A/N: A deep note of gratitude to my favorite reader, Ari!Mom, and to Melenka, Luna and Anastasia/TimeTurnerForSale, who usually see or hear everything before it appears on screen. They are the four pillars of my fiction-writing universe, and I promise you that without them, the "purple chicken" would not exist.
A special thanks to Annie Talbot for her beautiful thoughts on words and the beautiful words she used to express them.
Here and Everywhere
"So which comes last, Severus? Which? The ashes? Or the phoenix?"
Severus stood in the hall, trying to ignore the fine trembling that had started in his hands.
Tayet's talons clicked on the wooden armrest as she paced back and forth, looking down at Hermione's sleeping form, looking back to Severus who sat, still holding the silk-wrapped wands, head bowed, hair curtaining his face.
"Whirp," she said sorrowfully.
She looked down at Hermione's shoulder, then back at Severus, and then paced some more.
Click. Click click. Click.
"Whirrrrp," Tayet crooned, looking back at Severus.
Without looking up, he said, "I've done all I can for her shoulder, little one."
"Whirrrrrrrrrp," she complained.
Severus glanced up through his hair, a small smile on his lips. "You are a phoenix, you know. I don't suppose you could… ?"
Tayet regarded Severus strangely, took a step backwards, and nearly fell off the arm of the sofa.
At the sight of her mad flapping, Severus barked a short laugh. "Didn't think of that, did you?"
"Whirp!" Tayet said finitely, her talons clicking once again on the armrest as she moved toward Hermione's shoulder. "Whirrrrp."
Click. Click.
Tayet looked at her feet, then went cross-eyed, then made a clicking noise with her beak. "Click." Her eyes widened happily and she made it again. "Click!" Then a satisfied "Whirrp."
"Moody, no!" Hermione mumbled, tossing her head to the side, her arm coming up instinctively, her face contracting briefly as her shoulder popped again.
Severus and Tayet froze for a moment, but Hermione did not awaken.
Tayet leaned her head down and poked Hermione's shoulder with her beak. "Whirp." Then "Click." Then she blinked a tear, and, as Severus watched, a shadow spread over Hermione's shoulder.
Hermione whimpered.
Tayet hopped down from her perch to stand on Hermione's bare shoulder.
"Gently!" Severus was on his feet, his hand moving automatically, too late, to keep Tayet from settling her weight on the injury.
The parcels lay fallen, forgotten, on the floor.
Tayet looked up at Severus, eyes wide. "Squerk?"
Severus was standing icily still, eyes sharp, watching for signs of pain on Hermione's face.
"Squerk?" Tayet looked up at him, spreading her wings slightly, then she turned and buried her head in Hermione's hair.
"Tayet… I… she's obviously experiencing no discomfort… I… " Blast.
But Tayet was trembling.
From the depths of Hermione's hair, Severus heard, "Squeep." Then "Squeeeep."
The phoenix was crying.
/x/
Minerva looked up at Albus' portrait. "Albus, what is that book?"
"I believe it belonged to Lily Potter, Minerva," he said patiently, turning a page.
Minerva put down her quill and moved closer to the wall. "How is that possible?"
"I get the distinct impression that she was once a firefly. And that she became a meal for a rather young phoenix."
Minerva tilted her head back for a better look.
"She? The book's a 'she'? And was a… a what? Albus… have you lost your mind?"
He looked at her over the top of his spectacles, smiling kindly. "Of course not." He flipped the book over, examined the ink and thumbprint on the cover, then turned it back for reading. "I believe Severus was your student, after all." He turned another page. "Talented, as I recall."
"Yes, yes, he did passably well in Transfiguration, of course, but what has that to do with… ?" She gestured toward the book.
"We all make choices, Minerva. This," he held the book up, still open, in both hands, "this, I believe, was his." Smiling enigmatically, he turned the book around so that she could read the inscription, and see the drawing Lily had made so many years before.
Her lips parted slightly, and her eyes began to sparkle as a slow smile spread on her face. "Well," she said, finally. "Well, then. Oh, Albus. That is excellent news."
He closed the book, using his finger to mark his place, and waited patiently for her to continue.
"I did not know that Lily ever returned his feelings. Oh, how wonderful."
"Minerva, you sound like a Second year dreaming of the Yule Ball."
"It's witches' business, Albus," she sniffed, smiling delightedly. "I wouldn't expect you to understand."
He opened one hand. "I realize that I am at a serious disadvantage on that score, of course."
Minerva noted that his other hand did not leave its place in the book.
"But you would now, as always, find me a ready pupil, Professor." His eyes twinkled.
"Oooh, you are daft." She didn't sound displeased. "He loved once, Albus."
Albus nodded, his eyes flashing over the wire frames. "That he did. And if this poor, worn book is any indication," he thumbed the book's frayed corner, "for many years."
"It stands to reason that he can again. Wonderful. Perfectly wonderful." For a moment she did, in fact, resemble her younger students, but soon, too soon, the shadows of care returned to her face, and, with a hesitant smile that did not reach her eyes, she said, "Yes, well. Supposing."
As she turned back toward her desk, Albus' voice interrupted her. "Tayet, Goddess of weaving. Companion to Anubis (cf. Hermes, cf. Hermanubis), Guardian of the Underworld. Represented in funerary rites by a loosely woven… linen… curtain." He looked up. "Imagine." He closed the book.
Minerva was staring at him, the color rising in her cheeks. "Anubis? The jackal? Oh. Oh."
Albus' eyes were twinkling violently. "Perhaps, Minerva, once this is over, you might consider expanding the Mythology section of the Library? Cross-referenced, perhaps, with Muggle Studies?"
She smirked, and quipped, "And Divination, I suppose?"
He smiled serenely. "Perhaps. Or perhaps a new section on Serendipity."
She sniffed. "No one will believe that. Sibyll will be thrilled." She groaned.
"This was no prophecy, Minerva. Life can happen without them, you know." And he remembered one night by the Lake, finding her…
… as she stood by the Lake one night, lost in the frozen moonlight, cheeks pale, frozen tears crystal on her eyelashes, bereft, nothing, gone, all of them, and a vast expanse of frozen, immutable darkness before her and he gave her his cloak against a chill that nothing, he knew, not even his heart, could ever fully erase.
They stood that way for hours, and even the stars cast shadows on the snow.
She finally turned her eyes from the empty mirror of the frozen Lake and scolded him in a cracking voice for not Transfiguring something else to wrap her in. "You'll catch your death, Albus."
No. My life, he'd' thought, as they had turned and made their way slowly toward the castle.
He closed his eyes. How right he had been, although it been over a decade before she had turned to him as more than a friend, as what she might have been, before, and was, afterwards.
"I am never surprised, Minerva, at how so many are willing to find proof in coincidence, yet are nonetheless eager to dismiss truth as but another facade."
She gave him a look – a smiling look he knew meant he'd won a round.
He had never known from day to day what kind of argument would be the one to finally convince her in any of their exchanges, but he'd never admitted that.
He trusted his luck. And that was wizards' business, after all.
/x/
Tayet was crooning piteously, and Hermione's hand moved to the phoenix's sooty neck, stroking gently, even in her sleep.
"Come out, little one." Severus placed his hand gently on Tayet's back. "I did not mean to scare you. You were grand, just grand."
A quiet "Squeep" from Hermione's hair.
"Please, love," he said.
She peeked out. "Squirp?"
Severus' hand did not cease its slow movement. "Yes," he began, his voice soft, his throat tightening, "I love you, little thing. Do stop hiding. Please."
In an instant, Tayet was clinging to two of his buttons and rubbing her head ecstatically on his cheek. "Whirp!"
And she was back on Hermione, leaning and blinking tears over her ribs.
Hermione sighed softly in her sleep, and Tayet marched across her stomach and onto Severus' knee.
As Severus and Tayet watched, the air over Hermione's skin wavered, an irradiated transparency edged with a glowing black that disappeared if Severus tried to look directly at it.
"Squeep," Tayet whispered, pecking Severus' hand. She flicked a look at him, and returned to staring at Hermione.
"I see it," he breathed.
Within its ring of seven small black circles, the tears formed of forgiveness, shaped of a dark and agonized beauty, the swirling circle was filled.
"Severus?" Hermione's eyes opened, and as she traced her hand upward, over her chest, lightly brushing the mark that she knew from his eyes had changed, Tayet sang one rich note.
It flew straight to Severus' heart.
/x/
Up to his elbows in soapy water, Harry leaned into Ginny's hair. "Gin…"
She smiled at his tone and kept her eyes on the dish she was drying.
"Gin," he whispered against her ear.
She closed her eyes as his breath seemed to travel straight down her spine. Her hands slowed and stopped.
"I love you."
She rested her head on his and closed her eyes.
"I know, Harry," she murmured. "I love you, too."
/x/
Arthur and Molly sat together, the cushions on that end of the sofa softened by their history of hours in that same spot.
Ron sat on the floor in front of them, leaning against their legs.
Every so often, Molly's hand would brush his hair, or Arthur's would pat his shoulder.
"We're proud of you, son," Arthur said quietly.
"Thanks, Dad."
/x/
Lupin's nose twitched, and he opened his eyes to blue sky through rustling leaves.
Tonks was holding a seeded grass stem over his nose, her eyes daring him to do anything but smile.
So he smiled.
/x/
Moody sat, scowling at his foe glass; Kingsley straightened the papers on his desk.
In Diagon Alley, George cast the Locking Charms on the door, and he and his twin set off to meet Charlie.
/x/
And in the parlor in number twelve, Grimmauld Place, neither Severus nor Hermione dared draw breath.
"Hermione, I - " and her finger was on his lips, her hand smoothing under his hair, warm and soft holding his head gently, drawing him to her.
"Shhh," she said, a whisper away from a kiss, her eyes, his, open, aware, fluttering, closing. "Shhh."
And his hands were in her hair, his lips moving on hers… tender, awestruck –
and his voice in her mind –
"… love you."
/x/
Something was exciting them.
They were hungry.
They circled, slow, severe, ever darker, more solid.
A swirl of wind eddied last season's leaves in a low scraping on the walkway, an advance disturbance heralding the arrival, a dance of death on a path long-abandoned.
A footstep.
Another.
The wind brushing low, kissing a hem in a sigh of heavy fabric before it died before him.
He tasted the air.
They were hungry.
He extended a finger, beckoning.
They were hungry. They were his.
And they were here.
