NOTE

Warning for a violent situation, and death.

78. A Happy Memory

Pouncer followed me downstairs. His footsteps were silent and he made no sound that could wake the others, but I sensed in his presence a certain curiosity. A suspicion.

"The moon is beautiful tonight," Luna said, when I stepped out of the shadows into the firelight downstairs. Again she was the only person in the room, the wolves sleeping in the corner.

"Is it?"

For a moment I stood beside her, my eyes sweeping the map. All was as it had been for the past three days.

Then I went to the window and looked out.

The weather had gone away. There was a cold wind which seeped in through the window and moaned in the nooks and crannies of the houses along the high street. No rain. Across the sky the clouds passed quickly; and sometimes the moon looked out, like a cruel, cold queen. Not only waxing but swelling in circumference. Looming over everything.

I felt its inexorable tug on my heart. My intestines.

Pouncer let out a direct and questioning meow. His green eyes looked up at me knowingly.

I turned and looked at Luna. "I'm going on a walk."

Her eyebrows raised gently, her pale face open and cool in the wavering light. "Alright," she said.

Pouncer sat down by the door, watching as I turned the handle. Don't you wake anyone, I silently demanded.

His eyes made no promises.

It was freezing outside, the kind of cold that turns the bones to ice. I shivered as I hurried over the cobblestones to the sleeping Honeydukes shop, clutching my wand. Every step carried the risk of being found out, being stopped again. But I made it to the door, and with a soft whisper–"Alohomora"–stepped through.

The pyramids of sweets felt like threatening figures in the darkness of the shop. I thought of the pie shop which the two small boys, Gavin and Brian, had entered on bonfire night, in desperate need of food. The thought of them huddled together in the cold night, among the tall trees of the forbidden forest, sent a fiery shiver down my spine.

Keeping my step light, I crossed the floor and walked down the narrow wooden stairs into the pitch black cellar. There was a box at the bottom of the steps and I almost tripped over it, catching myself at the last moment with a hand on the bannister. There was the quietest thumping sound as the box fell on its side, and in the following silence my heart thundered.

"Lumos," I breathed, and my wand glowed to light, illuminating the trapdoor.

As I lifted it open, careful to keep quiet, I remembered how the Flumes had willingly invited me to use the passageway back in March. How happy they'd been to help me avoid walking in the thunderstorm outside. How they'd given me sweets free of charge. Here I was, betraying their trust–and everyone else's–by breaking in. But I realised I didn't care. Perhaps that made me bad. I didn't care about that, either.

I stepped down, aiming my wand forward into the dark.

The stone was uneven and worn beneath my feet, and my tread was cautious as I descended. My eyes were now at level with the cellar floor and I reached up to bring the trapdoor down. I ducked my head, and then I was enclosed in the freezing cold, underground. The small light of my wand only made the dark feel deeper, a silent blackness beyond the reach of the pale white glow.

For a moment my body tensed with fear. There was only the sound of my quiet breath, and the passageway stretched out in front of me. My instincts told me there was danger in that unseen place. Faces and teeth, waiting.

Then I took another step, and the fear melted away in the face of my need to hurry. My wandlight made my immediate surroundings grey, and my footsteps sounded eerily against the stone ground as I made my way forward.

I'd been walking for less than a minute when I heard something. At first I couldn't tell how near or far it was, from the strange echo off the stone walls. My heart hammered. I whispered "Nox!" and then I held my breath.

There was a long moment of darkness, punctuated by a louder sound–the trapdoor slamming shut. Then another light sprang to life, bright white and brutal, and there was nowhere to hide as Severus's singular footsteps approached. I lifted my wand again and felt the tension in my spine, in my jaw, as I prepared to face him. His lumos was blinding but I kept my eyes open. My wand arm was steady, severe as a statue.

My eyes adjusted as he came to a halt, and we stood rigidly, staring at one another, our breathing echoing around us.

"Lower it," he said.

My arm remained steady. "I'm going."

My voice was hard and so unlike the one I'd always spoken in before; before the war, before Rookwood, before Fred's death. So much time had passed since the aftermath of the battle, and yet here I was, back where I'd started. Numb and empty and broken. The only thing I was good for was this last thing. Saving Remus.

Severus was motionless, his eyes unresponsive.

"I'm going," I repeated.

"I know you are."

His wand remained lit, but he lowered it. I could see him better, the shadows of his face, the small hidden emotions I'd been blind to a moment ago. He was exhausted, and I saw that he would not fight me anymore.

I let my wand sink to my side. My emotions were pressed up against a firm wall, unable to be fully felt. My voice was shamefully numb. "I need to save him, Severus."

There was a pause that lasted a beat too long. His face was like a stone.

"Did you have an agreement with Miss Lovegood?"

"No."

"You should thank that bloody cat of yours for waking me up."

I grimaced, remembering Pouncer's big green eyes as he looked up at me from the floor of the three broomsticks. I envisioned him prowling up the steps and scratching at Severus's door the moment I'd left.

"Not mine, and not a cat," I grumbled.

"You know what I mean."

My throat constricted for him. His eyes were as black as the stone that pressed in around us. But while the stone was cold and heartless, Severus was full of pain.

I didn't know why he was hurting. Or I did, but was unwilling to fully see it. Some small, locked-away part of myself ached with him. But there was no time to listen to it, no time to console it.

Before Severus's arrival in the passageway, everything had felt like a dream. Now his presence proved it was real. My body was full of adrenaline, my hands clammy. I had to do this now. I had to get to Remus.

"I'm not waiting any longer."

"I will not stop you. But you're not going alone."

The thought of everyone being woken up and dragged into battle at this time of night made me feel selfish. But it was no less selfish than it would have been for me to go into the castle on my own and leave everyone else to handle the myriad consequences of my actions. I studied Severus carefully but he didn't seem angry at me. He only seemed incredibly tired and resigned.

I saw that throughout the conflict he'd been fighting his own inner battle, just as I had been, and here was the moment of final surrender.

His eyes took me in. They were two round pools of sadness, with something straining beneath. A fault line struggling to open and let forth tremors of vulnerability. He looked at me softly as though for inspiration. Waiting for something to come to him.

Then he looked away.

"I will send for the others."

I felt small inside as he raised his wand. I wondered what memory he was resurrecting in his heart. Certainly it couldn't have anything to do with me. Not anymore.

It probably never had.

His wand moved in a small, steady circle, and his voice resounded throughout the dark underworld of the passageway. "Expecto patronum."

A thin stream of blue light bled from his wand and lingered for a disjointed moment in the cold air. Then it changed and became recognisable, and my heart fell out of my body and onto the ground.

There was a long moment of unbearable heaviness. My hollow body was buried under many stones. My stomach had been removed and replaced with a cannonball.

Severus looked ill.

He managed to speak. "Wake the others. To the passageway, immediately."

The patronus lingered, then disappeared.

The patronus.

The raven.

Mine.

Severus's lumos faded and we stood there in the black.

My whole body was frozen. No heat. No heart.

"What?" I whispered.

The air buzzed with shared shock. This truth between us which could not be watered down or cleared away. We'd been twisting and twisting around each other and now we were tangled forever.

Some deep part of him had changed. He must have sensed it when it did, but he had kept it hidden. Now I could see the proof of it, but could not understand.

Change it back. Oh, gods, change it back.

I couldn't stop looking at him. Or rather the deeper, more whole darkness that I knew was his body.

There had always been some barrier between us. But now it was gone. Bone ground against bone, with no membrane to provide protection. Bone ground against bone, into dust. I was frightened. It was painful.

I couldn't hear my own breathing.

"It's not my fault," he said.

I was without breath. Without heartbeat.

"Did you know?" I said, though I knew he hadn't.

"No," he answered.

He moved slightly in the darkness. I could feel his fury, his tightly coiled tears. I stayed well away from him.

I couldn't believe what I had seen. The only evidence that I had not dreamed the blue raven was the lingering heaviness. The lingering shock in my body.

I felt that I had somehow robbed him. This was not right. This was not right. He didn't belong to me. He belonged to Lily. He always had, and he always would. This wasn't meant to happen.

My body trembled. My wand was weightless in my hand.

"I'm sorry," I breathed. "It doesn't mean… It doesn't have to…"

He said nothing.

We waited. In a liminal time and space. A great darkness. I had forgotten my purpose there.

Then the others came. Arthur, Poppy, Luna, Neville, George and Ginny. Their voices sounded at the end of the passageway as the trapdoor opened and closed. Their footsteps approached, and the light that bloomed from the tips of their wands illuminated Severus and me.

His face was numb. I could not bear to look.

Arthur's eyes were alert in an exhausted face, and Poppy's mouth was drawn in a firm thin line. They both looked at me like I was the bane of their existence–which, at this moment, I certainly was.

Luna's gaze was quite different. She was watching me intently, and sometimes glancing softly at Severus. She must have been the recipient of his patronus, and thus the only other person aware of the change. She was very quiet as Arthur spoke.

"George, Luna, you'll stay on the third floor to guard the entrance of the passageway. Neville, Ginny, you'll come with me to the headmaster's office for Greyback. Poppy, Wilma, Severus, take the great hall and the dungeons. Any objections?"

There were none.

We went down the passageway in a hurry, the sound of footsteps and the warmth of determined bodies battling against the dark cold nothingness.

My body remained heavy and aching, but my heart was floating in a bath of anxiety. I felt on the verge of collapse, knees shaking. But I kept moving.

A throbbing in my hand, in my wand. Echoing my pounding heartbeat.

We came to the incline which led to the statue of the humpbacked witch, and ascended one at a time. As I climbed up through the damp, cold darkness to the pale grey light, I was taken over by an old memory. The first time I'd used the passageway, with Fred and George. Fred had scrambled up first, mint humbugs falling out of his cardigan pockets and skittering down like scree, to be caught by George and me. I remembered the laughter. I had been thirteen, then.

I was still for a moment, paralysed and made dizzy by the powerful recollection. Then I remembered the task at hand and, with a sharp intake of breath, continued the climb.

At the top Ginny helped me to stand up and steady myself. The others made the ascent, and Arthur came last, fitting through at a squeeze.

The castle seemed cold and vast, and very silent. Moonlight poured through the windows, casting black shadows on the flagstone floor. None of the torches were lit in their sconces.

The wind outside was soft, barely present, but we were so quiet that it was very audible. With silent gestures, Arthur indicated onward, towards the grand staircase. Luna and George stayed beside the statue of the humpbacked witch, and the rest of us proceeded down the corridor, through the ribbons of darkness and pale light.

My heart played a disjointed rhythm in my chest and my wand vibrated tremulously, bringing me back to alertness again and again, like a sudden tightening of a muscle just before sleep. My stomach clenched in momentary panic and I turned, looking for Severus. He was following just behind me, and he looked down at me when I stopped, his eyes bleak and blacker than pitch. An awful feeling of lostness welled up inside of me, and on instinct I reached out for his hand, as though to keep from drowning. My fingers caught his, and he slid his fingers through my own, gripping my hand tightly.

The incredible danger of what we were doing had struck me, and I needed him. My body folded itself against him and I hugged him tightly, my arms squeezing him desperately. I felt myself trembling, my breath quick and shallow against his shirt. His arms wrapped around me completely, his hands clutching around my waist and under my arm. I was overwhelmed by a wave of his warmth, his humanity, as our hearts pushed against each other.

I could feel the expansion of his abdomen against me as he breathed deeply. Could feel the narrowness of my hip against his upper thigh. I felt completely intense, completely entwined with him. And something about that brief moment was more intimate than any touch we'd ever shared before.

Then the pale moonlight drifted between us, and we came apart.

Our hands let go, but we were not completely separate. For so long I'd felt that we were impossibly different. Constantly at odds. Either I was pulling him along like a stone at the end of a string, or I was the one being pulled. There was no in-between. But now, for the first time, I had the sense that we were doing this together.

I saw Severus's overwhelming selflessness, and also felt the small changes which had taken place inside of my own soul to make it possible. For a moment I forgot about the pressure and intimidation which his patronus had caused.

Severus's eyes changed, and I knew he understood.

"I love you," I told him.

"Quiet!" Arthur whispered.

The grand staircase was bathed in soft light, the portrait frames and stone bannisters casting vague watery shadows. Up and down the wide tower the staircases were changing, soft echoes of stone emanating throughout the space. Some of the portraits caught sight of us as we waded through the shadows, and we placed our fingers to our lips. Shh.

One of the staircases quietly connected us to an entrance to the second floor corridor. All of my willpower was channelled into not running as we walked along the narrow hallway, keeping very quiet.

Then came the inevitable moment of separation. Arthur, Neville and Ginny turned a corner towards the gryphon which guarded the headmaster's office, and Severus, Poppy and I proceeded alone to the marble staircase. I gave Ginny a long last look before she turned around, and Severus motioned to me with his hand, wordlessly insisting upon staying behind me.

I allowed the gesture of protection. Appreciated it, even. But in the end it did no good.

We were entering into the openness of the walkway that led to the marble staircase when something changed inside of me.

I was no longer myself.

I did not mind it.

It was nice, escaping.

There was no time or desire for resistance. The pleasant fog rolled over me and my wand was frozen in my hand.

I turned around to face the tall, dark man, and a reasonable voice filled my mind.

Stun him.

A swift red line of magic darted through the air from my wand, and the man fell backward onto the floor, his wand rolling across the flagstones.

My gaze moved to the grey-haired witch, who had stopped in the centre of the corridor, her mouth open in shock.

Disarm.

"Expelliarmus."

The thin hazel wand flew through the air and I caught it. The witch lifted her hands, palms pale in the moonlight. "Wilma, what–"

Bind her.

With a slash of my wand she was bound by thick strips of dark fabric, around her arms, around her legs, over her mouth.

My skin crawled with awareness as I sensed movement behind me, and a magnet-like presence. I turned slowly, a marionette in a ghostly waltz.

A tall broad man with long knotted hair and the eyes of an animal stood half-in, half-out of the shadows. His black wand was an extension of his arm, and a soft growl resonated through his chest as I stood before him. Master.

"I've been waiting on you, little girl." His voice was rough, like gravel. He held out his large hand, and the sight of the long yellow nails made something writhe in a forgotten part of me. A tiny voice crouched somewhere, screaming. But it was too high-pitched to understand. I blinked it away like a troublesome fly.

"Come," said the man. And I was pulled in by the gravity of his waiting hand.

My footsteps were silent on the stone. His mouth split into a wide grin as I grew closer, and there was no hesitation in my body. Soon I was before him, and I had the urge to kneel. He growled again, his eyes flashing, and his hand lifted, caressing my neck, the fingernails grazing my throat so softly.

"Closer, pet."

I obeyed. Now I felt the heat of his breath, and my stomach flopped like a dying fish as the tiniest opening was torn in my mind, letting in a voice that curled and clouded like ink in water.

You are under the Imperius Curse!

He is your enemy!

The power of Severus's voice made that small pinprick of reason tear wider, and soon the invisible strings which had tied me to Greyback's will were gone.

Shock flooded my body, but I made no outward sign. I stood very still, letting Greyback believe he still had me, for a moment longer. His breath was the sour, stinking breath of a dog raised on rotten meat. The sharp nail of his thumb was tracing my jaw. He was monstrous. A massive body with a sharp mouth that wanted to rip, to gorge, devour.

The stench of his breath overwhelmed me as his face bent closer, and the sound of Severus's voice filled my mind–Don't hesitate!–as Greyback's rough, vile tongue emerged and slowly licked the side of my face.

I shuddered and wasted no more time, jabbing my wand into his throat as I shot a stinging hex through it. Greyback sprang away with a guttural shout, crouching down in the shadows. I scurried backward, stomach churning, dizzy with nausea. There was a dark, quick movement as Severus stood, seizing his wand, and there were shouts from below.

Torches hissed to life on the high walls, illuminating the two guards as they dashed to the foot of the marble staircase to aid their leader. I recognised neither of them, but they had the dark, quick look of starvation and ambition. Severus lunged to the edge of the high walkway, his body fluid and articulate with skill and instinct. There was only time for fires of fear to roar in the two wizards' eyes as they saw their opponent. They were both stunned by efficient spirals of red light before either could cast their first spell.

Poppy was still bound, and I shouted the countercurse to release her, before throwing her her wand. Then I wheeled around, my wand raised in defence against Greyback, who was just now standing up in the dark grey shadows, his teeth bared in a snarl and his eyes flashing as he touched his swollen neck.

Fury tingled in my veins, burning to pure vengeance.

A growl rose in his throat, and he began to step forward. Then, catching a new scent, his head jerked around just as Ginny, Neville and Arthur came running round the corner at the end of the corridor. Ginny was quickest of all, and shouted, "Flipendo!" with a sharp movement of her wand. Greyback's weight was blasted backwards and he landed on his side at the top of the stairs.

Severus made to curse him. "No!" I demanded, my eyes shooting daggers. His eyes met mine and he paused, making room for me. He stayed at my side, his wand at the ready.

Greyback struggled to stand, clutching the elbow he'd landed on. His wand was broken, the end dangling from the handle by a thread of dragon heartstring. His gaze darted from face to face as he took in the opposition, and saw he was surrounded. He growled dangerously, savage eyes glinting at me.

A staggering step forward made his body crumble slightly, but there was no echo of pain in his expression. Only malice. He chuckled darkly.

"Your husband–"

But I never heard what he was going to say.

He seemed to choke on the words, and his eyes bored into mine as something small and invisible happened inside of him.

All I knew for certain was that it was my doing. My hatred. And this was his end.

He knew it too, and there was a flare of dread in Greyback's eyes. The closest he would ever come to humanity.

A groan of pain hissed through his gritted teeth and his body slumped, tipping backward and falling down the stairs. There was a sickening crack as his neck met the marble, and his skull broke.

I walked forward to the top of the stairs and looked down. His face was a grimace of viciousness, his neck bent at a wrong angle. Blood slowly seeped from his head, trickling down the white steps in a small crimson river.

A gasp of horror broke the sudden silence. Poppy, or Ginny. But my heart was pounding too fast to allow me to pause. To recognise what I had done.

My feet flew.

Past the corpse of Greyback. Down the stairs, racing the stream of his poisonous blood. Past the two stunned guards, and the open doors to the darkened great hall, and the stone knights. Into the dungeons.

"Lumos!" I called, my voice shattering coldly off the black stone walls. My wand lit with a bright determined glow, every fragment of my will surging into it.

Down, down, down, under the ground I went. Past the potions classroom, past many forgotten rooms and caverns. Two pairs of footsteps followed–Severus and Poppy. The stone steps became slippery with slime and age, down in the deepest, darkest bowels of the castle. Slowly the evidence of architecture disappeared, until it was only the worn, uneven steps connecting a series of small, ancient caves.

I stepped in and out of their narrow, cold mouths until the stairs stopped at the final level, the deepest pit. A faint dripping sound came from somewhere, the air frigid and thick with darkness and the odour of some distant, foul growth.

My inward breath echoed coldly as I moved my light around. Severus had caught up to me, and his own wand helped to brighten the cave, the shadows of the stalagmites pitch black and uneven. I searched behind the boulders, in the narrow spaces under ledges of damp stone. The air down here was suffocating and sharp, and it seemed ages before I was able to speak.

"Remus! Where are you!"

It was the strangeness of my voice's echo that led us to the hidden place.

It was a very small opening I had not seen, hidden behind a massive column of stone.

"There," Severus said, just as I saw it myself.

I ran to it, crouched down to fit through the short tunnel, and then steadied myself against the frozen wall inside–only to collapse once more.

He was lying there against the small cave wall, curled up on the ground, clothed in the tattered remnants of a shirt and trousers. His face was turned away, and he was motionless.

My wand clattered to the ground, the light fading out. My knees buckled and I crawled to him across the slanted stone floor. I couldn't say his name–I could only gasp desperately for cold, damp air.

I clutched his shoulders and turned him over, knowing in my bones that something was wrong. His eyes were closed, his whole face limp, his mouth weak and open. I pulled him up towards me, shaking him, but there was no response.

More light filled the tiny black hole, and my violently quivering fingers went to his neck, feeling for a pulse. The bearer of the light was Severus, and he stood above us as Poppy knelt down and replaced my fingers with her own. I grabbed Remus's long, cold hand and pressed it instinctively to my chest to warm it. But I, too, was as cold as ice.

I held him in my arms, my heart fluttering in panic as I waited for Poppy to speak.

Heartbreak was evident in the shadowed angles of her face as she spoke, confirming my worst fear.

"I'm sorry."

Her eyes watched me, blue and grey, full of regret.

My fingertips desperately brushed Poppy's aside and searched for a pulse. Even the faintest, faintest pulse.

But there was none.

I looked down at him.

A candle with no flame.

A cry of grief filled the tiny space, and I realised it was mine. My whole body shook from the shockwaves of an internal earthquake, and my hands fluttered like severed wings as I touched his face. My arms pulled him into me and I hugged him to my chest, rocking back and forth and staring at the shadows on the cave wall.

"No. No. Wake up, wake up, wake up…"

I looked at him again, but there was no change. He was pale and motionless, as statuesque as flesh and bone can be.

"Remus!"

I whimpered his name, clutching him hopelessly.

Then Severus's hands were touching my arms, my shoulders, his grip warm and firm. He touched me not to pry me away but to hold me, and he did so tightly, kneeling at my side and cradling me as I cradled Remus's body. "Hush. Hush."

"No–" I protested, my voice splitting in two. I looked at Poppy, my heart in agony. "Help him. Help him. We have to try… we have to…"

My voice was shaking so badly I could hardly understand myself. But Poppy seemed to, her eyes darkening with tears. "There's nothing, dear. There's nothing."

Finally the feeling of Severus holding my shoulders and the weight of Remus's body in my arms combined to break me into pieces. My body gave way to a sea of heaving sobs, and I cried so hard my stomach cramped. My face was heavy and bloated with tears, and my head pounded.

I rocked him back and forth, feeling his body close to me. My mind went back to that snowy afternoon in Diagon Alley. The day before Christmas. It was almost a year ago now, but the moment was eternal to me. Holding the warmth of Teddy's little body. Remus walking up the cobbled street, hands in his pockets, through the snowflakes. The warmth in his eyes and his smile as he saw us together. His gentle hand on my arm as he kissed my forehead.

It all flooded back.

Flying over the black lake with him, screaming into the sharp wind, later drifting peacefully over the sheep-spotted fields. Watching him play with Teddy on the sitting room rug in Andromeda's house, making a little paper bird fly. His hand, holding the small velvet pouch which contained his parents' wedding rings. Resting my head on his chest as he read The Odyssey before the crackling fire in Grimmauld Place. Coming into the castle from the rain, his relieved expression as he warmed my hands in his.

One of my tears fell, bright blue, into his open mouth.

My throat clenched closed around my next sob. A wave of stillness rolled over me as I saw the strange blue tear, and Severus's hands tightened around my shoulders.

"Oh…" Poppy murmured, putting her hand on the side of Remus's face.

We watched the tear disappear, fading into darkness.

Then there was a very quiet rattling breath.

"Oh!" Poppy exclaimed in a whisper, rising onto her knees and pressing her fingers to the artery beneath his jaw.

My heart started to thump, my skin set alight with hope. Poppy nodded her head, her expression slack with wonder. I held Remus's head in the crook of my elbow and leaned over him, stroking his grimy, greying hair.

"Remus?"

A weak, quiet moan came out of him, the smallest evidence of a voice, before he fell silent and unresponsive. My arms were shaking, shock and disbelief and solace racing through my veins.

"We have to get him upstairs," Poppy said, getting to her feet. "He may not last."

Severus lifted Remus in his arms, and carried him out of the dungeon, the dark angel sparing the bone-pale sacrifice from the altar.

The climb up the dungeon stairs was as far and as gruelling as the climb out of purgatory. My legs were trembling by the time we reached the potions corridor, and my skin was clammy and thin.

The world moved around me in a slow grey dream.

The entrance hall was full of torchlight and for the first time the extent of Remus's pallor was visible. The others were gathered around the two stunned guards and Greyback's corpse, which had been dragged to the flagstones from the bloody stairs. George was there, and he watched with dark eyes as Remus was carried around the corner and up the stairs to the hospital wing.

I was pulled away from the rescuee by Luna's soft hands. Arthur placed the tip of his wand to my own, and cast Prior Incantato. There was my lumos, the countercurse with which I'd unbound Poppy, and the stinging hex I'd used to distract Greyback.

No Killing Curse.

It was clear to all that his death had been somehow brought about by me. But through no traditional magic.

I was let go, and went to stand next to George, staring down at Greyback.

His eyes had been left open.

I looked away.

Severus returned, sweat on his face. He came to me at once, and I opened my arms, pressing my trembling body against him. The coldness of the dungeon clung to our clothes and skin. I could feel his bones; his lean, taut muscles.

Arthur called for him as George, Luna and Ginny left the castle for the Whomping Willow, to cut off the passageway in case Favre attempted to use it. Hogwarts would be ours again. Meanwhile the others had to deliver the werewolves to the Ministry.

Severus kept one arm loosely around my waist as he pulled away. I clutched his hand. "Will you come back?"

"I promise."

He joined Arthur and Neville in taking hold of the stunned and the dead, and I turned and rushed up the stairs to the hospital wing.

Poppy was there, with a bowl of water, with her wand. I sat down in a chair beside the narrow bed where Remus lay, unbuttoned and covered in countless scars. A candle burned.

The night wore on. I brought the chair closer to the bed, as close as it could go, and held his strengthless hand. Poppy washed and healed him slowly, keeping him in a very deep sleep. There was stitching, a small ocean of dittany, incantations for infection. I gave my help whenever Poppy allowed it.

Then, at last, she was finished.

She pulled thin white blankets over him.

"It is safe, now, to sleep," she told me. "He is going to live."

She stepped around the sickbed and smoothed and kissed my hair like a mother. Leaving the candle lit, she walked to her office and closed the door around.

I kept watch over him in the flickering light. There were no tears left, but my whole being was tremulous and fragile. He appeared to be in a peaceful slumber. But I watched him with all the fear of a mother whose infant is ill for the first time.

Soon I grew tired. His breathing was steady. A sense of peace entered me. A soft light, forgiving everything that had passed, and everything that would.

A memory came to me as I watched him sleeping by the light of one candle. His face soft, his shirt open, the flame steady.

"I'm here," I murmured, as I had done before.

Then my chin sank forward onto my collarbone, and the waking world faded.

NOTE

It's been ages. Fifty-four chapters. Thank you all for holding on.

It took far too long to write this, but there were certain moments I couldn't seem to get past. The tension was so high that I was paralysed.

Anyhow, here it is, and thank you for reading.

Now for even more turmoil.

:)