A/N: Guess what I did today... I wrote you all a new chapter. Originally intended to have more stuff in it, but it's the normal length, and I reckon the other events will be more than sufficient for a chapter on their own.

So yeah, deepest, sincerest, grovelling-at-you-feet apologies for the abysmally long wait I've put you through. I'm been having a lot of problems lately, but suddenly got inspiration today in the form of Fall Out Boy's album Infinity on high, so you really have them to thank for this post.

And now, because I'm sure most of you have skipped this anyway to get to the story, read and enjoy.

x – X - x

Chapter 57 – Dead Weight

Dark sapphire eyes studied him steadily for a long moment, and then Katherine's lips curled into a wicked grin and she laughed aloud. Toby stared at her, the lightening speed of her change of mood startling him, but not enough to make him lower his wand.

"Maybe I can." She spoke lightly, but the intensity of her gaze banished any thoughts he might have had that she was being flippant. He was quiet, waiting for her to go on, to reel out some careless theory off the top of her head that would turn out to be completely accurate, but she just stood there, watching him in easy silence.

"Well," he asked, gesturing with his free hand for her to speak, but she only shook her head and Toby smiled grimly. "Not going to guess? But then, you don't know a lot about my father, do you? Don't even know what he looks like." He left the statement hanging in the air between them, but Katherine only smiled faintly, tilted her head to one side and asked quietly:

"How's your mother?"

Toby, a terse retort half way to his lips, faltered, and Katherine's gaze dropped to the wand held loosely in her hands, the ghost of a smile still visible on her lips.

"You're a smart kid, Toby. Smart man, I should say." She raised her head, and the gaze that met his was no longer austere or mocking, but calm with maybe just a hint of regret. "Look at you – all grown up and fighting for the greater good, ready to die for the semblance of freedom you've been accustomed to…" She trailed off, and now Toby was sure he could see sorrow in those impossibly blue eyes. "He let you go. Your father, I mean," she added, at Toby's lost look. "You told me he didn't want you becoming an Auror in case you got killed, but now he's got his wife back-"

She stopped, fine black eyebrows drawing together in a sceptical frown. "No, that's not right. He's your father, he wouldn't change his mind; getting his wife back doesn't make you superfluous, not to him. In fact, now that you're a family again, he'd probably want you extra safe to preserve that security." She sighed, giving Toby what he felt was an unnecessarily disappointed look, the kind that used to grace Professor Flitwick's face whenever he'd failed to hand in homework. "Your father knows you're here, doesn't he, Toby, but he's not happy about it. You wanted to be here, you bloody idiot."

"Idiot?" Toby gaped at her, unable to believe what he was hearing. "I'm not the one going on about deserving Azkaban and then not wanting to go there and being destined to die and stuff!"

Katherine frowned again, folding her arms in a self conscious manner. "Exactly how long were you spying on me?"

"I wasn't spying," objected Toby hotly. "I just saw you and Snape go in here and…well, I, I don't know, I just wanted to know what was going on."

"And you don't think listening in on people's private conversations counts as spying? Did your mother never teach you any manners?"

Toby gaped at the sheer nerve of the grinning woman before him, but that only made Katherine laugh, blue eyes sparkling with mirth.

"That's not funny," he said softly, frowning at her, his own dark eyes studying her face quietly. Katherine shrugged, lifting her head and gazing up through the leaves above them at the darkening sky.

"Slytherin, remember. I don't have to be nice." She glanced back down, eyes focusing sharply on his. "Not to you. We're quits now, understand? You got your mother back, and after this battle, when Tom falls and the world is put to rights again, you can be a lovely little happy family, ok?"

"And if the Dark Lord wins?" asked Toby, refusing to back down, even in the face of the ice in her voice.

"He won't. Potter will bring him down."

"You really think so? He's just a kid."

Katherine shrugged again, blue eyes clear. "I trust him."

"And that's supposed to be enough for me?" asked Toby sceptically, scowling at her.

"You think I care if you believe he'll win?" asked Katherine, something like an incredulous grin gracing her face. "Why on earth should I give a damn what you believe? Won't stop the outcome, will it?" She laughed, tilting her head to examine him with a piercing gaze. "No Toby, the only thing I care about is that you get through this battle alive. I've put too much work into restoring your family to let you tear it apart again."

"You can't stop me fighting," said Toby quickly, thrusting his wand forward threateningly, despite knowing that if Katherine had decided to remove him from the battle, there was probably very little he could do stop her. True enough, the look of scornful amusement Katherine cast at his outstretched arm told him that she'd had exactly the same thought, but to his surprise she made no move to do anything of the sort.

Instead, she raised two fingers to her lips and whistled, the sound sharp and clear in the stillness of the clearing. Toby stared her in mounting confusion as her upturned eyes scanned the heavens for he knew not what.

"What are you doing?" he asked, wondering vaguely if she'd finally gone completely insane.

"Shh," Katherine chided him, waving a hand to indicate that he should keep quiet, and then raising the other arm skywards. Toby opened his mouth to object, to ask that she at least explain what she was doing, and then he heard the rush of wings and a dark shape dropped out of the sky, swooping to land gently on Katherine's outstretched hand.

Katherine grinned at him as the bird settled on it's perch, and turned a beady black eye on him.

"That's your familiar," said Toby carefully, remembering the day in the graveyard when the bird had attacked Belmont.

"Familiar?" asked Katherine, smiling slightly, as though amused at the thought. "Yes, I suppose he is. He's mine, anyway." She stroked the bird's proud head with long, elegant fingers, her expression turning a little rueful. "How good's your memory, Toby Holder?"

"Ok, I guess. Why?"

"Well I was just thinking…do you remember what Alastor said in the graveyard? About Archimedes?"

"Archimedes?" Toby asked with a frown, before recalling that that was the bird's name. Archimedes cocked his head at him, surveying him with an unsettlingly intelligent eye, and Toby racked his brains for Moody's long ago remark. "He said…he said it's life was tied to yours, didn't he?" Toby volunteered at last and Katherine grinned, obviously pleased.

"He did indeed. That's why they're dying out, you know. Their owners won't let them go, so when their life runs out, the birds die too. They're basically parasites, really – they live off your energy. That's why they work so hard to keep you safe – not for any foolish concept of loyalty - they just don't want to die." She smiled, stroking the bird's soft black feathers and her eyes slid over to Toby, a curious glimmer lurking within them. "Archimedes has saved my life a hundred times over. I owe him."

"Yeah?" asked Toby, not at all sure where she was going with this. Katherine smiled again and jerked her arm so that Archimedes, who'd been perched quietly on her hand, was suddenly airborne. Glossy black wings beat against the chill night air as the bird swooped forward, landing clumsily on the arm that Toby had automatically stretched out to receive him.

Toby stared blankly into the jet black eyes of the bird and then looked up at Katherine, who had bent to pick up a single feather from the ground. She rolled the quill between her fingers, twirling the shaft so that the feather flickered between black and a muted dark green.

"That's from him, isn't it?" said Toby slowly, peering closer at Archimedes' sleek feathers and noticing the greenish tint on the underside of his vast wings.

"They adapt to their owners," said Katherine softly, grinning again and tucking the feather behind her ear so that it stuck up like a plume. "So you needn't worry about anyone recognising him – give him a couple of weeks, he'll look completely different."

"He will?" asked Toby blankly, trying to organise his tumbled thoughts into some sort of order. "Wait, you're giving him to me?"

Katherine's grin faded a little, and something in her face softened. "I told you – I owe that bird. As long as you pass them on before you die, they can survive. If you don't want him, give him to someone else, but just keep him for now, yeah? He'll protect you tonight, which is more than I can do."

"But…what about you? You need him more than I do – you've got more people trying to kill you," pointed out Toby, glancing at Archimedes, still perched calmly on his arm.

"Maybe," agreed Katherine, drawing her wand from her jeans and wrapping her fingers around it. "But you have more to live for." She looked up at him, the blue eyes he'd seen in his dreams for so many years gleaming in the dim light, and smiled gently. "Good luck, Toby Holder. Have a good life."

"Good luck," whispered Toby, as she turned on her heel, darting into the trees and back to the battle. Toby stood alone for a moment, then raised his arm, so that he was face to beak with Archimedes. "Just you and me then," he said, feeling a little silly, because he was, after all, talking to a bird that couldn't possibly understand a word he was saying. Archimedes blinked at him in reply, and Toby saw with a jolt that the beady black eyes were now a brilliant sapphire blue.

Toby frowned a little, then smiled wryly and turned his head in the direction of the battle field. The muted sounds of fighting were filtering through the trees, followed occasionally by flashes of stray spells. He took a breath, then tightened his grip on his wand and headed towards the fight, Archimedes launching himself from Toby's arm and gliding silently above him.

x – X – x

Remus shot one of the nastier hexes that James and Sirius had found on a midnight escapade to the Restricted Section at his opponent, and ducked behind a felled tree to catch his breath. He'd lost sight of Tonks a while ago, but she knew how to look after herself – she was an Auror after all. Still, the thought of her lingered at the front of his mind and he hoped fervently that her innate clumsiness wasn't making it's presence known. He could not afford to lose her, not now, not ever.

A branch next to his right ear caught fire as his adversary's curse missed him by mere centimetres, and he leapt out from his hiding place before he had a chance to lose his nerve. The hood had fallen back from the Death Eater's head and spiky black hair stuck up in all directions, glistening with sweat above the white mask concealed his features.

"Werewolf scum!"

Remus bit down a retort and cursed the man instead. The Death Eater howled as his right hand began to swell to twice it's normal size, and he nearly dropped his wand which looked suddenly dwarfed inside the huge fingers.

Remus took used the lapse in concentration to hurl a temporary blindness spell at him, but it rebounded against a hastily cast shield charm and he had to drop flat on the floor to avoid it. He rolled over, wand in hand, but the Death Eater was already advancing, dark eyes glittering behind the mask as he raised his wand for the final blow-

-and a flash of orange light hit him squarely in chest and he halted, apparently frozen for a second, before falling forward onto Remus' outstretched legs.

Remus yelled at the impact, for the man was far heavier and harder than he had any reasonable right to be, and shoved the dead weight from his body.

"Sorry about that," murmured a soft voice in his ear. "Didn't realise he'd fall forward."

Remus scowled, hitching up his robes to examine his legs, but there didn't seem to be any lasting damage, save for a red patch of skin which was rapidly darkening to a purple bruise. "What did you hit him with?" he asked Katherine, as she rolled the motionless body over onto his back and tugged off the mask.

When she didn't answer, Remus glanced up and wished he hadn't. The pale face beneath the mask was contorted in agony, brown eyes a mixture of pain and fury.

"Katherine?"

"Hmm?" Katherine tore her gaze from the man and looked at him expectantly.

"That's…Dolohov, isn't it?" he asked suddenly, and Katherine nodded, casting a disgusted look at the man before her.

"Stupid man," she muttered, and Remus frowned until he realised she was talking to Dolohov. Remus stared at the two of them, not knowing what to say. Antonin Dolohov had been sent to Azkaban after the first war, he'd killed Gideon and Fabian Prewett, and Katherine was calling him stupid? Evil, murderous and twisted, yes, but stupid?

"You just had to go and attack him, didn't you?" continued Katherine, and Remus saw Dolohov's eyes slide towards him, and then, more importantly, saw his left hand creep slowly towards his fallen wand.

"Katherine!" Remus warned, and Katherine's head snapped round in time to see Dolohov's hand close around the wand.

Then, to Remus' surprise, she sighed and shook her head.

"Idiot," she said wearily, and lashed out with one foot. The heel of her boot caught Dolohov under the chin and his head snapped backwards with a dark crack, then lolled to the side at an unnatural angle. "You all right?"

Remus blinked, dragging his gaze from the body of Dolohov and looking up at his old friend.

"Fine," he said bleakly. "Were you two…? You were in Azkaban together, weren't you?"

"He wasn't too bad," shrugged Katherine, holding out a hand to haul him to his feet. "He could hold a conversation at least, which is more than you can say for some of them."

"Katherine, he tortured hundreds of people!"

Katherine smiled darkly, an odd expression on her face. "So have I."

Remus opened his mouth to object, but closed it again. He wouldn't win the argument – he never did. Katherine laughed, and turned to go, but Remus caught her arm, remembering something.

"Did you read the paper this morning?"

It might have been his imagination, but he thought Katherine looked a little awkward for a second before shaking her head slowly.

"No, I was…otherwise occupied this morning," she said delicately, and Remus nodded in understanding.

"Preparations for tonight, right," he agreed, barely noticing the slight raise of Katherine's eyebrow in his determination to get to the point. "Well if you had read it, you'd find that Dolores Umbridge has been found."

"Who?" asked Katherine, and if it weren't for the wholly honest incomprehension in her eyes, Remus might have believed she wasn't acting.

"Dolores Umbridge, Katherine – don't give me that look, you know full well who she is. She went missing a week ago, and she turned up in Saint Mungo's last night."

"And I care about this why?" asked Katherine, with an impatient sigh.

"She's been bitten," said Remus darkly, brown eyes narrowed. Katherine frowned a little.

"Bitten bitten?" she asked slowly. "As in by a werewolf, bitten?"

"That's right."

Katherine continued to stare at him for a moment, then burst into laughter. "Seriously? Excellent."

"Katherine!" shouted Remus. "It's not a laughing matter. Do you know what they do to werewolves who bite people?"

"They lock them up in Azkaban and throw away the key," answered Katherine brightly. Remus gaped at her, shocked at her reaction; he knew there was a side to her that she was careful not to show him and that he in turn rarely acknowledged, but he hadn't thought her capable of this.

"I can't believe you set this up," he said quietly, the bitterness and shame in his voice stilling Katherine's laughter.

"I didn't mean for him to bite her," she said, grimacing a little. "But it's not like he doesn't deserve Azkaban, anyway."

"And you thought you'd be the judge of that, did you?" asked Remus with such force that Katherine took a step back, before laughing again.

"Rem, it was Fenrir Greyback. It didn't exactly take a genius to figure it out."

"Fenrir…?" asked Remus, stunned, and Katherine smiled a little.

"You didn't think I'd force some poor, struggling beggar to attack her, did you? Fenrir's such a loose cannon nowadays, all you have to do is point and aim."

"And you didn't think he'd bite her," asked Remus, in the tone of one questioning someone's sanity.

"Remus, it's Fenrir. I thought he'd rip her to shreds. Clearly I was wrong." She frowned, looking like someone who was annoyed it had rained when the forecast had predicted sunshine, then grinned. "Oh well, better this way, I think. It's a bit like divine intervention, isn't it?"

Remus managed to keep his jaw from dropping by using all his self control, then shook his head despairingly. "Katherine, do you have even the slightest concept of what divine intervention is, because I'm fairly sure it doesn't involve intentionally setting a maniacal werewolf on someone."

"Oh come on, you can't tell me you didn't grin when you read the news – before you decided I had to be behind it and started feeling guilty, of course."

"That's not the po-" Remus broke off, because Katherine was grinning like the Cheshire Cat, and like said feline, was probably about to dash off before he could finish his argument. "You're impossible," he muttered instead, and Katherine's smile softened.

"I know." For a moment, they just stood facing each other, two quiescent figures on the fringes of the most ferocious battle Remus had ever seen, then a limp body was blasted past them, and the stillness was broken. Katherine smiled wryly, fingers twirling her wand, anxious to be amidst the fight once more. "I'm glad you found Tonks, Rem. She'll look after you."

Remus found himself halfway through a nod when he realised what was bothering him about this exchange; it sounded far too much like a goodbye for his liking. She'll look after you…because very soon I won't be able to.

"Katherine-"

"I've got to go, Rem - Bella's still out there somewhere. How am I going to face Sirius if I don't get revenge?"

"Katherine, you're not going to-"

"Love you, Remus," said Katherine quickly, darting forward and placing a chaste kiss on his forehead. "Good luck."

And then she'd disappeared, dodging past Kingsley as he duelled with Amycus Carrow. Remus stared after her, one hand touching his forehead where she'd kissed him.

"Love you, Katherine."

x – X – x

More soon. Probably. Possibly. I'll try.

You know what will encourage me?

REVIEWS!

Pretty please?

(Oh, and a sneak peek at the next chapter for anyone who can guess what spell Katherine used on Dolohov - as long as you leave a signed review or contact email, otherwise I obviously can't contact you. Hint - it's somewhere in this story)