***Just wanted to check in, how are we all doing? I am sad. I was sad to have to write that, and I wasn't ready to let her go. I'm sorry that means the readers had to as well, and I'm sorry it was sudden. I chose to write it that way because that's how death is in war. It's sudden and you don't always get to say goodbye, which is why it's so important to tell your people that you love them as often as you can. I wanted us to go through the whiplash of how sudden it would have been WITH our characters, because empathizing with a character gives you a deeper understanding of who they are and why they do what they do. I miss our girl, but in the wise words of Dumbledore (or, in the movies, Sirius:) "The ones that love us never really leave us."

It's going to continue to be hard as we see our characters grapple with this loss, and if you note the date, you know it's going to get much harder very soon. Here to talk in the comments if you need to, and if you don't think your brain can take it and you need to step away from this story, I completely understand. Hopefully I'll see you for the sequel. - Erin

***TW: disordered eating

From the playlist:

Fourth of July - Sufjan Stevens

Because Dreaming Costs Money - Mitski

A Burning Hill - Mitski

Chapter 47 - The Erosion

August 12

"Emmeline," Remus whispered, gently nudging her towards consciousness.

She grunted in response.

"Moody will be here soon."

"What time is it?" she croaked, her eyelids still heavy with sleep.

"Nearly two in the afternoon." He sat down on the side of the bed and stroked her unruly hair, which seemed to have become thinner. "I've made crepes. How's that sound?"

Under normal circumstances this would have enticed her, but these were not normal circumstances. Instead, she grumbled: "Not hungry."

Remus rose defeated from the bed and pulled a t-shirt out of a drawer. "That's what you said yesterday." Tenderly, he slipped his arm underneath her shoulders and nudged her up, handing her the garment. "Please," he implored her, accidentally allowing a little too much desperation to slip into his voice.

Taking the shirt unenthusiastically in her hands, Emmeline let out a great sigh and feebly pulled it over her arms. Remus assisted in pulling it down over her torso.

He knew it wasn't healthy, but Remus had made the decision to set aside his own grief and devote all of his time to Emmeline's. He sort of felt as though he didn't have a choice - it was consuming her whole, right before his eyes. This wasn't Remus's first time dealing with loss, nor with someone close to him grieving, but everything about this had been entirely different. He was almost never sure of what to do. He was never very good at this sort of thing…

"I'm so sorry," Emmeline muttered, the shirt sliding off one of her shoulders.

"What for?"

She stared catatonic at the floor. "You never signed up for this."

Remus looked sideways at her. "What are you talking about?"

"This. Getting ripped away from your life. Losing your house. Having to look after me as if I were a child-"

"Emmeline," he murmured, intercepting her thought. He got down on a knee before her in the hopes of gaining her eye contact and took both of her hands in his. "I signed up for us a long time ago, and everything that came along with it. So I'll still be right here whenever we make it out on the other end of this, no matter what happens."

Remus could see that Emmeline wanted to smile, but those muscles in her face had recently atrophied. Lumbering back up, he tenderly wiped the tear that had rolled down her cheek.

"Crepes?"

"...I'll try."

Remus kissed the top of her forehead before heading to the kitchen. "Try" would have to do for now.

After she she dressed, Emmeline lingered by the bedroom window. The reflection of a woman she hardly recognized stared back at her with dark under-eye circles.

Exeter was far larger than Godric's Hollow, and made Emmeline feel rather like a fish in a bowl as she stared out the little beveled glass pane of the little window of the little flat. Dumbledore relocated them here last month in the hopes that the Death Eaters might lose Emmeline's trail - he couldn't afford to lose any more soldiers.

Emmeline missed so many things: their old home, having a job, having a life. But most of all, she missed Marlene.

She seemed to remember that she used to like how quiet Godric's Hollow was. This new quiet in this new flat felt more like a great void, and it seemed the only thing to fill it with was her terrifying thoughts. This new quiet ate away at her slowly, as evidenced by the state of her health. She watched as she began to disappear, little by little, and wondered if one day the quiet would finish her off altogether, and she would simply cease to be. Would anybody notice, or would the bits of her that lived in her friends' minds erode away too? They seemed to be doing so already.

She hadn't heard from Lily at all. James hadn't written Remus back either, but Remus assured Emmeline (and he almost believed it himself) that they were probably just too devastated, and too busy with the baby. Lily was not one to keep silent on a matter so grave as losing their best friend, and Emmeline was sure that Lily must've hated her for what she'd done.

Remus's letters to Sirius had also been ignored, but Emmeline expected this. Even with the way he'd treated Remus, Emmeline wished more than anything that she could go to Sirius and express to him how utterly sorry she was; but she had been ordered not to leave the flat. She and Remus hadn't even been permitted to attend the McKinnons' funeral.

And Marlene was everywhere and nowhere; in every face out the window, but nowhere to be found among the passersby on the sidewalk; in every scrambled egg breakfast, but gone by lunchtime, so Emmeline convinced herself she wasn't hungry for either meal; even in the damned silence, Emmeline could have filled in jokes and jabs Marlene might have said, but would never have the chance to now. Her absence felt both suffocating, and altogether too barren.

Remus was fixing Emmeline a plate when she emerged from the bedroom. A copy of The Daily Prophet laying open on the kitchen table caught her eye, and she sat down in front of it. On one page was a list of missing persons, and on the next were columns and columns of obituaries, muggles and wizards alike. The font was small. Her appetite declined further, but she feared Remus might resort to tube feeding if she said so.

Remus noticed her staring at all the names and wordlessly folded the paper back up, placing it on the kitchen counter instead.

"I wanted to see."

"I already checked the names."

"None today?" No one we know today?

"None today." And thank God for that.

Mad-Eye arrived as Emmeline was reluctantly pushing the other three quarters of her crepes around with a fork, stalling by rolling the dried currants around her plate. She began to stand from the kitchen table, but Remus stopped her. "Please, finish," he begged. "I'll tell Alastor you'll be out soon."

They heard a clattering from the front room and a Scottish curse word that neither of them were familiar with. That was plenty of verification that it was, indeed, him.

"Albus could have at least found you a place with a bit more room."

"We're managing fine," Remus assured him, coming to greet him as he was standing a lamp back upright.

Alastor got close to Remus and spoke quietly. "Status report?"

"No improvement," Remus whispered. "I feel like I can't bring her back." He was doing an awful job of caring for her, he was sure of it.

"She won't come back until she's ready to come back."

He shook his head. "She blames herself for the whole ordeal in Knockturn Alley."

"Hmm," grumbled Alastor, scratching his chin. "Well, I havenae brought great news about that."

"What news have you brought?" Emmeline asked, appearing in the doorway without having finished her breakfast.

A concerned scowl came over Alastor's face when he got a good look at her. "Vance. Er…go ahead and sit down."

"I don't need to sit down," she lied, crossing her arms self-consciously and opting to lean against the wall instead. "Is he being brought before the Wizengamot, or not?"

Alastor drew in a long breath through his nose. He was not one to pull punches, but knowing that his answer would only further upset her, he tried to come up with a way to say it that would soften the blow. But he wasn't particularly good at such things, and his hesitation was answer enough anyway.

Emmeline wrung her hands together to stop herself from snapping her wand in half. "You've got to be bloody kidding me-"

"We knew this was a possible outcome," Moody reminded her, helping himself to a seat in the armchair.

"He's a Death Eater."

"And you and I know it; but Malfoy's got too many friends at the Ministry with his gold in their pockets that've vouched for him. Took nearly a fortnight just to get them to make a decision."

"They're not even going to have him questioned?" Remus asked, watching Emmeline carefully as she began to pace.

Alastor chose his next words with caution. "They were willing to consider an informal hearing...but not based on rumors."

Bringing her pacing to a halt, Emmeline examined his face. "What does that mean?"

Again, Alastor tried not to say too much. "It means they wanted more concrete evidence-"

"It means they want to hear witness testimony, doesn't it?"

"It's out of the question, Vance."

"Why? I can help-!"

"No."

"-I can tell them what I saw-!"

"I said no!" Mad-Eye reprimanded her. "Putting you in front of the Wizengamot would not only jeopardize the Order, it would also unnecessarily risk your life. I want to get the son of a bitch just as badly as you do, but judging by Malfoy's response to being spied on, he's proper pissed off; he won't have given up looking for you so easily. You'll not be setting foot outside this flat until Dumbledore or I give the word, is that understood?"

"...Then what about my memory?" She raised her wand up to her temple with new fervor. "Alastor, show them my memory! Then they can see-!"

"Memories can be altered. Malfoy will only argue that it's been tampered with by a biased source."

Emmeline felt the beginnings of frustrated tears. "I'm wasted just sitting here." She had half a mind to go find Lucius and deliver justice herself. She'd killed for Marlene before.

"You're safe just sitting here," he corrected her, lowering his voice.

She huffed an indignant sigh and sank down onto the sofa, pawing at the scar tissue in her burned palm. Why should she deserve to be sequestered and protected when the McKinnons were not afforded the same luxury?

Remus sat beside her and took her burned hand in his so that she wouldn't pick at it. "Did they even check his arm?"

"I checked it myself at the initial inquiry. Nothing. He's done something to conceal the tattoo."

Of course he had. Lucius had probably performed some outlandish transfiguration magic on himself as soon as he got home that day in July, and the Ministry didn't see fit to dig any deeper than that.

"There's one more thing," Alastor continued. "And you're no gonnae like it."

Panicking, Emmeline shot forward on the couch "Is someone hurt? Is Sirius okay-?"

"Calm yourself. Black is...well, I suppose 'fine' isn't the right word. But it's not about him." Alastor shifted in his seat and braced himself for their protestations. "It's about the Potters."

This time, Remus leapt up.

"They're fine, they're fine. Let me finish, Merlin's sake. Since Vance has a target on her back, Albus has forbidden the both of you from making any contact with them until further notice, and vice versa. The Longbottoms, too."

"…No owls…nothing?" Emmeline verified. Suddenly, Lily's silence was beginning to make more sense; and yet Emmeline didn't feel the slightest bit relieved.

"Not even a Patronus."

"Whatever for?" asked Remus.

"For reasons that are beyond the three of us. All you need to know is that reaching out to them in any way would put both families in serious danger. I cannae say any more than that."

Remus and Emmeline turned to each other, perplexed.

Those were the same two couples that Voldemort had set his sights on to recruit.

Emmeline harkened back to Sirius's reaction at the port.

Something had been wrong…

…and he had kept it from her.

Why?

Having said what he needed to say, Mad-Eye rose from the chair. "Lupin, I need a moment alone with Emmeline."

Emmeline couldn't remember a time he had ever called her by her first name, and she wasn't sure if this was a good or bad sign.

"Sure." He squeezed Emmeline's hand before exiting the front room, pondering the no-contact order.

When he determined that Remus was out of ear shot, Alastor placed his hands gently on Emmeline's shoulders. "Now you listen to me, and you listen good," he began in a soft, strangely paternal sort of tone. "The McKinnon family's deaths were a terrible tragedy, but they were not your fault."

Her tears threatened to resurface. "But if I hadn't-"

"Take it from an Auror; the only person at fault is the one who stared down the end of the wand that took their lives. You weren't careless in Knockturn, you did everything right. If you continue to blame yourself you'll go mad, and your heart will harden into stone. Trust me, I wish someone had told me before mine had."

Emmeline simply nodded, amazed by this atypical display of vulnerability from him, and didn't argue any further.

When he saw that his words had been heeded - or at least considered - Alastor released her from his grasp and turned to take his leave.

"Alastor?" Emmeline stopped him just before he did. "...What was their name?"

Alastor smiled sadly, then disapparated.