Remus Lupin knew his eyes were open, but they might just have well been closed. He blinked a couple of times but saw nothing, only inky blackness. There was a vaguely musty odor in the air. His skin tingled as if he were locked in a freezer. “Tonks? Are you there?”
“Remus?” Her voice was very close. “You have any idea wot’s going on?”
He reached toward the sound and his fingers touched a soft shock of hair, color uncertain in the darkness. “No clue.” With his left hand he groped for his wand in his jacket pocket. It wasn’t there. He felt his breath catch in his lungs. “Tonks, do you have your wand?”
He heard a rustle of clothing and then a sigh. “Nope. Don’t suppose you do, either?”
“No.” He squinted into the darkness, hoping to make out something, anything that might hint at where they were. It was no use. “They must have stunned us from behind.” He touched her again and then drew her closer to him. The familiar scent of lavender in her hair helped to soothe his jangling nerves. “Did they hurt you? Are you all right?”
“I’m OK. Bit of a headache.” Lupin felt her hand gently touch his face. “You’re all right, then?”
“Undamaged, as far as I can tell.”
“As much as I like playing in the dark with you, I must say this feels a bit dodgy.” Her voice was pitched a notch higher than usual. “They could have killed us, but they didn’t. Wot’s that all about?”
“They’re hoping to get some information out of us, I should imagine.” Her arm tightened around his chest. “Could get rough.”
“We’d better start looking for a way out of here, then.” She disengaged herself from his arms and he heard her knees scuff along the floor as she crawled cautiously through the darkness. Lupin rose slowly to his feet and took a couple of steps in the opposite direction. His outstretched hand touched a cool, smooth wall. Behind him he heard a quiet thump, followed by a whispered “Damn!”
He leaned against the wall and turned, fighting the disorienting blindness, and called softly to her, “What is it?”
“Hit a wall. This place is pretty small, like maybe a cupboard or something.”
“Doesn’t seem to be anything in it except us.” He slid his hand along the wall and started following it in the direction of Tonks’ voice. Then his fingers brushed against a door frame. “Slide this way. I think I found the door.” Moments later he felt her hand bump against his as both of them felt the perimeters of the opening. He tried the knob; it was locked.
Lupin and Tonks simultaneously stationed themselves flat against the wall on either side of the door, aware of one another’s nervous but controlled breathing. “So we wait for someone to come for us, then go for their wand, yeah?” she whispered.
“That sounds like a plan.”
He reached across the door and found her doing the same thing. Her hand felt tiny wrapped between his long fingers.
“Remus,” she began, sounding a bit short of breath. “We have to agree on something.”
“What’s that?”
“If we don’t get away, if they question us, we can’t tell them anything, no matter what they do to us. We know so much about what the Order is doing, it would put everyone connected with it in danger, even Mum, even . . .”
“Teddy.”
“Yeah.”
“I would die first.”
Her hand trembled slightly in his. “We’re agreed, then. No matter what.”
“Agreed.” Lupin tightened his grip on her fingers and pulled her close against him. Her heart thumped like a snare drum against his chest. Unable to resist, his lips found hers in the darkness. She tasted like fresh peppermint. He desperately wished he could see the spark he knew was blazing in her eyes.
“We’d better get ready,” she said when they finally came up for air.
* * *
“Remus and Tonks aren’t here?”
Bill Weasley’s scarred face creased with concern as he scanned the wizards and witches seated around the long, craggy table in his parents’ kitchen. “Where would they have been Apparating from, Andromeda’s?”
“No, London, I think,” said Kingsley Shacklebolt, shifting slightly in his seat to face him. “They’ve been tailing a Death Eater we think was responsible for those murders in Clerkenwell last month.”
Bill scowled. “Something’s not right. They wouldn’t skip an Order meeting without sending word to someone.” He saw the worry in the eyes of his mother, Molly, who was as close to the young Auror Tonks as her own mother. “I think I should go over there and have a look.”
“I’ll go with you,” said his father, Arthur Weasley, rising quickly to his feet.
“I will, too,” chimed in Molly.
“All right,” Bill said reluctantly, trying to disregard his hesitance to see his mother pulled into the dangerous mission. “We could use the help.”
Kingsley watched them pull on their coats and move toward the door. “Be careful. He’s a mean one.”
Bill tried unsuccessfully to smile. “We will.”
* * *
The door burst open with a blinding flash of light. Lupin flung himself at the man who came through it, digging his fingers into his neck and wrestling him to the floor. He heard Tonks grunt nearby.
Then the curse hit him. His muscles locked as hard as stone as the Freezing Charm immobilized him where he fell. His eyes had adjusted to the light streaming through the open door, but his view was limited to what lay directly in front of him. He saw the feet of a second man enter the room. The man bent and roughly grabbed Tonks, who also lay motionless on the floor. Lupin tried to call out to her, but his tongue wouldn’t work. Then a boot slammed hard into his ribs, leaving him gasping for breath. That was followed by a brutal kick to his temple. The room spun in a blaze of pain, but he didn’t lose consciousness. He felt a sticky trickle of blood running down his face.
Rough hands grasped his jacket and dragged him into the larger room. Lupin heard the heavy breathing of the man as he wrestled him into a sitting position against a wall. He finally got a glimpse of his face”Tabor. At the center of the room he saw what he expected”Paddy Burks, the Death Eater he and Tonks had been following through London. Burks had dragged Tonks to the center of the room, directly in front of where Lupin sat helpless, unable to move a muscle.
“The werewolf and his lady,” Burks said, grinning. “Loyal members of the Order of the Phoenix, as I understand.” He jerked Tonks upward by the neck of her jacket, pulling her to a standing position, though she was still immobilized. “Feeling chatty?” He laughed at their forced silence. Lupin felt as if a pile of stones was wedged in his stomach.
“We’ve heard you still have some of your Order friends inside the Ministry, spying on things that are none of your business. Not smart, that. But here’s your chance to make amends. Just tell me who they are.” Burks waved his wand and Tonks spun in a circle, the Freezing Charm lifted. She swore loudly and lunged at him, but before she could get a hand on him, he shouted, “Crucio!”
Tonks howled and fell, twitching and writhing in indescribable agony. Lupin thought he would explode with fury but still he could not move. His muscles screamed with the effort to break free. He saw her roll over on the floor, then moan as Burks flicked his wand once more. The torturer chuckled. “What’s that? I couldn’t hear you.”
Tonks growled like an animal and sprang to her feet, lithe as a cat. Burks laughed again and said, “Crucio!,” slamming her back to the floor with a thud. Lupin’s heart pounded as if it would burst as he saw a huge, purple bruise spread across the left side of her face. Trembling violently, she pushed herself up to her hands and knees, then managed to stand again. She fixed a look of undiluted hatred on the man and said, her voice shaky but defiant, “You’re dead, Burks. You just don’t know it yet.”
Burks spat angrily onto the dirty floor. “Looks like you’re not getting the message.” He flicked his wand and Lupin heard a sickening crack. Tonks’ left leg buckled under her, bent at an impossible angle, and she fell with a cry of pain. Hot tears leaked from Lupin’s burning eyes.
It seemed like hours. She hadn’t spoken and appeared barely conscious, her labored breaths rasping, shallow. Burks’ repeated attempts to prod her with new curses had no effect, and the Death Eater had retreated with Tabor to the back corner of the room for a whispered but heated conversation.
Burks strode back, and this time his words were directed at Lupin. “We’re going to take a break now. Have a chat with your lady. It’s on you, werewolf. You know how to stop this.” With that the two men stepped out the door, Burks giving his wand one more parting flick that left Lupin’s legs paralyzed but freed the rest of him to move once more.
“Tonks!” he groaned, sprawled on the floor and struggling desperately to propel himself toward her with just his stiffened arms. Her eyelids fluttered at the sound of his voice. He was close enough now to touch her but he hesitated, afraid of causing her any more pain.
“Hold me, Remus,” she whispered, her halting voice barely audible. He wrapped his long arms around her, as gently as he knew how, and cradled her against his chest. She looked into his reddened eyes, her gaze dazed yet glowing. “Yeah, that’s it. It doesn’t hurt so much now, when I can feel you.”
His hands tightened involuntarily against her shoulders. “When they come back, I’ll tell them something, a lie, anything to buy us some time until the Order finds us.” He tried without success to keep a tremor out of his voice. “So they won’t hurt you anymore.”
A spasm of pain twisted her bruised face and she trembled against his aching chest. “I can hold on a while longer, but just a little,” she whispered. “Then . . . then it will be over.”
“No.” An icy chill gripped his heart. “I won’t let that happen.”
“Oh, Remus,” she said, lifting a quivering hand and cupping it against his face. “I think this is hurting you more than it is me.”
Lupin pulled her closer and touched her lips with his, desperately needing the taste of her. He wanted to draw the pain out of her and into himself, to absorb the agony so he wouldn’t have to see it in her eyes. He felt her fingers grasping at his hair as she said, so quietly he could barely hear, “Be strong, Remus. No matter what happens. For Teddy.”
“And for you.” He held her so closely they seemed to have merged into one being.
The door banged open. No more! screamed the silent voice in his head as Lupin instinctively tightened his grip on Tonks, determined to protect her from any more abuse. He heard Burks laugh, then heard the sizzle of the spell that abruptly wrenched him away from her arms and slammed him against the wall. His head hit plaster with a loud crack, and for a few moments the room went black. When it reappeared, fuzzy and surreal, Burks was grinning at him, clutching the back of Tonks’ jacket and holding her upright. Her eyes met Lupin’s, and for a fleeting moment he saw fear, replaced quickly by dogged resolve. Her cracked lips mouthed a word. Teddy.
“Well, Lupin?” Burks barked. “Is she ready for another?”
“Let her go!” shouted Lupin, his blood turning to ice. “I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“No!” It was Tonks who shouted now. She reached up and grabbed Burks’ wand arm with unexpected strength, causing him to drop her in surprise. Lupin flung himself toward them, but he was too far away. As he watched in horror, Burks wrestled his arm free of her grip and whipped his wand toward her, bellowing with rage, “Crucio!” The force of the spell lifted her off the floor and slammed her back down with brutal force. She didn’t move again.
Lupin’s heart shattered into a million irreparable pieces. “You bastard!” he howled, watching as Burks poked her motionless body with the toe of his scuffed boot, rolling her over onto her back.
The Death Eater knelt down and touched her neck, frowning. “Well, that’s it. She won’t be telling us anything.” He nodded to Tabor, who had run to Lupin’s side and was holding him at bay with his own wand. “Looks like you’re up next, werewolf,” Burks said, breathless. “We’ll be back.” They both left the room, leaving them in eerie silence.
Lupin lugged himself across the dusty floor, his curse-paralyzed legs dragging uselessly behind him, toward where she lay so still. The scene was a warped nightmare, as if his brain was incapable of comprehending the horror of what was happening. Tonks couldn’t be dead. Not gone, not now.
He reached her side and pulled her into his arms. She was still warm. He felt his heart thumping crazily in his chest in a frantic, irregular rhythm. With a jolt he realized it was more than one heartbeat he was feeling. She was alive. A moan slipped from his lips, but he choked it back. Could it be that they didn’t know, that they truly thought she was gone?
Suddenly the room around them seemed to explode. The din was ear-splitting as walls cracked, spells sizzling everywhere. Lupin flung Tonks to the floor and hurled himself atop her, trying to wrap his body around her, shield her from further harm. He heard shouting, and a guttural cry of pain, then an abrupt silence.
He clung to her more tightly. A hand then grasped his shoulder. “Remus, Tonks, are you all right?” There was fear in the breathless words.
Lupin froze. He knew that voice. Slowly he loosened his grip on her and pushed himself onto his side, looking upward. His eyes didn’t seem to be functioning properly. A blurry, ginger-haired figure hovered just above him, scarred face creased with worry. “Bill?”
“Merlin, you’re alive. I wasn’t sure . . .” His eyes shifted to Tonks, still clutched against Lupin’s chest, limp. “Is Tonks . . .”
“She’s alive.” His voice shook. “Just barely.” He tried to look at the room around them, and made out the figures of Arthur Weasley, who muttered a barely audible epithet, and Molly, eyes welling up with unshed tears. “Where are they?”
“Who?” replied Bill, momentarily confused. “Oh, them. We got ‘em. What on earth has been happening here?”
Lupin spied a figure slumped on the floor between Arthur and Molly, motionless. Tabor. His blood turned to ice. “Our wands . . . did you find them?”
Bill blinked at the abrupt shift of subject. “Yeah. I took them off that,” he said, nodding toward the far wall. Leaning against it was Burks, completely immobilized by ropes that bound him from neck to feet, but clearly still alive. “Here.” He handed the wands to Lupin, who stared at them silently for a moment, then placed Tonks’ carefully in his jacket pocket. He pointed his own wand at his useless legs and whispered, “Finite.”
He flexed his aching legs tentatively, not looking at the others, then struggled to his feet, bringing Tonks’ small, limp body with him. He turned to face Burks, whose eyes widened. Lupin fixed an icy stare on him for a few moments. “Tonks was right,” he whispered, then thrust his wand forward and said with quietly ominous force, “Avada Kedavra.”
The torturer tumbled noisily to the floor and rolled over, motionless. Lupin exhaled heavily, then turned to look stonily at the others, who stared at him open-mouthed. He wrapped his other arm around Tonks, gently stroking her hair with two fingers. “I’m taking her to St. Mungo’s now,” he said flatly. “You know where to find me.” Then he flicked his wand, turned, and they disappeared.
Bill was the first to break the stunned silence. “One of us should go with them.”
“I’ll go,” said Molly. Her eldest son nodded. She immediately waved her wand and was gone.
Bill and Arthur exchanged a wordless glance, then both walked across the room to where the lifeless body of Burks lay. Bill looked at the man, his face creased in thought, then flicked his wand, making the ropes disappear. “It’s too bad he went for your wand. Lupin didn’t have any choice.”
“True, true,” said his father, nodding solemnly.
“Let’s clear this up.”
* * *
Molly landed shakily on her feet in the reception area of St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, where the receptionist looked up with the calm demeanor of someone who had seen everything under the sun, and then some. “Yes?”
“Remus Lupin and his wife. Are they here?”
The receptionist pointed down the corridor on the left side. “Emergencies.”
Molly charged off down the hallway, breathing heavily, her bright red hair askew. At the end of the corridor she saw them. Lupin still cradled Tonks in his arms, watching as an orderly pushed a sheet-draped gurney in front of them. He gently lowered her onto it as if she were a fragile butterfly. His face was stony, though his eyes were bloodshot and dark circles surrounded them.
“What happened to her?” asked a Healer who moved quickly to her side, lifting one of her eyelids and shining a penlight into her pupil.
“Tortured,” Lupin replied, his voice oddly expressionless. “Cruciatus Curse. For hours.”
Molly gasped. She saw a muscle twitch involuntarily on the side of his jaw. His gaze was locked on Tonks’ motionless face, as pale as fine porcelain. He reached out to touch it, and Molly noticed his hands had begun to tremble.
“Anything else?” The Healer felt for her pulse, his eyes narrowing.
“Her”her left leg. They snapped the bone . . . I heard it break.” His voice cracked, then recovered. “They immobilized me, but I could hear”and see.”
The Healer palpated Tonks’ twisted leg, scowling. “Damned Death Eaters.” He glanced up at Lupin, sympathy in his eyes. “I’ll have to take her inside to do a full examination and repair the bone. Is there someone who can wait with you here?”
“I’m here,” Molly broke in, feeling ill. Lupin’s head jerked up abruptly as he heard her voice. “Remus, why don’t we sit down? I’ll find us some tea.”
He looked at her, then quickly back at Tonks on the gurney. He reached out to stroke her hair, then nodded curtly. He stood very still, watching as the Healer and the orderly rolled the gurney through the double doors and into an examination room. Molly placed a supportive hand on his shoulder, but he turned away abruptly, bent forward with a groan, and vomited onto the floor. He buried his hands in his hair, shoulders heaving convulsively, then took a deep, gasping breath and straightened up, turning to face her. “Sorry, Molly.”
“Oh, Remus.” She cleared away the mess with a wave of her wand, then pulled him into her arms. He sagged against her. “No one should have to see what you’ve seen today.” She steered him to a settee in the waiting area and took a seat next to him, quickly wiping away the salty tears in her own eyes. Lupin, staring without focus at the wall across the room, didn’t seem to notice. When she grasped his hand, she could feel his pulse pounding.
Molly got up and strode to a teapot in the corner of the waiting area, poured two cups, and carried them back to where he sat. She offered one to him, but the cup shook so violently in his trembling hands he quickly handed it back with a humorless laugh. He’s in shock, she thought, placing the cups on a table and digging quickly into her handbag. She pulled out a large bar of chocolate, tore off the wrapper and pressed it into his grasp. He stared at it for a moment, then back at her with a sad smile. Taking a large bite, he chewed thoughtfully for a while, then began to speak in a soft, hesitant tone.
“It was like the worst nightmare I ever had, but I couldn’t wake up. They had me propped up against the wall like a bloody broomstick, totally immobilized. I couldn’t move, couldn’t talk”couldn’t even look away when she screamed.” He averted his glance, lips pressed tightly together. “She was suffering, and I couldn’t do a thing to help her.”
“What did they want?” Molly could barely speak.
“Information. Names. Order secrets.” His eyes suddenly burned with a fierce, angry pride. “She didn’t give them anything. Not a thing.”
Molly squeezed his arm. “That’s because she’s strong. So are you. You’re both going to get through this, mark my word.”
Lupin stood suddenly and turned to look back through the windows into the room where the Healer continued to work on his unconscious wife. His voice shook. “I thought she was dead. If you hadn’t come when you did . . .”
“She’s alive, Remus.”
He turned back to face her, anguish contorting his face. “What if she doesn’t wake up? What if she ends up like the Longbottoms? If she can’t come back--”
“She will be back,” Molly said, her voice rising as she grasped both his shoulders tightly and pulled him closer. “You’ll bring her back, and Teddy, and Andromeda.”
They were interrupted by the bang of the door as the Healer came out of the room and approached them. Lupin turned to meet him with both hope and trepidation.
“She’s stable, but still unconscious,” said the Healer, his expression solemn. “I was able to repair her leg, but the rest is going to take some time, I’m afraid.”
“Time.” Lupin’s face fell, and Molly could see in his eyes the confirmation of his deepest fears. “How . . . how long?”
“I can’t answer that now.” He looked back over his shoulder as the doors opened again and two orderlies pushed the gurney bearing Tonks out and down the hall. She was nearly as pale as the sheet on which she lay. “We’re moving her to a private room where she can have some peace and quiet.”
“I’m going with her.” Lupin had already broken into a trot. He caught up with the gurney just as it turned into a room at the end of the hall and followed it through the door. Molly hurried down the corridor, followed by the Healer. Before they reached the door, she turned to him and said, quietly, “She’s going to be all right. She is, right?”
He hesitated. “I hope so. This aftermath of this sort of trauma is difficult to predict.”
“And that means . . .”
“Her body and her mind have to sort through what’s happened. With a horror like this, sometimes unconsciousness is the only way to cope.” He watched through the door as the orderlies settled Tonks into the bed. Lupin stood nearby, watching tight-lipped, his arms tightly folded around him. “He may do her more good than any potion I can come up with.”
Molly nodded, her eyes stinging, as the orderlies left the room, leaving Lupin standing very still beside the bed. She moved forward and took a place next to him, slipping a supportive arm around his back. “Remus, you look like you’re about to fall over. When was the last time you got some sleep?”
“I don’t want her to be alone when she wakes up,” he said quietly, his eyes fixed on Tonks’ ashen face.
“You won’t be of much use to her if you’re passed out. You could at least lie down for a while.” Molly pulled out her wand and waved it, conjuring up a camp bed beside Tonks’ hospital bed. “Right next to her. If anything changes, you’ll be right here.”
The anguish in his eyes as he turned toward her broke Molly’s heart. “You’re right,” he said softly, wrapping her in his arms and pulling her toward him. “Thanks, Molly.”
“She’ll be all right,” she managed to say, squeezing him as tightly as she could.
She felt him nod, then realized he was looking up at someone else. “Arthur’s here,” he said.
Molly disengaged herself from Lupin’s arms, giving his hand a final squeeze before stepping back through the door to where her husband waited. Arthur nodded at Lupin, then pulled her into an embrace, speaking quietly into her ear. “How are they?”
“She’s in a bad way. So is he.”
Arthur pushed away far enough to see into her eyes. “Bill smoothed over the thing with the dead Death Eater.”
“Good.” Molly looked back into the room, where she saw Lupin sit down heavily on the edge of the camp bed, leaning forward to take Tonks’ hand into his own. He raised it to his lips and held it there. “If I’d known what that bastard Burks had done to her, I would have killed him myself.”
Arthur hesitated. “What did he do?”
She grimaced. “He immobilized Remus and made him watch as he tortured her. Nearly killed her.” She shook her head in frustration at the tears that suddenly were pouring down her face.
Arthur reached up to wipe them away. “Merlin. It’s a wonder he didn’t go mad.”
“I’m afraid of what might happen to him if she doesn’t make it,” she admitted shakily. “No. She will make it. She has to.”
He held her closer. “Yes.”
* * *
The room at St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries was strikingly quiet in the middle of another night. Only a trace of the dimmest light illuminated the two figures stretched out upon the bed. The larger one--thin, sunken-eyed, bearing several days of unshaven stubble on his face and fully clothed, except for shoes”leaned wearily against a tall stack of pillows. The bed was barely long enough to contain his extended legs. Lying atop him on her back, clad in a cotton hospital gown, spiky dark brown hair streaked with a vivid pink, a small, younger woman slept silently. She was nestled, spoon-like, in his arms, her legs resting between his, her small hands wrapped between his long fingers. He bent his head forward, nuzzling her sweet-smelling hair, breathing in the warmth of it.
“ Don’t suppose you’d want to wake up now,” Lupin whispered, his lips brushing against her downy-soft hair. “I know you’re tired after all that happened, but don’t you think four days is a bit much? Even for somebody who’s as hard to wake up in the morning as you are.”
Tonks didn’t respond, of course, any more than she had the past three nights. Her heart continued to beat a steady rhythm against his chest, almost synchronized with his own. “Andromeda came by again today. She brought Teddy.” An aching in the back of his throat nearly cut off the words. “She’s having a very hard time with this, on top of everything else that happened before. Teddy, he just misses his Mum.”
For a few moments he couldn’t speak. He looked down at her unlined face, so pale and serene and peaceful, and tried to will her to look back at him. It didn’t work. Lupin wrenched his gaze away from her and stared into the dark of the room, trying to rein in the fear that had become his constant companion. “I miss you, too,” he said to the darkness, his words barely audible.
He took a deep breath. “Do you know what life was like, when I didn’t know you? Duller, certainly. A werewolf doesn’t have many prospects, and fewer friends. I lived from full moon to full moon. In between, I tried to be normal. Total disaster, that. Sometimes people would scream at the sight of me. Not much of a conversation starter.”
She was so warm on top of him. He squeezed her hands, marveling at how tiny they were. How soft. “Then you were there. Exploding with energy. Impossible to shut up. A bit clumsy, but never when it mattered. You wouldn’t let me feel sorry for myself. You wouldn’t let me feel damaged, or monstrous, or old. You reached inside me and found every trace of humanity, and love, and life, and pulled it out for the whole world to see.”
Lupin looked back down at her sleeping face. “Some comment from you would be appropriate here, don’t you think? I’m not used to doing all the talking. That’s your specialty.” There was no response. He watched her chest rise and fall with her deep, even breathing even as the pain built and grew inside his own breast. Talk to me! he wanted to scream. Help me! I can’t bear this any longer.
He bit his lip and fought for control. “I came to love you in a way I never thought possible. There is so much love for you inside me that sometimes I think I’ll explode. You are living in there. You are my life. So, you see, you can’t leave me. If you die, I’ll die.”
Lupin closed his eyes and focused on the steady thumping of her heart. I won’t move, he thought. As long as I can feel that, she hasn’t left me. I won’t leave her. After a time, he slept.
* * *
This has to be the worst hangover I’ve ever had, Tonks thought, grimacing through the pea-soup fog in her head. Where am I?
With great effort, she forced her stinging eyelids to open. It didn’t help much. She was in a very dim place, surrounded by unfamiliar shadows and shapes. A pleasant warmth surrounded her, and she realized with a start that she was lying on top of someone. How odd. She squinted into the darkness and made out the image of two large hands wrapped around her own. His hands. She smiled.
They weren’t in their own bed, she was sure of that. Her brow furrowed as she struggled to remember where she had been when she was last awake. Then, with a jolt that stung every nerve in her body, she knew. That pain! She was dying. At least it won’t hurt anymore.
But, how could they be lying here together now, so warm and comfortable? How could they have possibly gotten out of that mess? Unless . . .
“Remus, are we dead?”
The body beneath her shuddered with a ragged gasp. Something that sounded like a strangled sob erupted as his arms clenched around her. She felt him burying his face in her hair, which suddenly seemed rather soggy. He didn’t speak. She wished she could see what was going on.
“Remus?”
“No,” he managed to say in a choked voice she could barely hear. “No, we’re alive. We’re both alive.”
The Darkness by Kiley
Story Notes:
Author’s note: Endless thanks to J.K. Rowling for creating these unforgettable characters for us to play with.