Thicker than Water (Marauders Era) PART II

2 May, 1998 - Prices

**

Remus's eyes were open. But they did not see.

His arm was outstretched towards the woman who lay beside him, but his fingers did not move to grasp his wife's hand.

There was still the hint of a living flush in his face but Lavinia knew that if she dared to touch him, she would find him cold.

Cold like she was cold. Cold like this crawling, icy thing that was spreading over her skin. Cold like a curse. And not one she could cure.

She was falling. She could feel it. Falling and there was no ground beneath her feet. She had always said Remus was her rock: the solid, steady thing on which her world was built. The comforting, dependable presence that held the chaos at bay. The one person she had always known she could count on. Because when the world was falling apart and everyone else left, Remus stayed. When he departed from her doorstep, the promises of return he offered her were never empty. Because even when it seemed there was nothing left, Remus was there. Even when it seemed everyone would leave, Remus came back. Which was why he was the only one whose promises she still let herself trust, even when she knew she shouldn't have.

I'll be looking for you.

He had promised it. She had believed it. And maybe he was. Maybe he was looking for her through those dead, glassy eyes. Maybe he was looking for her a world away.

On the other side, then.

She had promised it. An answer to the assurance he had offered. But she hadn't meant that other side.

Then again, came a hollow voice she had not heard for a very long time, why not? Why not make it that other side? Why not find him in whatever land was tucked away behind the veil? Why not join him there? Afterall, what was left when Remus was gone? What did any of the rest of it matter when this one steady, dependable thing had finally, truly, left her behind? What was the point of this pitiful life she had built if he wasn't there? Because it only existed because of him. And she had never forgotten that. It existed because Remus had been there to draw her back from cliff edges. Remus had been there for her to count on. And Remus had counted on her. She had built up from the ashes for him.

He had been her rock.

He had been the foundation on which every tenuous bit of healing and confidence had been built. And now it was gone, the floor vanished from beneath her feet, the world stolen right out from under her. And she was left tumbling with only those old ashes to keep her company.

.

Heather watched her friend silently, a hollowness filling up her chest that she didn't know how to fight. She didn't know what to do. What to say. And Lavinia was just standing there, staring down at the body of her friend with a face that was... flat. Like she wasn't feeling a single damn thing.

It was worse than hearing the sobs from the families nearby. Worse that the screams she had endured in the time that had passed since the bodies had really started lining up. Worse because Heather knew that look. She had seen it in the mirror in the weeks after her father had passed. It was the look of someone who was lost. Who didn't know what to do. Who was drowning and had forgotten how to swim.

Maybe, Heather thought heavily, she shouldn't have said anything. She hadn't missed the fact that Lavinia hadn't so much as glanced up once the bodies had started coming. Really, from the moment she had walked back in front the Entrance Hall, Lavinia had marched straight towards the patients they had decided they would have to let wait and begun working.

At a different time, Heather might have thought it was simple practicality: they had time now when they hadn't before. There would be fewer new injuries coming into the ward and Madam Pomfrey and Heather were more than capable of handling the minor injuries and Lavinia was the one most likely to riddle out what was going on with the darker magic that clung to the patients they'd tucked away at the back of the hall.