Chapter Nineteen

"Yer should have opted for the rest, Minnie."

The gruff voice, softened by concern, penetrated the fog that had settled in her mind, and she was pulled away from the numbness to feel a burgeoning affection for the rugged man. Blinking slowly to help focus her tired eyes and ease the smarting, she turned her bowed head towards him and smiled.

"I wouldn't have been able to rest anyway," she confessed quietly, and when she saw Moody's slow and acknowledging nod, she slumped in her seat at the realisation that she was not alone in her anxiety or guilt. Despite the assurances that she had bestowed upon Dumbledore, her own mind had suffered as it pondered the destruction of a mind for the greater good...a mind that may be purer than the one they sought to reinstate. The arguments had rattled inside her skull until they felt like the pelting of stones against the skin of the heretic. It all seemed right and wrong, and she couldn't find the balance that would give her some peace of mind. At her strongest, she felt like a soldier doing what must be done, and at her weakest, she felt like a murderer.

The haunted expression on her face was distressing, and Moody felt that some essential part of Minerva McGonagall was in danger of erosion in the face of what they stood against. As an Auror, he had seen too much of the world to bother categorising it, and he knew that no one was immune to either pain or grief, nor could they go through life without at some point engendering such feelings in others, whether intentionally or not.

In accepting to aid Dumbledore, he had been more far-sighted than the others, and in that, he had seen the storm clouds gathering over his good intentions, but he would be lying if that acute vision had adequately prepared him for the pain of his actions. If only he could be sure that the result would be worth all this! Sighing, he let his head fall against the back of the chair; he had his duty, and that gave him an inner hardness that would not bend in the face of such a dilemma... He often feared the realisation that at some point, his duty would end.

"When will it be over?" Minerva mused in a desperate whisper.

Moody stared up at the ceiling; he suspected that his friend referred to the whole, terrible war, rather than the one intense and dubious endeavour they were party to now. In the quiet times, he asked himself that question over and over, and he had no answer; he could only offer up that he would either be alive or dead at the end of it, and depending upon the outcome, he would either be grateful to be alive or wearying of life.

"I would never have thought..."

Her strangled comment dragged his mind back, and he turned his attention to her, unease fluttering in his gut at her perplexed expression. He had heard such a tone being used by those who had done some terrible wrong and struggled to accept the consequences. Was this act upon Veronica Speedwell damaging Minerva? Moistening his dry lips, he leant forward, clasping his hands together and focusing both his eyes upon her.

"It would be a fine gift if we could see the outcome of our choices before we made 'em."

With her gaze fixed on some disturbing distant point in her memory, she nodded slowly. "I wonder how many would still make the same choices, even after knowing what would be?"

It struck Moody that Minerva was no longer talking about these recent and painful events, but dwelling upon something that had cut her more harshly and left deep scars. He closed his eyes against his own recollections, but they came.

~X~

The rain hammered down; it had done so for days, and the common room was full of children brimming with unspent and unfocused energy. Squabbling had set in after the first evening, and now, after three evenings of hearing the rain pelting the leaded glass and the wind howling past, the squabbling had turned nasty. The Head Girl had descended upon the boisterous spell-casters with a keenness and ferocity that had reminded him of harpies, and he had shivered. Her red hair had escaped its plait and wafted round her heart-shaped face like languid flames, and her green eyes had shimmered like polished emeralds set in alabaster.

But there was an added element to her wrath that had disturbed him; there was so little restraint in the normally graceful and precise movements, and her lips were pulled back in a snarl rather than pursed with mild frustration at exuberant behaviour. He had unfurled from the red, velvet sofa and watched her sweep over to the duellists in the corner. Even from such distance, he could see how her slender body trembled with reined-in fury, and he glided across to her with his wand snug in his suddenly slick palm. What words issued from her white lips, he hadn't caught, but the boys' fighting stopped almost instantly, and the colour drained from their faces. Relief flooded him that she had not raised her wand, but judging on how quickly the combatants had fled, she must have scared them with the tip of her tongue just as easily.

The wake of her fury had almost emptied the common room, and they'd stood with just the crackle of the logs and the diminishing, frantic conversations from the retreating mass of students and the thunderstorm raging outside.

He had known her since the first year, and their friendship had been as strong as any that he had cultivated. He had thought that it went both ways, but she had cut it down when he had dared question her decisions, and now, when the cause of their row had crushed her by casting her aside, she felt that she had somehow been in the wrong, and in turn, he was at fault for not supporting her.

"Takin' it out on the young'uns ain't all that nice, Minnie."

All he could see was the edge of her reddening cheek and her quaking back, and then, she turned on him, her face flushed and her teeth bared.

"Don't you dare, Alastor!" she snarled out viciously. "I would never stoop so low as to take things out on the undeserving...unlike some!"

He reared back, her words lashing at him like hail, and it took some effort on his part to dam the anger and focus on the tears beginning to form on her eyelashes.

"He deserved it, Minnie," he responded in a resolute whisper.

"And what on earth had he done to deserve you hexing him, Alastor?" she queried tremulously, her features shifting between desperation and frustration.

Yer loved him, and he never loved yer! He hurt yer, and then made yer feel that it were all your fault! But instead of expressing those thoughts, he merely sighed and glanced at her white knuckles. "He wastes what he has."

Her face slackened, and for a moment he feared that she understood what he meant, but then her face twisted and she stepped closer, lifting her wand as she did so. "So that's it!" she said with bitter comprehension. "You're jealous of him."

Damn right!

"Alastor, if you knew what he'd been through, you wouldn't want to be him; he's suffered so much...orphaned and left in the Muggle world to be tormented by the other children; it's just a sign of his good nature that he never resorted to cursing them, like you and those... those brats earlier feel so compelled to do to solve disputes!"

"Is that what he told yer?" Moody demanded harshly. "That he was some poor-little-lost-boy just achin' for someone to rescue and love him?" He felt his own hands curl into fists, and he wished that he'd hit Riddle with a harder hex; it would have made him feel that he had made better use of his chance. "He's trouble, Minnie; ask any of the others that he's used and cast aside. And if he's so innocent, then how come he knows so many Dark Curses... and uses 'em?"

"Oh, Alastor, you just don't..."

"...understand?" he finished for her, his eyebrows raised and his face expressing every ounce of cynicism.

It had all gone wrong; instead of appealing to her, he had made himself repellent to her, and he had stood aghast as he had watched her retreating back. Decades had passed before they had met and spoken with each other again, and then she had absolutely known that Tom Riddle was a nasty piece of shite, and from that common knowledge, they had forged their friendship anew, but what he had hoped would develop, never did.

~X~

"We'd never live if we knew how things would turn out," he finally mumbled in the heavy silence.

Minerva looked up and into his eyes, and she saw the same careful lack of expression that always masked his features when he spoke about the past, and she wondered if he still thought her the young fool that she had been back then...to have loved Riddle. She had been blind and foolish, and yet.... To her shame, she still sometimes, in the silence and the solitude, thought about that young man with the dark hair and the smooth voice.

~X~

It had been a drug... such a delicious drug! It had seeped under his skin, flooded his veins and warmed his bones, and now it was gone. Brian Topliss had recalled the Aurors and ended the investigation into Norwood's alleged murder, and now, he was once more just an old man in a house with half a heart, wishing that his life was other than what it was. An unsurprising flash of bitterness exploded within him; how cruel to have given him a taste of something that had nourished him as a youth, only to withdraw it before his hunger was appeased! Snarling and curling his hands into tight fists, he stormed through from the kitchen into the hallway, and ripping his cloak from its hook, he fled the house; somewhere, there was an enemy.... Somewhere, there was glory, and Onesiphorus Smith raced to face it.

~X~

The sunlight filtered through autumnal leaves, and overhead, those leaves whispered to the gentle breeze. The grass was soft and cool beneath his back, and he idly brushed his hand over the succulent carpet. It was a glorious day. Next to him, he felt movement, and his eyes lazily opened to focus on a face he had not seen in far too many years. Her lips were curved up into a sweet smile, and those chocolate-hued eyes were impossibly deep as they drank him in, and he was lost. In those depths was a delicious hint, a promise that would make any man crumble, and a glint of need that could brush aside almost any argument. Thoughts and feelings that he would never have thought he possessed rushed into his skull, causing his mind to stutter to a halt and his chest to constrict and lurch frantically. Surprised by their appearance and intensity, he moaned out and squeezed his eyes shut.

Only once had he thought about the possibility of crossing that line, and that had been so very fleeting and almost twenty years earlier when she had looked frantic, yet composed, confused and yet terrifyingly purposeful. He had prided himself upon never dwelling upon that day and never regretting that he had pulled away so quickly. He loved Ophelia, and he knew that she loved him as a cousin, as a friend, as a brother, and he would never destroy that, but those eyes a few moments before had ripped out any self-imposed promises.

The warm pressure of a hand on his abdomen made him tense, and his back arched involuntarily upwards. This shouldn't be and yet, he felt unable to mount an objection. Confused, alarmed and greedy, he gritted his teeth and gripped the grass; he should move, stop her, he should.... Oh!

That hand! That hand that shouldn't be there, that hand that couldn't possibly know how to touch him like that, that hand... that hand... It had slipped down his abdomen to cup him intimately.... Oh, how those fingers burned his skin! A groan escaped his parted and trembling lips, and his head twisted, digging into the cool earth as he tried to disperse the frantic energy coursing through him.

We shouldn't be doing this, Ophelia. Her eyes flickered up to meet his, and her hooded gaze nullified his argument. The last flicker of resistance raised its head, and he placed his hand upon hers to stay her tormenting motion. Please, tell me that this is what you want.... Oh, Merlin! Ophelia!

His trembling hands moved to grip the grass, and his fingers ripped blades free from the ground when he felt her shift next to him; the tips of her soft hair grazed his chest, and then her breath was ghosting across his cheek, moving to warm the sensitive skin behind his ear. The feel of slippery warmth against his throat made him keen, and he thrust himself into her hand as she licked him, lapping at the flesh. Mindless and frantic, he relinquished his hold upon the earth and reached up to push his fingers through her hair, pulling that delicious tongue closer to his skin. Tightening his hold, he lifted her head away so that he could take his turn to taste her skin. He swiped the flat of his tongue along her neck from clavicle to chin...she tasted divine.

I promised that I wouldn't. Tell me that you understand...not when you touch me like that; not when you taste so good.... Oh, Ophelia.

Opening his eyes, lids heavy with lust, he latched onto her face; it was smooth and pale, and the eyes were so filled with passion that they appeared as black pools. His lips twitched into a smile, and Ophelia smiled back, those delicate, plump lips curving invitingly, but something seemed... odd. Blinking and refocusing his eyes on her face, he began to see that something was amiss. The skin was too taut, as if something were pushing at it from beneath, and there was no subtle colour to her skin; it looked unreal, as though painted on. Though her lips had moved, there were no shadows on her face, and the cheeks and surrounding skin had not altered; that smile was pasted onto some false façade! Her hair was soft to the touch, but did not waft in the breeze, nor did it fall as it should; it looked more like fabric than a beautiful cascade of individual strands. Swallowing nervously, he released the strange creature before him and tried to roll away from her, but the hand that now cupped the evidence of his departed desire tightened, and it seemed that her nails became as hooks, warning him to keep in place.

What the hell are you? What are you doing?

Sweating and terrified, his breath came in heaving gulps, and he trembled as he fought the urge to scramble to his knees and crawl away, and then his lungs froze! Her free hand, with eerie grace, lifted so that her fingers grazed her chin, and then those nails tore into the flesh, ripping it away in glistening strips of meat. Gagging and wide-eyed, he continued to watch in morbid and undeniable fascination as she clawed at the remains of her face. Emerging from the mess was another, blood-smeared face, the skin taut and the lips grinning in a horrific mockery of a smile. Delving beneath the tattered edges of her previous face, the thing that was Ophelia tore at the new visage with feverish glee. While one hand slashed at the face, the other rubbed him in a grotesque parody of love-making, and with disgust, he felt himself respond beneath her pawing.

His chest suddenly heaved, and he let out his pleas in a string of whispered words, but the thing took no notice, and as her false, bloodied lips lowered towards his, he squirmed back until her weight fell upon him, pinning him to the earth. Blood dripped onto his face, and her hand worked him expertly and viciously; moaning and quaking with a mix of rising lust and fear, he tried to push her away. Despairing of his body's treachery and fearing the succubus that was writhing over him, he closed his eyes, waiting for the nightmare to end, but it wasn't over.

The thing's warm and wet lips brushed against his, and he pressed his together in his only act of defiance, but she was some demon, and her tongue slid out, the tip easily forcing its way past the resistant mouth, and then it was squirming in his mouth! He gagged and bucked, trying to bite down upon the alien and foul thing invading his mouth, but it surged down his throat, uncaring to his frantic struggles and his suffocated cries.

Oh Merlin! Stop! Get off me, you bitch!

His hands and fingers scrabbled at the monster's head, scratching and pulling at it, using his last vestiges of strength to dislodge the beast as it abused him, but he was weakening, and his body was succumbing to her ministrations; it was almost as if his body sensed the end, and it strived to do what it had been designed to do and seek some mind-stealing peace as it surged towards orgasm. Lungs burning with the desperate need for air and heart hammering away to deliver what oxygen it could to his starving organs, he felt the beginnings of that delicious coiling in his gut, and his hips curled up hungrily as her hand moved over him.

It was a blissful cover to his death, and his body forced the terrified mind into a pleasant numbness as it concentrated on achieving the goal that Ophelia had set. His eyes closed...no need to keep them open as his vision had faded, and his hands gripped her not-quite-right hair, but this time to anchor himself as his hips jerked selfishly. Muscles using the last scraps of oxygen to tense and cramp with the force of his need, he mindlessly rutted against her, the fear and horror dispersing to be replaced with a primal urge that transcended everything...his last attempt at a sort of immortality, and his most abiding duty as an animal...and with a stoppered roar, he dispensed his duty impotently.

Panting and clutching at his burning throat, Sirius jerked awake, fighting with the constricting bedcovers and scrabbling for his wand to exorcise the demon that had tormented and terrified him.

"Lumos!"

Wide eyes peered into every corner of his bedroom, and Sirius only lowered his wand when he was convinced that he was indeed alone in his dingy and dirty bedroom. Releasing the held breath in a shuddering sigh, he fell back and curled up into a tight ball of confused misery. Disjointed images danced through his mind: Ophelia smiling down at him with a hunger that now repulsed him and the recollection of how her touch had sent him spiralling down into visceral bliss. Pulling the blanket back over himself, he shivered and held the glowing wand before his eyes as a talisman against all the vile images that had plagued his mind.

What on earth had that nightmare been about?