NOTE

Warning for some light references to the content in the last chapter (nothing explicit), moments of grief, conflict/arguments, and a mention of Wilma's sexual assault. My sincere apologies again to all who were disturbed by the content in eighty-one. Here's something a bit more manageable to follow that monster.

83. The Bloody Baron

That afternoon all gathered at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall for a meeting–except for Remus, and Poppy, who was staying with him. Now that my tears were cried out I could feel nothing but bitterness and anger. There was fault to be found in everything and everyone. It was a state of being I'd always feared because I hated it so much. Like a cold fire, filling me up with irrational urges. I wanted to throw the table over on its side, sending the plates and jugs flying. I wanted to tear something apart like a lion. My magic seemed on the verge of acting up again, but I kept my hand wrapped firmly around my wand, squeezing it tightly to keep the rage in. I thought there was a fair bit of space on either side of me at the table, as though George, at my left, and Ginny, at my right, could sense that something was deeply wrong with me.

I wondered who in the Ministry had their eyes on Remus's memories, which had been sent in their vial by Minerva. They were so deeply personal that it felt wrong for me to have seen him, even though he'd wanted me to. The thought of anyone picking them apart who didn't know him personally was frightening. My stomach twisted in fear, imagining the trials Hornibus Hiltch had promised at the end of the conflict. I knew the Ministry would take an unforgiving stance towards some of the things he had done.

I'd left Remus with combined reluctance and relief. It was hard to look into his sea-blue eyes knowing what had happened. I could barely look down at the meat on the table, too vividly reminded of the dead rodents, the dead girl.

It didn't help that Severus was there, trying so obviously to block my presence out of his awareness that it had the reverse effect, and felt as though he were staring daggers at me from the other end of the table.

Arthur was holding forth against George, whose body was as tense as a firecracker at my side.

"It would be altogether too dangerous, George, and you know it. We had better wait it out and let them come to us instead. Set a trap."

"What, on the full moon?" George retorted.

"Yes," Arthur said firmly. "Their minds go away when they transform. They won't know to resist if we're clever about it."

"What kind of trap?" Neville said warily.

"Do werewolves hunt sheep?"

I realised the question was aimed at me, Arthur looking at me intently with his jade, crow-footed eyes, as if I should know.

"I guess they would."

"Anything with a heartbeat," said Severus, snidely.

Arthur nodded. "Then Euphemius's flock–"

Luna piped up, her conviction stronger than usual, keeping one hand on her belly. "Good luck convincing Euphemius to sacrifice his beloved sheep to a pack of werewolves!"

I felt nauseous at the proposition of using innocent animals to tempt the werewolves into a trap. "That would make us no better than them."

"Did you learn nothing from the war?" The voice was Severus's, cold and hard as ice.

I looked over at him, my own eyes already blazing. "As I recall, you were the one blurring the lines between us and them."

"Please!" Minerva said. "Both of you!"

A tense pause befell the table. I ripped my fiery gaze away from Severus's freezing one and turned back to Arthur. "I don't see why we can't act now. Some of their captives are children. It will be more dangerous for them if we wait until the moon. We can't just sit back and let them be turned. Besides, only Magnus has a wand. The other ones won't be able to fight us."

"There's no telling where exactly in the woods they are. The map doesn't cover those regions, and the wolves' memories aren't clear enough to guide us there. All we know is they're quite far in, and if they smell us on the way they'll move camp. They could all apparate somewhere else entirely and then where would we be? We have to keep them where they are until the moon, and then will be the time to bring them to us."

"To us?" Ginny said. "You mean to the castle?"

"Arthur is right," Minerva said, seeming to understand while the rest of us were lost. "We'll lure them in on the moon, taking down the wards temporarily so they can enter the grounds. Once they're in we'll lower the wards again and they'll be trapped inside until the moon ends. Once they've transformed back they won't be able to disapparate and we'll be able to detain them easily and take them in."

My voice burned. "But the children."

Minerva's eyes were deep pools. "It can't be helped, Wilma."

An idea dawned on me. "What about the centaurs? We could ask them to take away the children before the moon."

"Then we'd lose our cover," Arthur insisted. "We cannot provoke Magnus." He leaned forward, his voice sharper than usual. "Wilma, there will be no attacks, and if anyone tries to leave the ground, or contact the centaurs, there will be consequences."

"What consequences?" I spat.

"You'll no longer be a member of the Order of the Phoenix."

I knew he wasn't joking. His mouth was set in a grim line and his eyes were harder than I'd ever seen them.

"That's not fair!" George insisted.

"It's necessary."

My body was full of rage, and I could have hexed somebody. But I held tight to my wand, my knuckles white under the table, and shot a warning glance at George, to keep him from fighting back.

"If it's our plan to bring the werewolves into the grounds during the full moon, then we'll have to bring the residents of Hogsmeade into the castle as well, to keep them safe. There's too much risk the werewolves might wander that way."

"We're not using Euphemius's flock!" Luna insisted. Neville put a quelling hand on her arm.

"No," Arthur agreed. "We'll find a more secure way. I will go into the village today and bring Rosmerta, the Flumes, Euphemius and his sheep through the passageway. Then we'll close it off, to be safe."

"Sheep running about the castle?" Ginny said.

Minerva's mouth twitched. "It wouldn't be the strangest thing Hogwarts has seen."

"Now, we need to discuss the creatures. Kingsley told me there are many more victims now at St. Mungo's. We have to put a stop to them if we can."

"They won't stop," I said. Many eyes flickered to mine, confused and listening. "The creatures were created. Using this stone, found at the bottom of the lake. It's got to be the only thing that can put it to a stop. There's no telling where it is but if I had to guess, Malfoy's got it now."

The name came easily off my tongue, but with it came a tension coiled deep in my spine–the urge to scream.

"Why Malfoy?" Arthur said, a hint of venom in his voice.

"He's the one who made them."

George turned to me suspiciously. "How do you know all this?"

"A vision."

"A vision?"

Minerva spoke for me. "Miss Weasley has had valid visions since June."

Ginny turned to me, clear-eyed. "Why didn't you tell us about this?"

"There wasn't time to tell you all, with everything else. Kingsley knows about it–Bill's with the group hunting down Malfoy's accomplice, a man named Baddock. They think he might have been keeping the stone while Malfoy was in Azkaban."

The more I said the name, the more bitter adrenaline rushed through my veins. It was something I could become addicted to.

"So…" Arthur began. "You say the creatures were… created, using a stone?"

"Yes. Pansy Parkinson found it at the bottom of the black lake. It was used in a ritual."

Arthur paused for a moment, wrapping his head around it. "Right. Does anyone here know about a powerful stone?"

There was a general murmur of "no" and shaking of heads.

"Clearly it possesses some calibre of dark magic," Minerva said. "If its properties can be twisted to create such dark creatures."

"We could ask a ghost," Luna proposed.

All eyes turned to her, but her face remained serene with certainty.

"The Bloody Baron. He might know."

"And have you conversed with the Baron before, Miss Lovegood?" Severus said. He was acerbic, all bitterness and spleen.

Luna tilted her head. "Not directly, but I've heard him muttering in the second dungeon before. He says some interesting things. About the dark arts. And he's one of the oldest. If any of the ghosts know about a stone like that, it's probably him."

Though Luna's voice was as innocent as a child's, the quality of her thinking could not be denied.

"I think, Miss Lovegood, you should try to speak to the Baron first," Minerva suggested.

Luna nodded in eager agreement.

"He's halfway mad," Severus dismissed. "He'll tell you nonsense."

"There's usually some sense in nonsense," Luna mused.

Severus visibly gritted his teeth.

"We'll disband now," Arthur said. "I'm going to Hogsmeade, Luna, you'll go to the dungeons. Severus, would you send the minutes to Kingsley please?"

"No."

Arthur looked at me yet again, as though I somehow held the key to Severus's difficulties. I met his gaze with an unkind blankness and then looked away. "Right," Arthur said.

He stood from the table and everyone else followed, but I was trapped on the bench, glaring at Severus. He was the first one to leave the Hall, his whole body tense with coldness. I thought about his patronus. My patronus. It was an absolute fact. Absolute proof that he loved me. Yet he behaved as though it meant the opposite–an excuse to hate me. I realised as he disappeared that his hair was black, and mine white. We were opposites now. We might have balanced each other. But merely breathing the same air had made us react like fire and ice.

I should have felt guilty for what I'd said to him, about his past. But I lacked the capacity. I was too angry.

Was I turning into him?

Arthur went out to send his patronus to the Minister. Neville kissed Luna's cheek before she skipped off airily to the dungeons.

I stood from the table and started towards the doors, but Minerva stopped me, her hand reaching out as though to touch my shoulder but not quite making it. I nearly expected her to reprimand me about what I'd said to Severus in a moment of heat. But she made no mention of my inconsiderate remark.

"Did you see them?"

She meant Remus's memories.

My voice was caught momentarily in my throat, and when it came out it was hoarse and quiet. "They were Hell."

Minerva's lips seemed to become even thinner, her eyes deep and aged. She nodded her head and stepped aside, releasing me.

I stood in the entrance hall, hearing the sound of the cold rainfall, and the faint ticking of the clock in the tower. Time was running out, racing towards the full moon night.

A hand around my wrist brought me back to reality. It was George's freckled hand and I looked up at him, struck by the oldness in his face. The only parts of him that seemed the same as when we'd been young were his freckles and his unkempt red hair. Shadows had crept under his eyes, and his mouth was drawn in a narrow line. He looked exhausted, and I knew that I must have looked the same.

He didn't say a word, but tilted his head slightly in the direction of a tapestry by the marble staircase, which we both knew hid the entrance to a small nook. I nodded and glanced into the Great Hall to ensure we weren't being watched before following him. George pulled the tapestry aside to reveal the small door, which I unlatched and opened.

Once upon a time, when we'd been children and first discovering the castle's secrets, I'd been able to fit easily with room above my head. Now I had to duck down through the entrance to the tiny hidden room.

George entered after me and pulled the door closed behind him, lighting the small space with a whispered lumos.

I was reminded of the nights when George and Fred and I would sit in small crannies like this, studying the Marauder's Map or plotting mischief. But the memory was pale and insubstantial. There was none of that warmth, that youthful silliness here.

"Snape's still a right git," George said, after a dark silence.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You should have married Fred, and Fred should be alive."

I stared at him, seeing through the smoke of anger in his eyes to the cold, sad sea beyond.

"He's been dead for more than a year," I said. "Almost a year and a half."

George crouched lower, squatting with his back against the wall, his wand held in front of him. The light unkindly deepened the shadows in his face. "Doesn't feel that long. Since the war ended."

"I'm starting to think these things never really end."

There was silence as he considered me. I didn't cave in under his judging gaze. I just sat there, too weak to shrink, too weak to expand with false strength.

"You're different," he concluded.

"You're different too."

George nodded, and there was another silent moment as the wheels in his head turned.

"We both know we're not letting them turn those kids," he said, at length. "I don't care about Order membership."

A spark of energy illuminated the caverns of my empty heart. "Yes," I agreed.

"I think we should send the centaurs a patronus. Ask them to help."

I took out my wand and closed my eyes for a moment, carefully formulating what I should say. Centaurs were powerful and wise creatures, and I had to plead our case carefully if I wanted them to listen. I knew there was a great risk that for the centaurs to rescue the two boys would set off an early attack from Magnus. But it was a risk that had to be taken. I thought of what would happen to the boys if they were allowed to stay in the forest until the full moon, of what Remus would want, and conjured my raven.

We received a response after only a minute of waiting. A resonant voice emanated from a bright blue sphere of light.

"You will find no help here. We lost too many of our kind in your war. We will not risk our lives again."

The patronus faded, leaving only the pale light from George's wand to bathe our faces. The message had been blunt, not even a note on the position of the stars, and whether they looked on our enterprise with favour.

I was poured full of weariness, but George's eyes were dark with determination.

"We'll just have to do it ourselves then."

Madam Rosmerta, Mr. and Mrs. Flume, and the shepherd Euphemius arrived that evening. Euphemius insisted on being the only one to lay hands on any of his fourteen sheep, which caused a bit of a wait on the inclined ramp below the humpbacked witch. He then herded them down the complicated staircases from the third floor and out into the grounds, bleating and tripping all the way. Euphemius communicated in a rough voice that he would not have his sheep confined to the castle, especially not while the two wolves were free to roam within. It was agreed that they could safely graze on the grounds until the night of the full moon.

After that, to look out the castle windows was to see the cold, icy ground spotted with the dirty white fleece coats of the sheep, Euphemius following them with his crook, keeping them well away from the chasm and the viaduct bridge. The wind outside was bitter, and Neville repeatedly ventured outdoors with a mug of tea or biscuits for the shepherd, who sent him away each time, with a wave of his cold red hand.

Luna had no luck with the Baron. She climbed up from the dungeon for dinner at seven, looking unshaken but disappointed. Apparently the Slytherin ghost had simply refused to acknowledge her presence, except to stare at her once or twice with wide, deranged eyes.

Dinner ended and everyone dispersed through the castle. Euphemius agreed to use the Transfiguration courtyard to pen in his flock for the night, and sat stalwart under the naked oak tree as night painted over the sky.

I climbed the lonely stairs to the Hospital Wing. Remus was lying under a hump of blankets, a tall new candle sitting on the table by the bed. He turned to look when I came in and I paused for a moment under the archway, struggling under a wave of all his misery. My heart squeezed painfully tight, and I went to sit beside him, letting Poppy have her dinner.

He drifted off to sleep at nine while I was reading to him. He'd been groggy all evening, and we hadn't spoken much. Pouncer was off prowling somewhere, and Poppy had returned to her office to exchange patronuses with her St. Mungo's contact.

I stood from the chair, shouldering off the heavy quilt which had kept me warm, and laid it over the other blankets covering Remus. His face was exhausted in sleep, but I trusted the purple dreamless sleep potion to guard his mind from any nightmares. I looked at him for a moment, and then went on quiet feet out of the room.

George was waiting, as we'd planned, in the small nook near the door that led out to the hill and Hagrid's cabin. Shadows filled the narrow corridor, and his face seemed even more angular than earlier in the half-darkness. He'd put on a heavy cloak for the cold, and I made do with warming spells, enforcing them before we stepped out the door into the knife-sharp wind.

We walked down the hill side by side in silence, casting no wandlight. Owls hooted in the blackness of the deep forest ahead, and the wind moaned softly around the turrets of the castle behind us. We were coming up to Hagrid's garden when my senses pricked up and I paused, looking back towards the hill.

A dark figure strode down it, swathed in black robes, black hair whipped by the wind. I knew him at once, and my body stiffened, my wand flaring hot in my hand as it anticipated opposition. He must have been awake, and seen us through his chamber window.

George turned as well, feeling the change in the air, and muttered darkly under his breath. He seemed about to move, but I barred my arm across his ribs, holding him back. "I'll deal with him."

The wind burned through my warming charms as I walked over the brittle grass to meet him. We grew closer and closer until we both stopped, two arm's lengths between us, the air as thick as stone. It was impossible to take a single step closer.

His black eyes searched mine. "Another suicide mission?"

"It has nothing to do with you."

"Are you certain this wasn't a test?" His mouth twisted into an unpleasant smirk and my wand practically crackled in my hand.

"You think I wanted you to stop me?"

"Another of your scenes."

"What scenes?" I said, my voice dangerously quiet. "List for me my scenes."

"Must I? We'll be here all night."

A flare of hatred lit me up from within and the realisation crossed my mind–like a comet–that it was the strongest, hottest hatred I'd ever felt. Not even for Malfoy, or for Rookwood, had I felt hatred so consuming. This kind of hatred was reserved for Severus–and I knew it stemmed from an emotion entirely different. The pain in my chest when he'd called me Miss Weasley was proof enough of that.

My wand throbbed in my hand. "Why are you here? I thought I was your student again."

"It's my responsibility to protect students."

The sheer coldness of his voice awoke my bitterness. "If you haven't noticed, the school's been shut down. You don't have any responsibilities at present, Sir."

I could see I'd stung him and there was a pinprick of satisfaction in me. Who was this fierce, cruel young woman? I didn't recognise her. I didn't know where my soul was, but it certainly wasn't here. Hibernating deep inside, perhaps. Too bruised and tired to emerge.

His face was still. A scornful breath huffed through my nose. "What, can't stomach your own poison?"

He looked down as though he were considering something, but there was a dark shine in his eyes that told me he was about to cast another barb in my direction. I put up a last-moment wall against whatever was on its way, making myself cold. But it was destined to fail.

"It's only that… If you die… It will be unfortunate for your werewolf."

Defences crumbling, I stepped forward, my wand threatening to act out. I felt my eyes burning out of my skull. "Don't call him that."

His eyes glittered with freezing victory. "Apologies. Your lycanthrope."

"I swear to Godric I will hex you."

"Lycanthrope is the more respectful term, is it not?"

I lunged forward, losing all control, staring up into his face, drowning in that horrible, singular hatred. "Shall I call you a Death Eater or a Knight of Walpurgis? Which is the more respectful term?"

His hand closed around my arm, as firm as a vise, and he looked down his nose at me. "Do not tempt me."

"Don't tempt me!"

"Get away from her!"

I twisted around to see George just behind me, his wand aimed at Severus's chest. The ragged flesh where his ear had once been seemed awfully pronounced, and I felt the hand around my arm relax just enough for me to wrench it free.

"Don't bother, George."

I didn't look back at Severus once as I took George's hand and pulled him with me, past the dead garden and into the pines. Soon the darkness of the trees and the sharp cold scent of the forest surrounded us.

George and I kept our silence as we walked, far past the boundary of the wards, both of us too benumbed by layers of pain and anger to be frightened.

"Should have brought one of the wolves," George said, his breath clouding in the blackness. "Can't track them ourselves."

I took a moment to renew the warming spells, as my skin had become tingly in places.

"We'll find them," he continued. "If it takes days, we'll find them."

"We don't have many days."

A twig snapped nearby and my heart raced. I drew in a gasp and stepped closer to George, my eyes urgently scanning the surrounding forest.

George saw it first, a choked sound catching in his throat. I turned to look, and there he was. Fred, the missing piece. The third leg of our tottering stool. It seemed that, if he were here, we all three could have miraculously travelled back in time and become our younger selves. Two mischievous twelve year old twins and an eleven year old girl, tromping over the pine needles as we served detention.

My heart thumped hopefully for a moment, then sank into my stomach. I gripped my wand more firmly and averted my eyes from the creature's, looking up at George. I realised this was the first time he'd seen one of them, and knew for certain that it showed him the same face it showed me.

"George," I warned, sensing the desperation in his body, seeing the way his eyes were glued to the imitation of his twin. "It's not him. Don't look."

My warnings fell on deaf ears. George took a step forward and my pulse hammered in my neck as I tried to hold him back. "It will walk away. Look at me. George, look at me–"

He pushed me back and I stumbled, a jolt of panic finally stabbing up through my stomach as George went forward, succumbing to the lure of the creature. "Stop!" I shouted, as the creature stepped forward, cocking its head slightly and reaching out its hand to George. "George, stop!"

The creature glanced at me and I shut my eyes on instinct, remembering Hallowe'en night. There was the quiet sound of footsteps on the cold forest floor, and then quiet.

"George?"

My voice was swallowed whole by the darkness of the forest.

"...George?"

Keeping my eyes closed I held out my wand, the fingers of my free hand trembling as they searched the cold air in front of me. I took one unsteady footstep, then another, waves of dread rolling through me.

I took small, quiet steps, going bravely towards where I'd seen George with the creature. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as I drew closer, and I came to a stop when I sensed the presence of a body, just in front of my searching fingers. My lips parted but I didn't speak a word. I knew it was not George. The body gave off no heat, and I stood there trembling.

I might have turned into a statue had more footsteps come into hearing range behind me, startling in their speed. No sooner had I heard them than a sharp whimper split the cold air from just in front of me, along with the loud crack of a spell. I drew back in shock, covering my eyes with my hand and standing paralysed, with a pounding heart.

A hand closed around my shoulder. I drew in a breath worthy of a scream, but let it out in a weak moan of relief when I recognised the specific pressure of the touch.

"You will be my death one day."

I looked out between my fingers at Severus and let my hand fall. His tone was hollow, neither brutality nor sarcasm tainting it.

George lay paralysed on the ground nearby, and just in front of me lay the creature, thoroughly bound about the legs, arms strapped to its sides, a strip of cloth covering its eyes. It struggled, but only slightly. Ripples of effort building and fading. Severus stared down at it, his face pale, his eyes blacker than ever.

The anger from before was cooled into a cold tolerance by the circumstances. He must have been following a safe distance behind us. I knew who he saw there on the ground and had to avert my eyes, going on shaking legs to George.

My throat turned to stone as I knelt beside him. We'd been idiots to run off into the woods with nothing to guide us to Magnus's camp. Idiots to defy Arthur's warnings. I knew the fault was only half mine, but the sight of George lying still on the forest floor made me feel like a villain, and dragged the memory of Fred's corpse from the shadows. I sat there numbly for a long moment, and looked over my shoulder to see Severus in a similar state.

He looked up, sensing my gaze, and briefly I saw the deepest pain in his eyes. Then he locked me out again, slamming the cold doors shut. "Alert the Ministry."

I might have challenged him to do it himself, but my spirit was no longer motivated to fight. Kneeling beside George, I waved my wand to cast my patronus, the blue light turning his face ghostly. "One of the creatures has been captured and bound in the Forbidden Forest. We are taking it back to Hogwarts." I sent the message off to Kingsley, and we were left in silence again.

I looked at Severus, who was staring down at the creature with deep lines of nausea in his face. I rose and stood near him. "I'll handle it. You take George."

With a single nod he agreed, and tore his eyes away from the creature. I bent down to hook my arm around the creature's. It was as cold as death, and it shuddered at my touch. I remembered how the pale clay-like beings had limped away from the stone circle on the night of their birth, and despite all of the suffering they had caused I felt a quiet pang of pity. They hadn't asked to be created.

We apparated back to the edge of the wards and walked out of the forest into the grounds. Without a word we ascended the hill, Severus carrying George in his arms and the creature hovering in the air at my side.

Impending dread filled me as we neared the castle. Arthur was going to be furious with me.

We walked along the lamplit tapestry corridor and Kingsley's lynx appeared. "Keep it in the Great Hall and two aurors will come to bring it back shortly."

Severus took George up the stairs to find Poppy, and I took the creature into the Great Hall. I let it fall onto the table and cast another binding charm on it, tying it to the table to be safe. It had given up struggling now and I just stared at it, Fred's lanky limbs and red hair.

The large fire swelled under a minute later, and a witch and a wizard I didn't recognise stepped out. Both pairs of eyes were drawn at once to the creature on the table, and both pairs of eyes widened.

I had to admit that Malfoy's idea had been ingenious. After the war, there wasn't a person alive who hadn't lost someone they'd cared about to some degree. Nobody was entirely immune to the creatures.

The aurors looked up at me, their training overcoming any temptation they felt. I stared back through the silence.

"Is it safe to touch?" the witch asked.

I nodded.

Together they took hold of the creature, supporting its weight between them. The witch reached into the pocket of her travelling cloak and withdrew a vial of floo powder, which she tossed into the flames without wasting a moment.

"Take care," said the wizard, glancing back at me.

And they stepped forward and disappeared in a green rush of flames.

I lingered there in the loneliness of the Great Hall for some time, and then picked up my feet and climbed the stairs to the Hospital Wing.

Poppy had awoken and was leaning over George as Severus touched his forehead, trying in vain to look into his mind. He shook his head in frustration as I walked in, his black eyes fraught with exhaustion.

"You saw none of it?" he asked me.

I shook my head, angry at myself as I remembered how I'd covered my eyes.

Severus seemed to catch the essence of my thoughts. "The old hat seems to have made an error."

I stared at him silently, extremely conscious of Remus's sleeping form in the bed at the far end of the room, and didn't respond. Poppy looked at me gravely, ignoring Severus's insult. "We should alert Arthur and Ginny."

Dread poured into me from crown to toe, but I nodded my head, knowing it was inevitable.

"I'll find them," Severus said, his voice laced with cruelty.

He left, and Poppy and I stood silently over George's motionless frame.

It was no more than two minutes before there were footsteps and raised voices on the stairs outside. Arthur appeared first, his face completely drained. He saw George and looked like he might collapse. Instead he crossed the room and sat on the edge of the narrow bed, his hands shaking as he took in his son's motionless face. Ginny entered the archway moments later and ran to the bedside, her face equally pale. Severus stood on the threshold, his arms crossed.

Shock vibrated around the bed. I knew that both Arthur and Ginny were feeling what I'd felt in the woods; an echo of seeing Fred gone. It lasted a moment, and then Arthur broke it, turning to face me. There was anger in his eyes and his pale face, more than I'd ever seen in him before. "What were you thinking!" he scolded, his voice so sharp and loud I flinched.

"Dad!" Ginny cried, though I wasn't certain she was any less upset with me.

"Voices down," Poppy said. But the damage was done–there was a shifting of blankets at the other end of the room. Remus had woken, caught between bleariness and hypervigilance. Poppy went to him and I looked away, my heart beating out the quick rhythm of a trapped animal.

"I meant what I said at the meeting," Arthur said, his eyes brimming with shock and disappointment. "If you try to enter the forest again after this I'll have no choice but to disown you."

"Dad!" Ginny exclaimed again, tears running down her face. She had one hand on George's shoulder and the other reached out to squeeze my arm. "Listen to yourself! Don't be ridiculous! I'm sure George wanted to go just as much as Wilma. Right?" She looked at me earnestly through tear-drowned eyes, but I was unable to answer.

Arthur's threat was buzzing through my head. I felt completely alone, all the threads that I trusted fraying thinner and thinner.

He looked at me, his eyes like stones dragging me down into despair. "I will do anything I can to keep you safe, because I love you. I won't threaten you… I'm not myself…"

He stood, looking like a man who'd just walked out of battle. "Excuse me. I need to tell Molly…"

He leaned down, kissing George on the forehead. "Oh, my boy…" He stood up again, tears already falling from his eyes as he walked unsteadily out of the room.

I sank into a chair, broken.

Ginny's shoulders shook with sobs as she smoothed George's hair. "He shouldn't have said that," she cried. "He didn't mean it."

"Oh, I think he did," Severus drawled from the doorway.

Ginny stood, staring him down as though she were two heads taller than him. "You don't know! Wilma feels bad enough!"

"Everybody stop!" Poppy's voice strained. Her face was worn thin with stress. "Anyone who is not prepared to be silent, leave now!"

Severus turned and disappeared without another word. Ginny remained, holding her hand over her mouth as she looked at George's stone-still face and cried. I pushed myself up from my chair and stared catatonically around the room. My eyes landed briefly on Remus, who was staring back at me with a shocked gaze. I looked away, unable to face anyone or process what had happened, and walked out of the room.

Severus had already vacated the short corridor and I wandered emptily to the tall peaked window at the end. I stared out of it at the pale clouds crossing the dark sky, constantly hiding and revealing the sharp white moon.

After a while I wandered down the stairs, my feet leading me along the many corridors and passageways of the castle. After many weary hours I sat down on a wide windowsill and drifted into a sleep thorny with guilt, my forehead pressed against the cold glass.

My limbs were numb when I woke the next morning. The sky outside the frozen window was streaked with pink clouds and the tops of the dark green pines of the forest moved in the wind. I shifted and my nerves lit up with pins and needles, my stomach giving an agitated growl. I couldn't remember when I'd eaten last, but knew I hadn't had anything yesterday.

I leant against the stone windowsill, slowly flexing my muscles until there was enough feeling in them to stand on my own. I stared up at the candle in the nearest sconce, the flame quivering on its wick. A tempus charm told it was nearly nine, and I was surprised at myself for sleeping so late.

The events of the previous night weighed heavy on my shoulders as I walked towards the grand staircase. I dreaded seeing George's paralysed body, but needed to make an appearance in the Hospital Wing. Remus would be wondering if I was alright.

Poppy was awake and sitting in a chair at his bedside, feeding him broth by the spoonful. She glanced at me when I entered. "If you take over I'll get the potion."

"No. I want to go." I needed the excuse to confront Severus.

Poppy was silent for a moment, seeming to understand this. "I also need more invigoration draught."

My gaze drifted to George's body, covered in a blue blanket. Part of me had hoped it had all been a nightmare. But the sight of him proved it all real. I stared at him for a moment and then looked away.

Remus had managed to swallow the last spoonful of broth. "Good morning," he said weakly, his eyes trying to search mine.

"Good morning," I echoed, looking away.

The warm scent of the broth reached my nose and my stomach growled.

"For Merlin's sake eat something on your way, Miss Weasley," Poppy snapped. "You're bad off enough already without making it worse for yourself. Take this."

She held out the goblet from which Remus had taken his first dose yesterday morning, and I took it.

Remus's eyes flickered to Poppy's face and then back to me, warm with concern. My heart palpitated and his eyes widened slightly as his sharp ears picked up on the sound. I turned and fled the room.

I stopped by the potions storeroom and broke in using alohomora like a mischievous student. I climbed up the ladder a couple of rungs and filled my pocket with vials of invigoration draught. Locking the door with another spell, I proceeded to the entrance hall. Only Neville and Luna were in the Great Hall, Neville talking quietly, his arm around Luna's shoulders as she ate.

"We heard about George!" Luna said when I stepped inside.

"And the creature," Neville added.

I neither spoke nor nodded, only took an apple from the table and bit into it. I felt too nauseous to stomach anything heartier.

"Don't blame yourself," Neville said. "George would be glad to know we got one of them. One step closer to figuring out how to stop the lot of them."

"Have you tried with the Baron again?" I asked Luna.

"Not yet," she said. "I'll go downstairs once I've eaten."

Silence fell and I wandered to the other end of the hall where I finished the apple, before walking out again.

The dungeons were freezing cold and unlit. I knocked three times on Severus's door and waited, the tension in my spine building as I listened for the sound of his footsteps on the other side. I had to knock again before I heard them.

He opened the door abruptly and looked down at me, his eyes like charcoal in the dark grey light.

"What," he snapped.

I held out the goblet.

He snatched it and turned on his heel, leaving the door ajar, and this time I stepped over the threshold, closing it behind me. He stiffened and looked over his shoulder at me when he heard the sound, his face harsh with suspicion. Then he looked away again, dipping the goblet into the cauldron.

My eyes took in the cold unshuttered windows, the meagre fire on the hearth, the strange specimens in murky jars. The thought of him hiding from the world in this miserable cave, as he had done so long before, tore a small hole in me.

"We're being senseless," I said, through a mounting sense of vertigo. "I'd rather pain than lies."

He turned with a sour look on his face, setting the goblet on the table. "Don't speak in riddles."

"You love me."

"I don't."

I studied him, searching for truth, but I couldn't find it. A wall had been put up between two gardens–his soul and mine–and I couldn't see over it.

"Are you lying?" I asked.

He didn't respond and I had to struggle to keep bitterness out of my voice. "That wasn't a rhetorical question. You're very good at it after what you had to do. So I can't tell."

"Ah yes, you do relish reminding me of what I had to do."

A pinprick of guilt bored through my hard shell. "I shouldn't have said those things. I shouldn't have slapped you either."

"But you're not sorry."

I felt rooted to the floor, and my voice dropped to a near whisper. "Is it a comforting thought that nobody in the whole world cares about you? Because anyone would think it given what you've said and done since Remus came back."

He said nothing, regarding me with his dark unmoving eyes. I felt my hands trembling and clasped them tightly in front of me. "If it really is a comfort to you then you're going to have to be uncomfortable because I do care about you and I don't think I can stop."

The fire crackled and the wind whistled outside the window. Severus's imposing presence had shrunken to exhaustion, but even with a layer of his defences removed it was impossible to see his true thoughts.

He picked up the goblet again and brought it to me, holding it out.

I looked up at him, hoping for some small signal, but he didn't give one. I took the goblet and stepped aside as he opened the door.

"When," he said, his voice resounding softly in the black corridor.

It took me a moment to realise that he was talking about the Ministry letter I'd left with him last time.

I waited to feel some surge of anxiety in my gut. But there was nothing. "The twenty-first, at nine."

He nodded stiffly, and I walked out.

The door closed quietly behind me.

Remus managed to keep down the goblet of Wolfsbane, followed by a vial of invigoration draught. Poppy went to attend to her personal needs and we were left alone. The potion would keep his mind sharp for a while, and then he would fade back into exhaustion, to sleep through most of the day as his body attempted to heal in the darkening shadow of the impending moon. But in the time before then he was very alert, and watched me with a silence so profound that I almost squirmed under his gaze.

George's presence filled the room like smoke, and I looked over at him from time to time, guilt buried deep. I tried reading to Remus, but it was no use. I kept losing my place, or trailing off and staring at the white space at the end of the line.

Remus brought me back from one of these absences with his hand on mine. I looked up at him, blinking away my dissociation.

"Sorry."

"It's alright."

I tried to move my hand away but the invigoration draught had given him just enough strength, and he squeezed my hand to keep it there.

He spoke slowly, as much from caution over his words as the weakness of his voice. "I shouldn't have asked you to see. You've been upset."

I tugged my hand away, holding onto the small red book with white knuckles. "I'm upset at everything right now. It's not your fault."

"You should be upset with me. I should have stayed with you."

"It's in the past."

A painful pause covered us. I stared out the window, the sun now obscured behind thin grey clouds, shedding silver light.

"Your baby," Remus murmured.

I looked at him again, his blue eyes full of remorse.

"I didn't want it either." My words had been meant to be consoling, but he only looked hurt. My heart stung, and a pang of bitterness struck my gut. "I'm not the same," I said, my voice harder than before. "If you're hoping for sweet, tolerant Wilma… I'm not sure where she went."

I stood and started folding blankets, though there was no reason to. I could feel him looking at me, and wished that he wouldn't.

"Was Malfoy lying?"

The question came suddenly, and I could tell it had been long pent-up inside him. I remembered the pensieve, Malfoy's pale, mad face framed by the black opening of the trapdoor. "I had your wife, half-breed."

I swallowed.

"He wasn't lying."

Remus's eyes were filled by a rush of tears, which overflowed onto his face. I returned to him and sat on the edge of his bed, giving him a handkerchief. But it was no use. He couldn't hold it up for the shaking of his arms, and the tears didn't stop for long enough. I held the white fabric uselessly in my fist.

His eyes were full of horror, swimming in their tears. "It was my fault. Oh, God, it was my fault…"

I put my hand on his arm and he gave an agonised sob. "Would you have come back?"

"I don't know! Wilma, I don't know…"

"It isn't your fault."

He could not be consoled, and I sat with him for a small age before his tears ebbed away. His eyes were closed and small waves of distress kept rippling through his shoulders. "I am so sorry," he whispered.

"I know you are."

For a few moments a seam was torn in the cover of clouds and the brightness of the sun peeped through. I narrowed my eyes against it, feeling its warmth on my face through the glass. Then the clouds moved and it was gone again.

"We've come to the end," I said, holding the red book. "I'll go get something new. Any requests?"

He shook his head, and I pressed his hand once before standing and walking towards the arch.

His voice stopped me, halfway across the flagstones. "Wilma."

I stopped in my tracks and looked back at him. His eyes were full of a desperate yearning, mingled with shame. There was a pause so long that my heart began to pound. "What?" I said.

"Don't leave me."

My heart contracted, and I felt paralysed there in the centre of the room. I opened my mouth to respond, but there were no words in my mind, and no sound came out.

His eyes flickered downward and then up again, as though he were forcing himself to look at me. I could see his soul right there in his eyes, and felt like a stone in the face of it. As though he were real, and I had somehow drifted halfway into death.

His voice wavered.

"I don't mean… Go to the library. But don't leave me… inside. Don't go away. Don't go cold. Please."

Silence fell, but there were remnants of his meaning flying through the air. I weighed each part of myself and found them all too heavy to hold emotion. I didn't feel even the faintest threat of tears. He was still watching me, hoping for an answer, but I couldn't give him one. I turned and escaped.

We did not speak of it when I returned. I read to him from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and later helped Poppy to give him more broth.

I slept the night in the bed beside Remus's and when I woke Arthur was there, sat beside George. Deep shadows were drawn under his eyes and I knew he'd been awake through the dark hours.

He looked over at me when I sat up under my blankets, and for a moment I was reminded of the night the Burrow had been burned to the ground, and we had spent the night with the Lovegoods. I'd stayed with Fred in a small bed in one of the spare rooms, unable to sleep. Around midnight the door had quietly opened and Arthur had looked in to check on us. I could remember his face as though it were yesterday, the shadows upon it, and the look of grave concern and dread.

Now the shock of that night had soured and rotted to utter defeat, and his face seemed to have aged ten years. Yet there was still the fundamental goodness in his eyes.

"I'm sorry for how I reacted yesterday," he said. "You are my daughter, and always will be." He paused, and I waited for some tension in my throat to forebode tears, feeling nothing.

"But Wilma… I don't want to see you get into a… a… tangle."

I looked down, unable to quite meet his eyes. Remus's presence was as powerful as the cold and silent moon. "I won't."

"Just… be careful."

Luna came into the hospital wing some minutes later, when I'd made up the bed and sat down on George's other side. She carried a breakfast plate and regarded Arthur and me gently.

"I knew you'd have been up all night," she said to Arthur, setting the plate down on the table by George's bed.

"Thank you, Luna," he murmured. "Any progress with the Baron?"

"No… he's not in the dungeon where he was. I suppose he went somewhere else to escape the questioning. I hope I didn't annoy him."

"I'm going to look for him."

My voice left me without my permission, stating my will before I'd thought it through. But my will it was, and when I said it I knew it was right. I would seek out the Baron and question him myself, discover the origins of the stone if he knew them. Only that way could I atone for what had happened to George.

Luna's eyebrows lifted. "Good luck finding a ghost that doesn't want to be found."

I found Sir Nicholas hovering in the dead-end corridor near the transfiguration courtyard, which led to a large window overlooking the grounds.

"Sheep!" he huffed, when I came near. "To think!"

I joined him in staring out the window at the many white sheep, Euphemius wrapped in his cloaks nearby. A faint coldness emanated from the ghost, like snow brought indoors.

"Sir Nicholas?"

"Yes?"

"Do you know where the Bloody Baron is?"

A shiver went through Sir Nicholas's translucent form, and his eyebrows lowered in disapproval. "Why in the name of Godric are you seeking out that creepy fellow?"

"I need to speak to him."

The ghost gave me a wary expression. "His regular haunt is the second dungeon."

"He isn't there."

"If not there, he might be lurking somewhere on the third floor. But I do discourage you from going there. I myself would never speak to him. And he might not like you bothering him."

I felt an unexpected wry smile move my lips. "The worst he can do is run me through with his nonexistent dagger."

Sir Nicholas shuddered. "Nonexistent thought it may be, it is not a pleasant feeling."

I looked out the window at the sheep. I was certain I'd experienced less pleasant feelings.

Sir Nicholas humphed. "Well. You are a Gryffindor, after all. Run along and look for him."

"Thank you, Sir Nicholas."

"Anytime, anytime."

I found the Baron in a dark spiralling stairway among carved stone monsters. He faintly glowed in the pale light of my wand, and in its halo I also saw, to my surprise, Pouncer, sitting on the second stone step. He gave a faint purr when I approached and the Baron turned, revealing his permanently harrowed face and blood-stained coat.

His beady eyes were like the hollow eyes of statues and I grew cold as they regarded me. "Your mistress?" he whispered.

Pouncer gave a quiet meow.

The Baron drifted closer and I dimmed my lumos respectfully. The quality of his coldness was quite different from Sir Nicholas' and I had the urge to step back. But Pouncer seemed to have befriended him, and I trusted the kneazle's judgement.

He stopped mere inches from me, his mournful face looking down into mine. Each word was heavy with melancholy.

"I can see your aching heart."

His dark eyes wandered downward, as though he really could see into me, see that glowing red organ.

"I assume you've come to speak with me. I didn't care for the other girl. She was too pure. I don't like pure people. Do you think you are pure?"

I nearly trembled from the truth of it. "No."

"Good. It is better to know." He nodded seriously, and drifted away as though on some slow wave of thought. "You are here to ask about this silver stone she mentioned?"

I nodded.

"Yes, I remember it."

I was taken aback by the simplicity of the answer, and a fire was lit inside me. "Do you know what it is?"

The ghost spoke very slowly, as though his very thoughts had slowed over many centuries of death. I fought to keep my patience.

"One of Salazar's projects. He wanted to create a magical object with the power to bring back the dead. Not a shade, like the Resurrection stone, or an Inferius. To truly bring back one lost to him. A beloved."

Here the Baron paused, and Pouncer watched him with his wide green eyes, as though understanding the silence more deeply than I could.

"It was an idea that he pursued in his darkest time, and it failed miserably. He created the stone, but the resulting magic produced only a monstrous imitation of a body, which in the end he had to destroy."

"How did he destroy it?"

"He reversed the curse he'd used along with the stone. It was sunk in the bottom of the Black Lake, deemed a failure."

"How does nobody know about this?"

"It was never recorded. He was ashamed of it. Before his death he burned the notes from all his failed projects, so no-one would ever see his failures, or turn them into their own successes. The dark side of ambition."

"Well, the notes must have survived."

The Baron's face was drawn. "I understood from the other girl that you are troubled by a group of creatures. But she has a circular way of talking."

"The creatures were created by a… vengeful man. Using the stone. We do not know where it is now. The creatures' victims–"

"Victims?" the Baron said, his eyes widening slightly.

I nodded. "They've been attacking people. The victims fall into a deep sleep. Legilimency can't penetrate it, and they can't be woken."

"Only the bearer of the stone could undo it. Who is this vengeful man?"

"Lucius Malfoy."

The Baron hissed at the name, and glided back and forth slowly as though pacing. "Malfoy. Armand Malfoy… A snake. Always nearby… waiting for a peek at Salazar's plans. He might have stolen the notes before his death and taken them into his own library."

The puzzle pieces connected in my mind. Malfoy must have entrusted the notes to Baddock, along with the stone, before his removal to Azkaban. And the creatures would not be stopped until the stone and the notes were found, and used to enact a countercurse.

I thanked the Baron, my heartbeat quickening in anticipation of delivering the news to Minerva. As I turned to leave the shadowy stairwell, Pouncer following at my heels, I heard the Baron's ghostly voice behind me.

"Oh, you poor living."

His words struck a chord in me, the first warm feeling I'd experienced all day.

When I looked over my shoulder, he was gone.

NOTE

Updates are much slower than they once were, but thank you as always for reading! I'm very grateful for those of you who have stayed with the story this far, through all its twists and turns. As always I deeply appreciate reviews!