89. Preparation

Remus was gone. The bed he'd occupied was empty, clean and made up as though he had never slept or suffered there. The note I'd left on the bedside table was gone, as was the Marauder's Map. Brian and Gavin had disappeared too. I knew instinctively that they were not simply up and about in the castle.

George remained in the silent, still state he'd been in a week prior. The presence of Angelina Johnson at his bedside was a surprise, and would have been the first thing I'd acknowledged had my eye not been instantly drawn by the empty bed at the end of the room.

Panic turned my blood cold, my magic freezing into tiny flakes of ice in my veins. Thunder gave a deep roar in the early night outside, black rain tapping at the windows.

"Where did he go?" I said, my voice tense.

Angelina stood, glancing between me, Minerva and Severus. "The Ministry–"

"The Ministry?"

The cold ice inside me turned to flames of fury. I felt my hands tightening into fists as I fought to keep myself from shattering every glass lamp in the room. My nose was still bleeding and I tasted the hot salt of my blood in my mouth when a drop of it fell onto my lip.

Poppy appeared through her office door and stopped short at the sight of me. Clearly the look on my face was less than easygoing.

After the exhaustion of the week in France, the distance between composure and tears was all too small. "Why was the Ministry here!"

Poppy spoke in a measured voice. "They came and relocated the boys to St. Mungo's where they will be well–"

"What about Remus!"

It would have been a terrible embarrassment if he was still in the castle, and I'd gotten worked up over an assumption. But Poppy's momentary silence was enough to tell me that I wasn't wrong.

"After the Ministry reviewed his memories they saw fit to take him somewhere more secure. Fortunately the place of choice was the old headquarters. Nowhere unfamiliar. But he has to stay there until the trails, without visitors."

My hands shook with rage as my blood stilled, leaving my extremities and my head weak. I had known from the moment I'd seen Remus's memories that he would be in danger of judgement and blame for the terrible things he'd been forced to do. Now my fears were proven valid. The fact that he had bitten children was damning, and the Ministry would make the consequences Hell for him. In the face of such a fact, the new werewolf legislation would lose most if not all of its power. The trials were yet to be held and I knew there was hope still. But that hope was a mere sliver if he was being held captive in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.

My body froze as I imagined the worst possible outcome.

The thought of Remus in Azkaban was enough to turn my body to stone.

"Godric's sake," I swore, pulling on my hair. "Fuck's sake!"

I tried to speak sensibly again, Poppy's steady eyes making me ashamed of my loss of control. "Was he well enough to be taken away? Is there anyone with him?"

"He was well enough, if just. He can walk, take care of himself. And he'll certainly be taking it easy, stuck there on his own. They did at least let him take the kneazle with him. Good little creature refused to let Lupin go without him."

My gratitude for Pouncer couldn't erase the ocean of anxiety in my chest. I kept staring at Remus's empty bed. He must have taken the map and my note with him.

Angelina was watching me with worry and I returned her gaze blankly. The last time I'd seen her was a year ago in Diagon Alley, at the shop with George. I felt some obligation to greet her, to explain my rudeness, but I couldn't.

"Excuse me," I forced out, removing myself to the corridor.

It took me longer than usual to conjure my patronus. I had to stand still for some time, letting the sound of the thunder and rain wash enough of my fear away to get at my usual memory. "Expecto Patronum," I said, my tone between a curse and a prayer. My raven bloomed to life in the air, its light turning my hands blue.

I doubted whatever protections the Ministry had put on Grimmauld Place would allow patronuses passage. Even if my message did reach Remus he wouldn't be able to respond, being wandless. But I had to try. I thought of him trapped there and was furious, my magic buzzing in my veins, almost overwhelming the sound of my own voice as I spoke without thinking.

"We're going to end this. I'm not letting you go anywhere you don't want to ever again. Least of all Azkaban. You're going to be okay. You're going to see Teddy again and you're going to see me again too. As soon as possible. I love you…"

I hesitated, my voice tripping on the last word as I realised what I'd said. I'd been doing a grand job of hiding my lingering feelings in the way I'd cared for him before the moon. But the words had never come out quite like that, my silence serving as a wall that rescued me–and Remus–from the truth.

I waved away my patronus, as though clearing a fog, and covered my eyes as the thunder gave a terrible booming crash.

It wasn't until Severus stepped out of the hospital wing that I realised I'd begun to pace. My anger filled the air and there was no doubt he could feel it.

He kept his distance, his eyes watching me guardedly. "Breathe."

"Don't tell me to breathe."

I made myself stop, taking a breath without my usual begrudgement. "Sorry," I said.

My nose had stopped bleeding but I could feel the stiff redness of my upper lip, and rubbed at it uselessly. Severus stepped closer and cast his special charm to do away with blood. I looked up at him, my heart still pounding.

"He won't go to Azkaban," Severus said.

"He turned children, Sev."

There was a momentary darkness in his eyes as the information registered, but then it eased again. "He won't go to Azkaban. I promise."

I shook my head. "Don't make promises you can't–"

"I can. If I escaped punishment, he certainly will."

The implication that Remus was the better man left me tongue-tied, and I stared at his dark eyes, confliction burning in my heart.

Minerva's sharp footsteps sounded on the flagstones and I stiffened, stepping back and turning my face away. She was holding Slytherin's book, and Angelina was beside her, a determined look in her eye.

"Clearly the faster we solve this the better," Minerva said. "Miss Johnson is going to help; she's excellent at Runes. Best be off to the library at once."

We climbed the stairs to the library, the fire, lamps and candles flaring to life when we entered. The storm outside intensified as we set the ancient notes in the centre of one of the tables and began copying the runes onto scrolls of parchment, searching the shelves for books to help us interpret them.

We stayed up deep into the night.

We knew from the notes that the person who held the stone controlled the creatures. But they couldn't be destroyed completely unless the countercurse was used, and to destroy the stone itself, keeping anyone from ever using it again, would take unbelievably powerful magic, perhaps impossible to perform.

My eyes were strained and my body frail with exhaustion, but I kept on, squinting to decipher Slytherin's thin, snakelike script.

Remus being taken had sent me to the very edge of my sanity, and I was functioning on sheer will. We would solve this so that the creatures could be destroyed, so that George and the others could wake up, so the conflict could end and the trials could start. The sooner this madness was finished the better.

But the towering problem of the stone, and the dangerous magic required to weaken it, threatened to make peace impossible.

The first step was to piece together the countercurse, which was very complicated; its parts mismatched, strewn like forgotten breadcrumbs across many pages.

There was no room for arguments among the four of us, but there was certainly room for tension. Frequently we came across a rune on which our opinions all differed. After a matter of hours we were still working out the separate pieces of the puzzle, not even close to putting them together yet.

I remembered how the Bloody Baron had told me Slytherin invented the stone to try to bring back someone he'd loved. Knowing this, the tangled notes were clear evidence of a genius brain, shaken and muddled by grief.

The rain softened around three o'clock. Minerva leaned back in her chair, her very bones seeming to creak as she pressed her finger and thumb to her paper-thin eyelids. "We should put it away for the night and get some rest. Attack it again tomorrow."

Angelina finished something she was writing out and then set down her quill, but I stubbornly kept staring at a passage in one of the old library books, my eyes unfocusing as sleep tried to drag me under its heavy blanket.

Minerva and Angelina left together, but I refused to stand. "Such a Gryffindor," Severus said, his disapproving tone laced with gentleness.

I tried to glare at him but my head only grew heavier, my body tingling with exhaustion. I gave in with a weak nod, and he helped to pull me to my feet, holding me on his arm and leading me out of the library, extinguishing the lights into a wave of smoke and darkness with his hand.

The Defence bedroom was cold, and the blackness of the night and the rain stared in at the window. I shivered even after Severus lit a fire. I stood by the bed, not wanting to climb into it yet.

I watched him, eyelids drooping. "Will you stay?"

"No."

Ashamed of myself, but needing him, I watched his eyes, hoping for some hint of the truth.

For a moment it felt just as it had with Brodie Baddock. My mind expanded, flooded into Severus's, and I knew that he did wish to stay with me; saw myself wrapped safely in his arms–

A door was slammed shut inside my head, and the pain was like a migraine that lasted no more than three seconds. I pressed my hand to my forehead and squeezed my eyes closed, seeing white. "Ouch…"

"Instinct," Severus gritted out in a sudden flash of frustration. Then he sighed, and I blinked my eyes open, wincing against the firelight.

"I didn't mean to," I murmured, feeling the blood run from my nose again. I held my wrist against my upper lip and Severus gave me a handkerchief, pressing it into my hand.

Part of my mind was still sore, as though it had been struck or stabbed. Another part of it felt pleasant, from the intimacy of having joined with another mind; seen into it, if only briefly. It felt a little funny. Tingly.

Severus sighed again. "I need to teach you to protect your mind. You must have strong Occlumency shields or your mind will have no control and will go wherever it wants, like a flooding river. Energy you can't afford to spare. Not to mention that following every curiosity will lead you to see things others would rather you not see, and that you are likely to regret seeing."

"How do you control it?"

"Consistent work and strong rituals. You can start with clearing your mind before you go to sleep."

I leaned back against the bed, my head slightly dizzy from the nosebleed.

"Clearing my mind…"

"I suggest envisioning a sky."

I snorted in disbelief. "You envision a sky?"

He looked back at me silently, eyes slightly narrowed, and I felt suddenly self-conscious, bitter towards myself for being unkind to him. "A safe place," he muttered.

"Okay," I said quietly.

"You will find it is challenging enough to begin with. But I'm sure you can manage it."

He turned to the door, but I reached out and touched his arm. The night felt so black and I didn't want to be alone.

"Sev… Please, will you stay?"

The fabric of his clothes shifted as he stepped slightly closer, just enough to bring his hand up to my side. His fingers trailed softly along my ribs, and my body unconsciously tensed to suppress a shudder. His eyes contained no small amount of pity.

"See?" he murmured.

He lifted my hand and kissed it as he'd used to do at the very beginning. Then he left, his footsteps sounding in the classroom outside, the door creaking shut.

I pulled off my clothes and slipped into the bed, staring for a while at the fire. Then I turned and closed my eyes, trying to follow his advice.

I thought of the sky on that day, snowshoeing with Fred. A cold blue sky with thin winter clouds and a soft wind, interrupted by the sharpness of snow crystals.

Before I knew it I was sleeping.

I woke early and walked down to the great hall. Breakfast had already appeared, warm and enticing after the long days of walking with little food. But I couldn't step through the doors for a long while. I could only stare at the floor between the tables where Lucius's body had been, his blood creeping between the flagstones.

Looking away from the site of the memory, I went to the table and took an apple and some toast. Then I turned around and walked out again, eating while pacing in the entrance hall.

I couldn't stop thinking about Remus, and was anxious to continue working on the notes in the library. I was considering going upstairs on my own when Severus's footsteps sounded on the dungeon stairs. A moment later he appeared, clad in his black robes as usual.

"That's all?" he said, eyes appraising my pitiful breakfast.

I shrugged, and he lifted an eyebrow, passing me and going into the great hall. He brought me more on a plate. I denied it at first, short of appetite, trapped between the great hall where Lucius bled out and the marble stairs where Greyback met his end. But when he urged me, "Just a little," I couldn't refuse.

He stood there supervising me. I tried to remember the last time I'd really enjoyed something I'd eaten. Enjoyment hadn't mattered much to me recently. Not in anything. The only important thing to be noted about the food was that I felt my magic harvesting more energy from it than usual, storing it in my cells as though plotting its use.

"Hypocrite," I said once I'd finished, looking at Severus pointedly.

"Hm," he grunted, but submitted and ate as well.

I looked up at the large mullioned windows. The rain had ended but the sky remained overcast and grey, only a little light coming through because of the early hour and the season.

"We should go to the lake this morning."

Severus agreed, and once the plate was cleared we protected ourselves with warming charms and stepped outside.

The air was very damp, and a biting wind blew. Frozen rain was everywhere, dripping from tiny icicles on the fountain, in the archways of the arcade, the whole courtyard paved with ice.

On our way down the hill I heard the wolves' howls of greeting pierce the frigid morning. They ran up to us from Hagrid's cabin and the young one jumped up at Severus's side, yipping when it earned a perfunctory pat on the head. They followed us down to the cold barren woods and through to the lakeside, loping along the shore.

Some clouds were low enough that the tops of the naked trees ran their spindly fingers through them.

The pebbles of the lake shore made a crunching sound under our boots. The shallows were frozen, but further out the water lapped with an almost silent sigh of menace, extremely black and cold.

Severus aimed his wand towards the centre of the lake.

"Accio Stone of Slytherin."

But of course it was pointless. We both knew that Pansy Parkinson would never have dipped a toe into the Black Lake if a summoning spell had been possible.

I went to the edge and broke the ice by easing my weight onto it. Water bubbled through the cracks and I squatted down, submerging my hand.

My skin stung and my muscles ached. But I didn't draw away yet.

After only a few moments the sensations began to narrow, as though the nerves in my hand were old eyes that could not see so far anymore.

The water was frigid.

Numbing.

Good.

Severus's voice broke the silence, smooth in the misty chill. "I assure you you won't be the one to swim down there if it comes to that."

I kept staring at my hand, at the pale skin going red. "It will come to that. And why not?"

Clearly he thought I was too weak. But he didn't say it, and I didn't force him to.

There was quiet, and the wolves could be heard panting and running in the trees nearby. I imagined my whole body submerged in the cold water, and remembered that dream I'd had, which had echoed Pansy's own dive. The more I thought about it the more I wanted to be the one to swim down into the depths, to seek out that dim silver glow.

"There are spells. Remember, in the Triwizard–"

"It's out of the question."

I looked over my shoulder at Severus's face, pale and serious.

"Who'll do it, then? You?"

"Obviously."

"What if I don't want you to go down there? Mermaids are gentler to women."

"And–"

But he looked away, cutting himself off with a shake of his head.

"What? And what?"

"Never mind," he said firmly.

I had forgotten about my hand in the water. Droplets formed and fell from my fingertips as I stood up. I touched the burning red hand with the pale fingers of the one I'd spared from the lake, trying to flex the numb fingers.

"How did you sleep."

There was a hardness in his voice that sent me back to the first months of our marriage. That endless tension and second-guessing, the feeling that he strongly disliked or disapproved of me.

"Well," I answered, forcing my voice into flatness. "The… meditation worked."

"During the day, practice confining your thoughts behind a door. Envision your mind as a closed thing. Any thought–your own, or belonging to another person–can only exit or enter when the door is open. Practice keeping it closed."

I furrowed my eyebrows, trying to picture my mind as a room, wood-panelled, with a door only distinguishable from the walls by the dark outline of its frame. Immediately I began to develop a headache and gave up, glaring at the ice in frustration.

"It will require patience and time," Severus said, his tone slightly condescending. It was an inherently Gryffindor trait to be upset by failing to master new concepts instantly.

"Start by noticing your impulse to know someone's thoughts. When you identify it, look away. It is much more difficult to use Legilimency without eye contact."

I nodded briefly. I didn't care for the echo of professorial superiority I heard in his voice. Though I was sure he didn't intend it, I wondered if he would ever be able to give me advice without it feeling like this.

My hand was beginning to unfreeze and tingle painfully.

The presence of the lake was like a black hole, and the knowledge that the stone was somewhere down there reginited the urgent fire in my belly.

"Let's go back to the library."

Severus nodded, and he and the wolves followed me up the hill to the castle.

In the light and clarity of the morning the four of us noticed mistakes we had made, things we had missed in our exhaustion the night before.

There were corrections to be made to some runes and spellwork, but the foremost of our blunders was that we'd failed to notice two pages stuck together towards the back of the book.

On the hidden page was written a pivotal fact. Faded black ink in the margin, decipherable only by prolonged squinting.

Slytherin had written in a catch that would keep him from ever trying to use the stone again. Along with being immune to summoning spells, the stone could not be found or retrieved by a man.

The Stonne can only be seene by the eye of a yonge ladye.

It was clear why Slytherin had included the line. Being in his time, he must have doubted any young woman capable of swimming to the bottom of the lake in the first place. To hold the stone again he would have had to be desperate enough to Imperio some girl into the dive, possibly killing her in the process. That was why Lucius had forced Pansy to do it. He'd read the note and known he could not do it himself.

Silence thrummed between us, and I glanced up at Severus, whose face had gone rigid.

"I suppose… I could do it," Angelina offered.

I looked into her anxious eyes, deliberately not using the techniques Severus had proposed earlier, and plainly saw her fear.

"Angelina's terrified of drowning," I announced.

"There are spells that can keep you from drowning," Severus argued, looking pointedly at Angelina.

But her fear had crept onto her face, and after swallowing nervously and looking at Minerva for support, she shook her head. "I'm sorry. I really… I really couldn't do it."

I challenged Severus with an even gaze, recalling how he'd doubted me earlier at the lakeside. His eyes were sharper than a crow's in the candlelight. "That settles it. It'll have to be me."

Without another word he turned and strode from the library in silent fury.

I pressed the back of my hand to my bleeding nose.

Poppy heaved a heavy sigh when she heard of our plans, and shook her head as she brought me vials of invigoration draught, strengthening solution, and anti-infection potion from her cupboard. "I'll not have you anywhere near that lake until you've got enough strength in you."

With more obedience than I'd displayed in days, I swallowed the potions immediately and followed Poppy's instructions to take a sleeping draught and rest until noon in my room. Though it pained me to avoid the library, I went to bed and slept deeply, letting the potions do their gradual work on my system, my magic taking hints from my growing adrenalin to prepare itself for the task ahead.

I was awoken by a loud knocking on the door.

I felt heavy in my head, but there was an energy in my blood that had been absent for weeks. I left the bed dishevelled and went to the door.

Severus stepped past me and thrust two heavy books down onto the desk, their pages rustling as they flew open with a wave of his fingers. He spoke clearly, but only addressed his words to the books, not me. "The bubble-head charm will allow you to breathe, but you must maintain constant focus or it will falter." I watched him, my heart pounding in frustration at his utter stubbornness as his finger traced down the page. He must have been searching the library all morning for ways to keep me safe, and here he was pretending he didn't care a wink. "This warming charm is strong enough to work against such cold water, but if it fails you'll need a backup or you'll freeze to death in less than a minute. I think this–"

But he spoke no longer, because I'd crossed the room with swift steps and taken advantage of his bent posture to seize his shoulders and slant my lips across his.

Stopped mid-sentence, his next sound was an unformed word stuttered into my mouth. I didn't give him time to hesitate, and he drew in a sharp breath through his nose as I pressed my body against his, clinging to his back as I let my mouth open, hungrily tracing his lips with my tongue.

I wasn't sure what I'd expected, but it hadn't been for him to moan and kiss me back, lifting me onto the desk and pushing my thighs apart to grip me tight against his firm torso. My body was pleading for warmth and affection, but as his kiss grew harsher I felt the old panic rise. I separated with a gasp and he thrust himself away from the desk, his growl of frustration breaking into a sharp word. "Enough!"

I flinched at his raised voice and hugged myself as he raked back his tousled hair. His eyes were full of abject guilt as he looked at me, still panting slightly. Then he escaped, gliding from the room before I could gather enough clarity of mind to speak.

Head in my hands, heart pounding, I remained sitting on the desk for another minute. Then I looked over the books he'd brought, studying the spells. It wasn't difficult to push my complete foolishness from my mind as my thoughts moved to the lake and the dive.

It wasn't without fear that I anticipated the mission. But I also knew it was something I must do. I needed to use my body to push through the water, to search and find, to be of real, tangible use, and to prove to myself that I could.

I ate well that afternoon and that night slept for many hours, my sleep undisturbed by thoughts or dreams.

In the morning I ate breakfast and took second doses of Poppy's potions. My stomach was tight with delayed anxiety, my body often shivering as though already experiencing the profound coldness of the bottom of the lake.

Angelina gave me a nod and a quiet "Good luck" before returning to the hospital wing to sit with George.

I hadn't seen Severus since the previous afternoon and doubted he would emerge from the dungeon. Part of me yearned to go down to him and be embraced before going. But I resisted, knowing it was better we remain apart.

Poppy and Minerva went with me down the steep stone staircase to the boathouse. Poppy carried plenty of thick warm blankets, as well as water, hot tea, and more potions.

On the landing outside the boathouse a wave of nausea rolled through my belly. Minerva looked at me with concern, but the warmth in her eyes was heavily guarded. I'd made a decision, and we were in a time so parallel to war that there was little room for motherly sympathy. I put up a hand to indicate I was alright, and she gave me space, following Poppy into the boathouse.

I stared out at the water. It was a cold day, the sky pale with foggy clouds. A cold wind cut across the lake, making waves. I breathed in slowly, watching the silent trees, far away on the opposite shore, and tried to gain control of my writhing nerves.

In this moment of stillness I sensed a change, and turned around to see Severus's black silhouette hurrying down the stairs from the high castle. The wind cut against his clothes and hair, and I felt my heart pound with more strength and gratitude when I caught sight of the pale silhouette of his face, and his dark eye finding me among the grey stones.

"Oh, Severus," Minerva said, when she stepped out of the boathouse to see him descending the last stairs.

"I am accompanying you," he stated, with no room for disagreement.

Minerva nodded. "Poppy must go too. I'll stay here… in case."

Severus gave me an intense look. Though he stood still his body gave off subtle vibrations of energy, and I knew without giving in to the impulse to see his mind that it was his fear for my safety that had driven him from the cave of his office. He was here out of necessity, and I was relieved that he would be a bit closer to me, not so far away.

The boathouse was dark and very cold, full of the quiet sloshing of the water against the wooden hulls of the self-rowing boats.

Poppy had loaded the blankets and supplies into one of them. She held one of my hands and Severus held the other, helping to steady me as I stepped over the gap of the dark water, the boat rocking slightly as I sat down on one of the wooden benches. Severus climbed in after me, and the boat promptly began to move, slowly parting the still water as it slipped through the archway and out onto the lake.

Minerva stood outside the boathouse watching us go.

With the wind blowing, the waves hit harder against the hull of the boat the further we went into the openness of the lake. Thanks to its magic the boat stayed steady and did not tip, but I had to watch the trees to keep from feeling ill. Severus didn't say a word, only putting one of the blankets around my shoulders when I shivered, the fleeting pressure of his hands making my insides constrict.

The boat kept floating out. Deep into the middle of the lake. Further and further from the shore, until Minerva was just a miniature figure.

I'd always known the lake was vast, but had never comprehended just how vast until now.

"That seems about halfway," Poppy said, when my face had been whipped raw by wind, and my hair had completely escaped the confines of its braid. I did away with the tie, knowing I wouldn't need it in the water.

Obediently, the boat slowed to a stop and bobbed lightly up and down. For the first time I let myself look over the edge. The waves were sharp-looking, truly living up to the name of the lake they belonged to. Black as pitch. It didn't seem like anything could survive for long down there. Nothing pure, anyway.

In that case, I had nothing to fear.

Severus and Poppy were both tense and silent. Neither of them was going to make the first move, say the first word. Bending over, I unlaced my shoes and slipped them off, my bare feet freezing against the wood. Shrugging the blanket away, I stood up slowly to keep my balance, and started to take off my clothes. It seemed to take ages, and the wind running its cold fingers along my exposed skin made me feel much more vulnerable than I wanted to feel. When I was down to my undergarments I cast tightening charms on them so they wouldn't drag against the water.

Severus, who until then had sat quite still, helped me with the necessary charms, leaving the bubble for last. It had the smallest effect on my hearing, and for the first few moments it made me feel claustrophobic, as though its function were to make breathing more difficult rather than easier. Once I'd acclimated to it, it seemed much too thin and flimsy to stand up against the pressure of the depths of the lake. But I remembered how poor Cedric Diggory had used it successfully in the Triwizard Tournament, and took heart.

As I stepped up onto the wooden bench, bending at the hips to look down into the water, I caught Severus's eye. I could only look for so long before cutting off the contact. There was too much fear in him, and it made my own underlying fear seem too justified.

I knew it was better not to delay any longer. There was nothing else for me to do but dive.

In the moments before the jump, I closed my eyes and found my pounding heart, my breath, willing them to slow and work together. My wand throbbed in my hand, but as I breathed its own stress evened, and it helped to spread my efforts towards calm throughout my body.

I remembered summers at Shell Cottage, swimming in the sea. Fred and George had charmed a surfboard to hover over the waves and taken turns diving from it. I remembered George's laughter and Fred's outheld arms as I froze with adrenalin, wondering how they'd managed to coax me up there. I'll catch you, he'd promised.

I thought of George lying paralysed in the hospital wing, a shell of his former self. Of Andromeda and Amos Diggory and countless others, trapped in a lengthy sleep. Of Remus, alone in Grimmauld Place, fearing a lifetime of stone and darkness.

My eyes flew open, and with a gasp I propelled myself over the side of the boat.

There was the briefest moment of suspension.

Then I split through the surface of the lake, the freezing water swallowing my body as I sank some metres under.

Coldness and disorientation filled my head with a high ringing. It wasn't until my wand sent a jolt of heat up my arm that I remembered I could breathe. I took a tiny, fearful sip of air, then a more confident inhale. The frigid temperature was all around me, but never seemed to touch me directly, only ghosting against my skin.

My limbs adjusted to the new orientation to gravity and I spun around with effort, unsure of where I was in relation to the surface.

Blue light streamed through the gloom.

My eyes followed it and as my head turned so did my body. It was Severus's patronus. His raven. My raven. Ours.

As I drew in careful breaths from the air bubble, I looked up through the dark cold water to see Severus leaning over the side of the boat. His face wavered, distorted by the motion of the waves. I knew he had sent the patronus to stay with me, to protect me and give me a little light. It was the first time he'd used it since the passageway from Honeydukes, and had the circumstances been different I would have started crying.

As it was, I only lifted my hand to reassure him.

Then I kicked and turned and, with the blue raven by my side, began the swim down towards the darkness.