A Dish Served Cold

Chapter 46 – Pain

Hermione had retreated to her safe haven. Severus' temper was rather uncertain today. She wasn't certain whether it was because he hadn't been able to “put a stopper in death” for the infant Potter, or for some other reason entirely, but he was stalking and storming about the parlor.

Hermione turned and waddled over to the long ledge before the window, and settled her unwieldy body onto it. She leaned back, and propped her feet up on a pillow with a sigh of relief. Outside, fish darted past and seaweed swayed in the currents. Fingers of light reached for the depths, and tiny particles danced in that sparse light.

Half asleep, her mind drifting, Hermione slowly became aware of something reflected in the glass: something that should not have been there.

Her head whipped around, but behind her the room was empty. Her heart was pounding from the sudden fright, but she took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

It had just been her imagination. There hadn't been a misty figure in white standing behind her. She had been drifting off to sleep and it had merely been a fragment of her dream rising up.

She was quite certain of it.

Really.

Still, she was feeling sleepy...perhaps it would be better for her to go sleep in her own room.

Hermione heaved herself up from the bench and exited the room with some alacrity.
Behind her, framed in blue and copper, a mournful figure in white gleamed palely in the darkness.

Remus walked into the kitchen and breathed deeply. The mingled odors of bacon, eggs, mushrooms, and pudding made his mouth water. Ginny was industriously cooking, sending the rasher of bacon to a plate, the toast flying over to the butter pot, eggs sizzling, and pudding frying merrily in the cast iron pan.

She was medium-height, slender, straight, easy on the eyes, and very dear to him. There were moments when she still seemed very young, but those moments came less and less often lately. She had a maturity far beyond her years and he understood the depths of pain that lurked in her heart, for they were very much like his own.

She turned and flashed him a smile. He returned it and felt strangely content. He was cured of being a werewolf, his whole life stretched before him, and he had a beautiful wife who made his heart sing.

Things couldn't be better.

The crashing sound at his front door, made him whirl in sudden fear.

“Remus!” came the roar of a voice, which Remus had hoped never to hear again.

“Fenrir,” he whispered and Ginny paled.

“I can smell you, Remus!” the roar came again.

“Ginny, run for the Floo and get to the school as fast as you can,” he told her in an under voice.

“I can't leave you,” she began.

“Get help,” he begged, as the crashing came closer.

With a frightened nod, Ginny fled upstairs, and Remus turned to face his onetime leader.

Ron flung himself away from the sizzle of a bolt of magic. It struck the ground far too close to him, and set fire to a barrel that was pushed up against the wall of the Three Broomsticks. He could hear screaming coming from somewhere, and the mingled shouts of several different witches and wizards casting curses and counter-curses from nearby.

He had gone into Hogsmeade to get more nappies for young Gideon, who was running poor Luna ragged with his appetite, and the results thereof. It seemed however, that he had walked into a Death Eater attack on the village.

Pulling out his wand, he crept around the nearest corner and cautiously peered out at the street. People were running hither and yon with no rhyme or reason. It was panic, and Ron wasn’t entirely sure what to do about it.

Kingsley Shaklebolt appeared about two feet away from him, and Ron waved at him from his hiding spot. The older Wizard ran over to where Ron was crouching.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, people are running everywhere, but I haven’t actually seen a…” he broke off in mid sentence as a pair of Death Eaters came pelting towards them.

Without really thinking about it, he cast a Body Bind curse on the nearest one and watched him tumble over, motionless, with a certain degree of satisfaction. Shaklebolt took the other one out with some sort of rope spell that Ron hadn’t seen before.

“There must be more of them, let’s go,” the tall, black man commanded, and Ron followed.
There were a lot of innocent people in danger out there, and not a lot of time.

Sabine waded through the panicked people fleeing from Hogsmeade with a grim set to her mouth. The timing was bad, but no other, better, opportunity had presented itself to them. Albus was directing people towards the school grounds, where presumably they would be safer than milling about in a panic on the road.

The moment was coming for them to play out their charade, and Sabine felt a slight pang of apprehension. She was getting near to her time, and the thought that Albus would not be present for the birth of their child was irritating. She was really starting to resent Voldemort’s poor sense of timing.

Men really were the most irritating of creatures, they never had their priorities straight, and they always insisted on trying to take over the world at just the wrong moment.

It occurred to Sabine that she was babbling a little, even if it was only inside her own head, and wondered what was wrong with her. She couldn’t possibly be worried about her husband, could she?

A flood of memories were unleashed in her mind. The gangly first year with his serious blue eyes and mop of reddish hair, dripping wet from his fall into the lake and receiving a scolding from Headmaster Black. He had looked so young and scared, and she had felt a stirring of compassion for the boy who was always overshadowed by his more flamboyant brother.

Her mind moved forward to moments at school when she had glimpsed the shy, but extremely bright young man, who could dazzle his teachers with his brilliance, while being unable to make friends with his peers. She had befriended him, at first for homework help, and then later for his sly sense of humor. It had taken time to get past his extreme shyness, but once you penetrated through to the core person, he’d been a delightful boy.

Boy. She looked over at her husband where he stood directing the flow of fleeing witches and wizards and saw no child, lonely and shy, but the greatest Wizard of their age, powerful and courageous as only a Gryffindor could be. She felt mildly ashamed of herself.
She would never treat him with the near reverent deference that so many others did. She knew him too well. But, perhaps, she had held on to the child that he had been for a trifle too long.

It was odd because she hadn’t thought that way about other classmates. Why had she never admitted to herself, even when they were young adults together, that he was now a man grown?

She was distracted by a hex arcing towards her. With an irritated gesture, she cast a shield charm and watched the hex bounce off harmlessly. She flung a fire charm at the Death Eater, who had emerged from the outskirts of Hogsmeade, and watched with satisfaction as he began to shout and try to extinguish his flaming robes.

As he danced about, trying to get his wand in the right position to cast an Extinguishing charm, she put him in a body bind. Albus waved at her with a grin and she shrugged. Pregnant or not, she was a formidable hand with hexes and curses, having achieved the highest N.E.W.T.s of her year in Defense. She had heard that her score still stood, as Albus’ did in Charms.

Another figure stepped from the town, a figure that made even her blood run cold. She didn’t fear Tom Riddle the way so many did, but she was appalled at the lengths to which he had gone to gain power and a kind of immortality.

She had lived long enough that death no longer worried her, and she could not imagine the depths of fear that must drive this mad young man.

She exchanged glances with Albus and felt a pang at his confident smile. It occurred to her that if anything happened to him she would be genuinely distressed. She fingered the vial of ashes in her pocket and readied her spell. The timing must be perfect.

Harry had hated to leave Moira, even for a moment; her depression was easing, but she still seemed extremely fragile to him. Still, she had shooed him out the door and then run to the great gates to add to their defense, whilst he had headed towards Hogsmeade with some of the other members of the DA to help the teachers and Aurors defend the town.
Harry spared a brief moment to wonder if he would ever see his wife again, and then ran pell-mell down the road towards Hogsmeade.

Sabine waited for the right moment. Albus was engaged wand to wand with Voldemort, dueling him to a standstill. Sabine watched as Bellatrix Black, a treacherous little lunatic even in her schooldays, began trying to sneak up on Albus.

It was tempting to flame the creature while she was otherwise occupied, but Sabine resisted the urge. The Black’s latest example of inbreeding would serve her purposes nicely. Bellatrix reared up to preparing to cast a killing curse at Albus and Sabine spoke one word.

“Oddments!” she cried, and triggered the vial in her pocket. At that exact moment, her grandson, Severus, in his Death Eater garb, cast his inflammatory spell at Albus. There was a collective gasp and then screams broke out.

Sabine had to admit that it was impressive. Albus seemed engulfed by flames, he writhed in the fire, shrieking in agony, and her heart contracted, even knowing that it was faked. Voldemort cried out in triumph and there was a cruel look of enjoyment on his serpent-like face. With a final blood-curling shriek, Albus combusted completely and as the flames died out, there was nothing left but ashes.

Sabine stood shocked by the effectiveness of their ploy. All around them grief-stricken students and citizens let out a wail of both misery and fury. People who had been running away, turned on the Death Eaters with a ferocity born of pain, and in moments the tide had turned.

Sabine waded through the crowd, casting hexes with infuriated abandon, her irritation at the whole foul situation fueling her performance as the grieving widow. When she was done with Tom Riddle and his little playmates they would know what wrath really meant. Because age and treachery really did trump youth and enthusiasm, and she was very old, and very very treacherous.

Harry felt as though the earth had fallen away beneath him. Dumbledore was gone. First his parents had died then Sirius, his unborn daughter, and now Dumbledore, all of them dead and gone. Harry wasn’t sure afterwards how many Death Eaters he brought down, because his only thought was to kill Voldemort, and everything else just faded away.

Moira had a moment as a hex headed towards her, when she almost didn’t evade it. It occurred to her that dying in battle would not be seen as suicide. However, just as the bolt was moving towards her, she dodged. There, in that moment when she could have really died, she realized that she didn’t want to.

She had hated Severus Snape when he had forced her to drink that potion. She had raged against his high handedness and lack of compassion. Now, in a brief moment of illumination, she felt a profound gratitude towards him. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to leave Harry and her friends to grieve for her, after all. Somehow he had known and acted to do what she needed him to, rather than what she had wanted him to. Maybe Hermione wasn’t so unlucky after all.

With a renewed sense of purpose, Moira raised her wand and proceeded to fight for her life, and the lives of those she loved. Her face filled with fury and strength, Moira Potter gave no quarter to her enemies.

Ginny burst into the Common Room and looked around wildly. The place was empty, and she charged through the hallway that led to the Fat Lady’s portrait with fear for her husband uppermost in her mind. She sped out into the main hallways, and found Hogwarts deserted.
In a near panic at this point, tears blinding her as she ran, Ginny sped down the stairs and headed towards the grounds.

“Mrs. Lupin!” McGonagall’s voice jerked her to a halt and she spun on her heel to face the Transfigurations teacher.

“You have to help Remus, Fenrir is attacking our house!” Ginny gasped out, with fear choking her throat. To lose him now, after all they had gone through to cure him, she couldn’t bear the though of it.

“I am coming,” replied the stalwart Scotswoman. With a swift gesture the Professor transfigured two nearby benches into brooms and Ginny leapt up onto one and sped out of the school with the Professor on her heels.

“Don’t we need more people?” Ginny shouted across to McGonagall.

“Death Eaters are attacking Hogsmeade.” It was delivered so calmly that it took a moment for Ginny to understand and then, looking down, she saw the frightened crowds running towards the gates of the school.

Inside the gates, she saw students and teachers alike setting up shields and wards and standing guard. Beyond she could see jets of flame rising form Hogsmeade and the bright lights of hexes being tossed back and forth.

There was a moment where she saw Harry, surrounded by enemies, casting as fast as he could. Snape’s grandmother was beside him, pregnant and elderly, but deadly dangerous with her wand and Ginny could see where Snape got his facility with hexes. It was a moment only that she saw them and then they were swooping down towards her tiny cottage to rescue Remus.

The front door had been torn off of its hinges and tossed to one side, and from inside the sounds of combat were clearly audible. Ginny took heart at the sound of Remus’ voice casting curses; it told her that he was still alive.

McGonagall drew her own wand, and together the two women edged inside past the wrecked door and smashed furniture. Ginny felt a housewifely rage at the destruction of her beautiful home; she had scrimped and saved, cleaned and mended, working hard to make their limited budget stretch to encompass the small touches that made a house a home. All her work was being pulled apart by a savage werewolf, and it hurt her in a way she had never imagined it could.

She pushed past the shattered couch, and McGonagall gestured her to flank the doorway opposite her. They peered around the frame, and Ginny’s heart nearly stopped at the sight before her.

Fenrir had Remus cornered. Remus’ wand was holding a shield spell before him and he was chanting in an even tone, holding it against the enraged figure that tore and screamed at him in frustration. Sweat beaded Remus’ brow but he held the wand steady and strong, and kept chanting.

“You betrayed us! You became what we despise! You’re weak, puling creature who never deserved to be one of the chosen!” Fenrir was shrieking as he tried to dig his way through Remus’ shield.

Taking advantage of his single-minded focus on Remus, Ginny and her teacher exchanged glances and, in unison, stepped forward and cast simultaneously. Ginny’s body-bind hex and McGonagall’s transfiguration hit Fenrir at almost the same moment, and the stone rabbit that thudded to the floor was caught in a posture of savage attack that looked utterly ludicrous. There was a long pause, and then Ginny flung herself across the room to her husband and held him as tightly as she could.

“Well done, love,” he murmured in her ear, and no words of love or praise had ever sounded as sweet.



Draco looked up from his paper, and took a moment to look at his wife.

She would never be beautiful, he supposed, but there was something about her that made him realize that perhaps that wasn’t as critical as he had imagined. She was smart, devious and, he was discovering, as ruthless in her own way as he was.

He might scoff at her refusal to leave bodies in her wake, but he certainly wasn’t going to mock her ability to plot and plan with Machiavellian cunning. Her latest series of identity changes and quiet apparations had led them so far away from Voldemort that he would never find them.

Between his caches of money and her ability to transfigure their appearances, they had slipped out of England and into France with no one the wiser. Once at the Malfoy estates, they had found his parents forwarding address (cunningly encoded and enchanted so that only he could decipher it) and then gleefully tossed it into the fire.

Draco knew that he would miss his parents, despite everything; he loved them and felt a great deal of loyalty towards them.

That was why they were leaving France and heading far away. He was no longer going to be a pawn and prize for anyone. Susan looked up at him from an unfamiliar face and gave him a slow smile. His blood heated and he grinned back at her. The sex sure as hell was amazing, and he hadn’t noticed that the pregnancy had affected her interest in it any.

Maybe the future wasn’t as bleak as he had once thought.

Draco and Susan Malfoy rose from the breakfast table and in perfect accord headed towards their next portkey. After all, Vienna was nice at this time of year.