NOTE

Warning for a corpse, and injured children.


87. Aftermath

Invisibly the moon fell, and the howling outside ceased. There was much noise from the entrance hall as the doors of the castle were thrown open and the others ran out to detain Magnus and his unwilling followers.

I wanted to stand from the floor, but found that I couldn't. I'd been kneeling all night and there was no sensation in my legs. For a long moment I thought I might sit there forever. With this cloying scent. The sight of his face all drained, his hair stiff with blood. Perhaps the sounds from the entrance hall, the slight lightening of the grey sky, were only elements of a dream. Perhaps I had fallen into a trap of time and to remain at the corpse's side was indeed my fate.

A hand appeared in front of me.

It was a hand I would always know, and it remained there, steady and still, waiting for me to accept it. I took hold of it, my own hand thin and cold, and I felt Severus's arm around my back as he helped me to stand. The floor careened and my head grew thick with vibrations, my ears ringing unevenly. I couldn't feel my feet, only tiny shooting stars of extreme heat and extreme cold travelling into the nothingness below my hips. Looking forward I saw Seveurs's familiar black buttons, and before I knew it I was leaning forward from weakness, my ear against his heartbeat.

We remained there silently, Severus supporting my weight until enough blood returned to my legs to fuel sensation. At first it was all sharp pain. Then I managed to stand on my own.

I looked down at the blood on my trousers, but didn't care how dirty I was. Still gripping Severus's hand, I turned to look down at Lucius's body, which seemed so small from up here.

Severus pressed my hand, removing my attention from the corpse in its pool of blood. "Let us find the boys."

I was brought back to life by the reminder of Brian and Gavin, somewhere out there in the forest, likely injured–likely bitten–if not dead.

My heart stammered and then beat faster, remembering the cold aimless wandering in the forest with George. "Yes. We need the wolves to help…"

We hurried up the stairs to the Charms classroom and unlocked the door, freeing the two frantic wolves. Legs working better now, I jogged to keep up with them as they ran back down the stairs, their howling and barking making the portraits cover their ears.

I arrived at the top of the marble staircase and clutched the bannister, looking down to see that the doors of the castle were wide open to the cold grey morning. Ginny and Luna were just stumbling inside with a thin, trembling woman. Arthur and Neville followed, hauling Magnus between the two of them.

He was even more terrible in the flesh than he'd been in my visions and the pensieve. His eyes were cold and furious, but his body was limp and useless from the aftereffects of the transformation and a numbing jinx.

I was still not certain why Lucius had been near Hogwarts to begin with, or what the werewolves had intended to do tonight. But clearly their plan had fallen apart in the absence of Greyback's leadership, and the total chaos of the intervening days showed in Magnus's wide eyes. I had an inkling, from the glazed look in them, that he would try to convince the Wizengamot that he had been completely under Greyback's sway. Unfortunately for him there was solid evidence proving otherwise.

I gave him a venomous glare as Arthur and Neville pulled him towards the doors of the great hall. The wolves were barking madly as they ran down the marble stairs, clearly smelling his vileness and rearing to attack. Had it been up to me they would have torn him to shreds then and there. But a sharp, loud whistle from Luna called them off.

Severus held onto my arm as I struggled down the stairs, only letting go at the bottom. I wandered into the doorway of the great hall and stopped there to see the captives all detained, tied to the tables. Their nakedness was concealed by conjured blankets. One had a serious injury to their leg, which appeared to have been bludgeoned by the whomping willow.

"Careful–" Minerva said behind me. I stepped aside as she brought in a young man, and I felt my heart palpitate as I recognised him. He was the boy I'd met in the muggle bookshop in Edinburgh. The boy who had bought me The Odyssey.

He seemed particularly sensitive to the effects of the numbing jinx, and when he saw Lucius's dead body in the centre of the floor he went even paler than before and promptly vomited all over Minerva's shoes.

"I know him," I heard myself say.

"Do you?" Minerva said, unbothered by the vomit. I was relieved that she seemed to sense the young man's innocence.

"I… met him. He's a muggle." I tried to catch his eye but he seemed unable even to sense my gaze. I wished I'd asked his name that day.

I went quiet as I realised that he, as well as the other muggles among the captives, would now forever be trapped between two worlds. Unable to go back to their former lives, their former understanding of reality. Now they were werewolves.

"That's all of them," Arthur said, and he and Neville finished binding Magnus. "Floo connection should open in… two minutes."

"Wilma."

I stiffened and turned to see Severus, dressed in a dark travelling cloak and holding another out to me. It was the first time he'd called me by my name since he'd called me Miss Weasley, in that desperate attempt to thrust himself from my heart.

I took the cloak from him and pulled it around my shoulders, buttoning it. I clutched my wand tight, turning my back to the sight of the tied-up werewolves and the floor covered in Lucius's blood. "Come!" I called to the wolves. And they followed us outside into the cold wind.

The clouds remained, but the sunlight seeping through was clearer than the moonlight had been. The wolves ran infinity symbols around Severus and me in the grey courtyard, awaiting instructions. "Tell them to go fast," I said. "We'll follow on brooms."

While Severus used Legilimency to tell the wolves their mission, I summoned two broomsticks from the broomshed.

They arrived just as Severus finished, and I watched as the wolves set off down the hill towards the forest at quite a speed. Giving Severus one of the brooms and mounting the other, I tucked my cloak under myself and kicked off from the flagstones, zooming off after them through the sharp misty air.

Keeping them in sight, I flew low over the treetops as they ran in and out of view. A glimpse here and there of a grey tail through the pines. Severus caught up to me and flew by my side wordlessly. It was a long time in the air, eyes straining to make sure we didn't lose them. As the minutes ticked by a heaviness grew in my stomach. Every passing second made it more unlikely that the boys would be alive.

Finally, when we were quite far from the castle–no more than a grey ghost in the distant fog–the wolves sent up an urgent howl and I dropped into a dive through the treetops.

I landed with a jolt that set my knees aching, but refused to be stopped by the pain. I ran shakily over the pine needles and frozen dirt on the ground, following the howling through the trees until I came to the clearing where the two brothers lay.

The forest floor was black with the blood it had soaked up through the night. Both boys were barely clothed, their skin almost blue, and both had been bitten–Gavin on his stomach and little Brian over his knee. The wolves, their mission complete, stood at the foot of the nearest tree, panting and whimpering.

Kneeling between the boys, I cast pulse detection charms which revealed them both to be still alive–if barely. It was so cold that I couldn't believe they'd survived the night. As I secured them with warming charms I saw, a few strides away, a wand fallen upon the pine needles. I knew from instinct and from its dead feeling that it was Lucius's.

Severus ran to my side and knelt down over the brothers. "They're both alive–" I told him, and he let his hands hover in the air over their half-blue bodies, casting healing spells in haste.

Drawn by the wand, I got to my feet and walked to it, staring down at it there on the ground. Nothing but a piece of lifeless dark wood. I picked it up and pocketed it.

"I can keep them alive," Severus said, his voice rising momentarily above the soft tone of the incantation. "But they won't live long unless we seal the bite wounds. We need to get them back to the castle."

We couldn't apparate–too much risk of splinching–and to bring them back on the broomsticks was impossible. My heart thudded as my mind ran blank.

At that moment, there was a distant rumble in the forest. Almost the sound of a beast, but not quite. An odd tingling sense of recognition ignited in me, and I was left to wonder why, warily holding my wand at the ready until the first sight of the sound's source could be caught through the many tree trunks.

It was the old Ford Anglia, its pale blue body covered in dirt and vines. Very battered, but miraculously still running. It came closer, the choked rumbling of its engine growing louder, its grille and smashed headlights looked more and more like a face. Beaten, but friendly.

I didn't quite believe it wasn't an impossible coincidence–that the car would become frightened once it sensed human presence, and drive in the other direction. But it came bumpily up to me and then stopped with a loud whining of rust, its doors opening with four overlapping pops. Somehow, it had come here on purpose.

Severus asked no questions, still completely immersed in murmuring the incantation, now running his wand over each boy's body in turn. His whole being was so focussed on the magic that at first I didn't realise his lifted hand was a signal to beckon me closer. I went to him, my own wand sizzling with readiness to help.

"Keep this one stable," he instructed, before his voice dropped again into the steady murmur of the incantation. He'd meant Gavin, and I dutifully stood over him while Severus picked Brian up in his arms and carried him to the car. He returned quickly and said, "the other," bending to lift Gavin while I hurried to the car and kept watch over little Brian, meanwhile summoning the two broomsticks and setting them on the floor of the car.

Gently placing the older brother into the back seat, Severus climbed in after them, continuing his chant–almost a lullaby–as I folded myself into the front behind the wheel. The car closed its doors and began to move.

The drive was anything but smooth, the weak tyres bumping along over the ground, no matter whether the terrain was smooth earth or tree roots. Severus's voice and the heat of his magic filled the car. Meanwhile my wand pointed the way to the castle and I steered the car in that direction, remembering how Fred's clammy hands had guided mine on the wheel, that summer before the year of the Chamber of Secrets.

I tried pressing the button that had once lifted the car into the sky, but it only caused an unwilling squeal. Though not as quickly as it would have flown, the car wove with surprising speed through the trees. Time blurred by, and then we broke free of the pines, rolling right up the hill to the entrance of the school.

Severus took the boys through the doors, their bodies hovering in foetal positions in the air, thin ropes of healing magic twisting around them. The car spat out the broomsticks and gave a thunderous growl before rolling back down the hill towards the trees. I didn't stay to watch it disappear, hurrying after Severus into the castle. He was halfway up the stairs already, and called down, "Silver powder and Dittany!"

I ran into the tapestry corridor and the door of the potions storeroom flew open for me. I grabbed four vials of dittany from the shelf at eye-level and tried to summon silver powder, but there was none. With a cry of urgency and frustration I hurried up the stairs with the Dittany, and ran into the hospital wing. The boys had been laid down on two beds pushed together. Remus lay unconscious in the same bed as before, Pouncer sitting next to him, and George had not left his spot.

I delivered the Dittany to Poppy, and had a sudden thought. "Have you got Sickles?"

"My office," she answered, already uncorking the vials and sprinkling the potion liberally into the bite wounds.

I didn't know how I was still standing at all, but my body managed to run once more down the length of the hospital wing and through the door to Poppy's office. Before I'd even completed the wand movement to summon the silver coins, a number of Sickles flew through the air from an opened desk drawer and landed in my hand. I stared down at them, wondering how I might magically crush them into powder. No sooner had I thought it than the Sickles were replaced by a cool pile of the smallest motes of silver, just enough to rest in the cup of my palm. I gave a gasp of surprise but didn't question it, only closing my other hand over the precious substance and carrying it out to Poppy. A tea saucer flew onto the bedside table from somewhere in the room and I carefully poured the silver powder onto it from my hand, my mind racing.

Seveurs had pinned me with his black eyes, and I returned his gaze, staggered.

I made myself useful in any way Poppy demanded as the three of us healed the boys. Severus kept up his incantation and Poppy and I worked to its rhythm. My fingers were steady as I pressed the silver powder into the cleaned wound on Brian's leg, and Poppy poured more Dittany over it, making it shine as the skin began to heal itself again.

By the end of it the marks were nothing more than new scars, the skin slightly red from effort, and the silver glinting in the lamplight. It would always be there, I knew, remembering the slight silver glow of the scar that covered Remus's shoulder. The boys remained fully unconscious, but seemed to have more blood in them than before.

Bittersweet relief settled over Poppy as she declared they would live. They would live, but with a terrible curse. My gaze drifted to the sleeping Remus, and I swallowed an irrational feeling of guilt.

I was sweating under the heavy travelling cloak, and I unbuttoned it, resting it over the back of a chair. I remembered Lucius's wand in the pocket and took it out.

"It's Malfoy's," I said, when Severus looked at it pointedly. His eyes darkened, as though he would have delighted in turning it to ashes, but he didn't.

"Leave it," Poppy said. "I'll make sure it finds its way into the right hands." I set it down on the bedside table, glad to be rid of the feeling of the dead wood against my fingers. As she washed her hands, Poppy finally gave me a thorough inspection. "You look like you waded out of a battlefield," she informed me. "Go bathe at once."

I looked down at myself and realised I was still covered in Lucius's blood. My trousers were red and stuck to my legs from the ankles to the knees, and somehow it had also gotten onto the backs of my thighs and buttocks. For the first time I felt nausea in the pit of my stomach and the back of my throat, and my mind entered a dissociative daze as I obediently walked out of the hospital wing.

It was a minute before I realised Severus was still with me. I paused on the stairs and looked at him, not quite meeting his eyes. "Water and soap won't be enough," he explained. "I can help."

I let him follow me to the Defence classroom and stood in the loo while he helped me off with my trousers, using silent charms to keep it from hurting when the fabric stuck to my skin. First he crouched down at my knees and removed the blood on my shins and the tops of my feet. Then he stood and I turned around, pulling my knickers off and picking up the tail of my shirt as he did away with the blood on the backs of my thighs and bum.

I tried not to think about why he knew these spells, but couldn't help it. The words he'd said to Lucius last night floated back to me. The mass Cruciatus. I'd never considered that Voldemort might have used the torture curse on his own followers. I wondered if Severus had felt it too. Surely he knew how it felt to be covered in another person's blood. He'd never spoken much about those years, and I didn't think he ever would. But here was a strange moment of connection, of kindness as he removed the blood from my skin, lifting a layer of filth from my body. When he was finished I felt physically lighter, and I looked down at my cleansed skin in silence.

Picking up my stained clothes from the floor, I walked into the other room and threw them into the fire. Not the first clothes tainted by Malfoy, I watched them burn and the last of him with them, up in smoke.

Severus stood near the desk while I pulled on clean knickers and my last pair of trousers. They were a bit long and I knelt to fold them up. But as I did, tiny stitches appeared beneath my fingertips, and I pulled my hands back, watching with my heart in my throat as the trousers hemmed themselves to my height. I stood up, staring down at them in shock, and slowly bringing my hands up to cover my face.

"Do you understand it?" Severus said, from behind me.

I shook my head.

"It takes a very advanced mage to do wandless magic at all. But you're not even casting spells."

I shook my head again.

During the war, Remus had taught all of the younger Order members the basics of useful wandless magic, in case we were ever disarmed. I'd never been very good at it. Only after my second miscarriage, when my anger had shattered the flour jar and the sugar bowl, had my magic begun to expand beyond its normal boundaries. And, of course, there was the tear which had helped Remus back to life.

I pressed my fingertips into my eyelids, unable to hold it all in my head. Severus was watching me very closely, and I avoided his gaze as I picked up my wand from the table. "I need food."

In silence we walked downstairs to the Great Hall. I wasn't certain why Severus was staying with me, but didn't ask. Perhaps he thought I shouldn't be alone. Perhaps he was tired of hiding away. Whatever it was, I felt better having him there than I would have felt alone. Despite all the ways we'd hurt each other.

Euphemius was leading his flock through the doors of the castle when we came into the entrance hall, Minerva helping. The Flumes and Madam Rosmerta were already outside, red-cheeked in the cold. Going back to Hogsmeade.

There was food at the end of the Ravenclaw table, only enough to feed the people who were here. Lucius's body was gone, as was the blood and the smell of it. The cold sunlight fell down on the empty goblets and the jug of pumpkin juice.

I spotted, in the middle of the Gryffindor table, the Marauder's Map. Unfolded, where it had been used to keep watch over the grounds in the past week. I went to it and, pressing my wand to its frayed centre, murmured, "Mischief Managed." The ink slowly faded and I folded up the innocent-looking parchment, tucking it under my arm.

I ate a little and broke the silence between myself and Severus while I assembled a plate for Poppy. "What was he doing here last night?"

"He had planned with Greyback to take part in the attack. He arrived long before the full moon–after we sent the wolves to spy on the camp, before we invaded the castle. But his pact was with Greyback, not with Magnus, and when Magnus learned that Greyback was dead Malfoy bore the brunt of his fury. Took his wand. Kept him bound. He knew his fate far in advance. They dragged him through the forest like a plaything."

From Severus's tone I assumed he judged this to be fitting treatment of such a man.

I carried the plate up to Poppy, and then set the Marauder's Map down on Remus's bedside table–finally returned to its rightful owner. Severus gave me an apple to eat. Sinking down onto one of the free beds, I bit into it, the sharp crisp sound filling my ears with a sense of life. Now that Lucius was gone, my spirit was itching to leave the castle and be of use.

But at that very moment my body was overcome by exhaustion, so powerful I almost suspected Severus of imbuing the apple with a sleeping draught. The deep and heavy need to rest brought my head down to the pillow. My ankles still dangling over the edge of the mattress, my fingers relaxing around the apple, I fell instantly asleep.


Baddock was alone in a large room, the walls covered by shelves of books. He was sleeping in an armchair, his face lit only by the low flame in a glass lamp that sat on a nearby reading table.

Wary of his easy breath, I studied the books. The titles were all in French, letters along the cloth and leather spines, some black, some shimmering silver and gold.

Baddock stirred and opened his eyes quickly, the anxious look in them making his face seem older than it had in sleep. It was clear he'd been woken by some silent stimulus, urgent enough to bring him to his feet.

He carried the lamp out of the library room, through creaking double doors and into another room. It was smaller, the walls smooth stone, with lancet windows that reflected the lamp flame.

Baddock set the lamp down on a desk and extinguished it, stepping towards the windows and looking out. I followed suit, taking in the view of the long grey field that ran to a cliff edge, overlooking a grey sea.

A long sigh came from him, and it was a sound so human, so relatable, that I watched him more closely from then on. From his pocket he drew his wand, and after a pause conjured a patronus–a fox. He stared at it a while, clearly thinking of someone. But he did not speak to it, or send it. He let it fade away, pocketed his wand, and continued looking out at the sea.

The clouds were not so heavy where he was, and briefly they parted, revealing the stars. Then they closed again, and the room was bathed in grey darkness.


When I woke it was night. Snow fell past the windows of the hospital wing and I stared at it as I sat up, my forehead damp with sweat. I'd known another vision was imminent, but that awareness hadn't made my body immune to the stress.

Severus was there, ready with water and a powerful pain relief potion for the headache that was doubtless on its way. I must have been fidgeting or moaning as I dreamed. Minerva was there also, sitting rigidly in the chair by my bed, and Poppy looked over as she bathed the brothers with a cloth. The two wolves were sleeping peacefully on the floor by George's bed.

"What was it?" Severus said, as I sipped the water and swallowed the potion.

"Baddock," I answered.

It was like an old habit now, letting him hold my head as I gave him my vision. Afterward he withdrew, the energy in his eyes like fire struck from flint.

"He is in France. If the books weren't enough, the position of Perseus is."

So, he too recognised the constellation which the clouds had briefly parted to reveal, and was more certain of the angle than I had been.

"Should we wake the others?" I said, already rearing to depart and join Bill and the aurors tracking Baddock down.

"We're the only ones in the castle now," Minerva said. "The others went directly from the Ministry to the Hebrides to join Potter's search for Dolohov, or to look for Rowle and Macnair in the midlands. I will alert the group that's after Baddock."

She moved to the corner of the room and conjured her cat patronus. I was already on my feet, but Severus held my forearm–both soft and firm. "You should rest."

"I'm going to join them," I insisted. He met my gaze, and the lack of friction or conflict between us was so unexpected that my voice softened. "Are you coming too?"

"Of course I am."

I drew my arm away.

The travelling cloak from that morning was still over the back of the chair beside the sleeping boys, and I pulled it on, buttoning it as Minerva's quiet Scottish voice delivered the news.

Pouncer meowed at me, bringing my attention to Remus's bed, and the candle creating a small haven of light around it. I went over and scratched behind Pouncer's ears, looking down at Remus's sleeping face. He did not seem in so much pain as he'd been in the days before the moon, but I was sure it would be many more days until he woke again.

I summoned a quill, ink and parchment from Poppy's office and leaned over the table, writing by the candlelight.

Remus,

We have to follow a lead that will help us stop the creatures.

I–

My quill paused for a long moment before touching the parchment again.

I will come back.

Wilma.

I left it there to dry beside the folded map, and with a flick of my wand sent the ink and quill back through the office door. Pouncer had curled up at Remus's side again, and with a last glance I left him confidently under the kneazle's supervision.

When my eyes fell upon George, I was filled with a strong determination. We would find Baddock, find the stone and Salazar Slytherin's notes, and find a way to break this deep sleep that had befallen so many. George would wake up, and Andromeda, and Hagrid, and Dennis Creevey.

"Ready?" Severus said, standing under the archway with Minerva, who had pulled on a warm cloak for the journey. "They will wait for us at Calais."

I nodded, but felt as though I had left something undone.

Finally my gaze rested on Poppy, who quietly twisted her washcloth over a basin of water. "Don't worry about me now," she said, catching my eye. "I'll be safe here with my patients. And you'll be back soon enough."

Led by an unfamiliar but irresistible impulse, I went to her and hooked one arm over her shoulder. I wasn't any good at embraces. It felt uncomfortable and full of bones. But when I pulled away Poppy had a warm look in her eye. "Go," she said. I left her and joined Severus and Minerva.

Silent, covered in darkness, we walked down the many stairs of the castle, out the doors, and under the cold soft snow to the apparation point.


NOTE

I hope no-one minded the deus ex machina of the Ford Anglia. It came to mind at the perfect moment and I couldn't resist!