PART TWO

2. Leverage

For hours after Severus returned from the Dark Lord, he sat, grim-faced and trembling in his favourite armchair; and in yet another role reversal, Calista was the one stayed with him through the nightmares, a protective shadow offering comfort when he would accept it, and companionable silence when he would not.

He did not go to his room to sleep, though he was surely in sore need of it, and Calista refused to go to hers; when he snatched bits of fitful sleep in his chair, Calista tried to do the same, but found that she could not quite bring herself to close her eyes to him, because she didn't think she could bear it if he were not there when she opened them.

When he dreamt, during those brief moments of restless sleep, Calista could feel his alarm, urgent and pressing in her mind, and she ached helplessly, knowing all too well what it felt like, but also knowing that he had to sleep, if he could.

She had breakfast sent up in the morning, and when she couldn't rouse him from his chair for that, she had lunch sent up a few hours later, and finally managed to coax him to the kitchen. Her stomach felt too tense to handle either meal, so she sipped on coffee, instead, until she'd had so much that it began to feel sour and raw in her gut.

"I'm glad we're going home tomorrow," Calista finally ventured, after her father had finished eating, but had not risen from the table. When he merely frowned, Calista continued, "We are going home tomorrow, right?"

It was the last day of term, and Calista had already missed an entire week of work. If not for the fact that it was now technically her uncle paying her salary, she was nearly certain she wouldn't have had one to go back to.

"We will be leaving Hogwarts tomorrow," her father said, "I plan on returning home."

Before she even had a chance to properly register her relief, his eyes flickered up to her face, a question visible on his features.

"How would you feel about your staying somewhere else, for a few days? Your Aunt Andromeda's home, perhaps, or B — Gerald's?"

Calista blinked. "It's… it's still not safe to go back home?"

He hedged.

"I really don't want to stay with anyone else," she said, but she could tell by the sudden shifting of the lines in his face that he had decided something. She felt her heart sink, knowing it was going to something she wouldn't like.

"I don't believe our home will be unsafe for me," Severus finally said, quietly, "But I do fear that I may have certain — visitors — over the next few days that I would rather not subject you to."

"I already know about Mrs. Yaxley," she reminded him, with a deliberate light dryness, but it did nothing for the brittle mood in the little kitchen.

"There is nothing amusing about any of this," her father said, in a soft sort of voice that made her gut suddenly heave. She instantly regretted her sixth cup of coffee.

"I'm sorry," she said, around the sour feeling in her mouth, "I just — I suppose I was just trying to say something, anything that might trick me into thinking things are normal, just for a moment."

"They're not," Severus said shortly, and then: "I suppose, after everything you must have sensed, you deserve the truth. Crouch mentioned you to the Dark Lord while I was with them. I do not know what might have been said before I arrived."

Her heart hammered, and she could feel the sour crawl of the coffee working its way up her throat.

"I do not think the Dark Lord has decided, yet, that you are interesting. I would very much prefer that he never does; keeping you utterly out of sight from anyone else that might think to mention you to him seems sound, at the moment."

"What about…" Calista swallowed a sour lump that felt suspiciously like vomit, "What about Uncle Lucius? Is he… did he…?"

"He knows that it is my utmost intention to keep you away from the Dark Lord and his followers," her father said, which told her enough, non-answer that it was, "Nevertheless, I would feel more comfortable, at the moment, if you were not to visit the manor."

It was an utter departure from everything she knew. When she could not be with him, he had always, always preferred that she was with her aunt and uncle. That, it seemed, was no longer the case.

It struck her that Draco, barely fifteen-year-old and highly impressionable Draco, was still going home on the train tomorrow, was still going to the very same manor that her father did not want her to go to, lest she encounter another of the Dark Lord's servants there, and suddenly, she could no longer hold onto the contents of her stomach.

"Excuse me," she managed to mumble, fumbling out of her chair with enough clumsiness and force to send it toppling noisily to the floor behind her; she just made it to the tiny bathroom, where she promptly expelled all six cups of coffee.

It was a long time before she could bring herself to leave the bathroom; it seemed to her that once she did, she would have to face it all again: the newly-grey sallowness of her father's face; her recollection of Potter's blanched and bloodstained skin as he told them all He's back; the shadowed, haunting memories of before that were fighting to surface in her mind, that were suddenly almost indistinguishable from now.

When she finally returned to the kitchen, her father was on his feet, not quite as grey and not quite as grim as she had left him. He had changed into a fresh set of robes.

"I am expected to make an appearance at the end of term feast shortly," he said, "You are welcome to attend, but you don't have to."

"They're still having the feast?" It seemed utterly absurd; but then, in her current state, everything did. Food; work; sunlight. They all suddenly seemed like things that belonged to a different world entirely.

"Yes. And the Headmaster has decided to inform the students of the Dark Lord's return; how many will believe him, when the Ministry is dead set on ignoring the facts, remains to be seen."

Her heart picked up speed, hammering against a chest that felt hollow, and still somehow sour.

"It's not a nightmare," she murmured, jaw aching as the words rolled around in her mouth, "It's really happening, isn't it?"

"Yes, Calista," her father said, heavily, "It is really happening."

He gave her a familiar, assessing look, and Calista was too tired to erect her mask of I'm fine; she knew he would see what she had glimpsed in the bathroom mirror a few moments ago, waxy skin and shadowed eyes, and perhaps, the edge of still-pink scars at her collar.

"Go to Boot's tomorrow," he said, making the choice for her, and they both pretended not to notice the small crack in his voice, "You might as well tell him what the Headmaster is going to tell everyone, anyway. You might as well tell him the truth."

"All of it?" How could she? How could she possibly explain the agony of a week of waiting, of watching the clock, of having her heart torn out through the back of her mind?

"I suppose that depends," Severus said, at length, "On how far he's progressed, during your Occlumency lessons."

She was silent. She recalled what he had said, almost half a year ago, on the subject.

I stand by my decision to teach that boy Occlumency, if you will not. He is too close to you, I think, for us to neglect it much longer.

She had done worse than neglect it; she had refused, coldly, each time Gerald brought it up, until he'd finally ceased asking. She had increasingly employed her superior skill in the art against him, deflecting his insistence that something was wrong, and going through the motions of affection with a calculated detachment and just enough manufactured warmth to keep him from pressing her, from thoroughly understanding that he was right, that whatever she was could not possibly be described as fine.

"You have not been instructing him, despite my warning," Severus observed, and suddenly his disapproval was a third entity in the quiet corridor, staring her down.

She recalled Gerald's letters, the ache of how badly she'd wanted to summon him to the castle during the past wretched week, to let herself feel true warmth from him, without the interference of the chill she'd drawn around herself, these past six months, a cloak of distance; and she recalled the choice she'd made, in response to that desire.

"What if I don't want to tell him?" Calista asked, quietly. "What if I think it's better for him if he doesn't know?"

She expected a careful, measured response, or perhaps none at all; but instead, her father was looking at her as if she had blown up a cauldron; a nerve in his cheek twitched ominously.

"The Dark Lord is returned," he said, quite tersely, "It does no one any good to be ignorant to that fact."

An uncomfortable rush of shame flooded her face, and she covered it with a scowl.

"I didn't mean that part," she snapped, "I meant — I meant —" she floundered; what did she mean, exactly?

"It's all real," she finally said, "And… and if he — if the Dark Lord — does decide that I'm interesting," her mouth twisted savagely around the word, "I don't want Gerald to be in danger because of me."

"The Dark Lord is returned," her father said again, just as tersely as he had before, "Everyone is in danger."

Her stomach leapt again, and she was suddenly grateful that there was no longer anything in it.

"You know what I mean," she said, quietly.

Several expressions crossed her father's face in quick succession, none of which she dared to interpret.

"Yes, I do. And that is why I told you, months ago, to teach him, or to let me do it; now, since you have done neither, it will very soon be too late."

"Fine," Calista agreed quietly, bones aching under the weight of his gaze, "Then it's too late."

A familiar feeling settled in her gut; a wretched, twisted sort of self-righteousness; and she knew suddenly and utterly precisely what she was saying, what she had been edging towards, these last six months or more. The sharp, acrid burn crawled from her throat down into her heart, where it settled as a tiring, heavy ache.

"I wonder," her father asked, devastatingly soft, "Do you understand what you must do, if you can't or won't teach him — if it is indeed 'too late'?"

"Yes; I have to stop telling him anything." Her throat tightened painfully. "I suppose it would be wisest not to talk to him at all, anymore."

"Yes, all of that would undoubtedly be wise; after you've modified his memory, of course."

"After I've done what?!" The words practically scraped out of her abused throat; but her father's steady stare, the grim set of his features, were utterly merciless.

"You want to protect him, yes?"

"Of course I do."

"Then teach him how to maintain control of his mind," her father snarled, "So that it does not break in the event that the Dark Lord thinks to use him to bait you — such leverage is the only thing the Dark Lord understands about love, but he understands it devastatingly well."

Calista's mouth was dry, and her legs were beginning to fill with the same bitter ache that had thus far gripped her throat and her chest; she braced herself against the doorframe of the study, in case they decided to give out, after all.

"You just said — you said he doesn't want — you said I'm not 'interesting' yet…"

Her father's mouth twisted almost inhumanly before he replied. "Neither is Boot; but you do not need to be interesting to be used as bait; it would be foolish for us not to consider that the Dark Lord may eventually realise — if he doesn't already — that you can be used to bait me; and if that does happen, the whole chain will crumble the moment that Boot does."

Her eyes blurred painfully, and now it seemed that every single part of her was burning with bile, or something like it. "I know that," she forced the words out, hating the way they trembled, the sound of unshed tears in her voice, "And that's why I'm trying — I want to keep him out of the chain, don't you see? And you're saying it's too late, that I can't — but if that's the case, then how is modifying his memory going to help him?"

"It isn't. It would only ensure that he is a fruitless link for the Dark Lord to break; but it would not stop him from being broken."

"Why are you telling me this, now?" she whispered, hopelessly, "Now that it's too late?"

There was a blur of darkness that she interpreted to be a movement; it was confirmed a moment later, when her father's hand settled on her shoulder, a reassuring feeling utterly at odds with the tone of his voice, the poison of his words.

"If you recall," her father said, very quietly, "It was you who declared that it was already too late; I only told you that it would be, very soon; and perhaps my words seem harsh, but I need to be certain that you understand the urgency behind them."

She had to allow several moments for the burn in her eyes to fade, for her vision and her throat to clear sufficiently.

"I understand the urgency," she finally said, with grim resolve, "I understand exactly what I need to do."

"Calista…"

She heard the hitch of hesitation in her father's voice; she sensed an inkling of concern, but she did not want it, in that moment; if she were to keep her resolve, then his urgency was the only thing she was interested in.

"You're going to be late to the feast," she said, evenly, and she extracted her shoulder from his grip. "And I'd better call Gerald to let him know I'm coming."

He glanced at the wall clock, and then back at her. His mouth creased into a frown, but she was right; the feast was going to begin any moment.

"I'll return as quickly as I can," her father said, "We'll remove the anchor point — it will be good practise, for you — and we'll talk."

Calista nodded agreeably, knowing full well that she was only agreeing to the first part of his offer; it was exactly as she'd already told him. She understood what she had to do; there was no need to talk any further.

(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)

"Mon cœur, I'm so relieved to see you — you won't believe what I heard this morning; and I was so worried, even though —"

Gerald interrupted his embrace and his rush of words simultaneously, as Calista responded woodenly to both. His arms shifted up to her shoulders, brows coming down in concern.

"You're not all right," he murmured, and Calista immediately felt the awful, burning sensation from the night before creeping back into her gut. "I should have known you were lying again, I felt —"

"I'm fine." At the last minute, Calista reined her snarl and her scowl back, making her face and her voice as carefully neutral as possible. It wasn't his fault, what she had to do; and she suspected that what she would eventually have to tell him would hurt him, enough. There was no need to add to his misery.

Gerald lifted his hand from her shoulder, bringing it towards her face in a soft, familiar motion he had done hundreds of times; and she flinched, in the instant before his skin touched hers. He frowned, the pad of his thumb poised over her cheekbone, and the ache inside her intensified at the realisation that he'd been intending to wipe away a tear that she hadn't even realised she had shed.

"Please don't," she whispered, and she lifted her own hand, fingers carefully unhooking his other hand from her shoulder. She stepped back, until she felt the knob of his front door against the small of her back, and that made her flinch, too, though she tried to hide it with a deliberate stumble.

"You're not," Gerald said, quietly, though he did not try to touch her again; did not try to close the physical distance between them. "I'm not certain if I've ever seen you less 'fine' in all the time I've known you, except perhaps…" She saw his pulse jump, briefly, in his throat. "After the trial..."

After the trial. The reminder of one of the reasons she was here, one of the potentially dangerous secrets he held, was enough for her to cling to, to pull herself up, at least mentally; she found that while she did not quite have enough resolve to step closer to him, or to straighten her shoulders, she did have enough to draw a careful mask of near-blankness across her face. She allowed a small fraction of her exhaustion to show through, so that he might guess that was the reason for the rest of it.

"I'm knackered," she said, quietly, but that made him step closer, again. She shook her head, very slightly, until he stepped back again, and then she shifted her gaze slightly to his left. She didn't want to meet his; didn't want to acknowledge the warmth, the caring concern; least of all, the flicker of uncertain fear, that told her perhaps he already knew why she didn't want to be close to him —

"I went to pick Terry up from the train this morning," Gerald said, quietly and grimly into the space between them, "You're not going to believe what he told me; I can't believe it; and yet, he wasn't deliberately lying, I'm certain he wasn't."

"What did Terry tell you?" Calista asked neutrally, eyes still fixed on the bookshelves behind him.

"He told me — he said that Professor Dumbledore told the students at the feast last night that — that —"

Gerald's breath hitched audibly, and she could see his shoulders stiffen, while he forced himself to go on.

"He said that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned," he finished, quietly; and again, as if he simply could not help himself, he stepped towards her. She side-stepped him neatly, but even the faint brush of his fingers against her shoulder made her ache for things she could not accept, could not encourage.

"It's true," Calista said, softly, and now she had to make herself look at him; it wasn't the sort of news that seemed all right to give, otherwise. "He's —" she swallowed the threatening burn in her throat, "He's back."

She saw Gerald shiver; saw the uncertainty in his eyes fade, and the fear increase.

"That's right; you were at Hogwarts. You must have heard the speech, too."

"No, I didn't. I —" She frowned. Would he be cross, if she admitted she'd been on the fire with him, while that speech was being given? Would he demand to know why she hadn't told him, then, and would he believe her if she told him that she had wanted just one more conversation with him, before any of what she'd come here to tell him had built an impenetrable wall between them?

"I already knew," she told him; after all, this was the one part she'd been sanctioned to tell him, and perhaps even a partial truth would be a cooling salve against the incessant, sour ache in her mouth. "I knew it the night that I went to Hogwarts, to tell my father about — to tell him what I'd remembered."

"You knew that He-Who —" Gerald's brow furrowed, "You knew he was back, a week ago, on the night of the third task?" His voice cracked, and rose. "You — you knew when I called you, when I felt —"

"No," she interrupted fiercely, because she couldn't stand the way he was looking at her now, "I didn't know then. All I knew then was that I'd remembered who Moody reminded me of, and —"

She stopped, realising that he probably didn't even know that Moody had been an imposter, even though she had always been permitted to tell him this part. She hadn't told him anything at all, other than that she was fine. The burn of that constant lie, and the weight of everything that was still untold were both suddenly unbearable.

"I'm sorry, I can't — do you have any coffee, or — anything, I just can't —"

Her fingers were aching for the curved warmth of a mug, but the source of warmth he offered her was quite different; his hands took hers up before she could protest, and even that small contact was so heartbreakingly normal after the week she'd had that she could no longer bring herself to summon the resolve to resist.

"Your hands are freezing," Gerald said in a quietly scolding tone, as if it were something she could help; and but it seemed to her, then that it wasn't just her hands. She suppressed a shiver while he led her, rather more firmly than she'd expected, into his kitchen. He shifted one hand to her shoulder again, then, and this time she did not flinch; she let him push her gently into a wooden chair.

"I didn't know, when you called me, that the D — that You-Know-Who was coming back," she said to his back, while he removed something from fridge and muttered a warming spell. "I just — I had the dream again, the one I told you about, and there was another part to it that time, something I had to tell my father about. I found out when I got to Hogwarts, that night."

He didn't respond, at least not right away. She caught a whiff of something that was a little bit like coffee, if it had been left out for a month, and perhaps trampled by a herd of thestrals for good measure. After a few moments, he finally turned; she didn't want to interpret the look in his eyes, so she looked at the plate and mug he set in front of her, instead.

The plate contained some sort of casserole, and even after being reheated, it smelled unbelievably appetising; still, her stomach rolled in protest. The mug of dark not-coffee that he'd set beside it only sharpened the ache.

"What happened that night?" Gerald asked quietly, and she realised that he hadn't retreated, after offering her the reheated food and whatever was in the mug. His body effectively blocked her only exit avenue, unless she planned on climbing onto the table and leaping over the half-wall into his living room.

"They… they cancelled the tournament, partway through the last task," Calista said. She took a bite of the casserole, for the sole purpose of her buying herself a few more seconds to decide how to answer, how much to tell him, but the morsel stuck in her throat, prompting her to reach for the steaming mug; she took a long draw of the liquid, and felt her nose wrinkle at the same moment that the bit of casserole dropped into her stomach like a stone. "Erm — is this supposed to be coffee, or mud?"

"It's instant," Gerald said, and he leaned closer, settling his fingers on her shoulder again. "Calista, what happened to you that night?"

"Nothing," she said; it was the familiar warmth of his hand, pressing against her shoulder, that decided her. It would be easier, this way; if he did not know about any of the horrors of the past week, then he would not feel the need to comfort her, and she would not need to convince herself all over again to do what she'd already decided to do.

"Nothing?" Gerald echoed, and she nodded, meeting his gaze even though she didn't want to, selling the lie with her face as much as with her words.

"I see," he finally said, and, mercifully, his fingers lifted from her shoulder. He started to turn away, and Calista exhaled, and wrapped her fingers around the mug; it might not taste like coffee, but it still felt the right way, in her hands.

"I suppose," Gerald said, turning back to her, and his voice cracked, again. "That 'nothing' happened the day after that, either?"

She blinked. "I… suppose so. I don't remember anything from that day."

Nothing besides hearing my father scream, inside my head, she added silently, And spending the better part of the day freeing the real Mad-Eye from his own trunk.

"And it was 'nothing' again, the day before yesterday, was it?"

"What are you talking about?" she snarled, and suddenly it was as if the floor beneath her was opening up; the day before yesterday; but no, that awful day of horror and waiting and pain had been longer ago than that, hadn't it?

"I felt you," Gerald said, and his words seemed to shiver with feeling, "Or I heard you — or I don't know what exactly to call it, but I knew something awful was happening — I knew you were afraid, or hurt or — or —" He shuddered, and made a small sound; then he sucked in a breath, and that seemed to steady him slightly. "Calista, tell me the truth. Please."

"Fuck," she whispered, without quite meaning to say it aloud, and then: "Fuck. It's — Merlin's blood, what the hell is wrong with me, why didn't I ever realise — the anchor point, Gerald."

It was his turn to blink, puzzled. "What?"

Why hadn't she realised before? It wasn't the first time he'd said something similar, but —

But before, I didn't know what it felt like, she realised, To have an anchor point in your mind, from someone you actually care about.

She had only known, before this past week, what it felt like to have her mother's sinister, lingering presence; had only known what it was to be haunted, and hunted, through such a connection, and so she had not realised what she had left behind.

"The anchor point," she said, grimly, "I — I placed one in your mind, during the trial, so I could help you, remember?"

"Of course I do," he said, and though his brow furrowed, his tone did not quite soften. "But then you — you fainted, and the connection broke, and I assumed… wouldn't the anchor have broken, too?"

"No," she said, "It has to be deliberately removed, by a legilimens that knows it's there. Until it is, you'll — you would have sensed whenever I felt a particularly strong burst of emotion, especially…"

She recalled her father's words, after placing his own anchor point, what he'd warned her would happen: You will feel my fear, like an alarm in your mind. You may even sense pain. How many times had she felt both of those things, since she had placed the anchor…? Merlin, it was the beginning of July, and Gerald had evidently been feeling these powerful rings of emotion from her since October.

She shook her head, against the crushing realisation of her own idiotic negligence, against the persistent ache of her insides, against the weight of exhaustion that still pressed on her, from what felt like all sides.

"Gerald, I'm so sorry, I must have completely forgotten about it, with… with everything else that happened. I can't believe I did, but — I must have."

She expected him to be frightened, or perhaps even angry, at the realisation; she braced herself, thinking grimly that at least it would make it easier to push him away, once she'd done what she had to do.

She was not prepared for what he did say; she was not prepared for the quiet, hollow words that hit her like a curse, and so she flinched.

"So you've lied to me," he said, "Every single time since October that I knew something was wrong, and you told me you were fine."

Yes. "No," she made herself say, and it was impossible not to be perversely proud of the way her words came out; mostly even, with the slight lilt of contrition; the intentional gravity of sincerity. "I never lied. I am fine, or at least I was, until my father told me that the Dark Lord had returned; and of course I'm terrified of that — aren't you?"

"Of course I am," Gerald echoed, and she could hear the flicker of uncertainty as he added: "But that wasn't the only time — Calista, I felt like you were hurt, or afraid, so many times."

"I'm sorry," she said, and she did not have to falsify the bitter shame that rolled through her blood, though once again, she was lying about the reason for it. "I — it must have been my nightmares you were sensing, I —" Her throat pulsed so viciously now with the ache of her lies that it felt like she was swallowing her teeth, but she pressed on. "I just — I was embarrassed, I didn't want to admit I was having them so often…"

He frowned. She could see him considering her words. "That's why you don't like to stay the night, isn't it?"

"Yes."

At last, he softened; but her relief was short-lived, because in the space of a breath, he had crossed over to her chair again, and the press of his palm on her shoulder made her want to cry, suddenly, more than anything else had in the last twenty-four hours; maybe since October.

"Mon c—" he started to say, but she could already feel dangerous things inside, things that made her afraid that she could not do what she had to, and so she cut him off.

"The anchor point," she said, and the steadiness of her voice was such a mad juxtaposition to the way she felt inside that for an instant, her tired mind thought wildly that someone else must be speaking, "I have to remove it."

"Now?"

"The… the sooner, the better," she agreed, pretending not to register the incredulity in his voice, "I mean — we don't want to forget for another nine or ten months, do we?"

Gerald's mouth curled thoughtfully, and his free hand came to rest on her other shoulder. She felt a sudden spark of apprehension, though she wasn't quite certain why; but then, her entire life had become a trigger for apprehension, of late, hadn't it?

"Is it difficult to remove?" he asked, "Will it take a lot of effort?"

She had only ever removed anchor point from her own mind, and she'd been fighting against the will of her mother, who had obviously wanted it to stay. She did know that the longer an anchor had been in place, the more difficult it was to remove; but how much effort was it from the other side? She thought back to the night before; to her father's wan, grey face.

How much of that had been from the effort of removing the anchor, and how much of it had been simply from living through a series of agonising days, days so dark that even the ghost of them in the back of her mind had made her into the aching, shivering wreck she felt like inside?

"I don't know," she answered, honestly, for once. ""It could be minutes, or it might be hours. It would be easier if— if you knew how to help, but… forget hours, it would probably take months for me to teach you enough to do it."

"And you won't." There was a flicker of an edge, in his words, and she hadn't meant to say anything about why she'd come just yet; she'd wanted some measure of food in her stomach and some semblance of sleep behind her, but there was no reason to believe her wretched, exhausted body would embrace the latter any more than it had the former, and he was giving her a perfect opening.

"Actually, I will," she said, lifting her gaze to his; Merlin, it hurt, to look at him, because she wanted to press her head against him, to feel his arms come around her precisely as they had in that linked memory that she'd used to place the anchor in the first place; she wanted him to tell her I love you, and to ease the softness of his mouth over her temple, and around the ridge of her ear, until she felt some echo of the normal she'd been craving for what felt like eternity; but all of that would be cruel, now, for both of them.

Surprise widened his eyes, brows arching over the rim of his spectacles. "Erm — you will?"

"Yes," she said, and she took advantage of his surprise to slip her shoulder free, again, of his grasp, despite the sudden chill it gave her. "I'm going to teach you Occlumency, if you still want me to. I'll stay here this week, of course, like I told you last night; I think if we practise a lot, you'll be able to maintain two layers of defence, very soon. And after that… I'll come over, as often as you like, until…"

Until I think you're safe enough, or until I can't stand seeing you and knowing it might be the last time.

"Until you feel confident," she said, instead.

"I don't understand," Gerald said, bewildered, "You always refused, before, every time I asked. Why have you suddenly changed your mind so fully that you'll be coming over every day to teach me?"

That, at least, was one question that she could afford to answer truthfully.

"The D — You-Know-Who is back. Nothing's the same, now, as it was."

They both shivered; and then he nodded, and suddenly his arms were around her, even though she'd resolved not to let them end up that way.

"All right," Gerald said, words vibrating at her ear, "We'll start the lessons tomorrow, then; and we'll address the anchor point and talk about what's coming. But for now —"

"I have to remove the anchor point today," she said, even as she was lifted gently out of the chair he'd placed her in; he shifted his grip, placing an arm at her waist, and taking up her hand again.

"Calista, your hands are freezing and you've been shivering for the last hour; Beyond that, I can see that Yellow must have scratched you up —" she suppressed an enormous wave of guilt as his eyes swept over the neckline of her top, "And thanks to the anchor point, I know full well that you've been sleeping terribly, if at all, for days."

"But —"

"You're going to bed," he said, rather as she had heard him tell more than one student out past curfew during his tenure as Head Boy, "And when you wake up, you're going to eat a proper meal, and then we can move on to all the rest of it."

"At least let me try —"

"I absolutely will not allow you to attempt a potentially draining feat of legilimency in the state you're currently in — which, incidentally, becauseof the anchor point, I know for a certainty is not fine. We'll talk about it tomorrow, mon colibri."

He was right, she realised, as he led her through the living room and into the bedroom, still brightly lit from the evening sun. She hadn't caught more than a few hours' sleep at a time in days; exhausted didn't even begin to cover the strange, heavy-and-light trembling feeling inside her. She had no idea how difficult removing the anchor point would prove to be; and June or no, she was freezing, at least until he plucked a quilt off his bed and wrapped it around her shoulders.

"I'll bring your trunk in," Gerald said, glancing out towards the living room where she'd left it earlier, "Unless you're comfortable with me opening it to —"

She was already lying down, unable to resist the warmth and softness of the bed, the glow of sunlight that just touched the edges of it from the balcony window at the far end of the room. She saw a soft, affectionate sort of smile flicker over his features, momentarily overtaking the weariness, the horror, of what Terry had told him and what she had grimly confirmed.

"I'll bring you some pajamas," he amended, just before the door eased shut behind him; for a moment, her ears stayed perked, expecting his return, but —

It took him an extraordinarily long time to find one of her nightdresses, or else it took her an extraordinarily short time to fall asleep; and for once, it was dreamless.

(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)

Gerald lifted the lid on Calista's yellow trunk. The top of it was jammed with books, which didn't surprise him in the least; despite the yawing, gaping pit that had taken residency in his stomach the moment Terry had told him about Professor Dumbledore's speech, he managed a small, fond sort of smile at the sheer number of books she'd crammed into the thing.

He reflected with the first spark of humour he'd felt all day that she must have an extraordinarily strong gift for Hover Charms, in addition to her Freezing Charm, in order to have gotten the heavy trunk all the way up to his third floor flat without help.

Finally, about halfway down, he hit fabric; he sifted through a silky, yellow length of fabric that he thought he recognised as a dress he'd seen her wear, and hurriedly cast aside a much smaller, lacier scrap of fabric that he definitely remembered seeing her wear, though not for very long— ah, there. He saw a soft-looking, off-white edge that looked promising, and pulled it free.

His first thought was that he had made a mistake; he'd meant to grab a nightdress, and had ended up with — with —

His stomach heaved so forcefully that it hurt, and his heart all but stopped; and then, it thudded and snagged like a struggling bird against his rib cage, as he realised what he was looking at.

The garment in his hands was one of Calista's nightdresses, and it had been white, before it had become utterly covered with blood.

It's dye, his brain declared, but he knew instantly that it wasn't; and then, only slightly more plausible and discounted just as quickly: It's from a spilled potion, or an animal, or —

The sunlight streaming through the West window was soft and light, but it illuminated with an unbearable harshness the source of all the bloodstains on her nightdress: the six or eight diagonal slashes of darker, deeper blood on the untorn fabric. There were only a handful of curses he knew of that could make marks anything like what he was seeing on the nightdress, what his mind was seeing on Calista's body, and none of them were anything close to 'nothing'.

A series of memories assaulted him, seemingly out of nowhere. He saw the stark lines of runes, stacks of mysterious scrolls, the curl of his own nearly bloodless fingers around a quill as he painstakingly translated one dark missive after another through endless night after endless night.

Then, as now, the truth had lined up in front of his eyes; it had presented itself in visions of blood and pain, in a pervading sense of not right, and he had been so convinced of the unthinkable that he'd risked his job to warn Crouch's office; but then Chadwick had told him, calmly and reasonably, that he was wrong, that he'd misinterpreted, and he'd believed his cousin, partly because he loved him, and partly because he didn't want to believe the unthinkable.

The problem with that, he now saw with devastating clarity, was that the unthinkable had indeed come to pass; it was written in the awed horror in his little brother's face, when he'd relayed the words of Dumbledore's end-of-year address, and it was illustrated in the shadows underneath Calista's eyes when she'd quietly confirmed: He's back.

An eerily similar pattern was forming now, in his mind, though the clues were different; the vicious, violent pattern of blood on Calista's nightdress, and the way one of the slashes ended just at the edge of the collar; the angry pink line he had glimpsed at the base of her neck, just where that slash would have ended; the agonising pulses of fear and pain at the back of his mind, and Calista's repeated chorus of I'm fine, it's nothing.

How many times had she looked him straight in the eyes and lied? How many nights had he lain awake, a silent sentry to the litany of terror ringing through the back of his mind; and how many of those nights would he have found her in danger or in pain, if he'd ignored her protests, her father's threats, and gone to her?

I'm fine; she said it all the time; and if he'd never quite believed her, he reluctantly accepted her repeated platitudes because she presented them reasonably and logically; and of course, because he loved her, and because… well, because he didn't want to believe the unthinkable.

I've never lied, she'd said, only an hour ago, and there had been nothing in her face, her eyes, her voice that betrayed her. I am fine; it must have been my nightmares you were sensing.

"Let's verify that," Gerald muttered quietly, now. "Let's see just how long ago 'nothing' happened to you."

Clenching his jaw against the rolling in his stomach, Gerald carried the bloodied nightdress to the kitchen, and spread it carefully over the table.

He had researched blood magic, after Calista had told him that it had once been employed against her as a small child. He had wanted to understand, and he had admittedly been naïve enough and cocky enough to hope that he could uncover something she hadn't, some magical means of removing the scars that fueled so much of her undeserved self-loathing; and of course there was no such cure, but that didn't mean that his research had been utterly fruitless.

He had learned, for instance, that curses that inflicted bloodshed — particularly if they were Dark spells — would often leave behind some faint magical signature, though it would fade with time.

He had also learned that if a particular, complex series of spells were cast immediately following bloodshed that the events leading up to it could be preserved for hours, even days, allowing a variant of the priori incantatem spell to be performed, to determine precisely how the blood had been spilled; but since it was incredibly doubtful that anyone had done that to Calista's nightdress, he would have to resort to some of the other spells he'd learned, and hope that not too much time had passed, to glean as much as he could.

"Sanguisaetas nunc reditio," he tapped his wand to the most vivid of the slashes, and drew the tip of his wand against it in a quick, counter-clockwise circle. Nothing happened; but of course, the stains had to be more than an hour old, since she had been here an hour ago. He repeated the spell, adding an additional twist around of his wand each time; at each interval of twelve hours, he substituted the circular motions for an east-west arc, indicating the passage of one day, hour to hour.

When he reached thirty-six hours back, he realised he was holding his breath; that, after all, was the last time that he had felt the agonising urgency of alarm in the back of his mind — but the nightdress told him nothing.

He went on and on, until he lost certainty that he was following the procedure correctly; and then, just when he'd been close to giving up:

"Sanguisaetas nunc reditio," his wand twirled, drawing a series of arcs and loops over the fabric; and then there was a flash of light, and the stain directly beneath his wand shifted, shining briefly into liquid; rust turned to scarlet, and the tang of copper assaulted his nose.

It was only a moment, and then the fabric dried up again, the colour oxidised. He repeated the motion again, to be absolutely certain, and when he got the same result again, he snatched a sheet of parchment out of one of his kitchen drawers, and wrote down the pattern that had finally activated the dormant blood magic in the garment.

"Accio calendar," he said, and as the calendar flew across the room into his fingers, he calculated the hours that were represented in the symbols he'd written down, matching up each arc, sliding his finger backwards along the line of days, until his finger stopped at the end of the pattern; and suddenly, the struggling bird was back, beating against the inside of ribs, sinking its talons firmly into his heart.

June twenty-fourth. The Dark magic that had stained Calista's nightdress with a terrifying amount of blood had been performed on the evening of June twenty-fourth; the night of the third task; the night that he had sensed her fear so acutely that he had called her on the fire, only to be firmly shut out. In fact, by the calculation of his spell, it had happened within the hour that he had spoken to her; and another memory, this one from only hours ago, cut across the forefront of his mind:

I knew about it the night I went back to Hogwarts to tell my father what I'd remembered, Calista had told him, of Lord Voldemort's return, and: They cancelled the tournament, partway through the last task.

She had managed not tell him precisely how she'd found out that Lord Voldemort was back, and now his mind could not help but draw the most horrifying conclusion imaginable.

Once, he might have been able to convince himself that he was wrong; once, he would have believed that Calista would not, could not lie to him about something so critical, so terrible; but the stained cloth on the table was a cruel counterpoint.

When was the last time that she had actually told him the truth? He had nothing to go on but shadowed eyes and chill fingers and the insistent, flickering pulse of fear in the back of his mind, and even with all of that, she had still locked her eyes on his and told him, utterly evenly: I'm fine. Nothing happened, and for most of a year, he'd ignored everything inside him that told him it wasn't true, hadn't considered that this was the same person who had run off in the middle of the night to face a werewolf and a horde of dementors with little more than a bloody Freezing Charm, and had told no one where she was going.

Panic had threatened to drown him, in the moment that he'd first laid eyes on the telltale nightdress, but busying himself with investigating it had steadied his hands and his heart; and now that a series of frightening and disheartening questions were occurring to him, he knew that he had to counter his rising anxiety with the two things that never failed to rescue him from the clutches of fear: information, and action.

He cast a look towards the bedroom door, and he was sorely tempted to barge in, then, and confront Calista with what he knew; but his hands were trembling, and the wild bird in his chest was threatening to take flight, and it was almost a certainty that he would say a great many regrettable things, if he saw her now. It would be better if he could think, first, and plan.

He set a couple of charms on the door, one that would soften any sound from the rest of the flat from breaching it, and a second one that would alert him with a soft chime if she opened it. He set the latter one grimly, forcing himself to acknowledge the very real possibility that she would try to slip out, in the middle of the night.

He was only slightly reassured by the reminder, quite literally in the back of his mind, that he had a small amount of leverage to keep her here.

It was a long night; as the hours passed and the shadows outside first deepened and then softened, Gerald divided his time between stacks of books and papers, and the simmering heat of a cauldron that had replaced the nightdress on the table. By the time that dawn's fingers began to tap at the living room window, his shoulders ached and his brow was slick with sweat; but he felt satisfied that he had understood enough of the pattern, this time, to act.

He knew she would argue reasonably and logically; and then, when that failed, she would argue unreasonably and viciously. He was not looking forward to that, but he was prepared for it, prepared to press doggedly on, this time, as he had not before: because he loved her, and because he finally realised that he had been staring into the face of the unthinkable all along.

(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)

It was full daylight when Calista woke, alone in Gerald's single bed. She couldn't remember him coming in, but she suspected she'd been so soundly asleep that a literal hippogriff could have crawled into bed beside her, and she'd have been none the wiser; the thought gave her a small flicker of amusement, and she almost considered checking the bed for feathers.

The ghost of her smile died on her face, almost as soon as it had formed, as she remembered why she was here, what she had to do.

The anchor point, that was going to have to be first; and once it was gone, she'd begin teaching him how to build a proper second wall, in his mind. And then…

She had intended on teaching him as much as she reasonably could, and then breaking the news, but it was plain to her now that she did not have the willpower to follow that plan. All it had taken was a brief moment of warmth, his arms around her, his mouth on her ear, and she had ached so thoroughly to hug him, to kiss him, to tell him everything — in short, to ensure that he would become a tool for the Dark Lord to ensnare her with.

I'll remove the anchor point now, first thing, she told herself, and then… And then, somehow, I have to find a way to tell him that the only reason I'm here is to teach him Occlumency.

What would she give him, for a reason, when she told him she was breaking things off? If she told him the truth, she thought he might not listen; that he might insist on helping her face whatever was coming next, just as she'd helped him face his father — but of course, it wasn't the same thing at all; and it was her Patronus, of all things, that reminded her why she had to do this cleanly, and utterly, and now, before she lost her dwindling resolve.

There was no use dwelling, now; she would have to hope that the right words would come to her, once the anchor point was taken care of. She realised bitterly that she could tell him anything she wanted to; he would have no way, once the anchor was removed, of seeing through her.

Two things assaulted her the moment she opened the bedroom door; the telltale chime of a perimeter alert spell, and a powerful mixture of scents; it was something delicious mingled with something earthy and clean; it was rather as if someone had mixed the scent of Gerald's cooking with the scent of Gerald himself.

"Good morning," Gerald said, from the kitchen, calling over the half-wall, "You have impeccable timing; I'm almost finished cooking breakfast."

"I'm not hungry," she said, her first lie of the morning, "I have to — we should work on that anchor point, now. And what was the alert spell for, by the way?"

He set a pair of heaping omelettes down on the kitchen table. "As it happens, I don't believe you," he said, a bit more sharply than she'd expected, "So we'll discuss the anchor point after we've eaten."

He laid two mugs on the table next; one filled with a fragrant tea, and the other with more of the mud-coffee he'd had on offer the day before. If she hadn't felt so wretched, she might have sourly considered breaking up with him on the grounds of foisting that off on her, alone.

It seemed disingenuous, somehow, to allow him to feed her, when she knew what was coming, and he didn't; but if she didn't eat, he'd almost certainly be suspicious, and he might try to delay the removal of the anchor point, again. Besides, she had a sinking, guilt-ridden feeling that she was going to need the fortification.

She directed her attention to the omelette, primarily so she could avoid looking at him; but the smell of the wretched not-coffee was turning her stomach, and there was something else pulling at her nose, some other scent that belonged with him, but did not belong with eggs…

"Why do I smell dittany?" she asked, as the realisation hit her, and when she lifted her gaze, she could see that Gerald's attention was fixed on her, rather than on his hardly-touched plate of eggs.

"I made a concentrated healing paste last night," Gerald told her, and his eyes swept pointedly to her collarbone; she flushed, and scowled, dropping her fork to pull the neckline of her shirt up.

"Why? This is nothing. Like you said, I just picked Yellow up too quickly, and —"

"That isn't true," Gerald said, evenly and quietly, "Yellow didn't do that to you."

"What? Of course he did."

"If that's the case," Gerald said, and though his tone was light, she could hear a strained tightness hovering just beneath his words, "Then perhaps I should owl the Daily Prophet; I imagine a cat that can cast Dark magic would make the front page."

"Excuse me?"

"I found your nightdress," Gerald said, and his voice cracked just slightly. "The one you were wearing, on the night that you said you went to Hogwarts and found out You-Know-Who had returned."

Fuck. Too late, Calista remembered that she had thrown all of her things haphazardly into her trunk, the morning before, everything that she'd had at Hogwarts.

"At least I know it wasn't a werewolf that attacked you, this time," Gerald went on, and aside from that first crack of emotion, his voice was almost conversational, "The — the wounds were too symmetrical for that."

"What do you want, Gerald?"

"Isn't it obvious? I want you to tell me the truth." He frowned, pushing his untouched mug of tea aside, and rising from his seat.

"Actually," he clarified, "To be perfectly honest, I want you to stop putting yourself in dangerous situations, but I'm not certain you're capable of keeping that promise, so I'll settle for knowing about it before I hear you screaming in the back of my mind."

"I didn't go to Hogwarts expecting a duel, you know," she said, rising too, "I went to talk to my father, because I had that damn dream again, about Moody, only this time I remembered that his voice, the way he said my name, reminded me of someone."

"Who?"

"Bartemius Crouch, Junior," she said; she was perversely satisfied when his expression flickered. There. Perhaps if she reminded him exactly who she was — exactly the sorts of people she had been exposed to, he would take the rest of this, their inevitable parting of ways, with less resistance. "He came to our house, when I was small, to talk to my mother, and he saw me; he said my name, and I finally remembered that Moody said it exactly the same way, when I duelled him outside my father's office."

"How?" Gerald asked, brow furrowed, "Bartemius Crouch died in custody while he was in Azkaban. I'm certain I read that, when I was —" he shook his head slightly, and with a little more force: "I'm certain I read that."

"Yes, well," Calista said, "The Dark Lord's been back for over a week and the Daily Prophet hasn't printed one word about it. It would appear that they get things wrong, from time to time; and I'm telling you, they were wrong about him. I went to Hogwarts to warn my father, only I ran into Moody — Crouch — first. We duelled; I lost, to a bloody Shield Charm, of all things. Crouch got away while my father was healing the —," she swallowed; her tone might have bordered on cavalier, but it wasn't what she felt, reliving that terrifying night. "Healing what you saw the evidence of, and he took Harry Potter with him."

She explained the rest of it quickly; how her father and Dumbledore had pressed her for anything else she could remember. There were gaps, still, in her memory from that night; moments when she'd been too unsteady to concentrate on anything besides keeping her feet, and she stumbled through those parts of the story, minimising the effects of the duel; and of course, she did not tell him about the sticky, foggy remnants of the Imperius Curse, the dark, sickeningly familiar lines on her father's forearm; of course she did not tell him about the way she had clung helplessly to her father, digging her nails in when Dumbledore had asked him to go find Potter.

"Potter made it back, somehow," she finished, "He got away; and he told us — he said 'He's back'." She shivered, recalling the poor boy's pale, stricken face; the blood that was caked on his arm, splattered on his face. He was Draco's age, and he had faced the Dark Lord; he had not even looked, to Calista, like he should have been able to face a grindylow.

"All right," Gerald finally said, and she noticed that during her retelling, he had slowly shifted his position, and he now blocked her exit from the kitchen, just as he had the night before. "That's one of the times, then, that I heard you. What about the rest of them? What about two days ago?"

She knew instantly what he had sensed, that day; it had been one of the worst days of her life. It turned her stomach into a rock to think that he had been standing his own sentry, that same day; feeling her anguish, just as she had felt her father's; and it reminded her, painfully, of exactly why this could not continue.

"I told you, I've been having nightmares," she said, sliding her gaze away from him. "But you won't feel it anymore, once I remove the anchor point. We should… we should do it, now."

Gerald's frown deepened, and she felt a stab of guilt; and then, he exhaled, and his expression shifted, again, hardening.

"This wasn't my first choice," he said, and suddenly, inexplicably, his Head Boy voice was back. "If you'll recall, I asked you to tell me the truth; but it's plain that you won't do so reliably, and since I have no other way of knowing when you're in danger — I'm going to keep it."

Calista blinked. "You're going to — what? Keep what?"

"The anchor point," he said, and though it seemed that he couldn't possibly have meant anything else, the words still hit her, like a Blasting Curse, in the gut. "I did a lot of research last night, and it seems that keeping it won't do any harm beyond making it more difficult to remove, later; furthermore, it seems that with enough concentration and practise, I should be able to learn to trace the call back to you; I should be able to determine, within a reasonable proximity, where you are, so I can come to you."

"What?" The word tore out of her throat, savage and clawed. "You — you will do no such thing!" Her blood was on fire; but it was not the heat of rage, that pressed at her skin; it was sharp, cutting terror. "What — what books did you even find that in?"

He was remarkably calm, in the face of her explosion, and that sparked an insistent suspicion in the back of her mind that he had possibly expected the conversation to go this way; and that did allow a lick of anger to flicker through her chest.

"I'm afraid I had to borrow a few of your books," Gerald said, and it was maddening how firmly and how matter-of-factly he stood there, blocking her exit, "But if it's any consolation, I promise I was very careful with the spines."

What the hell? Something frothed in her gut, and for a moment, she was afraid she was going to vomit, in the middle of his kitchen — but when her mouth opened, all that bubbled out was an inexplicable, hysterical bubble of laughter.

"Careful with the —" Merlin, she was losing it. "No," she said, shaking her head, "Gerald, you can't do this. I… I know you think you're doing the right thing, but you're wrong. You've got to let me remove it."

"I will," he said, quite sincerely; but her relief was short-lived. "As soon as I believe that you'll tell me when you're going to do something dangerous. Perhaps I'll have learned enough to help, by then, if you really were sincere in your offer to teach me Occlumency."

"I —" Fuck. He couldn't do this, he couldn't refuse to let her remove the anchor; and if he really intended to use the connection it gave him to her mind to track her down, then the urgency to be rid of it was suddenly tenfold.

"You can't actually stop me," she said, quietly, hating herself utterly for this particular truth. "I'm strong enough to reach it, whether you want me to or not; I will remove it."

His throat jumped, but his expression remained immovable. "I do realise that," he said, "And I — I suppose I can't stop you, any more than I've ever been able to stop you running off to face hordes of dementors without the ability to summon a Patronus, or extending yourself beyond reasonable limits, or — or duelling escaped Death Eaters; but you did promise me once that you would not invade my mind against my will. We were… we were discussing memory modification, then —"

Another searing bolt of guilt shot through her.

"But I do see this as being rather the same thing, in the end."

"How is it the same?" she challenged, voice thick with emotion, "This is something — it doesn't belong to you. This is part of me, a piece of my mind, that you won't let me take back from yours."

"I told you, I read some of your books," Gerald said, softly, "It might be part of you, but it's also part of me; the memory it's anchored to belongs to both of us. And I — I don't believe you're really the sort of person that would break into my mind and take it, by force — but if I'm wrong, if you are…"

Damn it. Of course she was not; of course she could not.

"I want you to understand that I'm going to fight you, as hard as I can," he finished, "Because I love you, and that doesn't just mean — it's not just poems, and flowers, and sex. It means that I intend to be there, through all of your nightmares, waking or not."

Her eyes blurred, and her heart stung; because if there was anything she had learned, over the last few days, it was that she wanted this, wanted him; she wanted to believe, more than anything, that she was what he had said, the sort of girl that deserved the kind of love he was offering; but all she could hear was the echo of her father's words:

Such leverage is the only thing the Dark Lord understands about love, but he understands it devastatingly well.

She felt the sudden warmth of his palm, against her shoulder, and then, the brush of his thumb, heartbreakingly soft, just under her eye.

"Mon c—" Gerald started, but Calista sucked in a massive, shaking breath, and wrenched her shoulder away from him, and stepped back, throat aching with the most difficult lie she thought she might ever tell:

"I don't want that, anymore," she said, heavily. "I don't want you, anymore."

She made herself look at him, braced herself for the inevitably wounded look to cross his feature; and something did flicker across his features, but she was too weary and too full of self-loathing to interpret it.

"All right," he said, very softly; several beats of silence stretched between then, and each one felt like the weight of a hippogriff landing on her chest.

At long last, he nodded, and stepped forward, and she thought wildly that he was going to try to touch her again, despite what she'd just said, despite what he'd evidently agreed to, but he strode past her, instead, and she heard a soft scraping sound as he drew something across the surface of the kitchen counter.

"You'd better apply this sooner, rather than later," he said, holding something out to her; it was a glass jar, and it smelled strongly of dittany, and he smelled strongly of parchment, and oh, Merlin, this was a thousand times more painful that she'd even imagined.

"I —" lied; I love you. She shook her head. "I'll apply it later," she said, forcing the words past the lump in her throat, "I want to remove the anchor point, first. And then I… I should probably go."

She didn't know where she'd go, since her father didn't want her to go home or to go to Malfoy Manor; but it was becoming painfully clear that she should not, could not, stay here.

"I thought I was quite clear on that matter," Gerald said, "Unless you are planning on forcing me to fight you?"

"What? But — but I just told you, I'm not — we're not — I'm breaking up with you."

"Yes, I understood that; and you have my word that I won't offer you flowers, or poems, or sex unless you change your mind."

"You can't do this. You have no idea — you don't understand what you'd be getting into — what are you even going to do, if you think you hear me in your mind, and follow me somewhere? I've evidently already managed to draw Crouch's attention, and — and —"

She suppressed a cold shiver of fear, and pressed ruthlessly on.

"You think you'll fare better against — against Crouch, or — or the Dark Lord himself than I will? Merlin's blood, Gerald, you're almost twenty years old, and you can't even see thestrals."

There. It was savage, and it was cruel, but it was true. Perhaps now, he would understand why she was not at all the sort of girl he had thought she might be; perhaps now, he would realise why he was not at all equipped to face the same sorts of nightmares that she would inevitably have to, because of who she was; not just Bellatrix Lestrange's daughter, but Severus Snape's daughter, and she couldn't even tell him why that, too, was dangerous, now.

He flinched, then, and Calista wondered bitterly if he could feel her pain, now, through the anchor point, because it was surely as fierce as it had ever been…

"No, I can't see them," Gerald admitted, bitterly. "Although I'm not certain what it is you're trying to prove by bringing that up — unless you want to be the reason I finally can, some day. Is that it? You want me to — to stay safely tucked away until you do manage to get yourself killed, and then I'll finally have earned the right to be useful to you?"

Ah, so it was possible to hurt even more; and damn it, the kitchen had gone all blurry again, and would she ever have a day again that didn't make her eyes and her throat burn so incessantly?

"You just — you have no idea, Gerald, no idea at all…"

"I was the same age that you were, when You-Know-Who was in power the last time," he said, still bitter and still quiet, "And my mother is a Muggle. You think my father didn't delight in telling me what might happen to her, if I slipped up enough to give him a reason to bring the Death Eaters to our door? And then — and then when I was older, and I realised he'd never really had the power to do that, I met you, and you had been through every horror I'd only imagined and then some, and I wanted to understand how to help you, and so when you told me who your mother was, I researched every last thing she'd done, to end up in Azkaban; and I researched Crouch and the other one, the other Lestrange, too, that were arrested with her; I know all the depraved things they've done, even if I didn't see it firsthand."

"It isn't the same. Reading, and hearing; it isn't the same as facing them."

"No, I suppose it isn't," Gerald said, "But I do know what I'm getting into; and the point isn't that I'd fare better than you, by the way, in a duel, it's that both of us would fare better, together; the point is, that if I'd followed you to Hogwarts that night, you wouldn't have those new scars. You wouldn't have gotten hurt."

She choked on a half-snarl, half-sob. "You can't — you can't possibly know that."

"Actually, yes I can; I do know that, because — because —" He exhaled, and his mouth pressed briefly into a line, and then:

"Hold still," he said, "I swear I'm not going to hurt you, but there's something I need to show you."

He shifted, and drew his wand with his free hand, the one that was not still clutching the jar of dittany.

"What are you doing?"

"Protega Corporis," Gerald said, pointing his wand at her, and a glittering, silvery light floated from his wand towards her; he shifted again, keeping his attention and his wand carefully trained, and flicked his wrist in a complicated motion. The silvery light moved and changed, and then it attached itself to her.

It was like a second skin, and it moved when she did; and then he cast a second spell, a brief, familiar flick of the wrist.

"Locomotor Mortis," he said, and she flinched, bracing herself for a fall — but the skin-shield around her flickered and darkened, and then it began to drift apart in wisps; but it didn't matter, it had blocked the spell.

Calista's heart rattled, as Gerald lowered his wand.

He did it, she thought, faintly awed, He actually did it — he invented an Armour Charm.

"It still needs some work," he said, "It only lasts a few seconds, without being sustained; but I've tested it against at least thirty curses now, and it absorbs them all."

"That's brilliant. Why haven't you written to the Experimental Charms Committee about it? Why haven't you told me?"

"It still needs work," he said again, and then: "I did tell you, dozens of times, that I was making progress. You never seemed very interested. Perhaps because it's not a thestral."

Another hurt pierced her heart, then; and whatever else it did to her, it was enough, finally to quell the last of her anger; it was enough to make her realise that Gerald was still holding the jar of dittany, clenched between narrow, but capable, fingers.

"I'm sorry I said that," she managed; but that was as much as she could make herself say, in that moment.

"I'm not useless," Gerald said, quietly. "I'll be even less useless if you'll actually keep your word and train me to be a better Occlumens."

"I don't think you're useless, Gerald. I never did; don't you understand? The Dark Lord is back, and I need — I need you to be safe; I need to protect you."

He took a breath, and nodded. He slipped his wand back into his pocket, and then, tentatively, he reached for her hand. She let him take it, too weary and shell-shocked to resist; and despite everything she'd resolved, she ached for him to run his mouth over her fingers, to press his lips to her palm, and to undo every wretched thing she'd put between them.

He didn't do any of that. Instead, he gently uncurled her fingers, and then he pressed the jar of dittany into her palm, and closed her fingers around it.

"I'm perfectly willing to let you do that," Gerald said, "After all, I certainly never thought you were useless; but you're going to have to learn to accept that it goes both ways. You protect me, and I'll protect you; and with any luck, we'll both make it through this nightmare. Ah, and Calista?"

She took in a soft, shuddering breath; one that tasted like dittany and smelled like fresh parchment.

"Yes?"

His Head Boy demeanour was suddenly back, as he clenched his fingers over her, around the jar.

"Apply the damn paste, please."

"I will, in a minute. But there's something I need to tell you, first."

"I really don't want to hear another word about the anchor point," he said, "I'm not changing my mind."

"It isn't that." She lifted her free hand, and laid it gently over his, and hers, and the jar; it was not exactly romantic, but it was also a far cry from the distance she'd spent the last two days — no, the last six months — trying to cultivate.

"I love you, too."

It wasn't enough, yet, to span the gap she'd so carefully constructed between them; it wasn't enough to heal all of the hurts she'd caused, with both her silences and her words; but it was a start, and like the smooth jar of dittany paste she held in her fist, if she applied it consistently enough, there was still a chance that the scars would never show.