I watch the sun still rise
Light the sky on fire
There will never be a night like now, ooh
Like now, now, ooh
Light the sky on fire
Who could've known?
We lived in a house
Alone
-Skye on fire by Mehro
When I opened my mouth, a bright blue light suddenly appeared in front of us, in the form of a wolf speaking in the voice of my friend. I knew that I was one of the few people who knew the true form of the Patronus of Remus. Otherwise, he always tried to create him shapeless, so as not to give any indication of his true self and presumably because it was so unpleasant to him that even his Patronus embodied his nocturnal figure at full moon.
"The Firebird has awakened again and is rising up against the old enemy. I'll meet you at your apartment. Everything else there."
Then the figure fizzled out, as if there was no doubt about my choice. Did I even have one?
I swallowed and saw Severus clenching his hands into fists.
"You know what we discussed. You have to stay safe! You also wanted to give up your job when things got too dicey. And now that's it," Severus said seriously and insistently. It was extremely difficult for me, but I shook my head slightly, I couldn't look him in the eye, my fear was too great to see his disappointment.
"No, Severus. I can't do it. I have to be there this time," I said, trying to speak in a firm voice.
Severus drew in the air sharply and clenched his teeth, so that I saw how they were slightly yellowish in color from the golden potion against tiredness that he always took. But this threw something else that worried me, and this was not the right moment to address my concerns about his consumption.
"Did he tell you that? Lupin?" Severus asked, full of disgust in his voice. My mind was not yet clear from the physical weakness I had inflicted on myself, but I knew I had to weigh my words carefully. I straightened up completely in my bed. Severus fixed every little movement I made, it was as if he wanted to get me to weigh my decision carefully. And I knew what I was risking. His trust. I took a deep breath to prepare myself for this storm.
"No. He doesn't talk me into anything, Severus. It's me, it's my wish. My heart's desire," I said, looking straight into his narrowed eyes. When he tried to interrupt me with an objection, I gently put my index finger to his lips.
"I'm the one who can't watch you in danger, or Remus, or all the other witches and wizards. I can't stand by and put my hands folded in my lap, keep my head down. I'm just not like that. No more. During the first war, I held back a lot because I thought I wasn't strong enough, too limited in my abilities or I was just hindering everyone. And I was scared. Not only fear for my friends, but also for me. I was a coward and retreated, injuring only the wounded, instead of taking over surveillance services myself. And I feel guilty about it. Perhaps my active participation would have protected more innocent lives. I know very well that I don't want to do that again. I will go back to the Order of the Phoenix, not just passively as a healer, also actively as a fighter, Severus. Do you understand me?" I looked at him uncertainly, because he had been looking into my eyes the whole time, not blinking, and I saw his thoughts racing.
"So, you want to risk your life to save others?" Severus asked quietly, wrinkling his nose contemptuously. "And have you thought about what happens if you are picked up? When they torture you before you are killed? Look into your mind and see who you belong to? You know that this could thwart all our plans to destroy the Dark Lord forever. How many lives are at risk then?"
His words were even more forceful, as he himself knew only too well what he was talking about. His wounds were still healing as we spoke. And I wondered if I really possessed his strength. But I owed it to myself and all the others to at least try. He could not risk his life alone to secure our future together.
"I know it may not be of the great good that Dumbledore is always talking about. But where should we start? Sacrifice who? I'm not willing to lose a soul on our side just because I'm a coward and I'm in hiding."
"Spoken like a Gryffindor indeed!" Severus said bitterly.
"Severus, is it about me putting myself in personal danger, about something happening to me, or about Dumbledore's plans about your part in his grand scheme?" I asked quietly, watching his black eyes widen.
"Of course, I'm worried about you. How can I sleep peacefully when you're out there doing who knows what for the Order? I don't think you understand what to expect. There are worse things than death itself. And you know my debt that I have to pay! If I fail to accompany the boy safely through his task, because I have to take care of you..." Severus did not finish the sentence, his face distorted into a strange grimace of hatred, disgust and despair.
"Severus, you don't have to take care of me, I can do it on my own-" I grabbed his face, but he flinched.
"I... can't do that, Catherine," he whispered, turning his torso away from me.
"I understand you perfectly," I said, trying to touch him, to convince him of my closeness, but Severus got up and turned to leave.
"No, Severus! You can't leave now! We will find a solution for this. I know it!" I said loudly, jumping after him and holding him by his robe before he furiously walked down the stairs. But I was still wobbly on my feet and I felt how they gave way under me and I suddenly lost my footing. I fell down a few of the hard wooden steps before I felt the firm grip of Severus around me, who caught me and stumbled slightly, but he held me tightly.
Breathing heavily, we stood tightly clasped on the halfway down the stairs, almost a symbolic image for both of us at that moment. And I remembered that it wasn't the first time I fell, and Severus caught me.
"I want you to stay," I whispered down his throat. "I won't let you fight alone for our common future. How could I?"
But instead of answering me, Severus lovingly stroked my long, swirled hair again before a small smile formed on his mouth.
"Then promise me that you will stay away from all senseless actions. Especially the ones where we could both meet on the other side. If I stand next to the Dark Lord and have to face you, see you as an enemy so that the Dark Lord doesn't notice anything, then I fear that I'll fail" he said, slowly running a finger over my lower lip. "And I don't want to feel like I'm losing you again or being deceived by you."
"Deceived?" I asked in astonishment as I looked into his sparkling eyes.
"You didn't just know today which way you wanted to go in the future, I suppose," he said seriously and I felt caught.
"No, I've known deep down since you told me that the dark lord hasn't been finally defeated and that a new war is imminent if it can't be stopped." I replied a little guiltily under the inquiring eyes of Severus, who examined me with pursed lips.
"Nothing more must happen that could lead to me not being able to atone for my guilt, do you understand, Catherine?"; he asked emphatically, holding my shoulders between his hands to fix my face on his. "It's infinitely important to me. Nothing should prevent me from fulfilling this task."
"I see," I replied, recognizing a little relief in his gaze as he released his grip on me. I knew it was the only thing that kept him alive after Lily's death. This task of training, protecting and arming Harry Potter against Voldemort. With all its might, it costs whatever the cost. I sighed briefly.
"And how do we proceed? I mean as a couple?" I asked quietly, though the answer terrified me. Severus took a deep breath before trying to look into my eyes again and answer.
"You know we're both going to be in the Order, it's like Hogwarts, but it's without friendship. I can't afford to have any deeper connection publicly with a Muggle-born witch. I can't send you messages when I'm with the Dark Lord. I will have little time, not even at night. It will-"
"- almost impossible for us to see each other?" I asked with a dry throat.
"Only almost.", he sneers. "But we will have to limit ourselves severely."
I nodded anxiously at the thought of seeing him so little.
"And now you should eat something before you go to London. It's been a while since you've taken care of yourself, hasn't it?" Severus asked, walking past me towards the kitchen, but grabbing my hand to carry me along.
"I guess I could say the same about you," I said with a slight grin as I examined his slender stature in front of me. The two of us were probably only a shadow of ourselves, like ghosts revolving around each other in this world in a storm that had now come upon us.
A hum and grin on his part confirmed to me that he, too, had spent the last few days and nights restlessly. But I resigned myself to my fate and had something to eat with Severus before we had to part ways again.
I get to London, briefly greeted the barkeeper Tom in the Leaky Cauldron as I knocked off the soot and thankfully threw something into his tip glass, before I entered the busy street of the Muggles and climbed a few corners further into an old train of the Muggles, to meet my best friend in my apartment on the outskirts of the town.
It was better for both of us to meet where no one knew who we were and no one would follow our conversations. My apartment was an ideal place for this, secluded and yet central enough.
When Remus opened the wooden door beaming, we immediately hugged each other tightly and he gave me the usual friendly kiss on the cheek. I always realized how much I missed him when we saw each other again. Smiling, I entered and threw my long thin coat over the coat hook that hung in the corner but kept my witch's robe on.
"Come on, I've prepared something small for us to eat and drink," he said, directing me to the kitchen area. When I looked around, everything seemed amazingly tidy and clean. The new task of taking action against Voldemort again seemed to have done him good. Maybe it was also the fact that Sirius was back in his life and I was no longer the only friend for him. I knew he had more in common with James, Peter and Sirius than friendship, they had been like his brothers, and the loss of them had hurt him more than he wanted to admit in front of me. He tried to hide this for a long time, because he didn't want to cover up my loss of Gideon and Lily with his own pain. Until at some point he broke down crying in front of me and we were in each other's arms to mourn our fate. Together. And this unity had welded us firmly together, if not saved us.
I sat down on an old wooden chair at the kitchen table, which was richly set, put my robe over the back of the chair and immediately a delicious scent rose to my nose. My stomach rumbled and I only now realized how hungry I was again. The last few days seemed to have played badly with me.
Grinning, he took a seat opposite me when he had placed a steaming vegetable stew and the butterbeer on the small wooden table. But after we had taken the first spoons, his gaze became serious again as it slid over my pale features and sunken cheeks.
"I want to apologize to you, Catherine," Remus began in a soft voice, but he faltered in his flow of speech while I looked at him confused.
"Why?" I asked, looking at his suddenly pale face.
"For not being able to be with you in the last few days because of my condition on a full moon. I can imagine that the hours were unbearable in your uncertainty," he explained, wringing his hands awkwardly.
"What do you mean?" I asked, perplexed, as he looked at me uncertainly. How did he know I was so terrible? Had he seen me in this state? Slumped on the couch with strong sleeping potions and sedatives? I fervently hoped that this was not the case.
"It wasn't easy for all of us to hear that Voldemort has now returned, even though we always suspected it," he said slowly, watching my face closely. I exhaled a little more relieved.
"Yes, that's true," I replied, nodding. But Remus continued to look at me and now also reached for the food on his plate.
"You can imagine that Sirius is on fire, he has made his parents' house available as quarters for our meetings in the order," he said chewing in front of me.
I nodded eagerly and brought a spoon to my mouth, I could imagine that this task was exactly what Sirius needed now, after all the suffering in Azkaban as an unjustly convicted person and still on the run from the ministry.
"That means I'm going to stay with him now," he explained, a little embarrassed, and I tried to choke down the hot food in my mouth without choking. "But I want to thank you and your great hospitality. It means so much to me, but your apartment is all yours again... if you even want to use it anymore?"
"No problem, that makes it easier for me to take my shifts at St. Mungo," I said, thinking that the cottage would feel so empty anyway if Severus hardly came to visit, because somehow it wasn't just my cottage, but ours. So maybe it had an advantage that Remus didn't seem to need me or my apartment anymore. Still, it gave me a strangely unpleasant impulse.
"And now tell me, who but Sirius and you from the old order are back?" I asked, biting heartily into my bread to swallow my feelings along with it.
"From the old Order, Daedalus Diggel, Elphias Doge, Emmeline Vance, Mundungus Fletcher, Arthur Weasley, Arabella Figg, Rubeus Hagrid and Alastor Moody are there," Remus said and I saw him sorting the members in his mind, which made me suspect that new faces had already arrived.
"The hard core that survived," I said softly, feeling my eyes wet at the thought of James and Lily, Gideon and Fabian, Marlene, Mary, Dorcas, Frank and Alice, Benji, Edgar and the many others. All victims of the First Order. Fallen heroes. We had lost so much damn time. This war had taken so much from us – our youth, our friends, our ability to trust everyone, even each other. Something I still had to work on. But I was glad that Remus and Severus were my exceptions. Both were my only trust.
"You're thinking of Gideon Prewett, aren't you?" he asked, studying my face.
"Yes, and the many other friends we've lost. What if such terrible things happen to the other members of the new order, Remus?" I asked, hearing my voice become strangely shaky.
But Remus didn't miss it, got up and sat down on my side to hug me. So we remained silent for a while and its smell of moss, fresh rain and wood penetrated me. It was so familiar, because the two of us had been comforting each other for years. I was so infinitely grateful to have him with me.
"Are you going to join again?" Remus asked in a hoarse voice after we broke away from our embrace. My eyelids fluttered slightly and as I opened them, my pupils widened because I noticed Remus looking at me with a gentle smile.
"Yes, Remus. Not only as a healer. I will also be actively involved in services for the Order. I don't want to hide in this war," I said from the bottom of my heart, even though I knew that Severus didn't approve of all this, it was something that was needed.
"Are you sure?" Remus asked, his eyes wide.
"I owe it to all the others, yes, I'm sure," I replied with a wry smile and at the same time wondered why he seemed so surprised. Was I really so extremely cowardly in the last war? I swallowed as he tried to nod.
"Who are the new members? Dumbledore always wanted over 20 members," I asked, trying to cover up my renewed insecurity.
"Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flitwick, Pamona Sprout, Kingsley Shaklebolt, Nymphadora Tonks, Molly Weasley with their sons Charlie and Bill, Hestia Jones and, to my astonishment, Severus Snape." He looked at me piercingly as he uttered the last name.
"Yes, really surprising. Is Dumbledore sure?" I asked hypocritically, avoiding his constant gaze.
"Absolutely. What do you think about this? You know Snape very well from your time as a student and also from your time as a teacher at Hogwarts," he said with sparkling eyes and his gaze wandered over me.
"If Dumbledore trusts him, you should trust him too," I replied vaguely, feeling my heart beat faster and suddenly I was somehow standing next to me, all the blood draining from my cheeks.
"I'm unsure. Harry doesn't think much of him and I think I'm very much influenced by our troubled past as far as my opinion of him is concerned," he said thoughtfully, looking at me closely.
"Yes, I know." Many thoughts rushed by in me, but I was not allowed to tell him the truth. I had to somehow take Remus to another topic. So I tried to close my mind and cover up my emotions, as if someone were trying to use Legilimency.
"Remus, trust in Dumbledore's intention. He's pursuing his own plan and if he has Severus Snape in mind, there's a reason for that," I replied evasively and passed the ball to Dumbledore and his machinations that none of us fully understood or knew. I tried to smile a little.
"Yes, you may be right." Remus continued to look at me brooding before leaning back with a sigh and looking at me. He closed his eyes briefly, shook his head, took a deep breath and looked directly at me again.
"Catherine, is it him? Is Severus Snape the man you love so much?" he asked bluntly. All of a sudden, my smile disappeared from my lips and my jaw dropped noticeably. I tried to breathe, but my heart was pounding wildly against my chest and it was almost as hard for me to think clearly. I closed my eyes briefly to overcome the shock.
"How do you know?" I asked, my throat tightened, my heart pounding excitedly against my chest.
"Even when I was at school, I suspected that your heart belonged to someone. You never spoke bad about him, even when others of us did. I suspected it, but the way you looked at him when we all said goodbye to Hogwarts after the final exams was an eye-opener for me. I saw how much it hurt you to let him go on the dark path he took. That's why I was surprised to see you with Gideon, he was completely different after all, but probably exactly the one you needed. Gideon gave you the love you deserved, and you were suddenly satisfied. It was a shock for me to see you on the ground like this after his death. I felt like you were just a shadow of your former self for the next few years and I knew I wouldn't be enough, I would never be able to put a smile on your face like Gideon had done, even if I had tried. And then your teaching job at Hogwarts came along, you were like a different person and when you told me that your old love was the potions teacher there, I was able to put one and one together. And I heard from Minerva last year that you were probably very close when you worked at Hogwarts. Her tongue sat a little looser than usual after the punch for Christmas. Do I owe it to you that he made the wolfbane potion for me? I was already thinking about how Dumbledore could convince him of this . But if it's been you, some things are clearer to me."
I cleared my throat to find my voice from the deepest corner of my throat before I could answer. Remus knew me better than I knew myself, he was really empathetic and clever, he could look deeper into people and understand them without judging them. I appreciated him incredibly for it, but this time I cursed it. Because he had found out what had to be kept secret and now put me in an extremely difficult situation.
"And if it were him?" I asked in a breaking voice, slowly reaching for the wand in my cloak placed over my chair.
"Do you trust him? Do you love him?" Remus asked directly, just as he looked into my eyes and explored me.
"I trust him with my life and I love him more than anything else, more than my own life," I said in a dry voice and I meant every single word that way.
"Then that's enough for me. Even though I was skeptical at first whether he would suit you and whether he would appreciate your character as you deserve. Because what irritated me the most was the question of why Severus Snape didn't want to tell the whole world what kind of woman he had by his side. In the past, it was not so difficult for him to show his skills or achievements. But now I suspect it. It's too dangerous, isn't it? You both knew what his job would be if Voldemort returned."
"Yes, he has a major role in the fight against Voldemort. And I would endanger him if I appeared. That's why I have to stay away from Harry. I would expose us both to death and risk Harry himself being vulnerable," I explained quietly and Remus drew in his breath sharply.
"It must be hard to hide such a love, right?" Remus asked, reaching for my hand.
"I would have loved to tell you, Remus. You are the only friend I trust. You know that. But it was too dangerous," I said in a shaky voice, clutching the hidden wand in my pocket. Remus nodded.
"If I'm tortured, I'm instilled with Vitaserum, or some other cruelty happens and I spill the beans about it, our whole mission is in jeopardy. I see," he said softly, squeezing my hand tighter before looking me straight in the eye again. "Then you have no choice, Catherine. Do it! I trust that you still have a great deal of expertise in this area as you did when you were at school."
"I'm sorry, Remus," I whispered, my eyes moist.
"Don't worry, as long as I don't fare like Gilderoy Lockhardt, everything is fine," he said encouragingly, while I pointed the wand openly at him and tried to concentrate. I looked at Remus, pausing in my movement, while my best friend nodded encouragingly to boost me to change his memory. I closed my eyes and I couldn't find a way out. But in my heart I found an answer.
"I can't, Remus. I've never tried to erase a single piece of information from so many memories at once," I said into his smiling face and lowered my wand.
"There is no alternative," Remus said firmly, but I shook my head.
"Maybe it doesn't exist. But I know you'd rather die than put me in danger. And I trust that your iron will will hold what I see in you," I said, smiling at the suddenly shocked-looking man in front of me.
"You trust me to fight against all odds?" he asked quietly.
"No, I even know. Remus. There's nothing that wouldn't justify our friendship," I replied, seeing Remus' eyes moist. But before I could see a tear on his cheek, he hugged me tighter than ever before.
"Thank you for your unwavering trust in me," Remus whispered into my long hair, in which he had buried his head deeply.
Notes:
Did you know that Remus already knew it?
There's a particularly long chapter next week before I take a little break for inspiration. I hope you understand.
