"Family is not just about blood ties. It's the people in your life who want you in theirs. The ones who will do anything to make you smile, who accept you and who will always love you as you are."
Unknown

Raphaël blinked several times before opening his eyes abruptly. White. That was all he could see around him. The walls were white, the curtains were white, the neighbouring beds were white, he was in a white coat. The only thing that clashed with all this white was next to him, Remi, sitting on a chair next to him, dressed in grey.

Raphaël then realised that he was in the infirmary, and before he had time to ask himself why, all his last memories came flooding back. He stood up and took his head in his hands, dead of shame. His agitation called out to Remi, who straightened his head and noticed at the same time that the young man was awake.

"Good morning, Raphaël. Do you remember what happened?"

Unable to speak because he was so mortified, the young man answered with a nod. Remus suspected what was bothering him so much, it was normal after all.

"Are you all right? Do you want to talk to me while we're alone?"

Raphaël lifted his head, and for the first time since he'd woken up, his eyes met Remi's, and the tears in his eyes immediately flowed. Remus' heart sank at the sight, and he stood up to take the boy in his arms. He cradled him and soon Raphaël's sobs became louder, he was letting go completely for the first time in months. When he broke away from Remus, he immediately turned away so as not to meet the older wizard's eyes.

"Hey... Raphaël, it's okay to snap…"

"I'm pathetic."

"Crying doesn't make you pitiful."

"I called her Mum! Can you believe it? I called Helena, Mum! If that's not pathetic, I don't know what is. I am so ashamed. I'm twelve, thirteen in three months and I call Mum the only person who hadn't rejected me yet, the only woman who cared about me at all. I'm fucking pathetic. In need of his mother like a three year old."

Remus sighed, before thinking about what to say. He shouldn't push Raphaël, lest he shut down, but he also didn't want him to think he was pathetic, or even to start crying again. He had to find the right words to comfort him.

"Raphaël, you never really had a mother. Your mother is only a vague memory, you were very young when she died. Helena is the last mother figure you have left. I thought you thought of her more as an older sister, but if you think of her as a potential mother, that's fine."

"It's not that! You didn't see the look on her face. She was horrified! I only saw it for half a second, but it was enough. She's got enough weight on her shoulders for me to add mine. I'm a poor lost kid, who lost everything, I'm such an idiot. How could I think... I don't even know how the words came out of my mouth. It's true that it had already crossed my mind, that Helena must be a cool mother, that it would be a dream to be able to be so close to her, I know she doesn't want children, but I don't know why this image remains engraved in my head. And when she gets close to the others, I am jealous. I'm jealous of the time she spends with them, the relationship she has with them. I'm such a fucking pathetic kid. Everything is so mixed up in my head. I'm ashamed of myself, you can't imagine how ashamed I am. I can never look her in the face again. I think avoiding her will be the best solution. Hogwarts is big, it shouldn't be that difficult."

Raphaël paused, but did not glance at Remus. He didn't want to see pity in the wizard's eyes, but if he had turned around, Raphaël would certainly have seen a strange mixture of emotion in Remus' eyes, but certainly not pity. He would also have seen that someone had entered the room, and was listening intently to their conversation.

"Why can't I be like the kids my age? When my brother was thirteen, his only concerns were his girlfriend of the moment and his friends, playing a few jokes on the teachers too. Just those things. Why does my life have to be so complicated? Why do I have to worry about things that some people will never know? Why can't I just be a regular teenager? Why did a fucking war have to break out during my childhood? As if my life didn't suck enough, I had to make myself pathetic in front of the only woman who gave me importance and I liked. You must think I'm such an idiot. You feel sorry for me, don't you?"

"You're not an idiot."

Both men jumped and turned sharply towards Hermione. Neither wizard had heard her coming. Hermione's hands were shaking and her eyes were red. Raphaël had paled considerably and Remus' gaze alternated between Hermione and Raphaël, waiting for the next part.

"Um... Maybe I'll leave you two alone."

"No! Please stay," the young wizard murmured weakly, and at the look of panic on his face, Remus complied.

Hermione approached them, but Raphaël's back was conspicuously turned. He wouldn't look at her. His tears had already started to flow again, and he knew they would stop if he looked at Helena. And he didn't want to look even more pitiful than he already was. It was humiliating enough.

"Why were you out of Hogwarts?" Hermione began sternly, not wanting to talk about what Raphaël had said to Remus just yet.

She didn't know if she was ready to talk about it right away, so she preferred to start with the admonishment, it was easier, it would probably be less painful. It might be a bit cowardly, but she had to record what she had heard first, and that wasn't going to be easy, she knew. So she preferred to avoid the subject for a few minutes, but she knew that it would undoubtedly come up again in the conversation.

Raphaël's shoulders slumped, and his already troubled look became more ashamed. He should never have gone there, he knew that. But he didn't like being left out. He was twelve, almost thirteen! At the time it had seemed like a good idea, but it wasn't. He didn't know why he was doing it. He didn't know why he'd gotten himself involved in this.

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to see."

"See?" Hermione repeated in disbelief. "See what?"

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to see what it was like... It was stupid "

"What the hell are you apologizing for? And see. What did you see?"

"The blood. The horror. The screams. The fear. Death."

"You are a child, Raphaël. Children have no business being on the battlefield. Why do you think I'm killing myself training you, and especially preventing you from leaving the castle? We are at war, there is no room for error. You could have died out there!"

"I know I could have. It was there that I understood why you protected us, why you didn't want the miners to fight. But it's far away for us. We know there's a war, we've all lost someone, half of us are orphans, but we don't know what it's like outside. Sometimes we just don't know anymore. I didn't think. I'm sorry I did it. I put myself in danger."

"You were hurt. Who did this to you?"

"The Death Eaters were there. There were the Lestrange brothers. I froze. They attacked me. It's the man who found me after they left who took me to the Shrieking Shack."

Hermione didn't know it, but Remus suspected the reason for Raphaël's injuries. The wizard may have been young, but he was very good at fighting, and even though he was no match for seasoned Death Eaters, the logical thing for him to do would have been to pull out his wand and flee. But the boy had been stunned, so Remus rushed to him and hugged him.

During one of their late nights, Remus had learned that Raphaël's sister and brother had died, killed by Rabastan Lestrange. He didn't know how the young man knew, he hadn't asked him at the time, and he didn't want to turn the tables and talk about it, it was painful enough.

"I was such a fool to think I could go out alone. I know what the Death Eaters do. I know that every day hundreds of people are murdered, simply for stepping outside."

"I thought we agreed you weren't an idiot. I hope you learn from this. That's why you shouldn't go out. A twelve-year-old should not be traumatised by the battlefield. What would have happened if you had gone out with us during a battle? No one could have protected you! You would probably be dead! You were lucky the Death Eaters didn't attack more than that. I don't want you going out in the park alone anymore, is that understood? I want a verbal response, Raphaël.

"Yes" he said weakly.

He stepped back from Remus, and turned away again, to make sure the two wizards didn't see his face. But Remus wasn't stupid, he only had to move a little to see the boy. But he knew this was not the time. The admonitions were over, at least for now, and Raphaël and Hermione would have to talk. Conversation was inevitable, and it was best if it was just the two of them.

"I'll leave you two to talk, alone. No, Raphaël. You must both talk. Say what's on your mind. I will be in the Great Hall if you need me."

"I do need you."

"What you need is to speak with Helena. Alone."

With that, Remus gave Raphaël one last contrite look, despite his pleading eyes, he did not give in, they both had to talk, and there was bound to be a blockage if he stayed. He left the room and silence fell. It was heavy, neither Raphaël nor Hermione dared to make the first move and start talking.

For long seconds, which seemed to last for hours, the silence fell. The silence was so deafening that one would have thought it had been cut off, but no, it was simply Hermione and Raphaël, who were embarrassed, who were also afraid.

"Is…" Hermione tried. "Is that... Is it true?"

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

"Do you really think you can avoid me until the end of the war?"

"I don't want to talk about it! Don't you think I'm humiliated enough as it is? Just go. Please leave."

"You know very well I won't leave."

"I don't know anything about it. I don't know much about you. That's true, I don't. That's the worst of it. I know almost nothing about your life before you came along. Helena Grace. It's just a front, I know that everything you are, it's fake, it's not even your real name, but I've... grown attached to you, so it's completely silly."

"My name's Hermione."

And with a flick of her wand, Hermione broke the spells that kept her under Helena's guise. To tell the truth, it was almost only her hair and eyes that were changing. All those scars were there, and the newer ones had covered up the older ones long ago. No one could have made the connection between the seventeen year old Hermione, who was still in her sixth year, before the war really started, and the woman she was today. The scars on her body made her look hideous, or so she thought, but they were also marks of her past, those scars showed that she had been through horrible things, and she had, she had lost almost everyone she cared about, she had been tortured and raped, her life was a horror. And it was reflected on her body.

"You're different…"

"Not really. I don't often look in the mirror, I sometimes forget that I don't look physically like the girl I used to be, but I only have to run my hand over my face to remind myself. I would really like us to talk."

"I don't..."

"I heard what you said. And you're wrong. I liked you, from the first words we exchanged, but I got to know you, and I started to like you for who you really were. I know that war has ravaged your life, as has illness. You are far too young to face all the pain you have had to endure."

"I don't want your pity! I've had pity ever since I said my parents were dead! And it didn't get any better with the murder of my sister and brother! I thought you could understand me! That you too didn't want to be pitied all the time!"

"I don't have pity!"

"Then why that look? Why were you so horrified when I called you... I understand perfectly why you are shocked! But the horrific dimension escapes me! I don't want to be the clueless kid you see every now and then for good cause!"

"Sometimes... you remind me of him."

"Who?"

"Harry. He had the same drive when he was your age. A real Gryffindor. You have the same hatred for pity. You remind me of him sometimes. But at the same time you're terribly different from him."

"He was your best friend, wasn't he?"

"He was much more than that. But now you're acting like Ron, jumping to conclusions. Ron had a lot of good qualities, just like you, but he had a nasty habit of not seeing beyond the end of his nose. I wasn't horrified by what you called me."

"Then what was it? I'm not blind, I saw the horror in your eyes."

"And you're right. I've never told anyone about this... Except Harry, James' son Harry, the one you know, when he was a baby and I was babysitting him, but that was a long time ago now. There's a prophecy. A prophecy in which Rem' and I are the main actors. And 'my son' is mentioned in it. At first I thought it was Harry, but I soon realised that I didn't think of him as a son. And it was a headache, because I don't want children, I never did. And I couldn't see how I was going to meet a boy that I was going to think of as my son. And then you came along. I already told you, I love you very much, but I never tried to put our relationship into words. I was just kidding myself, it's obvious now. The moment you said those words, I was horrified, because the prophecy made sense. All the people mentioned are known, it's only a matter of time before it comes true. And I'm not ready. It's paradoxical. I've been waiting for the war to end for more than thirteen years, I've been waiting for it, but I'm afraid. I'm terribly afraid. I'm afraid of the future, of the losses we'll suffer by the end... I am such a coward."

There was silence, Hermione had stopped talking and Raphaël didn't know what to say, he was glad to see that Helena, or Hermione wasn't horrified by him, but he didn't want to be clumsy with his words to comfort her either.

"This prophecy... What does it say?"

"I won't tell you. No one knows, it's better that way."

"You didn't tell Remi about it even though it's mentioned? Why?"

"I have my reasons. No matter what you think, you won't tell him."

"What do you want to do now? You heard me, I heard you. Nothing will ever be the same. Not everything is up to me. You have to make your choices too. I know you don't want children, and I don't want to be a burden. If it's too complicated for you, I can stop coming to your classes."

"Of course you can't! I would never mix my private life with the classes I teach! That would be a shame! I think we both need to think things through, but I'm not rejecting you, remember that! Do you want to get something to eat?"

"Am I allowed to?"

"If Madam Pomfrey doesn't see you leaving the infirmary, then yes. Come on, I'll help you walk."

Hermione helped Raphaël out of bed, and neither spoke as they walked slowly towards the Great Hall. Remus' gaze automatically went to them as they passed through the large doors, but there was no smile on his face, and it wasn't the meagre smile Hermione gave him that made it any better. He didn't know what had been said, but he hoped to get a detailed account, of both if possible. But he couldn't help feeling that the matter between these two was far from settled. He wasn't alone at his table, so he avoided asking intrusive questions, but the look he gave them spoke volumes. He was waiting to hear from them. Raphaël didn't join in the conversation, and Hermione was trying to keep up with what Neville was telling her.

The atmosphere of the meal became much heavier when Hermione saw Regulus' patronus enter the room. He never sent patronus, except with Raphaël, he always communicated with the notebooks, it was a much safer way. And the words that came out did not improve his impression.

"SS. Hurt. Need help."

Hermione waited no longer and ran out of the castle, followed by Remus and Sirius. He had frozen when he heard his brother's voice so weak. They were still not on good terms, neither of them had had the courage to start a real discussion, about their past. They avoided each other as much as they could, not talking at Order meetings, but in the year Sirius had been at Hogwarts, over a year now, he hadn't seen him. But still, no one was allowed to touch his little brother. He'd left so quickly that neither James nor Remus had followed him, but it didn't matter, he was running like crazy behind Remi and Helena. Being a werewolf gave them a great advantage in the race, but Sirius' willpower meant that he wasn't too far behind.

The three of them rushed into the Shrieking Shack , and their blood ran cold when they saw the state Regulus was in. Sirius was too shocked to react, so Hermione took charge.

"Rem', warn Pomfrey, his cover's blown."