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The Raven's Song	By : Quills Category: HP Canon Characters paired with Original Characters > Het - Male/Female Views: 6265 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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The late evening early in May when everything changed forever found Lyra sat cross-legged at the end of the Tonks’ family garden, watching her son as he launched pebbles at the invisible barrier protecting them and laughed gleefully each time they rebounded towards him. Leo was two now and looked more like his father by the day; and still it was hard to believe that Sirius was truly gone. He was with her always in the form of their precious son, but since she left Malfoy Manor her grief over losing him had finally begun to ease into something she could live with. She was coming to see that she couldn’t live the rest of her life controlled by her grief, and that it wasn’t a betrayal of all they shared to consider one day moving on.
As things stood, though, she could never allow herself to let Lucius be the one she moved onto, however much she needed him. Not an hour had passed since she left him that he wasn’t in her thoughts. The long and lonely nights were the worst of all, but the incontrovertible truth remained that he wasn’t hers. He was married, something she had always known; she should never have allowed him to do everything he had to her.
For now, though, she had learned her lesson. Since the day she escaped Malfoy Manor, she had not left the boundaries of her home with Leo, for not only could she not trust the Death Eaters that now roamed their world so freely, but it seemed she couldn’t trust herself either. The compulsion to seek out Lucius and find out one way or another if he was even alive still was breathtaking in its ferocity. Tears stung her eyes even now at the merest thought of the punishment he surely underwent when Voldemort discovered she had escaped her prison in his arms.
With a marked shudder, Lyra pushed herself up to stand and scooped Leo up despite his garbled, laughing protests. She needed the distraction that only her son could provide. “Come on, little man,” she said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Time for bed.”
“No, Mama, play!”
Leo was so like his father; stubborn to the last. Crushing him against her chest as she covered his chubby face in a dozen kisses that made him break out into giggles once more, she carried him back into the house and bathed him before putting him in his cot. Despite his protests, he fell asleep with the setting of the sun as, in the nursery next door, Tonks settled her tiny son Teddy to sleep too.
By the time Lyra made her way to the parlour, Andromeda was already sat there with Tonks and Remus, listening to the quiet hum of the wireless as her knitting needles clicked together. Lyra drew her knees up against her chest as she settled into her favourite armchair by the fire, disconcerted by a fresh stab of longing for all she could not have, but before she had the chance to dwell on it Remus leapt to his feet, his hand flying to his pocket and a thousand expressions flitting across his face as he looked down at what he pulled out.
“Hogwarts – Harry – it’s tonight,” he said hoarsely, paler than she had ever seen him before. “I must go.”
“Me too,” said Lyra and Tonks in unison.
Stricken, Remus glanced between the two of them. “But the children -”
Lyra shook her head fiercely before Tonks could speak. “Will be safe here, Remus. I have to fight. Sirius loved Harry as much as he loved Leo – if I can help in any way to keep him safe, I have to do it.”
“And if you’re going, you can’t expect me to stay here!” Tonks said furiously. “My mum can watch the boys, but we...we can fight. Don’t waste time trying to stop us, Remus.”
He briefly closed his eyes. “To do so would be futile, I realise that now. Come on, then; I don’t think there’s any time to waste.”
As Tonks and Remus exchanged a few short words with the white-faced Andromeda, Lyra made her way outside to let the balm of the night air cool her down. She was trembling from head to toe, all too aware that the fate of the world her son would grow up in rested upon what would happen tonight. She dared not think of who she might have to face; each Death Eater was only a foe to be taken down, for she couldn’t allow Lucius or any of the Lestranges to become anything more. All she could do was fight, and if they were her opponents so be it.
Remus squeezed her hand as he and Tonks joined her. “Ready? We’re Apparating to Hogsmeade then going to the castle from there.”
She couldn’t find the words to express all she felt, but it seemed her answer was written all over her face. Without speaking further, the three of them Apparated away from their place of sanctuary, keenly aware that they might never return.
By the time they reached Hogwarts, it was apparent they had arrived without a moment to spare. The few members of the Order still alive were already marshalling the troops in defence of the castle and its students, and there was no time even to pause to fear all that was surely waiting for them. Before she knew it she found herself next to Remus once more, staring up into his prematurely lined face as a thousand memories tumbled through her mind of all they had endured to come to this point, and the realisation that this was it. This was what it had all been leading towards, and they owed it to those they had lost to fight with all they had for the freedom and liberty their enemies intended to steal away.
“Stay safe,” Remus said as he clasped her hand tightly.
“You too, Remus.”
And with that they parted ways, turning in opposite directions as Remus headed for the heights of the castle and Lyra made her way into the grounds, her wand whirling viciously in every direction as she readied herself for attack from every quarter. The boundaries weren’t yet breached, but it was all too plain that they wouldn’t withstand much longer.
Her fears proved to be well-founded. Next to no time seemed to pass before the vast shield stretched all around the castle shimmered then fractured entirely, allowing Voldemort’s army to pour through as the world around them exploded into chaos, jinxes and hexes flying in every direction as the sound of explosions filled the air.
Lyra fired blindly into the darkness that surrounded her, trusting to fate to keep her spells on target as she fell back towards the castle, instinctively aware that there was no other choice. Yet before she could follow her fellow defenders in retreat, two voices that had haunted her days and nights since she was forcibly taken to Malfoy Manor cut through the pandemonium to freeze her where she stood.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Rodolphus Lestrange as he and his brother circled her. “You are by far the sweetest sight we have seen tonight, my lovely.”
His brother nodded. “Hello again, little one,” Rabastan said with a menacing smile as he advanced on her. “Have you missed us?”
They had bested her once, but tonight there was nothing to hold her back.
Lyra refused to even give him the satisfaction of answering him, for her trembling voice would betray the terror the sight of him sparked inside her. Instead she drew her wand and summoned up all her hatred into a wordless hex that struck him full across the chest, sending him crashing backwards into the wall behind him where he struck his head and crumpled to the ground.
Rodolphus swore furiously, but she dived to the side to avoid his vicious jinx and, as she rolled, shouted out her spell. “Depulso!”
And with that he shared his brother’s fate, but no sooner did she clench her fist and cry out her triumph than a body slammed into her from behind; a body she knew even better than her own. Stunned, Lyra stared up into Lucius’s face as he shielded her from the two brothers, following up her curses with another of his own to leave them broken on the ground.
Breathing heavily, he then snatched her into his arms and kissed her fiercely before she could even try to gather herself – and despite everything going on around them, her body instantly responded to the assault of his. Outwardly, at least, he was unharmed, and the thrill of seeing him so had her clinging to him in desperation, her mouth opening beneath his to allow his thrusting tongue the entrance it demanded. This was madness, but then she never had been able to resist him.
However, the impassioned kiss lasted no more than a few glorious heartbeats before Lucius pulled back and scowled furiously down at her. “I saw you – them – damn it, Lyra, are you determined to forever throw yourself into danger?!”
Lyra twisted free of his hold and backed away, her wand stretched out between them. “It’s not like I deliberately sought them out, Lucius!”
“You should have known coming here would throw you into their path! What are you even doing here, fool?” he said incredulously.
“Fighting. What are you doing here?” she shot back.
He stared at her, and then his wand dropped to his side. “I...I don’t quite know, Lyra. I don’t know any more.”
She met his intent stare, swallowing hard as his words sunk in. She could hear nothing but him, despite the chaos all around them. “You’re...you’re alive,” she said, at a loss for anything else to say to him.
“No thanks to you,” he said grimly. “You surely realise the extent of the punishment I had to endure for letting you escape against my master’s direct orders, Lyra.”
Lyra flushed, her stomach clenching painfully with his words. “I didn’t want that to happen -”
“But still you left me!” Cursing under his breath, Lucius’ face contorted. “Just tell me one thing, pet.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “What?”
“Tell me why. Why did you leave me, Lyra? Did I not do everything I could to keep you safe and give you what you need?”
His fierce words made her remember against her will everything they shared in his bed, and tears filled her eyes as she drew closer to him as if compelled. “Because I have to think of my son, Lucius! Were it just you and I, then perhaps...”
“Perhaps what?”
She shook her head as her tears began to fall in earnest. “Don’t, for it never can be just you and I. I have my son, and you...you have your family too. I suggest you find your son and your wife and take them far away from here, Lucius. One way or another, all this will end tonight – and I don’t think you want them to be caught in the crossfire.”
“No.” He drew a shallow breath, an oddly feverish lustre to his grey eyes as he reached out for her hand. “But neither do I want you to be hurt, pet. I cannot walk away from you, not like this.”
Lucius’ fingers threaded through Lyra’s, and her breath hitched violently as he slowly drew her close again. “Then what do we do?” she said through her tears.
“You need only close your eyes,” he said quietly, his softly spoken command impossible to disobey. “If you only close your eyes, Lyra, then there is no one here but the two of us.”
He lifted their entwined hands to her face, gently brushing her tears away with the pad of his thumb as she mutely obeyed him. He was right. Now there was nothing but them, nothing but the way their bodies fit so perfectly together, nothing but the way her lips parted to invite him to take the kiss he never had been asked to take. Her head rolled to the side and his mouth covered hers, gently coaxing the emotion flooding through her to such a height that she was helpless to anything but hold onto him and will their kiss never to end.
He had never kissed her so tenderly before, and she instinctively sensed that everything was changing between them. This was no hard, impassioned kiss, full of the hunger and lust that drove them together so inescapably from the very start, but instead a kiss that spoke of something far more powerful and lasting; something she could fight no longer.
By the time Lucius pulled back again and searched her eyes for the answer to the question his kiss asked of her, she was shaking from head to toe. Unable to meet his intent stare when she knew her eyes would reveal so much, she glanced down, and he sighed under his breath. “Lyra,” he began, but before he could finish whatever he was above to say, a jet of black light flew past them, missing them by mere inches.
“Go,” Lyra said, crying in earnest once more as they instantly whirled around to stand back to back and fire upon the Death Eaters now advancing on them from every direction. “Find them and go, Lucius. I’ll be fine – I have to be, for Leo’s sake. If I stay here with you, though, I can’t do what I have to.”
Her words made far more sense than she wanted them to, for leaving him again was going to be hardest thing she had ever done. As the last of their opponents fell to the ground, his face contorted and he slowly nodded his head.
“Be safe,” he said as two impossible tears snaked from his grey eyes. “Keep yourself safe for me, pet, or I will never forgive you.”
Lyra nodded without speaking, fighting with all she was not to simply hold onto him forevermore and pretend the world around them didn’t exist. It would be all too easy to beg him to take her away and forget everything they were here fighting for, but that was something she couldn’t do.
Instead she turned her back on the man she now realised meant far more to her than she should ever have allowed him to become and walked away from him for the second time, returning to the heart of the battle for the future of the wizarding world and praying with everything she was that when it all settled out again, they would both still be standing unharmed.
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The Raven's Song