She resurfaced on the front step of Grimmauld Place. The tang of gasoline hit her nose along with a wave of nausea and the streetlights swam bright and painful in her half-open eyes.
"You're alright, girl, you're alright," said a gruff voice behind her, a hand catching her shoulder.
"Alastor?"
"That's the one."
The door was flung open, the familiar smell of dust and rot meeting her nostrils. There was a horrible pain in her left shoulder, and a worse one in her stomach that stabbed as she stumbled inside.
"How many?"
Alastor was talking to someone. She heard low male voices but her eyes hadn't yet adjusted to the dark. "What's that?"
"How many dead?" she repeated doggedly.
"You killed two, Nellie. New recruits- I didn't recognize either of 'em."
She was being passed along. A low voice cursed softly as she stumbled. Someone caught her. She forced her eyes to stay open, battled the soft, tempting darkness creeping in at the edges of her vision.
"Keep her here. Dumbledore will be by in the morning."
"Of course, Alastor."
She was leaning on someone's shoulder, someone who smelled odd and yet familiar, booze and smoke and dark wood.
"Sirius?" Her voice sounded awful. "Bloody hell, is that you?"
"It's me."
She staggered again. Something had hit her in the stomach, she remembered dimly, and one side of her face felt swollen and wrong. She saw again the man falling as she hit him in the chest and focused on keeping moving. One step at a time.
"You're alright, you're alright. That's it."
He was laying her down on a bed. Smell of dust, old sweat.
"Nellie."
His hand was on hers, rough fingers. She didn't know why. Something was on the tip of her tongue and she had to hold it back. She could just make out his face in the dark.
"You're safe now, I promise." His thumb rubbed her cut knuckles, and she realized she was still clutching her wand tightly.
She let it drop, embarrassed. That's all it was. Idiot.
"See? Safe." He was dabbing some ointment on her face. It stung, but she didn't flinch. "I'm gonna have to take a look at where they hit you."
She just nodded, shrugging her shirt off. The motion sent knives of pain through her shoulder and she bit her tongue to keep from crying out.
"One to the shoulder, one to my stomach, here." She looked down at her skin, gleaming in the dim light, the slight sag of her stomach punctuated with a growing purple bruise. "I think it was a bludgeoning curse."
He was waving his wand over her, the slight gleam of it catching her eyes, disorienting. "Fucking hell," he breathed. "This should have killed you."
"Look at my shirt."
He took it from her, confused; then his face lit up. "A countercurse woven in?" When he grinned, he looked ten years younger. "Clever. I've never seen anything like this."
"Not as strong as I would have liked, evidently."
He continued to wave his wand over her. She could feel the binding strength of his magic holding her together, pulling her back. The pain in her stomach was easing.
"You're alive, Nellie." His voice was low and hoarse. "I'm just glad you're alive."
Something knifed through her, quick and luminous, that had nothing to do with adrenaline. He tucked his wand back in his pocket, ran a hand roughly through his hair.
"I'll- uh- I'll go downstairs and give you some time to rest."
"It's alright," she said, too quickly. She sat up and pulled her shirt on, feeling her head already clearing. "I'll come down, too, I could use a smoke."
Sirius looked surprised but merely nodded as she got out of bed. The pain in her body was dulling but her hands still shook and she had to grip the bannister tightly as they made their slow way downstairs.
She cast a reflecting charm as she settled into a chair opposite Sirius and grimaced. "Merlin, I look a mess."
He glanced up at her from where he knelt, lighting a fire. In the warm orange glow, the old dark sitting room was almost cozy.
"Yeah, what happened? Did Yaxley punch you?"
She chuckled, inspecting the bruise blossoming under her eye. "Nah. His curse hit a wall near me and I guess I got caught in the shrapnel."
She lit a cigarette, her hands still shaking. The familiar catch of the flame calmed her even before she took the first drag. "I hardly noticed, though. You know how it is."
"Yeah. I know how it is." His cheeks looked less pale in the firelight, she noticed, but his eyes were just as dark. "You got a cigarette for me?"
He leaned forward and took the proffered cigarette with a nod of thanks, and she watched as he lit it with the tip of his wand.
"Remember when we were so poor we could make a pack last a week?"
"Yeah." He grinned, but still she couldn't read his eyes. "Just passing one back and forth all night. I remember." His voice was hoarse, but it still had that deep smoothness she remembered, the kind that made her knees go weak. They sat in silence for a while before he spoke again.
"I should've been out there with you, Nellie. I'm like a dog in a cage, locked up in here all the bloody time."
"At least you're alive," she replied pointedly, taking a deep drag. The smoke was full and soft inside her lungs, clearing her head. Her hands had stopped shaking.
"I'm not doing anything for anybody here." He ashed his cigarette on the old threadbare rug without a second glance. "Out there, I know what I'm doing. Things make sense."
She sighed, staring into the dancing flames. Wavering one way and then the other, quicker than you could get ahold of. "Not as much sense as they used to."
"At least you get to be out there."
"Yeah, and nearly get killed," she snapped. "Are you jealous?"
He leaned back in his seat and stared at her with irritating, affected calmness. "Maybe a little bit."
"Look," she said softly, taking a deep breath. "I get why you miss it, but we're not children anymore. It's not some big fun adventure like it used to be."
Though he still sat sprawled in his chair, his eyes as they stared back at her looked sunken and deep, his face very pale.
She sighed heavily. "Not now that we're adults."
"Yeah. And you've really grown up, haven't you?" The bitterness in his voice was palpable.
"The hell's that supposed to mean?"
He drew himself up in his chair and suddenly he wasn't calm anymore. He burned.
"Twelve years, Nellie!" he rasped harshly. "Twelve years I spent rotting in a cell with nothing but memories. Nothing but James and Lily and you." He stared at her as though from the bottom of a deep pit. "I never grew up.
"I look bloody old." The ghost of a grim smile flitted across his face, then quickly faded. "But inside I'm still stuck at twenty-one. Never got a job. Never got married." She opened her mouth to speak but he silenced her with a look.
"Maybe it's easy for you not to miss the way things were, but for me, I could never-" He broke off, lifted his cigarette to his lips with a hand she could see was shaking. "I could never move on."
She stared at him in astonishment. "But then why did you never come find me?" she breathed. "Why didn't you tell me truth?"
"I was certain you thought I was a murderer and a traitor, just like the rest." He stared at her hard. "And when I got out, I saw nothing that indicated otherwise."
"Yeah? How hard did you look?"
He looked briefly taken aback, but his face quickly became set and stony. "You don't understand what it's like," he said softly.
"You'd be surprised."
He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it, scowling, and rose up out of his armchair in silence.
"Your room's upstairs on the left," he barked as he stalked up the stairs two at a time.
She just stared at the small stub of his cigarette, slowly burning a black circle in the arm of his chair.
Dumbledore came early in the morning as promised, and she made her report and left without seeing Sirius again.
Order headquarters was a cheery place this time of year. Everyone packed into the small, warm entrance hall from the cold outside, unwrapping their cloaks and talking animatedly. They had stopped a Death Eater ambush a few days ago, and everyone was in good spirits.
"Nellie!"
She turned to see Dorcas waving at her, a champagne glass levitating near her elbow, and beamed. "Good to see you!"
Dorcas knocked into her with a bone-crushing hug. "Bloody hell, Nellie! I heard you were on duty the other night. Damn good job you did out there!"
Nellie grinned. She hadn't touched a drop yet, but she felt drunk just being in the warm lights, the din of voices all around, the glow of her friend's excitement. Dorcas had been her first real friend, the one she went out on missions with, the one whom she could talk to about anything.
Well, almost anything.
She heard a loud crash behind her and nearly jumped out of her skin. Ambush, Death Eaters, murderers-
"Dammit, Prongs!"
"Sorry! Sorry, everyone!"
She turned to see a sheepish James Potter and a decidedly un-sheepish Sirius Black setting a large grand piano down on the creaking wooden floor with their wands. Or, more accurately, dropping it. She couldn't stifle a laugh.
"This is a beautiful instrument! How could you?"
"Oh, shaddup. We'll patch it up in no time."
Sirius scowled but Nellie could see the corners of his mouth twitching. "'Patch it up'? You don't patch up a piano!"
She was startled out of her reverie by Dorcas elbowing her hard in the ribs. "Handsome, innee?"
"Yes, it's a very fine piano."
Dorcas snorted so hard she nearly choked on her champagne. "Seriously, though," she teased once she had caught her breath again, "you've hardly been able to take your eyes off him since you joined up."
That she couldn't deny. She had been shocked when Moody ushered her in for her first Order meeting to find him there. She had worn her nicest clothes- nothing much, just a clean white blouse and pants that didn't have any patches in them- and clipped her bob of dark hair back behind one ear. She had been so nervous, unsure what to expect- a room full of grizzled war veterans? Rich ministry pricks? But when she stepped through the door her first wild impression was that she was back in the Ravenclaw common room again. They were mostly teenagers, just come of age.
She saw many familiar faces, but she had taken her seat and was inspecting the parchments on the table before she noticed him. Longer hair than she remembered, a bit broader in the chest, wearing a tight black t-shirt that read "QUEEN". She stared in disbelief until he looked up at her and she met his black eyes. Darkness melting into the irises, smell of cinnamon and blood. The Dog Star.
"Alright, Stevens?"
She had blushed so furiously she was certain he could read her mind then and there, but she managed to nod back before the meeting started.
He ended up across from her at every meeting, whether she sat down first or he did. She would glance at the reflection of his face in the polished table, his long fingers drumming on it, perpetually restless. Burning up with irresistible energy that he gave off without even seeming to try. He was quick to volunteer for the most dangerous missions, generous and easy with his big, lopsided smile, made the best jokes but laughed the loudest at everyone else's.
Rich, arrogant asshole, she reminded herself every day. But it was becoming harder and harder to believe. It was hard to hate the people who fought beside her, the first and only people she had ever trusted or befriended.
She glanced back over at Sirius while Dorcas was distracted by a tray of sandwiches magically levitating above the floor. He and James had managed to clumsily charm the piano to stay upright. Sirius banged on the keys and make a grimace at the dissonant sound.
"Hey, Nel!" he called, seeing her watching him. "You know how to tune a piano?"
She shook her head, blushing furiously. Dorcas, who had reappeared at her elbow, chuckled into her champagne.
"Merlin, it's so obvious."
Nellie scowled playfully. "Shaddup. Don't make fun of me."
"No, mate, I didn't mean you." Dorcas inclined her head towards the boys now trying unsuccessfully, but not for want of enthusiasm, to tune a piano for the first time. "I meant him."
At that moment, Sirius glanced over at them once again, grinning and sweeping his hair back as he caught Nellie's eye. James slammed down hard on the keys behind him, causing Sirius to jump and stumble backwards onto the piano with a loud curse.
"James! What the bloody hell-"
"I was just testing it out!" James insisted, barely holding in laughter.
Dorcas raised her eyebrows. "Yeah, I think I'll leave you." She swept away to talk to Lily and Marlene, her champagne glass, now noticeably emptier, still hovering at her elbow.
Nellie stood still for a moment, her mind racing. She barely noticed her feet had begun carrying her over towards the piano until it was too late to turn back. Her cheeks felt very hot.
"Come to help us?" Sirius beamed. He wore all black tonight- tight black jeans, black bracelets, and another one of his odd t-shirts under his black leather jacket. The effect was rather distracting.
"Sure. Never had a piano, but I think I read about a spell that might help." She stuffed her hands awkwardly into her pockets.
"Yeah? What's that?"
James suddenly caught sight of someone in the crowd he desperately wanted to talk to, and hurried off.
"Retelegio. It's s'posed to retune any instrument. There's sort of a fancy flick you've got to do-" She showed him the motion, trying to recall the best she could.
"Wow." He shook his hair out of his eyes. "How do you even remember this stuff?"
She shrugged, feeling rather shy, and watched as he tried the spell. His wrist motion was a little off, she noticed, and the piano just made a sad sort of groan.
"Here, look-" Without thinking, she put her hand on his wrist and guided it. The piano let out a decidedly more harmonious sound.
"Damn," said Sirius lowly.
She realized she was still holding his wrist, which was awfully close to holding his hand, and let go abruptly.
With a nod to her he sat down at the bench and began to play- simple chords at first, but he spun quickly into something altogether wild, little lines of notes that ran this way and that with beautiful flourishes of his wrist. He bent his head down, his shaggy hair falling back into his eyes, clearly engrossed.
"You play very well," she muttered before going off to have a smoke.
It didn't take him long to find her on the balcony. Her cheeks and nose were ruddy from the cold, but she needed something to steady her hands and her heart. She was needing it more and more these days.
"What're you doing out here freezing your arse off?" He leaned on the railing beside her, rubbing his hands together earnestly.
She sighed. "Needed a little break. Parties aren't really my scene." She didn't tell him she could hardly bear to hear him play. He was so desperately lovely, a boy who could play the piano and make anyone laugh and have any girl he wanted. No matter what Dorcas said, a guy like that wasn't for her.
"Didn't fancy my playing?" He threw it out offhandedly, but she thought she detected a little hurt in his voice.
"I told you, you play beautifully."
"That's not the same as you liking it."
She snorted, a puff of smoke curling from her flared nostrils. "Do you just play the piano so girls will like it? I'll bet that's been quite successful."
He stood up straight, pulled his long fingers through his hair. "Y'know, for a Ravenclaw you really can be quite thick sometimes."
She stared at him. His eyes were bright, and to her surprise his cheeks were rather flushed.
"Well, ah-" He drummed his fingers on the railing, then stopped himself. "Look, I'll go back inside. Don't want to bother you."
"Wait." Her heart flashed and flickered, a burst of shattering light filling her like a photograph being taken. "I do like your playing."
He turned to look at her, bemused.
"And I- I like you." Her fingers shook a little and she stuffed them in her pocket.
"Do you?" His full lips curled around the words as if he were caressing them. "I had a feeling you didn't hate me as much as you pretend to." He came back, leaned easily on the railing beside her. "Gotta cigarette?"
She nodded, rummaging in her pockets, but before she could hand him one he reached out and plucked her own from her lips. It was smudged with her lipstick- the cheap crap never stayed on. He stuck it in his mouth with a grin and she felt her heart shudder wonderfully.
"Hey, Nel."
"Hm?"
"When I took down Fawley the other day for you- does that mean we're even?"
She stared at him, confused. "Even?"
"I mean that one time you rescued me my seventh year. I never thanked you properly." He shrugged his shoulders, and to her surprise he looked rather abashed. "I was a total arse about it, actually. So consider Fawley a thank you. And an apology."
She blinked at him, struggled to recover herself. "Well, I'd take half of Fawley as an apology. Because he was half-dead by the time you got around to him."
His eyes widened in the darkness. They were black and gleaming as the night itself, set with stars. "Oh, take that back."
"Never," she said but she couldn't help laughing a little. "Who disarmed him the first time? And caught him with a stinging hex?"
"Ah, that's nothing. Child's play."
Their laughter seemed to vanish quickly in the vastness of the winter night.
"Really, though- apology accepted," she said seriously as he handed her back her cigarette. "Sorry I'm so… rude about things."
"Ah, well. You are dreadfully cruel to me." He heaved a dramatic sigh. "That's gonna burn out, you know."
She glanced down at the cigarette that had been in his mouth. She put it back between her lips and imagined she could taste just a bit of him on it.
A bit of you- that's all I'd need. A few bright points, glittering photographic moments to carry with her, to illuminate her forever.
Not for me, a voice in her head reminded her. Mum told me not to fall in love. She warned me.
"You know I grew up in Cheapside, right? And my mum sleeps with men for a living?" She stared at him with her chin out as if daring him to insult her.
He cleared his throat, eyebrows raised. "Do you put every guy through the ringer like this?"
"Well, it's my life, so yeah. It's a fucking ringer."
He rested his chin on his fist, his long lashes casting shadows on his face.
"Look." He spoke slowly, as if measuring every word. "I heard the stuff about your mum, but it never meant anything to me. I know better than anyone we don't have to make the same choices as our parents."
"Yeah?" she replied, curious in spite of herself.
"Yeah. You know anything about my family?"
She shook her head and he snorted.
"Just as well. Pureblood maniacs, all of them. Cruel and bigoted and, well-" he grimaced "-we didn't get along much. I left when I was in my sixth year."
She stared at him through the thin haze of smoke now hanging around them. The air felt crisp and still. "I didn't know that. I'm sorry."
"S'alright."
They stared down in silence at the low countryside, rolling out in patches of light and dark. The little lights of houses glimmered up at them cozily.
"Y'know," he said lowly after a while. "Fighting this fight, upending our lives to do all this- it's like, it's like-" He gazed out into the distance, clenching and unclenching his fist. She stared at him. "Our parents, and our parents' parents, they made this fucked-up world. They made the Ministry and the centaur wars and the pureblood laws and all the stuff that's coming back at us now."
His voice was hushed as a prayer, his eyes gleaming in the dark. "And it's up to us to make it right, for ourselves. It means something to be living our lives this way, fighting for a world beyond their rules and their prejudice."
"For love, you mean?"
He was so beautiful, she thought. He was standing up straight now, and she had to look up to see his face, half-light, half-shadow, his lips a little red from the traces of her cigarette. He frowned at her, confused.
"I mean, the only thing that exists outside of prejudice and rules is love. It's the opposite of all that."
"That's true."
He kept moving, drumming his fingers on the rail and sweeping his hair back and forth. She could practically feel the energy radiating from him. Ideas, hopes, thoughts she had never considered or entertained, a grander vision of the world than she had ever imagined. Her heart leapt and leapt, words were on the tip of her tongue-
"You know, there's something I've been really wanting to do." He sounded almost sheepish.
She had just opened her mouth to ask what it was when he bent down and kissed her. It was quick, and a little off center, and she could feel his lips trembling slightly as he pressed them against hers. She stared back at him, dazed and illuminated, then stood up on her tiptoes and silently kissed him back.
She could feel his eyelashes fluttering against her, the warmth of his tongue swiping across her lips. His hands were in her hair, he was pulling her up, closer, deeper into the burning star-like heat of him, impossible and strange and so wonderful.
"I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!" Dorcas's loud voice reached them from the balcony doorway, and Nellie laughed against his lips and kissed him harder.