They ran through the empty halls and up into the Dark Arts tower. When alohamora didn't work, Fred knelt in front of the door to Lupin's office. "You should wear that more often," he told her as he picked the lock.

Clione looked down at the plain long sleeved shirt she had tucked into black leggings, what she'd been planning to sleep in. Realizing he meant that she should wear tighter clothes had her smacking his arm. "This could be life or death, stop flirting with me."

"Never," he said with a grin. The locked clicked as it turned. "Milady," he said opening the door for her. His eyes raked down the length of her from her chest to her waist taking in the soft curves he'd felt but had never seen. "Seriously gorgeous."

She turned to him in mild outrage feeling heat rise in her face. "Fredrick!"

He grinned wickedly and ducked stealing a kiss that fluttered in her chest and had her eyes slow to open. "This could be life or death, Clio, focus." He laughed at how fast she smacked his arm. Getting his arms around her middle he trapped her against him with her back to his front and stepped them closer to the desk.

"He forgot to wipe it."

Their smiles melted and they grew gravely serious as they spotted Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Snape by the Whomping Willow. Sirius and Lupin were a ways off circling and going on top of each other, and they caught sight of Pettigrew slipping past the very edge of the map. They watched Lupin's name suddenly dart into the woods, where they saw a second pair of Harry and Hermione's.

"He shouldn't move that fast," Fred said softly, like what he just realized might be wrong if he said it quiet enough.

She looked up at him as the terrible feeling that'd been growing all evening finally revealed itself. "We have to get them before Lupin gets back."

With the map in one hand and hers held tight in the other, they ran. Filch was clear on the other side of the school when they made it out the way the quidditch teams used when going to practice. A loud eerie howl greeted them with a rush of cold air making them shiver.

"You should wait here," Clione told Fred still holding tight to his hand. "Send for help if I don't come back."

Her face was stoic and ready but her breathing was too fast and her eyes were shining in the moonlight. He tugged on her hand forcing her to turn to him. "If you wanted a lookout you should've gotten Gail," he told her firmly even though he was pretty sure she could feel his hand shaking. Even though he was just as scared as she was. "I'm not letting you go out there alone, Clio. Besides, I'm the one with the wand."

"Okay," she relented, having forgotten hers on the night table in a rush to find him.

With his leg broken and bleeding, Ron hobbled with Hermione and Snape on either side of him as they rushed back to the castle. Hermione looked behind them at the dark glistening spots of blood they were dragging with them. Like breadcrumbs.

"What are you doing here?" Ron demanded in a loud pained voice when he spotted Fred and Clione racing up over the hill.

The two were running as if for their lives. "Watch out!" Fred cried throwing his arm to the left of them.

Snape turned and dropped Ron reaching for his wand, standing in front of the two kids as a last means of defense. Ragged breathing mixed with terrible snarling erupted from the trees drawn to the smell of Ron's blood. It was on Snape before he could raise his arm.

Lupin, though it was him only in name, jerked to a sudden halt inches from them. His pale ghastly face contorted in pain as he was held in place by a brown hand with long thin fingers aimed at him like knives. Snape turned to Clione heaving beside him, having caught Lupin with only the first two fingers of her right hand. Snape was thrown back into a twenty year old memory: he'd been the one bleeding with James holding him up, and her mother the one holding Lupin back from killing him as Sirius tried to shield her.

Clione could feel Lupin resisting, could feel him fighting the hold she'd gotten on him. Slowly she lowered her hand to the ground and Lupin whined as his body bent to follow. He lay panting on the grass jerking against the heavy unyielding restraints enveloping him.

"I have him," she told Snape sounding sure, in control.

He turned to the injured boy leaning on his brother and the scared girl standing as close to them as she could. "I'll get Mr. Weasley to the infirmary," he told Clione.

"You're coming back, right?"

Her voice sounded small and young. Snape reached a hand to her shoulder and could feel she was shaking. "As soon as I can," he promised.

Fred grabbed Hermione from behind him and wedged her under Ron's arm. "I'm not leaving her," he told Snape sounding just as sure and looking just as scared. He watched them limp back to the castle, caught Hermione turning back to them for as long as she could still see them. "How are you doing that?"

"It's some kind of binding charm," Clione told him honestly. "It's something I read in her journal. I have to get him to Shrieking Shack."

"You wanna move him?" He could see her arm trembling from how hard Lupin was trying to pull himself loose.

But she stood upright bringing Lupin's elongated canine form with her. "Snape coming back won't fix this, I'll still be the only thing holding him. And I don't know how much longer I can do this."

Fred stayed in front of her as she dragged Lupin snarling and whining behind them. The Whomping Willow thrashed and balked at them drawing near, but Clione turned and raised her left hand seeming to cast a spell from the tips of her fingers that caused it to grow still. "What was that?" Fred whispered as they climbed inside the hole.

"Just immobulus," she whispered back.

Lupin's seething breaths filled the dark earthy tunnel, his claws scraping the ground as she forced him to follow. When the tunnel opened into the landing beneath the shack, she nudged Fred under the stairs out of sight and pulled Lupin after her.

The wood above Fred creaked and groaned and he watched Clione disappear into the shack. Several seconds and feet later Lupin followed, bound by an invisible string. Fred wasn't able to take another breath until Clione stepped back out. The second she closed the door a heavy thump struck the wood and an enraged howl vibrated in the air around them.

"Clio."

She turned from the cracked door frame to where Fred stood halfway up the stairs with his hand outstretched. The wood popped and splintered as Lupin kept throwing himself at the door, the boards over the window, the walls themselves. But the further Fred and Clione moved back down the tunnel the quieter it grew until they stepped into the chilled peaceful night air.

He pulled her away from the rousing Willow and they stood a moment under the star-filled sky hearing nothing but each other. "That was wicked," he told her. Wandless magic was impressive enough but nonverbal was incredible, especially how easy she'd done it. Like it was nothing, like she did it every day. Effortless.

He stumbled a half step back from the way she threw herself at him. For a moment he stood with his arms limp at his side as she stood on the tips of her toes on his trainers with her arms tight around his shoulders. He could feel the tears leaking from the corner of her eye from the way it slipped between their cheeks. Then he gathered his arms around her holding her tight. It felt like the first real breath he'd taken since Lupin's office, like she was the only thing keeping the ground under his feet. And he stood steady and firm letting her bury her fear in the calm of his heart.

"Thank you for staying," she told him on a shivering breath.

He turned his head kissing her wet cheek. "You're stuck with me now, Ayad," he told her back feeling her smile. He pulled back and set about drying her face with his sleeves. "You okay?"

With a sniff she nodded giving a silent yeah. His hand lingered under her chin keeping her face turned up to his. "You're a really good boyfriend," she said not knowing what she'd have done if he hadn't been here.

"Yeah you made a good call choosing me." He smiled at the soft laughter that bubbled out of her, and he swiped at the corner of her eye with the pad of his thumb where he could still see old tears glistening in the moonlight.

He held an arm up and she slid in close against him feeling his arm come around her shoulders as they made their way back to the castle. She wasn't sure how she'd done what she had tonight or what it meant for her. She wondered if her mother had felt the same rush of power in her fingertips twenty years ago, that the very fabric of the universe could be molded into whatever she wanted it to be or destroyed in the process. Clione wondered if it had scared her too. But she looked up at Fred's calm joyously mischievous face and it lifted the corners of her mouth, this annoying boy who made her feel brave. And she wondered kinder things; like if this is what Sirius had been for her mother.

As if feeling the weight of her stare he looked down at her upturned face. She had the gentlest smile and warm eyes and he could imagine their life in five years, in ten, twenty, a hundred – he wanted them all. 'I look at you, and I see the rest of my life;' he thought he might understand what she'd meant. How it felt.

He was leaning down to kiss her when the sky seemed to come alive. They stood gaping at the brightest purest white light erupting out of the dark to the left of them before it slowly died out. A breath passed between them before Clione started running leaving Fred to race after her towards the black lake.

Shrouded in thick trees on the other side of the lake, Hermione held Harry back from going to where Sirius and an hours younger Harry lay. "You're still awake, you can't be seen," she reminded him firmly.

But Harry was staring at Sirius bleeding on the rocky shore fifty yards away. They were so close, they could get him on Buckbeak's back and just go. "That's his soul, that little light," he told her. "They were sucking it out. I saw someone put it back before I passed out."

"Who?"

Harry shook his head. It was him, not his dad, who cast the patronus so that meant what he thought in those moments before he fainted was wrong too. "It felt like my mom," he answered softly sounding like the child he still was. Two lone figures suddenly appeared over the hill and came to a startled halt at what they found.

Hermione squinted at their dark indistinguishable forms; one tall and lanky where the other was shorter and more femininely shaped. "It's Clione and Fred," she said feeling the same relief as when the two of them found her, Ron, and Snape earlier. Because Clione would know what to do.

She pointed to the castle saying something they couldn't hear and Fred took off. It was Clione who tore down the hill going straight for where Sirius lay a shell of a man with a tiny ball of light rising too far past his slacken lips. It was Clione whose hand slapped over Sirius' mouth forcing his soul back in causing his body to buck as he returned to himself. It was Clione who then turned to where Harry wilted with his vision fading. It was Clione who said his name so softly, so tenderly, as she reached for him. It was Clione who gathered him to her warm chest as he collapsed, whose kind hands had reminded him of his mom. It was Clione.

"It's strange," Hermione whispered as she watched Clione cradling Harry to her chest. "How much she looks like him. I didn't notice before."

It felt like a whole year since Clione sat on the edge of his bed in the infirmary showing him a picture of her pregnant mom on his parents' wedding day. Standing next to the man Clione sat holding a hand above his mouth to make sure he was breathing. Like she cared. "He's her dad," Harry said with sudden surety. He hadn't realized it then but he knew it now.

"She's been the one helping Sirius," Hermione hissed, planning to berate the older girl for it later. But she swallowed her rush of indignation as Clione still didn't move. "Why isn't she helping him now?"

Atop the hill Fred's lanky form came into view again followed shortly by Snape who bound Sirius with a wave of his wand before he knelt beside Clione. "It's me," Harry answered on a quiet breath. Snape conjured stretchers under both of them and Clione stuck close to Harry's side holding his hand the whole way back to the castle. "She won't leave me." She'd had more than enough time to get Sirius somewhere safe, but she refused to let Harry go. His whole life he'd been desperate for someone to care for him, to hold him when he was ill, to celebrate the things he'd done, to be proud of him, to love him. To do what Clione had been doing since she first met him. He only wondered why she wasn't there when he woke.

As Snape led the stretches into the hospital wing Fred tugged on Clione's sleeve pulling her back before Hermione could spot her. Clione turned sharply ready to shake him off, but the look on his face had her blinking in understanding. Fred looked over the top of her head at where Snape stood over a still unconscious Sirius with his wand under his chin. "I'm gonna take her back."

Snape's eyes narrowed as he looked from the most troublesome Weasley to the girl he was holding. She looked up at Snape with a quivering chin and teary eyes and he sighed nodding. "It's been a difficult evening," he agreed.

Fred ran a hand along her back, the way he'd seen his mom do for Ginny when she was upset, as he led her out of the infirmary and down the hall. As soon as they were around the corner out of earshot and sight Clione sucked it in and dried her eyes. "What's going on?"

He pulled out the map and showed her where Hermione was fussing over Harry and Ron in the infirmary, then to where another Hermione and Harry were circling the castle too quickly to be on foot. Tucked in a dark corner the pair waited watching Sirius be brought to Flitwick's office only to then apparently leap out the window where Hermione and Harry were waiting.

They followed their names on the map through the empty sleepy halls of the castle all the way to the west courtyard. Sirius was kneeling in front of Harry wanting so much to take the boy with him, desperate for the fleeting time they'd all been a family before it'd been stolen from him. Harry watched Sirius turn and saw the way his face opened in awe when he saw Clione, like she was the one who rose and set his every sun.

"My dearest love," Sirius said gathering her beautiful face in his hands. How she knew to be here he didn't know, he didn't know that he cared. He'd take them both if he could. "One day we'll be together, and I'll tell you all about her." Her eyes were glassy as she nodded, and her mouth shivered as he kissed her cheek unable to tell him everything she wanted to. "The three of us." He turned reaching a hand to Harry's shoulder and he stood holding them both for as long as he could, and it wasn't enough.

With a last kiss to Clione's cheek he charged forward heading for where Buckbeak impatiently waited. He raised an accusing finger at Fred. "Mind your hands around my daughter."

As he climbed onto the hippogriff Fred raised his arms and let them drop back to his sides in defeat. "Why does everyone always say that?"

"Because you constantly flirt with her," Hermione answered, knowing he hadn't been looking for one. "How'd you even know we were here?"

Clione came around and looped her arms around Fred's waist seeking comfort in his warm chest. "Same way we know you're also in the hospital wing," she told Hermione quietly as she watched Buckbeak take off at a run and carry Sirius away.

They kept their secrets and the four of them stood in that quiet moment watching the sky until they couldn't see Sirius or Buckbeak anymore. A gentle hand brushing his cheek had Harry turning to Clione's kind face from where she stood leaning her head on Fred's chest as they held each other. "You okay?" she asked so soft there was barely any sound to it.

He thought a moment before nodding. "You?" he asked and she did the same. They shared a small smile as the clock began to chime.

"We have to go," Hermione said grabbing Harry and pulling him after her.

They watched them disappear inside, Clione's arms around Fred's waist and his around her back. She raised her head so her chin was on his chest and he looked down at her bright eyes he could see clearly from the moon shining in them. "You tired?" he asked her.

"Not really."

He let go of her only so he could step back and offer his hand. "May I have this dance?" he asked with a little bow.

They were both in their pajamas, he at least had shoes but she was still just in her slippers. Her mouth opened to ask with what music, but a breath left her and she fit her hand in his with a grin. "You may."

They came together and began a traditional box step, the only dance he knew. With a series of da's he started the first part of a waltz and she finished it as she ended up leading him around the courtyard. They danced and laughed and stole kisses well into the night. And as the sky lightened with the coming day they sat on a bench across from the fountain with her head on his shoulder and his arm slung over her lap. With heavy eyes and tired smiles they looked at each other, and they saw forever.