The safe house was no longer a place of stillness; it pulsed with frantic life the moment they arrived, its walls thrumming with the rush of magic and panic, the very air seeming to tighten around them like a vice. The wards flared briefly as the group crossed the threshold, crackling with the residue of their flight, and then closed again behind them with a low, thunderous hum. Inside, the atmosphere shifted, the tension settling in thick and suffocating, draping itself across every surface, every breath, every glance exchanged. The unspoken fear was palpable—hovering like stormclouds too heavy to release rain, waiting instead to break in other, quieter ways. No one dared to exhale fully, as if doing so might invite collapse.
Pansy moved first, adrenaline her only fuel now, her body caught somewhere between urgency and numbness. There was no hesitation. Her thoughts came in jagged flashes—blood, Luna, hands shaking, don't drop anything, don't fall apart—but her hands themselves were eerily steady, guided by muscle memory and something fierce coiled at the base of her spine. She flicked her wand sharply, and a bucket materialized in a corner with a quiet snap of displaced air. The water that filled it was cool, clean, but somehow even the sight of it made her nauseous, as though it mocked how little she could really cleanse from what had just happened. Her heart thudded loud in her chest, a drumbeat of panic that refused to settle, but she forced herself to push past it, to do what needed doing.
She turned on her heel and yanked open the supply cabinet with more force than necessary, snatching the cleanest towel she could find and immediately plunging it into the water, her jaw clenched as she wrung it out with trembling fingers. Without waiting, without asking permission, she dropped to her knees in front of Luna and brought the damp cloth to her face. Blood had dried in streaks down her cheeks, caked into the hollows of her throat, spattered like war paint across her collarbones. Dirt clung to her lashes. Her usually serene expression was absent, replaced by the blank, unblinking stare of someone who had seen too much and was still somewhere else entirely.
Pansy pressed the cloth to her skin with as much gentleness as she could manage, though her own breathing was shallow now, forced and uneven. Luna flinched under the touch, her shoulders jerking slightly, and Pansy stilled for a heartbeat before continuing, more carefully this time. Her hand tightened reflexively, her fingers digging into the towel, not out of anger but out of a desperation she didn't yet have the words for. She needed to clean her. She needed to see Luna's face beneath the blood. She needed to do something , because if Luna wasn't okay—if she fractured completely—Pansy wasn't entirely sure what would be left of herself on the other side.
The towel turned red almost immediately, the water bleeding from it in thin crimson rivulets that slid down Luna's jaw and soaked into Pansy's sleeves. She didn't react. She only conjured another, her wand twitching slightly as the spell activated, her eyes never leaving Luna's face. The soiled cloth was tossed aside without ceremony, joining the growing pile of ruined fabric at her knees.
Again, she wiped.
Again, the white towel stained, the color blooming like ink spreading through paper.
And again.
And again.
She scrubbed as if repetition alone might undo reality—as if by wiping the blood away over and over again, she could erase what had happened in the clearing, could banish the image of rope against throat and limbs that dangled too still in the moonlight. Each pass of the cloth was more frantic than the last, not cleansing so much as begging , trying to pull Luna back from whatever ghost-filled place her mind had fled to. The silence between them pulsed with dread, and though Pansy's movements were swift and practiced, the tremble in her off-hand betrayed her—tiny, betraying shudders that crept into her bones and wouldn't stop.
"Luna," she said suddenly, sharply, her voice slicing through the heavy air like a blade against flesh, unforgiving and edged in panic. "We need to prep for an operation. Now. "
Something flickered behind Luna's glassy gaze, and she turned with a speed that was almost inhuman, her blood-smeared face unreadable but suddenly aware . "We need the medical room prepped in sixty seconds," she said, her tone devoid of anything soft, her voice clipped and edged in iron. It was not the dreamy cadence of the woman who once spoke to shadows and starlight. This was not the Luna who made madness sound like poetry. This Luna stood at the edge of a battlefield in her bloodied boots, looking war in the eye without blinking. "Hermione, sterilize the equipment. Pansy, I need every healing draught, sorted by potency and use. We need Blood-Replenishing Potions in bulk , and don't stop until you've found everything. "
The commands cracked through the air like thunder, and in their wake came movement—instinctive, immediate, almost violent in its urgency.
Pansy didn't walk. She ran , bolting toward the storage cabinets with the speed of someone whose entire future was bleeding out two rooms away. Her breath came in shallow, panicked bursts, but she barely felt it—barely felt anything as she tore open drawers and flung them wide, her fingers yanking vials off shelves in a blur of motion that was more survival reflex than thought. The clinking of glass filled the room, rapid and discordant, echoing like bones rattling in a crypt. Her hands trembled harder now, the weight of what could be slipping through her fingers with every second that passed too loud, too sharp, too real .
"Blood Replenishing Potion… Wiggenweld… Essence of Dittany," she chanted under her breath, not calmly, not methodically, but like a woman holding off madness with the sound of her own voice. She lined them up in harsh, regimented rows, color-coded and alphabetized out of necessity, not control—because one slip, one delay, one wrong bottle , and someone they loved might never wake again.
Just across the wall, Hermione worked with a ferocity that bordered on feverish. Her wand sliced the air in precise, brutal arcs, each sterilization spell sparking violently as it collided with metal and stone, her incantations muttered with the rhythm of someone reciting scripture before a storm.
"Scourgify. Purifico. Reparo."
Again. And again. And again.
She repeated the words like a mantra, not because she needed to—but because if she stopped speaking them, if she let her mind drift even for a second, it would land squarely on the image she couldn't unsee: Draco, blood in his mouth, his skin grey and cooling, lying still on a cursed floor while everything inside her screamed . Her hands were steady, but her thoughts were unraveling, fraying at the seams with every blink.
And all around them, the safehouse pulsed like a living thing—magic crackling along the walls, air thick with blood and spells and fear, the scent of iron and fire and skin still lingering. This was not a home anymore.
It was a trauma ward.
The metallic tang of blood still hung in the air, clinging to the stone walls like a curse. It was faint now, diluted by distance and adrenaline, but it lingered just enough to twist Hermione's stomach into knots. It coated the back of her throat with a coppery film, haunted the edges of her senses like a memory that refused to fade. She could taste it with every breath, could feel it woven into the fibers of her robes, like it had soaked into her skin. The surgical instruments gleamed on the counter, rows of them lined with sterile precision, their sharp edges catching the candlelight and throwing tiny flashes against the walls. They looked too clean. Too polished. As though they hadn't been used to cut flesh before. But Hermione knew better. They didn't wait passively—they anticipated , like executioner's blades, hungry for the moment their work would begin.
Luna stood in the doorway like the eye of a hurricane, eerily calm in the center of chaos, the flickering light casting long shadows across her blood-smeared face. Her presence was quiet but commanding, her posture rigid, her gaze sweeping the room with methodical intent. She saw everything—every crack in the routine, every heartbeat slightly too fast. She wasn't cold, but she was clinical, stripped of softness now, as though she had shed it like skin in the clearing.
"Pansy," she said, voice like steel wrapped in silk, "check the expiration on the Blood-Replenishing Potion. It has to be fresh."
"Already done," Pansy shot back from across the room, not turning from the table where she stood sorting vials with ruthless efficiency. Her voice was sharp, short, the edge of it fraying under the weight of her pulse hammering in her ears. Her hands moved faster than her thoughts, as if if she paused too long she might be crushed by the weight of the stillness pressing in from all sides.
Luna's eyes shifted. "Hermione. Towels. Gauze. Third cabinet—go."
Hermione was already moving before the command was finished, yanking the doors open with a violent tug, the rusted hinges screeching in protest. She ripped the supplies free, the sound of tearing fabric splitting the silence like a scream muffled beneath layers of stone. Her hands shook, but she kept moving, stuffing gauze into a basin, pressing towels against her chest as if they might keep her anchored. "How bad is it going to be?" she asked, her voice breathless, brittle, as though she already knew the answer but couldn't bear the silence that would follow if she didn't speak.
Luna didn't answer at first. Her fingers ran absently over the towel in her hand, slow and repetitive, the tension in her grip tightening until the fabric twisted beneath her palms. She stared through it, like she could already see the blood that would soon soak through. When she finally spoke, the word was soft, but it hit like a hammer. "Bad."
The simplicity of it made it worse.
No comfort. No euphemism. Just truth.
Her eyes flicked up, not to meet anyone's gaze, but to the empty space in the center of the room where bodies would soon be laid out—where decisions would be made that couldn't be undone. "We need to be ready for anything," she added, and the way her voice faltered on the last word made Hermione's spine stiffen.
The weight of those words settled across them like a burial shroud, thick and suffocating, draping over their shoulders and winding around their throats. It didn't matter how brightly the room was lit—shadows clung to every corner, and every breath felt just slightly too loud.
Pansy leaned against the wall just outside the operating room, her arms crossed so tightly over her chest they trembled from the strain. The cold stone at her back offered no comfort, only a reminder that this place had seen too much death already. Her fingers tapped out an erratic rhythm against her sleeves as she stared into the flickering torchlight, her jaw clenched, every instinct in her body screaming to move, to act , to do something , but there was nothing more to be done—not yet. Waiting was the worst kind of torment. It was stillness laced with helplessness, and it was eating her alive from the inside.
Across the room, Luna hadn't moved. She stood perfectly still, the bloodstained towel clenched in her fists as if it were the only thing keeping her grounded. Her face was unreadable—blank, severe—but her eyes betrayed her. They shimmered, silver and glassy, wide with fear, with helpless rage, with something that looked too much like prayer. She didn't speak, didn't blink. But her eyes pleaded with whatever gods or ghosts might still be listening not to take him. Not this time.
Hermione paced, her feet dragging slightly with each uneven step as if the air itself had turned heavy. She moved like she couldn't bear stillness, like if she stopped her body, her mind would catch up—and she couldn't allow that. Her fingers curled and uncurled restlessly, the muscles in her jaw twitching with barely restrained emotion. She wanted to scream. She wanted to hex something, destroy something, undo everything. But all she could do was move, count the seconds, and keep her back to the door, because the moment she saw them carried in, broken and unconscious, something inside her would shatter.
Time lost meaning as minutes stretched into something longer, colder, heavier than time. A silence had taken the room, but it wasn't still—it hummed with dread, with magic held just under the skin, with grief that had not yet been permitted to breathe. It was the silence before a scream. The silence before the final blow lands.
The silence before the world ends— or doesn't.
The fragile stillness of the safehouse shattered like glass beneath a boot as the first crack of Apparition tore through the air. It was sharp, violent—too loud in the breathless quiet that had swallowed the house whole. Then came a second. A third. A fourth. The magic reverberated off the stone walls in a series of concussive bursts that sounded like gunfire, each one snapping through the silence with the urgency of catastrophe. It was not the gentle arrival of guests. It was the sound of something arriving from the edge of death.
All three women froze where they stood, as if turned to stone by the noise. Towels fell from Hermione's arms. Pansy's fingers twitched at her sides. Luna's breath caught in her throat.
For one harrowing moment, no one breathed.
It was Luna who moved first, her silver eyes widening in an instant before she took off like a spell had ignited beneath her feet. She moved fast, not with grace but with raw, breathless desperation, her boots skidding slightly as she rounded the corner. Pansy shoved off the wall with so much force she nearly slipped, her heart punching against her ribcage like it was trying to claw its way out. And Hermione—Hermione trembled all over, her limbs slow to respond, as if her body feared what her heart already knew was coming. Her throat tightened around a silent plea— please, let them be alive —as her legs finally remembered how to run.
The hallway stretched before them like a gauntlet, dimly lit by guttering candlelight, the shadows deepening with every step. And then, at the far end, shapes emerged from the darkness.
Draco was the first to appear, stepping through the gloom with the rigid, lethal grace of a man carved from stormclouds. His expression was unreadable, all sharp angles and ice, but it wasn't his face that stopped them in their tracks—it was his arms. In them, cradled like something too precious to be broken but too broken to be precious, was Blaise. His body was limp, heavy, motionless, his head lolling against Draco's shoulder. Blood streaked his jaw, smeared across the corner of his mouth and down his throat like war paint. His eyes were shut. His skin had lost all its warmth. And yet—his chest rose. Barely. But it rose.
Behind him came Titus, broad shoulders bent beneath Theo's sagging weight. The younger man was draped over him like a lifeless doll, one arm dangling at an awkward angle, his robes torn, blood crusted in the creases of his clothing and across the knuckles of one hand. His face, usually composed, was almost unrecognizable—swollen, bruised, pale as wax. A gash ran along his cheekbone. His eyes were open but unfocused, blinking slowly as though waking from a nightmare he couldn't quite shake.
And then, trailing after them, came Neville and Ginny.
Both looked like shadows of themselves. Ginny's hair was wild, her face drawn and ghost-pale, her arms streaked with soot and blood that was not her own. Her eyes were vacant, sunken, like something vital had been scooped out of her chest and left bleeding behind in that clearing. Neville looked older, heavier somehow, as if the act of holding everything together had aged him in minutes instead of years. His clothes were torn at the sleeves, his wand clenched so tightly in his fist his knuckles had gone white.
The room tilted.
For Hermione, the world pitched sideways, her hands reaching out instinctively to grab the doorframe as her knees nearly gave beneath the weight of relief colliding with terror. They were alive. They were alive. But they were broken, battered, half-here and half-gone, and the sight of them like that— her Draco, Ginny's Blaise, Luna's Theo—was enough to make the air feel too thick to breathe.
Something deep in the house groaned—wood settling or magic shifting—but it sounded too much like grief. Too much like the last gasp of something sacred unraveling.
Hermione barely registered her own body in motion, as though her limbs belonged to someone else entirely—some reflexive version of herself that knew what to do while her mind still lagged several seconds behind, stunned by the raw sight of them, the smell of blood, the tremor of magic still clinging to their skin. Her feet moved instinctively, each step heavy and soundless all at once, and before she could think, before her brain could process the devastation unraveling before her, her arms were already wrapping around Ginny, pulling her into the safety of her chest the instant she crossed the threshold. Ginny didn't fall—she folded , crumpling into Hermione like a house collapsing inward, all scaffolding lost, her body trembling so violently that it rattled Hermione down to the bone. And then came the tears, hot and sudden, soaking through the fabric of Hermione's shirt in great shuddering waves, a desperate, wordless sound escaping her that broke open something raw in the space between them.
Hermione held her tighter, her own arms trembling now, one hand curling into the mess of Ginny's hair as she pressed her lips against her friend's temple and whispered something—words that were meant to be comfort, but felt hollow even as they passed through her lips. "It's okay," she murmured, her voice catching around the shape of that lie. "They're here now. They'll be okay." But as she said it, she felt the words fall apart between them, flimsy and thin as ash, dissolving into the heavy air. Please , her mind screamed beneath the quiet, please let that be true , because if it wasn't, if they had only been given their bodies back to lose them again, she didn't know if any of them would survive it.
Across the room, Pansy didn't waste a second on words. Words were too slow. Useless. Dead things. She moved with wild, reckless speed, her boots skidding across the stone floor, her heart hammering with such brutal force that it echoed in her ears like a war drum. The sound of her blood roared louder than thought, louder than reason. She saw Neville and nothing else. And then she was there , crashing into him with the momentum of every fear that had clawed its way through her since the moment Luna screamed his name through the Floo. He barely had time to brace himself before her body hit his, her arms wrapping around his middle so tightly it bordered on painful, her hands fisting into the fabric of his shirt with such desperation that it looked like she was holding herself upright through him alone.
Neville didn't hesitate. He didn't even speak at first. He simply reached for her like he'd been drowning and had finally touched shore, cupping her face with both hands, his fingers slipping into her hair, grounding her, framing her like something sacred. And then he kissed her— not with heat, not with lust, but with the kind of desperate, anchoring need that came only after watching the people you love slip through your fingers. His mouth moved against hers with a shaky kind of reverence, as though he couldn't believe she was real, and her grip on him tightened until her nails dug into his shoulders through the fabric of his robes.
"They're alive," he breathed against her lips when they finally broke apart, his forehead falling against hers, their breath mingling in the scant inches of space between them. "They're alive." The words were thick with disbelief and relief and something unspoken that neither of them could afford to name.
And that's when Pansy broke.
The sob tore out of her like a wound reopening, guttural and high, shaking her entire frame as her arms slipped up around his neck and she buried her face in the curve of his shoulder. "I was so scared, Nevie," she choked, the nickname cracking through her like glass under pressure, her voice a strangled thing barely able to find shape. "I thought—I thought I'd lose you too." She didn't realize how tightly she was holding him until he winced, but she didn't loosen her grip. She couldn't. If she let go, he might disappear, might vanish like a dream, and she couldn't bear that—not now, not ever.
Neville's breath shuddered through his chest as he held her, grounding her with hands that remained impossibly gentle despite the tremors moving through them both. "I know," he whispered, his voice tight and thick, the syllables uneven with the effort of staying calm. "But I'm here. We're all here. And Hermione and Luna—" he turned as he spoke, his gaze landing on Hermione still wrapped around Ginny, both of them locked in a quiet hurricane of grief and relief—"they're going to fix this. We'll get through it. We always do."
But even as he said it, the room didn't lift. The air stayed thick, the silence oppressive. The magic lingering in the atmosphere had the feel of something not yet done. Something unresolved. Because not everyone was speaking. Not everyone had moved .
Draco and Titus still stood in the doorway like statues carved from shadow, unmoving, silent, their bodies rigid with the weight of what they'd carried—not just the men they'd brought home, but the experience itself. The blood was still wet on their clothes. Their hands were stained to the wrist. Their faces were unreadable, but their stillness screamed what their mouths wouldn't yet say. Something had happened out there. Something worse than they were prepared to explain.
O nly Ginny saw it—the single tear that carved a slow, glistening path down Draco's cheek, catching the flickering light as it fell, silent and unannounced. No gasp. No sob. Just that one sliver of grief slipping free from a man who, by all rights, was not supposed to break. Because Draco Malfoy didn't cry. He didn't fracture. He didn't bleed where anyone could see it. He wore pain like armor, turned loss into distance, kept his jaw clenched and his spine straight and his silence sharp enough to wound.
But something had shattered.
And in that tear—just one—was the entire weight of it. The horror, the blood, the helplessness of standing beneath that gallows and thinking, for a moment too long, that they were already dead. The images wouldn't stop playing behind his eyes—Blaise's head lolling like a marionette's, Theo's bruised lips parting in shallow, labored breaths, their bodies too still, too cold, too close. Ginny had seen this expression before, once before, when Draco had stood in this very house with Hermione's blood still drying beneath his fingernails, his face white with the terror of nearly losing her. And now, here he was again—his hands stained, his shoulders bowed under a weight no one could help him carry—and this time it was Blaise and Theo lying broken behind him.
She didn't say anything. She couldn't. Because what could be said in the face of a grief that kept repeating itself, over and over, until it became part of your marrow?
How much more can we take?
The thought wasn't a scream. It was a whisper, buried so deep in Ginny's chest it barely formed words. It was a tremor in her bones, a tremble behind her ribs, an ache in the silence between each breath.
Luna's voice, even and unwavering, broke through the heavy quiet like the edge of a scalpel slicing through flesh—not cruelly, but with clinical precision, cutting through grief to reach the necessity beneath it. Calm but unyielding, she stepped forward and reclaimed her role not as the ethereal observer, not as the whimsical woman they all knew from a different lifetime, but as a healer—sharp, grounded, and terrifying in her focus. "Hermione and I will take care of them," she said, each word shaped with clarity and command, "but we need to be sanitized first. We can't afford mistakes. Pansy, go wash up. Neville, stay with Ginny. Keep her steady."
There was no room for protest in her voice, but still, Pansy faltered for half a second, her feet refusing to obey even as her brain screamed logic. She didn't want to move. Didn't want to put even a single breath of space between herself and Theo, not after what she'd seen—after what they'd all almost lost. Her body screamed to stay, to reach for him, to hover and protect and watch . But Neville, still grounded despite the panic behind his eyes, gave her hand one final squeeze before gently uncurling her fingers from his. The motion wasn't forceful, just firm, and for a moment she hated him for it—hated that he was right.
"Go," he said softly, but there was something final in the way he said it, like he was trying to speak belief into her. "We need to let them work."
Her breath caught in her throat, her stomach lurching with a wave of sickness that had nothing to do with blood and everything to do with fear. Still, she nodded—jerkily, almost mechanically—and forced her feet to turn, her body to obey, even as every instinct in her rebelled against the growing distance between her and Theo's motionless form. She had to trust Luna. Had to trust Hermione. Had to believe this wasn't the end.
But Ginny didn't move.
She stood like a statue, frozen not from shock, but from something colder, heavier, more insidious. Her body remained tucked against Neville's side, but her mind was somewhere else entirely. Her eyes—burning and dry, past the point of tears—were locked on Draco with the kind of intensity that could cut stone. She barely heard Neville's quiet reassurances murmured against her ear, the way he pulled her closer like he could physically shield her from what they'd witnessed, from what they might still lose. Because nothing could touch her in that moment. Not warmth. Not reason. Not comfort.
Because she knew that look.
She recognized it too well—too intimately.
It was the look of someone who had returned from the edge, only to realize they hadn't brought everyone back with them. That vacant, haunted stare. That rigid jaw clenched so tight it could shatter teeth. That fragile stillness disguising a soul unraveling quietly beneath the skin. It was the look of a survivor burdened by the weight of breath—of still being here when others might not be.
It was guilt, pure and corrosive.
Not for what he had done, but for what he couldn't do.
And so Ginny, quiet now, no longer sobbing but suspended in the hollow space between devastation and numbness, reached out. Not with desperation. Not with force. But with something softer, more human. A slow, trembling hand extended toward Draco's, her fingers brushing the back of his as if asking permission to make the contact complete.
He didn't pull away.
But he didn't move either.
He simply stood there, unmoving, frozen in the doorway like a relic—his hand resting in hers, barely responding, as if the warmth of touch hadn't reached him yet. And still he stared, eyes unfocused, face expressionless, while the chaos of triage whirled behind him and the woman who had touched his hand tried, wordlessly, to tether him back to the living.
~~~~~~
The moment they stepped into the surgical room, the door thudding shut behind them like the final beat of a war drum, the world seemed to shrink. The outside noise—crying, murmuring, the rattling shuffle of pacing footsteps—vanished behind thick stone and locking charms, leaving only the harsh scent of blood and antiseptic clinging to the cold air, a mix so sharp and acrid it hit the back of Pansy's throat like smoke. The overhead torches flickered low, their flames casting a sickly glow on the white-tiled floor that was already stained with crimson, and for a split second, she faltered, the nausea curling low in her stomach threatening to rise.
But then something shifted—not in the room, but in them.
With no words, no ceremony, the women who entered that room ceased to be wives, or lovers, or friends. They became soldiers, surgeons, healers carved out of trauma and necessity, women who had stood too many times at the intersection of hope and ruin. Their hands, still trembling with fear a heartbeat ago, steadied. Their eyes sharpened. Every breath became deliberate. They had done this before—too many times. And the price of hesitation had always been loss.
On the surgical beds, Theo and Blaise looked more like corpses than men. Their bodies lay still, twisted into unnatural angles that defied peaceful unconsciousness. Deep lacerations carved grotesque paths across their torsos, angry and dark against pallid flesh. The bruises around their throats were blackened, swollen, and unmistakably shaped by rope. Their wrists bore ligature marks, blistered and raw. There was something hollow in the way their limbs hung off the edge of the tables—too limp, too loose, as though life had only recently crawled back into their chests. It wasn't just the blood. It was the silence of their stillness that spoke louder than anything. They hadn't simply been attacked. They had been punished.
Luna moved first, not with softness, but with a chilling kind of efficiency. The etherealness that so often hovered around her was stripped away, leaving behind something steel-forged and terrifying in its purpose. She approached Theo like a surgeon surveying a patient on a battlefield, her eyes scanning his body not with fear but calculation. "We need to work quickly," she said, and her voice, though calm, had lost all its dreamlike edge—it was sharp now, clinical, threaded with grim authority. "They're both critical. Hermione, start stabilizing Blaise—his vitals are tanking. Pansy, Theo's airway is compromised—focus there first. Keep him breathing."
The command hit Pansy like a slap. Her feet moved before her thoughts caught up, knees locking as she dropped beside Theo's bed and forced herself to look, really look, at him—not as her friend, not as someone she had teased a thousand times over drinks, but as a body broken beyond recognition that she had been tasked to bring back. For a breath, she couldn't breathe. Then she pressed a hand over her mouth, gagging against the burn in her throat, forcing it down. She could not lose control. Not here. Not now.
Breathe, Parkinson. Focus. Save him.
With shaking fingers, she grabbed a sterilized cloth and dabbed gently at the dried blood crusted around his lips, his breath hitching weakly against the contact. Her wand moved next, gliding over his chest in smooth, practiced arcs, scanning beneath the bruises and swelling. What she saw made her blood run cold. The diagnostic spell glowed faintly red across his ribcage—multiple fractures, several cracked clean through. There was fluid shimmering in his lungs like dark water, and a faint pulsing of hemorrhagic light told her there was internal bleeding pooling somewhere too deep to reach without intervention.
She blinked hard, tears stinging, then bit down on the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.
You do not get to break. Not while he's still breathing.
Hermione, at the adjacent table, was already moving in tandem with Luna's commands. Her hands were coated in healing salve and blood, wand tracing stabilizing charms in rapid succession over Blaise's chest as she murmured incantations under her breath like a prayer, her jaw set, her brows furrowed so deeply it looked like her face had been carved into something ancient. There was no time to process, no space for fear. Only the sound of spellwork, the dull beeping of a monitoring charm, the wet rattle of broken breath clawing through damaged lungs, and the overwhelming, relentless beat of time pressing against their backs.
Failure, in this room, was a death sentence.
Hermione moved with the focused intensity of someone walking a tightrope over fire, each step measured, each motion precise, her hands gliding through the air in swift, controlled arcs as she cast a series of diagnostic spells over Blaise's chest. Her brow was furrowed with concentration, her eyes scanning the glowing threads of magical data that hovered above his unconscious body, translating the tangled patterns into a mental list of injuries too long, too brutal to absorb all at once. "He's lost too much blood," she said tightly, her voice clipped and breathless but unwavering, as if speaking the truth aloud might force the room to stay anchored in reality. "The ligature marks around his neck—deep, overlapping—it wasn't just one attempt. They tried to strangle him. Repeatedly. The swelling along the trachea confirms compression trauma. Bruising to the carotid. Lack of oxygen. There's internal damage—bruised kidneys, minor liver laceration—but I can't address it yet. I need to stabilize his vitals before his heart gives out. He's slipping."
At the table beside her, Luna's hands hovered over Theo's twitching form, her fingers barely brushing the surface of his skin, yet the contact was enough to make his entire body flinch violently, as if even unconsciousness could not spare him from pain. Her expression remained hauntingly calm, but her voice—though soft—carried a gravity that turned every syllable to stone. "Cruciatus exposure," she murmured, eyes narrowing as she tracked the subtle, spasming movements rippling along Theo's arms and legs. "Long-term. Sustained. There are necrotic echoes in the nervous system—residual dark magic, threaded into the muscles like wire. They didn't just cast it once. They kept him in it for hours, over and over again, until the spell wore thin and his nerves cracked open under the weight. If we don't isolate and neutralize the magical residue soon, the damage will be irreversible. He'll lose motor function. Maybe cognition. Maybe worse."
Pansy's mouth moved before her brain could catch up, a guttural curse sliding from her lips, low and venomous, as her grip tightened on the edge of the table. The rage inside her was volcanic—hot, consuming, barely contained. It boiled just beneath the surface of her skin, itching to be released, to find someone to blame, to punish. But there was no time for fury. Not now. Not when Theo—her Theo, her insufferable, brilliant, ridiculous friend who brewed poisons like poetry and made the darkest things somehow bearable—was laid out before her like a body waiting for last rites. She swallowed hard, shoved the fire down into the pit of her stomach, and forced herself to move.
She bent over him with a hand that still trembled ever so slightly and reached out to brush the sweat-soaked curls from his forehead, her fingers lingering for just a moment longer than they should have, needing the contact, needing him to feel that he wasn't alone. "Stay with me, Theo," she whispered, her voice rough, fierce, trembling at the edges. "Don't you dare leave me. We're going to fix this. I don't care what it takes."
As if summoned by the sound of her voice, Theo's body convulsed violently beneath her hand. His back arched off the table, his mouth twisting in a silent cry, and then he began to choke—his lungs rejecting the air like poison, like even the act of breathing had become too painful to endure. Panic gripped Pansy in a chokehold, but her instincts overrode it. She didn't scream. She didn't cry. She moved, fast and brutal, grabbing the nearest flask of powdered bezoar and jamming her fingers inside without measuring, scraping out a pinch and forcing it past Theo's parted lips. "Swallow, damn it," she snapped, her voice breaking as she massaged his throat, coaxing his muscles to respond with the desperation of someone dragging a soul back from the edge. "Come on, Theo. Come on."
He didn't respond. His lips were slack, his eyes fluttering beneath their lids. Her heart slammed against her ribs, loud enough she could feel it in her temples. No. No, no, no. You are not dying on me. I will kill you myself if you try. Her magic began to spark at her fingertips, wild and unchecked, her wand trembling as she turned toward Luna with frantic urgency.
"Luna—his lungs! I need help with his lungs!"
But Luna was already there, already moving, her wand slicing through the air in a series of slow, deliberate gestures that shimmered with unfamiliar complexity. She didn't speak right away—just focused, drawing power from somewhere ancient and intimate. And then a soft silver mist emerged from the tip of her wand, curling and spinning like smoke caught in moonlight, sinking into Theo's chest with a sound like a sigh. The purifying charm—the old one, the dangerous one—slithered into his bloodstream, weaving through his magic like thread pulling a tapestry back into shape. It sought out the corruption, the rot, the lingering fragments of the Cruciatus curse, and began to unspool them, strand by toxic strand.
Theo's chest rose sharply, then stilled, then rose again—this time slower, deeper, steadier.
Pansy collapsed forward slightly, her hands pressed flat to the edge of the table, her breath coming in short, shallow bursts as her eyes tracked the faintest movement in his ribs. He was breathing. Not well. Not safely. But breathing. The first, tenuous sign of his body responding, of his soul deciding—maybe—to stay tethered to this world.
She let out a shaking breath, part sob, part laugh, part war cry.
Across the blood-slicked tiles of the surgical room, Hermione stood hunched over Blaise's unmoving body, her brow beaded with sweat, hands trembling faintly though her movements never faltered. Her wand hovered just above the line of his clavicle, glowing a deep crimson as she channeled a complex transfusion spell, the air around her crackling with the strain of sustained magic. Her other hand rested gently over his sternum, grounding her as she whispered the incantation under her breath like a prayer, sending pulse after pulse of restorative energy surging into his veins, urging his ravaged body to accept the enchanted blood replenisher coursing through him. It wasn't elegant. It was raw, desperate magic, the kind that tore at your own reserves just to give someone else a chance.
His skin, once gray and waxy, had taken on the faintest blush of pink, a fragile wash of color that clung to the hollows of his cheeks like a question not yet answered.
"He's responding," Hermione said, her voice flat with focus, stripped of emotion even as her eyes flickered with the faintest glint of hope. Her hands didn't stop moving, not even for a second. "But his magical core is depleted. I can barely sense it. If he doesn't stabilize soon, he might go into collapse. I don't know how much more his body can take."
"He needs stabilization potions," Luna said sharply, not looking up from Theo as she checked for signs of neurological recovery. "Both of them do. Immediately."
Pansy didn't need to be told twice. She moved fast, legs shaking beneath her as she crossed the room in a sprint, nearly colliding with the edge of the supply cabinet as she flung it open. Her hands trembled as she yanked down bottle after bottle, muttering the labels aloud in a frantic litany. "Dittany. Blood Replenisher. Strengthening Draught. Phoenix Root. Oh fuck, oh fuck—" She caught the right vial at last—bright amber, concentrated, volatile—and practically dove back to Theo's side, her heart pounding so hard it made her vision swim.
She slid a hand beneath his neck, tilting his head gently but firmly, careful not to jostle his fractured ribs. With her other hand, she uncorked the vial and tipped a few precious drops into his mouth, praying his battered throat wouldn't reject the liquid. For a breathless moment, nothing happened.
And then, mercifully, his throat spasmed once—and then again—and he swallowed.
It was weak, involuntary, but it was something, and the gasp that tore from Pansy's chest was half a sob, half a war cry. Her lungs burned. Her eyes stung. But she didn't stop moving. She pressed her forehead to his for a heartbeat and looked up at Luna with wide, desperate eyes.
Luna, who hadn't paused once, gave her a single, sharp nod—just enough to say he's still in the fight. "He's responding," she said, quieter now, her voice frayed around the edges. "He's fighting."
But there was no time to celebrate.
A strangled sound split the room, and Hermione's head jerked up just in time to see Blaise's back arch violently off the table. His mouth opened in a silent scream, and his body twisted as if trying to crawl away from a pain still buried somewhere inside his chest. Hermione reacted instantly, slamming both palms flat against his sternum and summoning a surge of golden light that poured from her wand into his body like liquid sunlight, thick and glowing and terrifying. The light seeped into his skin, spreading down his arms, across his abdomen, into the deep recesses of the damage they couldn't see.
His breath, once a shallow stutter of panicked gasps, began to slow.
One inhale.
Then another.
Deeper. Measured.
Hermione slumped forward, her body folding over his as the tension drained from her limbs all at once, but her hands remained pressed against him, her wand still glowing. "It's working," she whispered hoarsely, almost as if she didn't trust the words. "His heart rate—it's slowing. It's steady."
Silence followed. Not the brittle, fearful kind from earlier—but the suspended hush of a room daring to hope.
And then, as if the spell had passed between them, a ragged groan broke from Theo's lips.
It was low. Guttural. Unmistakably human.
His fingers twitched—barely, but enough for Pansy to see—and then again, curling against the sheets in a clumsy, instinctive attempt to reach for something, anything. Pansy's breath caught in her throat as she grabbed his hand, squeezing hard, her grip fierce and trembling. "You're okay, Nott," she said, voice cracking into a whisper. "You're safe. Do you hear me? You're safe. You're home."
His eyelids fluttered, just enough for a flash of blue to surface. The eyes didn't focus. They didn't see. But they were open, and for now, that was enough.
At the next table, Blaise, still lost in unconsciousness, shifted slightly. His head turned toward Hermione's hand, just a fraction, as though reaching for warmth in a world he hadn't quite returned to yet.
And that, too, was enough.
Luna exhaled a long, shuddering breath, her entire frame sagging for the first time since they entered the room. She braced a hand on the table, her other still gripping her wand, as though her body didn't know how to stop fighting even as the danger receded. "They're not out of the woods," she murmured, her voice quiet and thinned by exhaustion. "But they're going to live."
The words echoed like scripture in the room.
Pansy shut her eyes tightly, pressed Theo's cold, trembling hand to her forehead, and let the tears come—quiet, raw, ugly tears of relief and rage and the lingering trauma of almost. She didn't know if she wanted to laugh or scream or vomit. So she just whispered, brokenly, "Thank Merlin," like it might hold the universe together for one more breath.
Hermione slowly straightened, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her arm, her eyes drifting across both beds—at Blaise's color slowly returning, at Theo's fingers twitching in Pansy's grip. The sight carved something sharp and sacred into her chest. They had done it. Somehow.
Only then did Pansy's knees give out. She collapsed into the nearest chair, her limbs shaking, her hands still curled protectively around Theo's.
Luna sank into the seat beside her, her face pale, streaked with blood and sweat. She reached up and brushed a clump of damp hair from Pansy's forehead, her fingers lingering just long enough to ground them both.
"We did it," Luna whispered, as though saying it too loud might break the fragile spell holding everything together.
Pansy let out a soft, humorless laugh—low, rough, and raw from disuse. "Yeah," she murmured, her voice hollow with disbelief. "Barely."
Across from them, Hermione met Pansy's gaze. Nothing was said. Nothing needed to be. In that shared glance passed something heavier than exhaustion—something rooted in blood and memory, a silent vow forged in survival.
Never again.
Not like this.
Not if they could help it.
~~~~~~
The moment Ginny slipped through the doorway, disappearing into the dim hum of candlelight and whispered spells where Blaise lay waiting, Pansy turned away, her body moving on instinct more than choice, as if the act of stepping outside could somehow peel the pressure from her chest. The weight of the night—the blood, the screaming, the fear that still throbbed like a bruise beneath her skin—pressed down on her shoulders like a heavy cloak, thick and suffocating, woven from threads of exhaustion, adrenaline, and love so sharp it ached. She didn't bother to wipe the tears from her cheeks or smooth the hair plastered to her temples. The air outside didn't care for appearances. It simply was—cool and crisp and filled with the quiet hush that came only after the worst had passed but before the healing could begin.
The porch creaked beneath her boots as she stepped into the moonlight, her breath catching slightly at the sudden contrast between the fevered warmth inside and the biting calm of night. The wind tugged gently at the hem of her robes, and the stars above blinked in soft, distant indifference. For a moment, she just stood there, letting the chill brush against her flushed skin, her eyes adjusting to the soft silver light that spilled across the grounds. And then she saw him.
Neville sat in the old wooden chair just to the left of the doorway, the one with the armrest slightly chipped from too many sleepless nights spent waiting. His posture was upright, alert in that quiet soldier's way he never quite let go of, but his shoulders were no longer drawn with tension. There was a softness to his expression, a weariness etched into the corners of his mouth that spoke of grief narrowly avoided. The moon cast a gentle sheen over his features, silvering the dark hollows beneath his eyes and catching on the curve of his jaw. He looked like someone who had been bracing for a storm that finally, miraculously, passed.
She didn't move right away. She just watched him. Watched the way his fingers tapped absently against his knee, watched the flicker of his eyes as they tracked the movement of moths dancing near the porchlight. And then, after a long, slow inhale that tasted like cold air and salt from her own tears, she spoke.
"My love," she said softly, and the words were so full of everything she hadn't said—fear and longing and that terrible relief that breaks you—that it made her voice catch in her throat. It wasn't an endearment. It was a confession. It was a homecoming.
He turned his head slowly, the corner of his mouth curving upward, not into a grin or a smirk, but into that tired, knowing smile that only he could give her. "Parky," he replied, and it wasn't just a nickname. It was an anchor. A hand reaching across the wreckage. The way he said it—soft, worn, laced with everything he had no words left for—hit her harder than she expected. It loosened something in her chest, something wound too tightly for too long, and her legs carried her forward before she could stop them.
There were no declarations. No apologies or reassurances or speeches laced with the drama she was usually so good at delivering. Just silence. Sweet, open, earned silence. They stood there like that for a moment, suspended in the breath between tragedy and healing, and then, as if the space between them had simply become unbearable, she stepped closer. He rose to meet her, without a word, without hesitation. Their arms found each other in an instant, wrapping around torsos that had braced too long for loss, pressing together with a kind of urgency that didn't need speed—just closeness.
He folded her into his chest like she belonged there, like she had always belonged there, and she buried her face in the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of earth and sweat and magic that had always clung to him like second skin. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, clutching at him like she was afraid he might fade if she loosened her grip, and his hands moved slowly across her back, steady and reassuring and so, so warm.
There were no words because there didn't need to be. Just the quiet press of body to body, heartbeat to heartbeat, the soft rustle of wind through nearby trees, and the unspoken promise that passed between them like a current, strong and certain.
I'm here. I'm always here.
She tilted her face up toward him, her breath catching in her throat before she even realized she'd moved. And he met her there, in that suspended space between heartbreak and healing, his lips finding hers in a kiss that was anything but hurried. It was slow, achingly slow, the kind of kiss that didn't burn or beg—it bloomed. It unfolded like an invocation, something sacred whispered between two people who had come too close to losing everything. There was no fire in it, not the kind that devours, but the kind that warms, the kind that survives the storm and flickers steady through the dark. He kissed her like he was memorizing her mouth, the curve of it, the taste of grief and relief still clinging to her, like he needed to mark the feel of her into his bones in case the world ever dared to try and take her from him again.
Her hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt, not pulling, just holding, just grounding, and when they finally pulled apart, her lips trembled with the effort it took to breathe again. She didn't move far, just enough to press her forehead to his, her exhale shaky against his skin as her eyes fluttered closed. For a heartbeat, neither of them spoke. The silence stretched and curled around them like a lullaby spun out of exhaustion. And then, quietly, she whispered, "I need to check on Luna."
He hummed low in his throat, a sound that rumbled softly between them, and one of his hands drifted down to find hers, their fingers weaving together with practiced ease, as if even their skin remembered the thousand ways they belonged to each other. "You would die for her, huh?" he asked, the words shaped with teasing affection, but there was something deeper threaded through his voice—something tender, something solemn. He wasn't really asking. He already knew. He knew what Luna meant to her, what that bond was carved from. His words weren't suspicion. They were reverence.
Her lips curled into a sad, wistful smile, the kind of smile that had weathered too many nights like this. "And I would die for you, Nevie," she said softly, each word a confession pulled from the marrow of her bones. "Over and over again. If my soul were ink, it would rewrite itself into your pages a thousand times, never tiring, never fading, only longing to exist where you do." Her voice didn't break—but it strained, filled with all the love she hadn't yet learned how to say without hurting. "You are the story I want to be written into."
His grip on her hand tightened gently, not enough to bruise, but enough to feel. He brought her knuckles to his mouth and kissed them like they were precious, like they were scripture. "Merlin, Sassy," he murmured against her skin, the warmth of his breath tickling her fingers. "You always know how to make me fall in love with you all over again."
She let out a soft, shaky laugh, the sound light but heavy with everything that hadn't been lost. Her forehead still rested against his, her eyes closed like she was clinging to the last seconds of this moment before the world intruded again. "Let's go check on Luna," she said finally, her voice gentling. "And after that, I want to go home."
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he studied her, his gaze sweeping over her face like it was a map he never stopped learning. His thumb traced small, soothing circles into the palm of her hand, grounding them both. "Home to our baby girl," he said at last, his voice soft, low, but certain, and it made something sharp and aching twist in her chest.
She nodded, and the tears she'd managed to hold back now threatened to rise. "Home to Seraphina," she whispered. "I need to hold her. I need to feel her heart beating against mine and know—know—that this world, for all its cruelty and chaos, still has something pure left in it. Something small. Something soft. Something untouched."
He cupped her face then, his palm warm against her cheek, his thumb brushing away a tear that hadn't quite fallen. He leaned in, pressing a kiss to her temple, lingering there, his lips unmoving as if offering her every word he couldn't say aloud. "We're going soon, my love," he murmured, and the promise in his voice was iron-wrapped in velvet. "I swear it. But first we make sure Luna's okay. We see it through, the way we always do. And then we go home—to our daughter, to our bed, to the life we built far away from all this madness. That's where we're heading. I see it. I swear I do."
She swallowed against the lump rising in her throat, and for a breathless moment she just leaned, leaned into him like his body was the only place the world made sense. She let herself stay there, memorizing the rhythm of his breathing, the way his arms curled around her like armor, the warmth of his words still lingering on her skin.
"Together," she whispered, not because it needed saying, but because it needed hearing.
And then, hand in hand, hearts battered but still beating in perfect time, they turned and stepped back inside.
~~~~~~
A hesitant knock echoed through the dimly lit bedroom, a soft but undeniable intrusion against the fragile silence. Luna sat curled at the edge of the bed, her fingers tangled with Theo's, unwilling—unable—to let go. The sheer terror of almost losing him still clung to her like a second skin, thick and suffocating, but he was here. He was alive. She could feel the steady warmth of his pulse beneath her fingertips, the rhythmic proof that he had survived, that he had fought his way back to her.
"Luna?" came Pansy's familiar voice from the other side of the door, gentle but firm. "It's just me, love."
Luna exhaled shakily, swiping at the tears she hadn't even realized were still falling. "Come in," she called softly.
The door creaked open, and Pansy stepped inside, her usual confidence slightly tempered, her sharp edges softened by something unspoken. Her gaze flickered to Theo, who lay resting, his face bruised, his skin still too pale, the ghosts of his suffering etched into every sharp line of his exhausted features. He was healing, but the sight of him like this twisted something deep in her chest—something furious, something helpless, something that didn't know how to settle.
She didn't even have the chance to speak before Luna broke.
A choked sob tore from her throat, her body trembling as she clutched Theo's hand with desperate strength, as if afraid that loosening her grip even a fraction would cause him to slip away. "He's alive, Pansy," she gasped through the tears, her voice raw and broken. "He's alive."
Pansy swallowed hard, her throat tight. She had been there. She had seen what they had done to him, had fought like hell to bring them back, but she understood what Luna truly meant. Theo wasn't just breathing—he had survived.
She crossed the room in two strides and sank onto the bed beside Luna, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, pulling her in close. "Of course he's alive," she murmured, her voice unusually soft. "Because if he had the audacity to die, I would've personally resurrected him just to kill him again."
A wet, hiccupping laugh broke through Luna's sobs, muffled as she buried her face in Pansy's shoulder. Pansy let her cling to her for a moment, let her feel, let the weight of it settle before Luna pulled away, her breaths still uneven, her fingers still curled so tightly around Theo's hand that her knuckles had gone white.
Pansy turned her gaze to Theo, her expression shifting into something between exasperation and fierce affection, the kind of emotion she would never say aloud but felt in every fiber of her being. She stared down at him like she was debating strangling him.
"You absolute fucking idiot," she hissed.
Theo, barely keeping his eyes open, let out a weak, hoarse chuckle. "Don't get sentimental on me, Parkinson," he rasped, his voice raw from exhaustion, the ghost of a smirk tugging at his lips. "I love you too, though."
Pansy scoffed, brushing the back of her fingers under her eyes as if she wasn't about to cry. "Ugh, disgusting."
"You're literally hugging Luna right now."
"She deserves it," Pansy sniffed. "You, however, deserve a swift kick in the ribs for nearly getting yourself killed."
Luna squeezed Theo's hand, her voice barely above a whisper as she turned to Pansy. "Please… bring my babies here."
Pansy's expression softened instantly. There was no teasing now, no sarcasm—only understanding, only devotion. "Immediately, darling," she promised, standing gracefully and smoothing down her robes as if composing herself.
She turned to leave but hesitated in the doorway, casting one last glance at Theo, her sharp brown eyes dark with something unspoken.
"Don't you dare scare us like that again," she warned, her voice steady, but thick with emotion.
Theo, ever insufferable, mustered a tired smirk. "No promises."
Pansy rolled her eyes and swept out of the room with all the dramatic flair of a queen exiting her throne room, leaving Luna alone with Theo, the silence between them heavy, thick, and full of something too fragile to name.
Luna exhaled shakily, then pressed her forehead against Theo's, her tears falling silently onto his skin.
~~~~~~
Pansy ran through the manor, her breath ragged, her pulse a frantic drumbeat against her ribs. She didn't stop, didn't slow, didn't care that the sharp echo of her heeled boots shattered the silence, alerting the entire household to her desperate sprint. None of it mattered. Not the blood she had scrubbed from her hands, not the screams she had forced into silence within her own mind, not the ghosts of the night that clawed at the edges of her sanity.
None of it mattered.
Because at the end of this hallway, beyond that beautifully carved nursery door, was the only thing in the world still untouched by darkness.
She nearly collapsed against the doorframe as she pushed it open, her entire body trembling with exhaustion, with relief, with something dangerously close to breaking. And there she was—Sia. Her little angel. Sleeping soundly in her crib, wrapped in the warmth of a world that had yet to show her its cruelty, blissfully unaware of the horrors her mother had witnessed tonight.
A sob tore through her throat, silent and raw. Her knees buckled before she could catch herself, and she sank into the rocking chair beside the crib, her shaking hands reaching out instinctively. The moment her fingers brushed against her daughter's impossibly soft skin, a fragile calm washed over her, thin as glass but real nonetheless. With a reverence that bordered on desperation, she scooped Fifi into her arms, cradling her against her chest, pressing soft kisses to the crown of her dark curls, inhaling that sweet, innocent scent that felt like the only thing tethering her to this world.
She rocked her slowly, whispering against her baby's skin, words of love and devotion, words that trembled beneath the weight of the night's horrors.
You are my light. You are my heart. Nothing will ever touch you. Not while I breathe.
The nursery door creaked open a moment later, the sound so soft she almost didn't hear it. He entered quietly, moving with the careful ease of a man who had spent years tending to fragile things, but his eyes—Merlin, his eyes—were locked onto her with an intensity that made her breath catch. He had followed her through the house, knowing exactly where she was going, carrying both of their spoiled little pugs in his arms. The dogs yawned sleepily against his chest, their small bodies warm and trusting, as if they, too, understood that something about tonight was different.
He stepped inside, taking in the scene before him.
His wife, his fierce, ruthless, impossibly beautiful wife, curled in the rocking chair, holding their daughter like she was the only thing keeping her from unraveling completely.
His heart clenched, breaking for too many reasons to name.
He had seen her tonight. Had watched as she fought tooth and nail, pouring every ounce of herself into saving Theo and Blaise, into holding Luna together, into keeping them all from crumbling under the weight of the night. He had watched as she sacrificed herself piece by piece, saving a man's body, another woman's soul, and somehow still managing to hold the world together.
And yet here she sat—looking like she had barely saved herself.
The weight of it was unbearable.
He set the pugs down on the plush rug beside the crib. They settled instantly, curling up together in a warm, sleepy heap, sensing the stillness in the room. Neville, however, didn't hesitate. He moved toward her, slow and steady, lowering himself to his knees in front of her, his large hands coming to rest gently on her thighs.
She didn't look at him.
Her gaze was locked onto their daughter, wide and unblinking, brimming with something too raw, too fragile to name.
He followed her gaze, and something deep inside of him shifted—tilted into place in a way he hadn't expected.
Their baby girl.
So small. So fragile. So utterly unprepared for the cruelty of the world. And yet, she was also so safe, so loved, wrapped in the arms of a mother who had walked through hell and would do it a thousand times over just to keep her untouched.
The realization struck him like a curse to the chest.
I have to protect them. No matter what it takes. No matter what it costs.
He reached up, his palm finding the back of Pansy's neck, his thumb brushing over her pulse point. It was racing—too fast, too uneven. He hated that. Hated that she had been forced to endure so much.
"Parky," he whispered.
She finally looked at him, and the exhaustion in her gaze nearly shattered him.
He swallowed thickly, then leaned up, pressing his forehead against hers, their daughter cradled safely between them.
"You are safe," he murmured. "She is safe. I swear it."
She let out a slow, shaky breath, her fingers tightening around Sia's impossibly tiny body. "She doesn't even know," she whispered. "She doesn't know what we saw, what we did, what we had to—"
Her voice broke, and she squeezed her eyes shut, a single tear slipping down her cheek.
He wiped it away with his thumb. "She'll never have to."
A beat of silence.
Then, she let out a quiet, humorless laugh, broken but real. "I've never been this scared before, Nevie."
He kissed her temple, lingering. "I know."
She exhaled, deep and slow, the tension finally bleeding from her body as she melted into him, into the warmth of his embrace, into the steady, unshakable presence of the man who had always—always—been her haven. And for the first time since the horrors of the night had unfolded, she felt it.
The quiet. The safety. The undeniable certainty that he would burn the world to the ground before he let anything happen to them.
And so, in the warmth of the nursery, surrounded by the soft sounds of their sleeping child and the steady heartbeat of the man she loved, Pansy finally allowed herself to believe it.
They were home. They were safe.
Notes:
I will take a break after this, I hope you understand xxx