NOTE

Warning for depression and brief references to past gore.

88. Baddock

We met the others on a pier, the ink-black waves of the cold North Sea whispering around the barnacled wooden beams below. Snow fell over the waters, the heavens heavy and silent with it, keeping the ears of the gods closed to us.

Despite the weight and warmth of the travelling cloak, I shivered as we stood there waiting. I stared into the feathery darkness, only brought back to life by the soft pop of apparation which signalled the arrival of Bill, and an auror who introduced himself as Hugo.

Bill hid his surprise at the sight of my hair, and from the firmness in his eyes when he looked at me I knew he had heard of Lucius's death, and was glad of it.

Trelawney and Professor Reed arrived shortly after, Sybill sharing long embraces with Minerva. With them was a man around Severus's age, who introduced himself as Gabriel.

I recognised the name at once, brought back to that morning in Andromeda's kitchen in Hunston, when she'd returned from a night in France elated to have met a new lover. Gabriel remembered me as the girl who had answered the patronus he'd sent to St. Mungo's, telling him why Andromeda had seemingly abandoned him.

"You are the girl that led me to Andi," he said, reaching for my cold hands. "Merci."

I instinctively pulled back when he leaned in to kiss my cheek. But when I submitted there was something very warm about it. Unexpected friendship in this desolate and frozen place. Severus looked less than pleased when I next caught his eye. But he swiftly looked away, and so did I.

There was no-one else to wait for, so together we made our plan.

Poppy's hope for our quick return proved futile. It was a week's journey out of Calais, along the northern coasts of Normandy and Brittany, then south along the Bay of Biscay.

The days were filled with the cold sound of the sea. We were now far more powerful than all the living fugitives, and knew Baddock posed a small threat. Yet we could waste no time in finding him. The beds in St. Mungo's were filling up with victims of the creatures, and we couldn't be sure how long Baddock would remain in his current hideaway.

There would doubtless be wards surrounding the place. Whenever in our journey we found a location that resembled what I'd seen in my vision–lonely fields leading towards cliffs and sea–we would make ourselves undetectable, then surround the spot and use spells to detect wards. There never were any, and we would remain for no more than an hour before moving on.

My body was thin. I could notice the difference when I walked, when one hand closed around the other wrist, when I tucked my hair behind my ear. The time for my period came and there was no blood. I knew it wasn't because of pregnancy.

Walking became a religion. That there would be another step after the present one was the only guarantee. And as I walked my thoughts ran away on the wind, leaving me only with the space in my brain. Quiet.

But the weather and the land turned earth to purgatory. Snow and rain and wind, bitter cold freezing my body away to nothing but the bones and the frail heart. I almost wished for blood between my legs, for the smallest warmth it might provide.

Sometimes, looking out into the greyness of the blended sky and sea, I forgot that Remus was alive and safe. Forgot what month it was, what year, my name.

I had learned to hold things inside, tightly, so that they couldn't be seen. Not even by myself. I'd learned to keep my soul in a state of night, so that everything inside of me that could hurt me was diminished to a shadow–and I did this without knowing.

Many times as we walked through the snow I found myself looking at Severus. His blackness against the cold grey background of the snowy air. Knowing that this, this inner darkness, was how he had always survived. Understanding how addictive it was, not to feel.

On the third day we stayed at the inn where Andromeda and Gabriel had met. A white house, desolate in the piercing winter rain. The door was opened to us at once, and Gabriel exchanged greetings in French with the middle-aged witch and wizard who ran the inn. They understood who we were, and invited us into the otherwise empty place with caring eyes and open hospitality.

There was warm food to eat and I managed some of it, as well as a mug of hot tea.

I realised that the woman was looking after me more than the others because I was the youngest, and small. Her hair was brown turning to grey. She brought me things, never speaking to me, only communicating in nods and glances, never touching me. I sensed that she somehow understood. That she knew everything that had happened to me.

Gabriel spoke to the couple of where we had been and what our mission was. In the lamp- and fire-light I could see what had attracted Andromeda to him. The kind bones of his face. But the war had soured his expression, and the glow I had imagined him to have when she'd described him had faded. I hoped it might be brought back once the creatures were destroyed; hoped he would still love Andromeda when she woke up.

We were given rooms for the night, and I spent an hour sitting in the bath trying to warm my weary bones. Though the water should have long grown cold, my magic kept it warm without effort. Even then, I still felt weak inside. I dried myself and put on the same clothes as before, scourgified.

Trelawney and Reed had the room on the other side of the wall and the sound of their gentle snoring kept my eyes open.

Snowflakes were sticking to the window that faced the sea. After staring at them for some time I stood and crept from the room, venturing downstairs.

The fire was still going and Severus was awake, sitting in one of the wooden chairs in front of it.

I saw him from halfway down the stairs and paused for a moment. Though I knew he must have heard the steps creaking he didn't turn around. I stood still on the middle step, tempted to abandon my decision and return to my room.

From the angle of his head and his slightly hunched shoulders, someone else might have thought he'd fallen asleep sitting up. I knew him better.

He seemed aware of me. There was a heaviness in him, but not the sharpness that would have sent a clear message that he wanted to be alone. His silence was an unfamiliar kind of invitation.

Proceeding more slowly, I descended the rest of the stairs and went to the window by the bolted inn door.

The sky outside was so dark with snow that the window glass was black, reflecting the firelight. I had to squint to see the waves moving beyond the grey strip of beach. For a minute I stared, until I began to think I saw things in them. Creatures rising out of the curls of water. Dead-eyed Fred, and Greyback, and Lucius with his half-torn body. I turned around before they could limp any closer and kept my back to the window from then on. There might have been monsters looking in, but they couldn't hurt me unless I looked back.

Severus cut a dark black silhouette against the glowing light from the hearth, and I stood there looking at his unmoving shoulders.

All along our journey, he hadn't once protested against my presence. Hadn't told me to remove myself to a safe place. And his silence hadn't exactly been unnerving either.

He was still wearing his black clothes, his long coat buttoned up to the collar, wrists concealed by his black sleeves. I'd never seen him in anything but black or the darkest shades of other dark colours. Imprisoned beneath an imposition of his darkest side.

We could have been in separate worlds, an invisible line of space and time drawn across the centre of the room. But the firelight still flowed into my corner, and it illuminated my love for him. A steady thing inside of me, gnawing but familiar.

My feet carried me to him.

"Sev."

He was looking into the fire, his head bowed so that I could not see his eyes. Whether they were light like water, or dark like unlit coals.

"Why won't you sleep?" I murmured.

Still he did not answer, and I felt an uncommon bravery, soft, rise in my chest. "Come to bed with me."

"No."

Each fibre and string in my body came to stillness, listening to the sound of his voice. The stillness was so feminine, my most inner part awaiting whatever part of his spirit might convey itself through a word or two.

His hand moved very slightly on the wooden armrest. "I never want to hurt you again."

"I only meant to sleep."

"I meant your heart."

A long pause followed, the fire making small sounds.

He looked up at me then, and there was that hint of amber in his eyes which was only ever present in certain angles of light.

"You're so young," he said, his voice quietly strained.

I hadn't expected those words, but recognised one of his attempts at pushing me away–even if it was gentle. I shook my head, my hand going to my old woman's hair. "Looking for any excuse now, aren't you. It never bothered you before."

"Wilma. You're twenty years younger than me."

"Numbers," I said.

But for the first time I sensed he really was troubled by this. Perhaps it had bothered him before.

He blinked and began to look away, but just before he did I caught sight of a tear falling from his eye. It was the only one, standing on his cheek. I reached for it but he stood up, turning his shoulder to me as he stood by the wall.

"You should never have been burdened with this in the first place," he said, still facing away. "It's unfair."

"I thought unfairness was dependable. I thought you put faith in it."

"You are too gentle," he answered steadily.

"If you saw my insides…"

"I have" Still he did not turn, and I felt the tension in his stiffened shoulders as though it were my own. Of course he had taken liberties with my mind in the many hours we'd been walking. Taken a walk through the shallows when my attention was elsewhere. "I do. That darkness is not real yet. Not like mine. You… can walk out of it."

The hopelessness in his voice made my own eyes well, and I took a step towards him, my arms reaching out to comfort him. "Sev–"

"Don't," he interrupted, in that familiar snap. He turned halfway, just enough to hold one arm out, blocking me from him. "Go back to bed."

"Severus."

I was frayed down to a thread, and nothing mattered anymore. I went to him, slipping under his arm and claiming his body in a sudden embrace, burying my head against his chest and squeezing him as though daring him to push me away.

I felt the tension in his body as he let out a quiet growl of resistance, his arms lifted away from me. Then my magic curled gently out of me, a small tendril of it reaching through my chest and into his. A soft moan of emotion escaped him and he gave in, arms wrapping around me, hugging me close.

"You make me weak," he whispered.

I felt my tears soaking the black fabric that hid his heart. "I wish I were strong enough to make you strong."

"It's not your responsibility," he said, with a hard edge of pain.

"It's my duty."

His hand was on my hair, his fingertips sliding gently through it, sending tingles of warmth across my skull.

"You incorrigible witch," he murmured. "You maddening woman."

And I realised that he had never called me a woman before. He'd called me girl in anger and reproach. But never woman.

For what seemed a small age I stayed there, listening to his heart, feeling the hardness of his torso as my belly swelled with breath.

"Go," he said, at length. "Sleep."

But he was still holding me close and I would stay there until he forced me to leave.

"What about you?" I said.

"Don't think of me."

"Impossible." I wrapped my arms harder around him. "I want to hold you."

"And you're the only one who can."

He let out a long sigh, and the warmth of his arms disappeared as he reached behind his back, slowly pulling my hands off of him and pushing me away. He let go of me once I was at a safe distance, his eyes making my soul tremble. I tried to close the gap again but his palms flattened in the air, a firm gesture not to try it.

I looked up at him, trying to keep the begging from my eyes, trying to keep control over myself.

"Good night," he said hoarsely.

And he turned and went up the stairs, leaving me alone.

The snow grew worse in the night, but by morning it had cleared a bit, cold flakes falling through bright grey air. The innkeepers gave us food and tea in a small pouch with an extension charm on it, and sent us on our way. There was a brilliance to the cold, and my nose was sharp with it as we walked along the cliffs.

It was a coincidence that it was clear that day, for otherwise I would not have seen the stone arches, out in the water below. I recognised them at once, and knew that this was the place pictured in the muggle puzzle Arthur had given me. The Monet painting of the arch, with two small people standing in the spray of the waves.

It looked quite different. In the painting it had been summer and now it was winter. But there was something profound about seeing it in reality. Remembering how I'd pushed the final pieces into place just before accepting Severus's proposal.

The next day a patronus arrived from Poppy. It carried Remus's voice, asking where I had gone. The moment the blue orb appeared in front of me I fell behind the rest of the group, Minerva glancing back before continuing on, and Severus turning a blind eye, letting me step away to answer it.

My raven flapping in front of me, I told him I was safe, and where we were and why. There was an earnestness in me, my blood humming as I spoke. Hearing his voice had brought me partly back to life, and though I still felt ill and frail, it seemed there was a purpose for my suffering.

I couldn't help but feel guilty, after the gentleness Severus had shown me at the inn. The honesty. Without walls. He had shifted in my eyes, away from the hardness he had worked so hard to force upon me and everyone else for so many years.

Why was this my fate? To love more than one?

Now I was the one with the power. The one who was cruel simply by breathing, and finding it hard to control my heart.

On the third of December, a Friday, we found the place.

I'd sensed it coming all that morning, my magical instincts tightening and sharpening with every footstep through the cold muddy slush of the ground.

It was when the sky had dimmed to indicate the oncoming dusk that we sighted another desolate field, leading towards cliffs. I knew in a moment that hidden right there was the chateau where I had seen Baddock hiding in my vision. Swiftly we cast our concealment charms, hoping he had not seen our approach, and detected the wards at once.

I could feel their protective magic in my fingertips, a forbidding electricity. We cast an anti-apparation dome around the area before attacking the wards. It was as though the air was briefly on fire before they melted away, leaving tiny spirals of magic to sizzle out in the cold, like ashes.

The chateau was revealed, a large old stone house with turrets and spires. There was a light on in one of the upper rooms. The only light, falling through a tall peaked window. The glowing light of a fire. Surely Baddock had seen the wards coming down and hurried to hide somewhere within, forgetting to extinguish it.

We surrounded the structure, standing with wands at the ready as the freezing wind blew in from the sea. I volunteered to go inside with Severus, but Minerva shook her head at me. "There are times, Miss Weasley, to stay back." So I stood anxiously, my body stiff in the bitter cold, my magic racing through my veins as I watched Severus and the auror Hugo disappear through the front door.

For a long time there was nothing but the sharp whisper of the air, and the softest pulses of magic in my body, which I had the strangest sense were connected to Severus's invisible movements within the house.

Then there was a sudden tension in the air, and a split second later a dark window at the side of the house shattered and Hugo the auror fell out of it backwards, hurtling with spread limbs towards the ground.

On instinct my hand burst into space and without a word or so much as a flinch of my wand a surge of magic raced along my arm and Hugo slowed down, landing safely on the ground before I was able to blink an eye. He promptly got to his feet, running at top speed around the side of the house.

My heart was beating madly with fear for Severus's safety, and without a thought I followed after Hugo, as did Minerva and Bill. There was a commotion of magic within the house, and a pounding sound, and then a dark wooden door opened with a bang. Baddock, clad in deep grey, sprinted from what appeared to be the ancient kitchen towards the cliffs without a backward glance, seeming to have it in his mind to run right over the edge.

Severus was two steps behind him, disarming him and bringing him to his knees, then flat against the earth with a whipping of his wand. Restraints appeared out of the ground and Baddock lay there writhing, his cheek pushed against the mud and pale sea grass. Severus stood over him like the angel of death, his body already stone-still with the focus required for Legilimency.

I went to him and stood a safe distance away, my heartbeat still hammering. Baddock's mouth was twisted in pale fear and resistance, but Severus's mind was too strong, breaking apart the prostrate man's defences even through his single visible eye.

I watched Severus in earnest, his face as pale as a sculpture, but the activity behind his eyes as obvious as the fires of a furnace. After a few heavy seconds he spoke, barely moving his mouth. "Notes are in the library behind the works of Nicholas Flamel."

I sensed movement behind me and knew that it was Bill, running towards the house.

Severus continued his invisible dissection of Baddock's thoughts and memories, and there was a slight tension in his jaw as he came up against a wall.

"Where's the stone," Severus said softly.

Baddock bared his teeth with a groan of pain, and I felt a very strange pinch of pity for this man who had raised such difficult sons, knowing his fight against Severus was useless.

There was a release of tension in the air when he finally caved in, and I let out a sudden gasp as my head was filled by the dark ink of an image. It was fully formed and potent, like one of my visions yet somehow darker, sharper, and incredibly vibratory. I saw Brodie, Baddock's younger son and my student earlier that autumn, holding the stone in his hands. Its dim silver light brushing his cheeks like faerie dust.

I blinked and the image stretched into torn fragments. My body wavered violently with lightheadedness. I sat down on the cold wet ground and Minerva was presently by my side, gripping my arm firmly. I managed to put up my hand to indicate I was alright. But it was another moment before I could breathe properly, trying to process that I had just seen the insides of Baddock's mind, much as Severus must have done.

My ears followed Severus's voice as he explained to the others what he had seen, but I already knew before he spoke, the aftershock of my unintentional Legilimency making my body feel as it had when I'd apparated for the first time.

"He did have the stone, but the burden became too much to bear. In September he gave it to his youngest before sending him on the train to Hogwarts, with instructions to drop it into the Black Lake from the boats that carry the first years."

"Did he do it?" Reed asked.

"To be sure, I need the boy's mind."

Bill had just emerged from the house, holding an ancient and frayed book in his hands, which must have contained Salazar Slytherin's discarded notes. "They're here."

"Where is the boy now?" Minerva said.

"In Paris."

"Please not my son," Baddock said, from the ground. Severus gave him a cold glance, but I realised as I looked down at him that the unsent patronus I'd seen him conjure in my vision had been intended for his sons, from whom he'd been separated. I remembered the yearning in his face, and the tenderness.

"We don't hurt children," I told him, my voice not quite warm, but not harsh either.

The sky was growing darker by the second, and the wind from the sea was unrelenting, a cold wind that threatened to blow forever out of hatred.

"Enough talk for me," Hugo said. "I am taking him in."

Severus handed over Baddock's wand and Minerva removed the temporary anti-apparation wards. Hugo took hold of Baddock's body, and both promptly disappeared, the quiet pop! cutting off the beginnings of a sentence hissed from the bound man's jaws.

Severus led the way through the narrow streets of a quiet Paris neighbourhood.

Streetlamps darkened and deepened the shadows on the sides of stone walls and tall houses, and the soft wind whispering through the streets felt warm after the brutality of the seaside gales. A black cat ran around a corner, and happy laughter sounded somewhere.

There were many hills and stairways that made my tired knees suffer, as it was a part of the city elevated above the rest. I'd never been to Paris and it was surreal when light caught my eye and I turned my head to see the Eiffel Tower, illuminated against the dark, gloomy sky.

Magic seemed more present here, as though the buildings had grown up out of the stone in the ground.

The house where the Baddock brothers hid was tucked away at the top of a steep cobblestone street, narrow enough to be called an alley. It had a mansard roof and was masked by crawling vines. The windows were all shuttered, light creeping through the one on the ground floor, beside the wooden double doors.

They were miraculously unprotected, needing nothing more than a simple alohomora to be opened. I entered just behind Minerva, in time to see a woman of perhaps thirty fling her hands away from the dough she'd been kneading and reach for her wand, only to be petrified by Severus. She stiffened and fell safely to the floor, where she remained, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Severus turned towards the narrow stairs that led up from the kitchen. The first step creaked and he cast a silencing charm on them before ascending, Minerva behind him. I felt like I was dreaming as I followed, soft shadows on the wall from the spindles and railing above.

We kept climbing, two more flights, until we reached the top storey, where the grey darkness of the night swam down through the glass skylight. There was only the sound of our contained breathing. Severus silently walked over the carpet runner to a door at the end of the hallway, with a brass doorknob.

This was the room where Brodie slept.

Beneath the door was a little dusty yellow ribbon of light. We silently stood outside it, and inside I could hear him talking or humming quietly to himself, like a boy much younger than his years. Like a very lonely child.

I felt a tenderness for him, as I had for his father. It must have been my exhaustion, but in the darkness I pointed at myself. I wanted to be the one to open the door, and to speak to the boy. Severus looked back at me with a reluctant eye, almost touching the doorknob himself. But Minerva nodded and Severus gave in, stepping aside to allow me in first.

Brodie continued to hum, and in that moment the ugly things he'd done in school, calling Phoebe Elson a mudblood, disappeared. I turned the doorknob and the door opened inward, revealing Brodie, lying on his belly with a book spread on the covers. He ceased his humming and looked at me, his face warped in shock so extreme he didn't make a peep as he took in the group of people standing outside his door.

At that moment Severus's arm made a darting motion in my peripheral vision–which I heard more than saw–and there was a hiss from down the hallway. "Fucking hell–"

The voice was Malcolm Baddock's, and in an instant Severus had disarmed him and was holding his wand. I turned to look, the older brother's face just as bad as it had always been at Hogwarts. Stiff with privilege and superiority. He stared at us as though oblivious to the fact that he had just been disarmed, that he was standing across from Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape, two of the most powerful mages of the decade, if not the century.

"Thought you'd sneak in unnoticed, did you?" Malcolm sneered. His eye drifted distinctly to me, a bright malice in them and a heavy implication in his tone. "Must've forgotten I can sniff out dirty blood anywhere."

Severus moved quickly, pinning the boy against the wall by his shoulder. His voice was low and threatening, and I saw a spark of fear in Malcolm's face. "You have forgotten that although we are not in school my powers as your head of house still apply in extreme cases."

"Don't pretend you don't agree with me Professor. You don't have to keep that up now we're not in Hogwarts."

Severus raised his wand in anger. "I will wipe your mind clean of–"

"Don't prove the boy right, Severus," Minerva intervened. "Put your wand down."

Her voice was firm and anyone, young or old, woman or man, would have obeyed.

I looked away from the scene in the hallway, my eyes falling on Brodie again. He had not moved a centimetre, and his expression had not changed from one of fear.

I put out my hand, hoping against hope that he might remember me as a reasonably tolerant teacher–even though the person I had been in September seemed worlds away from the half-shattered girl I was now.

"You don't need to be afraid," I said, taking a small step into the room.

He sat up straight, trying to force a certain toughness. But I could see he was soft underneath, just a young boy.

"Mr. Baddock," I addressed him. "We just need to know one thing. About the stone your father gave you. Did you sink it in the lake, as instructed?"

The expected resistance entered his eyes. But after a moment of looking, they softened. And it was almost natural when I felt my mind join with his, flowing into it somehow, and mixing, like the waters of two rivers. It was peaceful, as though I knew the boy very well, as though I cared for him very much. And at that moment, I did.

I looked into his eyes and saw things. It was easy. Without even trying. I saw his memories clearly. How he'd taken the stone from his father and held it in his hands. How he'd kept it hidden on the train all the time, and then, when in the middle of the Black Lake, let it fall into the murky depths, sinking to the bottom where it should have always remained.

My presence withdrew from his mind as easily as it had entered, and I stood there looking at him for a while longer, startled by the intimacy of it. As though he were my brother. Or (I thought, with a strange stinging pain) my son.

Severus had been standing beside me–I wasn't sure how long–and rested his hand on my shoulder. His face was like a stone, his eyes dark and searching. He seemed to see at once what had happened.

"Your nose, Miss Weasley," Minerva said, her voice quiet with wonder.

I felt the hot wet trickle on my upper lip and my fingers went to it, coming away red. My nose was bleeding, and I knew it was from more than the dry warmth of the house after days of sea and clouds and wind.

Gabriel and Bill took Brodie and Malcolm to the Ministry. Brodie only needed reassurance from me that his father would be there, while Malcolm had to be stunned before he could be touched. Before their departure Bill gave Minerva the notes from the chateau, the book looking even more fragile in this dim light, the pages on the verge of disintegration. After delivering the boys to the ministry they would join the hunt for Dolohov.

Trelawney and Reed went downstairs to take the petrified woman to London for questioning. From there they would continue looking for Rodolphus Lestrange, still going mad somewhere, in his own lonely hideaway on a distant northern shore.

Minerva held the book to her chest, and Brodie Baddock's bedside lantern slowly dimmed into blackness.

My nose was still bleeding, no matter how I pinched and charmed it. Severus was watching me with a look in his eyes I had rarely seen, but which had shown through when I'd ground the sickles into silver powder in the hospital wing, when my trousers had hemmed themselves.

"You have to wait it out," he told me. "It goes away after the first few times. As you gain control."

I caught the implication in his words, and shook my head. "I don't need to gain control. It won't happen again."

His voice was unrelenting, but not unkind. "Don't be naive. You have no choice."

I felt the responsibility for this new magic sink onto my back like a heavy boulder. I couldn't see how I could be a Legilimens. But clearly I was. Or something beyond that, somehow.

Having visions had been enough strange magic to befall a witch. But I could no longer deny the changes I felt taking my place in my body, in my bones. In the wide, dark and boundless spaces of my mind.

Now the task ahead was clear, at least.

Minerva held the notes safely at her side and apparated back to Hogwarts, where we would work to decipher the notes and retrieve the stone from the bottom of the lake, to destroy the creatures.

As I took Severus's hand to side-along with him, the exhaustion of the past week weighed down my blood and made it more purple than dusk.

Now I would return to the castle, to Remus, to reality.

Or maybe I would only fall into a deeper dream.