"So you do have use of your limbs," his voice bore a sadistic grin. "I wonder what else you might make use of."

When he tossed her wand over his shoulder and lunged for her, she dove out of the way. Yelling at the top of her lungs, she rolled onto her stomach and began to crawl. She made about a metre of headway before he grabbed hold of her waist, dragging her back.

"There's no need to make this difficult," he cackled. "You didn't make it difficult for Frederick, why wouldn't you extend the same courtesy to me?"

Clawing at the cold, hard earth, her fingernails splintered as he slammed a fist repeatedly into the back of her head. The world around her went fuzzy again with his fifth blow.

She could vaguely hear the sound of a belt buckle being undone and listened dazedly to the belt slide out from the loops of his trousers. He was touching her, but she couldn't quite discern what part of her body. All she knew, was that his hands were moving somewhere they shouldn't be: everywhere.

Desperate to get away as his hands moved roughly over her, she looked around for something that could help. There were thorny bushes nearby, sticks, and some rocks, though none looked large enough to do damage - except for one. But it was at least a metre away. Not at all within grabbing distance.

"I always dreamt about this when you two were dating, you know." He went on casually, as though this was something he did every day. "I imagined you exactly as you are now. Adrian said no, no, you can't take what belongs to Frederick. But you aren't his anymore, are you?"

Feeling the belt wind around her neck, it grew tighter with each inhale of breath she struggled to take. He rolled her over to face him and started pulling her trousers down.

Ivy had begun to cry at some point and tried to move her arms through the bleariness of her vision. They were regaining strength, slowly, but when she tried to throw a fist at him, he dodged it like a toddler had thrown it and slapped her hand easily to the ground. Legs on either side of her knees, he went for her knickers, and the fabric burned her skin as he ripped them away from her body.

Gritting her teeth, she began to scream through them, before opening her mouth to unleash the most heinous sound she'd ever made. As it left her body, she heard a loud sound like an explosion, which was enough to make the Death Eater look over his shoulder.

Weak as she was, Ivy rammed both knees up as hard as she could, catching him directly in the groin. He slumped off of her with a terrible wail of echoing pain and it dawned on her that her legs were indeed functioning again.

Using all of her strength, she rose to her feet clumsily. Her mind was tossed like a pebble in the undertow and when she felt him grab her ankle in a bruising grip, she fell to the cold, scarring dirt again. His Death Eater mask had fallen off to reveal Wilkes, whose face still twisted in agony.

Rearing back her other foot, Ivy smashed it directly into his face.

His grip vanished as he cried out, and she was back on her feet in an instant, searching for the large rock she'd seen before. It took her a precious moment, as her brain was still quivering with the effort of being choked. Undoing the belt as she shuffled sluggishly over to the rock, she cast it aside. Feeling the blood rush to her head, it occurred to her that her trousers were still around her ankles. Yanking them up, she grabbed hold of the rock.

Ivy didn't waste another second and descended upon him in fit of violent wrath.

Raising the rock, she slammed it into his head.

Once, and he began to bleed.

Twice, and the blood began to spurt.

Three times, and his mouth started opening and closing as though set on a rhythm.

The fourth split his skull open.

With the fifth, life vanished from his eyes.

Six, seven, eight, nine, and his face was gone, like Frederick's had been.

Ten, eleven, twelve, and Ivy still wasn't satisfied.

Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.

Arms weak with the effort, the rock slipped from her hands and thumped to the ground. Her throat ached when she breathed, like someone had shoved a hot rod of iron down it. She remained where she was, kneeling on the ground as she tried to comprehend how horribly violated she felt, before it dawned on her that she should find her wand.

Staggering to her feet, she retrieved the hazel wood from a scattering of leaves nearby.

Shakily, she used every healing spell she could recall until her mind was clear.

A rustling in the woods caught her attention and she looked over, locking eyes with another masked Death Eater who was approaching.

"Have you seen Wilkes? He said he was…" His gaze dropped to the atrociously disfigured head and she discerned from his voice that he was neither Regulus nor Severus. "What happen-"

"Avada Kedavra!" Ivy said calmly, slashing her wand at him.

Green light blasted through the forest, lighting up the underside of the trees and hitting him square in the chest. He fell to the ground at a wrong angle and she listened to bones crunch as he landed.

Walking over to his unmoving body, she removed his mask.

Rosier.

"Pity." She murmured, casting aside the mask carelessly. "I didn't hate you as much as the rest."

Ivy spared a quick look around to ensure that no one else was lurking in the shadows, before walking over to where Evans, Potter, and Pettigrew had been. Shuffling a foot around in the dirt, she soon located a silvery, nearly transparent bolt of fabric. Picking it up, she threw it over herself to test her theory.

As she'd suspected, she was invisible - not invisible in the way that a Disillusionment Charm would make her. No, she was well and truly gone. At least, everything except her feet were. Though, when she hunched over, she disappeared entirely.

Her mind raced into a bewilderment, but she caught herself before she could descend too far. She was, after all, still in terrible danger. And if anyone caught her lurking around two dead Death Eaters…

Stayed hunched with the cloak over her, she decided to test the limits on the Anti-Disapparition Jinx.

When she twisted on the spot, causing nothing at all to happen, she heaved a sigh.

Ivy wasn't leaving the wretched night behind just yet.

With nothing else to do but run, she picked a random direction.

Ivy had been walking for what felt like ages, long enough that the sky had turned a deep shade of purple. Unsure of how long she'd be out here, hidden beneath the invisible cloak, she attempted to Disapparate every few metres. She hoped that the Anti-Disapparition Jinx was distance sensitive; if she got far enough away, perhaps she would be allowed to leave. Either that, or the Jinx would simply expire at some unknown time, which was not preferable.

There was no way to tell how far she was from the initial clearing, but at least she'd gained a few advantages. For one, she was invisible. For another, the wind had finally relented into near nothingness, which meant that she could listen for sound in the distance again. Unfortunately, it wasn't was quite as helpful as she had hoped; she'd nearly Avada'd a hare when it jumped out of a bush, but otherwise hadn't heard so much as a whisper since encountering Wilkes and Rosier.

Alone in the quiet wood, she halted her sluggish movements to sit on a mossy stone. Rubbing her eyes, as she'd tucked her mask into her robes, she took a breath beneath the cloak. Her legs had started wobbling, stomach gurgling resentfully on occasion, while her throat remained dry.

Nearby voices carried on the air.

Swept out of her introspection, she shifted behind the rock and crouched down, despite being unseeable already.

Uncertain of where the voices had come from, she listened keenly until the sound arose again. It seemed like there were two, and their quiet chatter was coming from her right. She thought to start running again, but before she got the chance, two witches emerged from the shadows into her line of sight.

"Lily said his aim was practically right at her," Mary MacDonald said in a hushed tone. There was a massive gash across her left cheek, and she looked like she'd been dragged through the dirt, as leaves clung to her dark hair.

"I'm telling you, it's not Peter." Marlene murmured, limping slowly through the thicket with an arm tucked against her stomach. "He was born without a spine, you see… Yesterday you weren't even convinced that there was a spy. What's changed?"

"Well, this whole thing was his idea, wasn't it?" MacDonald argued quietly. "Using a Portkey to get us away from the initiation site - and why would he risk an Unforgivable with Lily directly in the way?"

"He's just been spending too much time with Sirius." Marlene was headed for the rock Ivy was hidden behind. Shifting as quietly as she could, she skirted around the mossy stone, and the blonde passed by uninterrupted. "You know how Sirius gets about fighting fire with fire."

"You've been spending too much time with Sirius." MacDonald muttered, also none the wiser to Ivy's presence.

"He might be a pratt, but he makes some good points."

"Don't tell me you're going to start using Unforgivables too," MacDonald's voice rose as they went on their way.

"It's not like they wouldn't deserve it," Marlene's voice grew less discernible with each word. "But I'm not off my head, Mary. It's just that… how are we ever going to get the upper hand if we let them pick us off?"

As they left earshot, Ivy straightened and looked after them curiously.

The Death Eaters' ultimate goal was always to kill. Order members, on the other hand, refused to if they could avoid it, never used Unforgivables, and didn't seem to take hostages… why had they even come out tonight? Clearly, the Order knew they'd be lying in wait, so why bother with the Portkey, with the reverse ambush?

Perhaps Dumbledore had been testing the validity of Pettigrew being a spy, but she couldn't think of any better evidence for such a thing, than a memory that had been taken right from her head. Or, maybe her former Headmaster had been testing Pettigrew himself in some way.

The old bat is going to get us all killed, she thought.

A shadow shifted in the darkness and Ivy hurried to slouch, ensuring that her feet were invisible, as a figure weaved through the thicket at a seemingly urgent pace. They appeared to be following Marlene and MacDonald at a distance, as they were going in the same direction. As the person crept closer, she realised from the entirely black robes that they were a Death Eater. Their mask, however, was gone. With dark hair and their face cloaked in shadows, she couldn't be sure of who they were.

Ivy waited impatiently and in moderate fear until they were near enough for her to see their face.

"Severus?" She hissed.

Whipping round, he pointed his wand forty centimetres to the right of her. "Reveal yourself!"

Convinced that he was going to instinctively harm her if she popped up out of nowhere, she crouched behind the mossy stone again and pulled off the cloak. The rush of fabric was indeed enough for him to send a Crucio her way, but it dissipated against the rock.

"It's just me." She rolled up a sleeve and waved her Dark Mark'd forearm above the rock like a makeshift white flag. "Ivy."

"What are you doing down there?" Severus's voice quieted to a murmur as she stood. "And what happened to you? Actually, tell me as we go, we need to catch up with those Order members. Did you see them?"

"Come, I'll show you where they went." She folded the silvery cloak and tucked it under an arm for safe keeping, before putting her hood back on. "Where'd your mask go?"

"Dunno," he whispered moodily as they kept on after Marlene and MacDonald. "Travers and I were cornered by six Order members when the Portkey came. I lost it when we retreated."

"What've you been doing since?" Ivy asked under her breath as they manoeuvred through the dense trees. "We've been out here for hours… right?"

"I think so," Severus replied lowly. "We came across Moody, Dearborn, and Vance a while after. Had it out, of course, but we weren't going to win that duel either so we split up. Haven't seen him since. Haven't seen anyone since, aside from Order members and you. I've been trying to Disapparate out of here - have you noticed that we can't?"

"Unfortunately," she sighed quietly. "I overheard Evans say-"

"She's Potter now, not Evans."

"-that Dumbledore ensured we can't Disapparate out of here."

"Anti-Disapparition Jinx?"

"I assume so."

"Bollocks," he stopped walking to run a hand through his black hair. "What do you think - keep following the Order to see if they can lead us out of here, or pick a random direction and walk until we can Apparate?"

Oh, that's why we were following them, Ivy thought. "Does that mean Anti-Disapparition Jinxes are distance sensitive then? Not time?"

"I think they can be either," Severus told her quietly. "Now, are you going to answer my question or not?"

"Well, the Order might have their own way of getting out of here that we can't access, so I think getting as far away from them as possible is out best bet."

Severus nodded curtly. "Which way?"

"I've not the faintest idea."

"Me neither," he turned to the left and began walking. "This way it is."

Trailing just behind him, she kept an eye on their surroundings they went. Not that she'd found this to be very effective so far; stumbling about in the dark with trees looming everywhere she looked was making her far more paranoid than anything else.

"What happened to you tonight?" Severus looked over his shoulder at her. "Evans cannot be the reason you look like that."

"Look like what?" Her voice trembled.

"Hell. You've got marks around your neck."

Ivy swallowed and said nothing, looking up at the treetops in an attempt to blink away tears.

Not only did she very much not want to talk about Wilkes trying to rape her, but she didn't know how to not incriminate herself. He and Rosier would be deemed missing, and while that wasn't necessarily unusual, the state of their bodies might be another matter. She didn't know who had duelled who, nor when or where. All in all, if their bodies were recovered, there would be unanswerable questions.

"I must look awful," she choked out.

It was an absurd thing to cry about, and she didn't know why that in particular sent her reeling, but suddenly she was sobbing. Stopping in her tracks, she wrapped her arms around herself and cried into them like an eight-year-old. A mess of snot and hair and ripped clothing, she tried not to think about Wilkes's belt wrapped around her throat.

Somehow, she could still feel the pressure. All this time later, and it hadn't gone away. Neither had the sensation of his knees on either side of hers, or the sound of his belt slipping out of his trouser loops.

She felt… soiled.

"He ripped off my knickers," Ivy managed to get out around her tears. She needed to compose herself long enough for them to Disapparate, but she couldn't stop sobbing. Lowering her arms as she continued to cry, she walked past Severus without looking at him. "Let's go, I want to leave."

"Who?" Severus chased after her. "Who… took your knickers?"

"Wilkes." She hiccuped as the tears continued to pour.

"What do you mean?" He hurried to catch up, as she was moving fast.

"He tried to rape me," Ivy could barely get out the terrible words. "H-He ripped my knickers off. They were my favourite pair."

"Oh my-"

"It's alright," she tried to reassure him as a fresh wave of tears cascaded down her face. "Really. He's dead now, so I can… I can just… Move on. Right?"

"I don't know if-"

"I can. I will." Ivy's voice shook as she quickened her pace, wanting to be anywhere but in the middle of that wretched wood. "W-Wilkes is dead. Rosier too."

"Rosier?"

"He was in my way. I-I needed to leave and he was in my way."

"Ivy, stop." He moved into her path, effectively halting her. "Stop for a moment."

"Why?" She struggled to see him through her tear-filled vision. "We need to leave - I need to leave. I don't want to be here. Do you? Because-"

Severus stepped forward and hugged her.

Ivy blinked and patted his back. "There, there. You'll be alright."

"I'm comforting you," he told her, gently forcing her head to rest on his shoulder.

"Oh," she said dazedly. "That's nice. I could use that."

"I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Regulus." Severus's voice was tight, like he was forcing back tears of his own. "It gets easier."

Ivy pulled back to look at him. "Who-?"

"A family member," he forced her head back onto his shoulder. "Let's not talk about it."

Sighing into his robes, she nodded. Breathing roughly, she tried to let his scent of wood sage calm her. She wasn't alone in the forest anymore, surrounded by enemies of every kind, and she wasn't beneath Wilkes. Instead, she was being held by someone who cared for her well-being more than he hated hugging, which was, according to him, an inexpressible amount.

They stayed like that, holding each other wordlessly, until her tears dried.

When she pulled back, he gave her a brisk nod. "Alright?"

"Alright," she said quietly.

"Should we try Disapparating again?"

Ivy nodded.

Severus held out his arm and she took it.

When he turned on the spot, they left the forest behind.