A/N: I think the last chapter was a little better. Things will finally start picking up, which I think will help with the jerkiness of the previous chapters. Also, I don't think I'll have as many sexual scenes in this story. I guess they could fit later on, but for now, it doesn't seem to make sense in the context of the tone I'm setting. Do you guys want that sort of thing?
This one is kind of short and internal, but I think it's important for Rowan and Remus' approach towards the war.
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Disclaimer: I own nothing!
Chapter 5: Of Death's Whispered Promises
Just as Rowan had predicted, Remus had been furious with both her and James when they'd returned to Headquarters after their nearly disastrous mission. She'd just about been unconscious with a couple of broken ribs when they stumbled into the kitchen together. Remus' hands had immediately fallen on her with finger prying at her side and face, rushed breaths and panicked words falling from his mouth, though she could barely remember any of it. She was glad at that moment that she had very few physical indications of her injuries and no signs of the cursed burning pain, as Remus didn't need a visual reminder of her narrow escape. Arthur had to hold him back from hitting James when he found out what happened at the Moira residence.
The three spent the night at Headquarters with Remus' arms wrapped tightly around Rowan's unconscious form. After Rowan came to early the next morning, luckily a weekend, she and James had a long discussion about his recent erratic behavior. She had guessed correctly that it was an unhealthy expression of his grief for his father's murder, but the cold reality of seeing his best friend nearly killed because of him seemed to have woken him up from his vengeful haze. She ended up slapping him again, though not as hard as the night before, and told him to shape up soon – if he still wanted Lily to marry him, he was going to have to start treating her better, and his eyes widened with fear at the suggestion that Lily might leave him. When she showed up later in the morning panicking that he hadn't come home, he kissed her desperately as if he hadn't seen her in months, and Rowan was happy to see the relief on Lily's face as they left together.
The entire ordeal had been sobering, to say the least. She didn't know how to feel as she was left in the silence of the Order Headquarters' drawing room. Her hands shook slightly when she realized how close she had been to death, and though she had brushed it off when talking to James and Remus, she could still feel the dull searing in her side from just the memory of the cold fire there the night before. She reached to touch her side every few minutes to make sure that her skin was still there and whole, and it strangely made her hurt even more at the realization that there was no physical mark left to indicate that it had happened at all, as if it cheapened or delegitimized the excruciating pain that she'd felt.
When Remus quietly reentered the room after James left, she was seated in an old chair, trembling and breathing raggedly, pushing the memory of the hex away from her mind. He knelt in front of her and gripped her hands tightly, frowning with concern at her. She realized that her face was contorted with pain again, though she felt none, and the confusion left her frustrated with stinging eyes.
The fire in Remus' eyes burned through her, and she wanted to be consumed in it, to not have to think. He stood and scooped her almost effortlessly from the chair before sitting down in it himself and cradling her in his lap. She was overcome by his warmth and the feeling of his hands on her and felt the tears spilling from her eyes before she could stop them.
She was afraid, so overwhelmingly afraid. The fear ran through her veins and churned her stomach – what if that Death Eater had thrown a Killing Curse instead? She should be dead. She had almost killed Arthur as well! She felt a sob erupt from her chest, and Remus squeezed her tightly, pulling the tears from her. She clung to him desperately and buried her face in his neck, ashamed of herself for her cowardice and for giving Remus yet another thing to worry about. He already obsessed unhealthily about her well-being – how could she give him another reason to fear for her? She wanted to scream with frustration at her weakness. Why couldn't she be stronger? She was alive and without any permanent damage after all, right? Why couldn't she just shake it off?
But she continued to cry quietly. Remus held her tightly, silent but comforting, and she could almost pretend that, in his arms, she was safe from the horrors of the war outside those walls.
Remus insisted fiercely that Rowan take a couple weeks off from the Order, and she didn't fight him for once. She told their friends that she had a lot of work with Belby, but really, she was going home at normal hours and just laying quietly in bed with Remus, limbs tangled with his and basking in his warmth. The remaining memories of her flirtation with death was still painful, though not quite as raw, and she suddenly understood Remus' need to make love to her after every mission – the simple feeling of touching him, of knowing that he was there beside her reaffirmed both his existence and hers, and in those frenzied passionate moments, she knew she was very much alive.
When she returned to the Order, James was still contrite to the point of being awkward. James had never been awkward with her, and the confusion that it instilled in her was painful. After a couple of days, she had to punch him again to make him stop treating her so delicately, and he thankfully seemed to return back to normal, though he would still shoot a few guilty glances her way when he thought she wasn't looking.
Lily had embraced her so tightly that it slightly hurt her injured ribs. James had returned home to her and slept soundly for the first time in weeks after their ordeal, and Lily was extremely grateful to Rowan knowing that it had been her words that had woken him up. Rowan didn't really know how to respond to this and joked reassuringly that he had just needed someone to beat it into him. Lily beamed at her, and Rowan felt slightly dirty as she heard the quiet voice at the back of her mind whisper its fears and anxieties to her. She doesn't know that you're actually a coward. She prayed that they wouldn't see it in her face.
The next few months passed quickly and with little development. The Dark Lord's movements seemed to have slowed a bit, and the Order of the Phoenix was growing antsy with anxiety, waiting with bated breath for news of the next tragedy.
Remus had withdrawn into himself slightly since her brush with death, and she sometimes saw him looking at her hungrily when he thought she wasn't paying attention, just as he did right before he left her at the end of their Sixth Year. For the first few weeks, she watched him silently, terrified that at any moment he'd tell her that he was leaving her again. But the moment never came, and though his dark brooding remained, it was infrequent, and he never made any mention of having reservations about their relationship. She rationalized that it was just because he was worried about her and the lack of Death Eater activity and forced herself to not dwell on it. If he'd wanted to leave her, he would have done so already.