Note: This is a oneshot following my story, 'Blood of the Birds'. If you have not read the main story, please do so before reading this. It is concurrent with Chapter 42 - Slim Defeat.

And to all you 'BotB' readers out there, this is the seventh and final oneshot for the story! I really hope you like it even though it was a pretty delayed upload, and thanks so much for sticking with these different perspectives. This one in particular is very different from its "origin" chapter, so I think it's a bit more exciting than the other side-alongs have been. Also, an update for 'BotB' is coming; I can't say when just yet, but I'm about half way through writing it. :)

-Hailey

Lysander Scamander and the Visitor from Azkaban

Lysander Scamander had never believed in heaven. He believed in the stars. He believed in the moon. He believed in the utter vastness of time, and that people had more than enough of it, no matter when they died. The thing that fascinated him about astronomy was not its mystery or prowess to inspire; what he saw when he gazed at the night sky was constancy. Every celestial object followed its own pattern, and its life cycle was often uncannily similar to that of a human's – it was born, it grew, and eventually it died. Some died young, collapsing and colliding to form a neutron star, whose radiations lived on in pulsars just as memories lived on in friends and family. There was an estimated nine sextillion stars in the universe, some alive and well and some so far away from the human eye that they may already be dead, but every one had its own story, maybe even its own galaxy. No star was better than any other, and none of them could be saved, especially not from the sharpened steel hands of time.

It was very brave of Lysander to accept this philosophy at such a young age, considering how terrifying it would have been for most children. But Lysander was, even at five years old, both a brave and brilliant wizard, as it wasn't just his wit that had sorted him into Ravenclaw like his mother. The stubbornness had surely helped with the Hat's decision, along with Lysander's impressive ability to separate his logic from his emotion. He used to be so skilled at doing so, though it was getting harder and harder as the years went by and as he began to realize that his emotions could be just as strong as his logic. Rose Weasley had taught him that.

The two had dated back in Lysander's sixth year at Hogwarts, but Rose had only been fifteen and was already hopelessly in love with Scorpius Malfoy, whom she'd been with ever since. Lysander had only made the short-lived relationship happen because his best friend James had asked him to, but then Rose had become his sun and all he'd wanted to do for two years was revolve around her rays. He was thankful for the excuse to leave Hogwarts when graduation came, thankful for James's help in earning him a spot as sub-Beater for the Montrose Magpies Quidditch team in Scotland, thankful for the support his twin brother had given him in moving away even while Lorcan decided to spend another year at home with their mother, Luna. But even from all the way in Scotland, Lysander found himself surrounded by lovebirds at every corner. Luna had been planning her wedding to one of Lysander's old professors and Luna's oldest friends, Neville Longbottom, while Lorcan had been pondering a proposal to his girlfriend, Lucy, and roommate James had been riding the highs and lows of a tumultuous affair with new Auror and gorgeous blonde, Mercy Golding. Lysander couldn't help but feel lonely half the time, and it was that loneliness that threatened to overpower his logic and the knowledge that this was the perfect time to be alone.

The fewer people he had to care about, the fewer people he would lose in the war. Infamous witch Astoria had raised an army to combat the newly resurrected Order of the Phoenix, the latter of which Lysander was a dedicated member. Sporadic Muggle murders and Squib assaults had culminated in the death of Arthur Weasley, "blood traitor" and wizarding patriarch. Lysander had attended his funeral, mostly to support the Potter family because he'd always felt a part of it himself, and from then on everything accelerated beyond anyone's control. Luna and Neville had married on the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch under the falling snow on Christmas Eve, Lorcan had proposed to Lucy and she'd accepted without hesitation, and Astoria had declared war on the Order by making one of her protégés kill Minerva McGonagall in the middle of the wedding reception. It had been thirty hours since then, and most seemed convinced that they wouldn't have many more.

Now, Lysander was standing in a melting pool of exhaustion, encircled by the dark trees of the Forbidden Forest and the dark skin of the centaur clan that dwelled there. His family was somewhere in the general vicinity, Luna and Neville putting protective enchantments around the enclosure upon which the Forbidden Flock's dragons were ravaging while new step-sister Holly and future sister-in-law Lucy were sifting through some bushes for magical medicines or poisonous berries. Lysander knew nothing about Herbology, so instead of joining them he found himself staring up at the sky and searching for a sign amidst the stars he couldn't see. There was too much smoke blocking his view. There was too much death. There was too much inconstancy.

"What's our next step?" asked the most familiar voice in the world, one that sounded just like Lysander's did in his own head. "We can't just keep running from the beasts; they'll catch up eventually, and I've no doubt they'll find a way to break our barrier as well."

Lorcan was right. These were dragons they were fighting, unlike the army of peasants facing James over by the Whomping Willow or the trained followers up against Ron and Hermione Weasley in Hogsmeade. Lysander wasn't so sure exactly how or why the dragons had become his family's target, but he was beginning to resent that fact, which was why he replied, "I've no idea. I'm not the leader here, Lor."

Two pairs of light green eyes locked then, and it really was like looking into a mirror. Lysander used to think of himself and Lorcan as being completely identical, only Lysander had better hair. Truly, though, both were tall, blond, and built, each far more handsome than either of their parents had been. Their personalities, however, were complete opposites. While Lysander loved to manipulate, Lorcan was quite talented at open communication. While Lysander had never had any idea what he would do with his endless future, Lorcan had always been a planner – he'd wanted a job as a naturalist, which Hagrid was happily granting him, and he'd wanted a family, which he and Lucy had already become. While Lysander was a soldier, Lorcan was a leader.

Looking over at Hagrid as the giant attempted to corral his unruly half-siblings together, Lorcan sighed because his mentor clearly wasn't going to be of much help and said, "Yeah, well I'm running out of ideas myself. I'm starting to wish Dad was here to give us some dragon-training insight."

"Take that back," snapped Lysander before he gave the words much thought. Their father was another topic he and Lorcan disagreed upon, and years ago they had made a promise to never bring him up around each other so as not to start a row. Lysander didn't blame his brother for breaking that promise at such a frightening time as this, but he also wasn't about to let Lorcan go any further.

Understanding this just as he had his entire life, Lorcan crossed his arms and said, "Fine. I'm open to other suggestions."

"I wish I had some," Lysander confessed as the sound of fire-breathing came closer.

"Oh, come off it, Sander! You always have an opinion." Unfortunately, Lorcan was right. Lysander had been loud and clear about his not wanting Lorcan to get married so young, and before that he'd been the one to push the couple together in the first place, and before that he'd made a family decision that had changed their lives. "You always try to save people when you think they're about to fall."

That last part – the part Lorcan had added to his initial statement – was something Lysander hadn't expected to hear. He'd made many a mistake in his life, had spent most of his time at Hogwarts with a bad boy reputation, and had easily caused his brother more grief than anyone else. Finding it difficult to accept the compliment, Lysander asked, "Do you really believe that?"

Without hesitating, Lorcan answered, "Of course I do. Why wouldn't I? You're my brother."

"I know, but sometimes I wonder if you ever really forgave me for what I did to Dad." The twins had always been close, even closer when their father had been around, but lately, between the time Lorcan spent with Lucy and the time Lysander spent with the Potters, they'd grown more separated than ever. That separation made Lysander anxious, to the point where he would often wonder what life would have been like for the pair had Rolf stuck around. Maybe Luna wouldn't have become so depressed and needed Neville to pull her out of it. Maybe Lorcan wouldn't have been so willing to attach himself to a single person for all eternity. Maybe Lysander wouldn't have considered anyone but his brother to be his very best mate.

They were facing each other head-on when Lorcan extended his open palm and ordered, "Hand it over before your paranoia becomes as deep-lodged as your loneliness."

Of course, thought Lysander, he knows me too well. Once the flask filled with firewhiskey was out of his blazer pocket and in Lorcan's, Lysander let his brother pat his shoulder and say, "I know why you're thinking so much about him lately. I know that the wedding is weird, and Neville is weird, and this war is weird, but it isn't weird to miss him. Believe me, because I've been missing him for quite a long time."

Lysander smiled through his fading drunkenness (he'd been drinking during the wedding, even more afterward), and the two were about to return to their soldier peers when they heard more than just fire. This time, they heard snarls, as if one dragon was angry with another, and soon they could see the brawl between the two largest Hebridean Blacks, one Lysander recognized because he'd been running from it all night and the other he could have sworn he'd never seen before. The dragons were so violent and so vicious toward each other that most of the remaining Order members were too captivated by the scene to notice Hagrid dragging somebody into the clearing in the foreground, but Lysander spotted the signature black hair even in his inebriated state.

Albus Severus Potter had been pinned down by Hagrid, but he was yelling furiously at the dragons as if it pained him to see the deadly creatures fight, and it pained Lysander to see his presence. He and Al had never been close friends, but Lysander would have trusted every one of James's relatives with his life before Al had turned on all of them and started personally working for Astoria. He'd tolerated the boy when Al had shown up at his and James's flat in Montrose a few months back looking for younger sister and newly turned werewolf, Lily, but that was only because James had asked him to and because Al had surrendered his wand for the evening. Lysander had no question that Al's wand was steadily in his grip now.

Al had just let out an agonizing scream when Lysander made it to him and Hagrid and asked angrily, "What is he doing here? Hagrid, you better not have let him in here!"

The dragons were still going at each other, their brothers and sisters roaring from behind, and Al was far more caught up in the animals than he was in Lysander's surprise appearance. He had managed to scramble to his feet by now and was yelling in Hagrid's face, "DO something! Stretch the barrier; let him in!"

For a moment, Lysander wondered who it was Al spoke of when he said 'him,' but when Hagrid pointed his pink umbrella at the invisible barrier and stretched it around the smaller of the two dragons, Lysander understood. The one under attack wasn't just being put in his place by his larger friend, and he didn't just belong to the Forbidden Flock. He belonged to Albus. As soon as the dragon was safe inside, Al rushed to it and even helped to heal some of its nastier wounds.

Hagrid was still standing guard over Al and the dragon, and Lysander was careful to stay back as he looked upon James's brother and was reminded of the way Al had looked at Lily that night in November: like she was the most fragile part of his universe, and like he was terrified that he wouldn't be able to save her. Sympathizing with this more than he would have liked to, Lysander waited until Al and Hagrid had spoken to each other before he piped in with a slightly kinder tone this time, "We're already down in numbers, mate. There's no need to plant another dragon on us, not now that this war's already over." There had been five dragons chasing them before and they'd already lost half of the thestrals, five centaurs, three giants, and two wizards. And if Scorpius, the current leader of the Order, had been successful in defeating the center flank, he would have brought aid to Lysander's group by now. There really wasn't any hope left for the few who had survived this long.

Lorcan had returned to Lysander's side by the time Al stood to face him and said with a glance back at his calm dragon, "Look, he won't hurt you. I won't hurt you. I dunno' what's going on with these other dragons, but I finally know what's going on with me, and believe me when I say that I'm on your side. This war isn't over until I decide that it is."

Glaring at Al because he didn't believe that a person could switch sides so quickly, Lysander was about to question Al further when he noticed Hagrid chuckling with pride and Lorcan stepping closer to Zephyr out of sheer amazement. It was Hagrid Al looked to when he asked with so much vulnerability that Lysander knew he meant it, "Have you seen my parents? I thought they'd be here."

The last time Lysander had seen the Potters, Harry and Ginny had been fighting beside Neville and Luna, but that had been hours ago. Teddy had been with them then, along with one of the blonde Weasleys, and as for Lily…

"Harry an' Ginny went with that blonde cousin o' yers ter look fer the spiders after I told 'em they might be able to sniff out young Lily," answered Hagrid.

"Lily? But she's not missing! I saw her a couple of hours ago; she looked like she was running off toward the Black Lake." said Lysander.

He didn't appreciate the frustrated sigh and prolonged eye roll he received from Al then, but listened anyway when Al fired back at him with mad gesticulation, "She was running because she was being chased. There's a member of the Flock who wants her dead… her specifically. She won't stop at anything to make sure it happens."

Before he could explain what he was doing, Lysander yelled back at the dragon-obsessed Lorcan, "Take care of yourself and don't be as stupid as I am!" and then broke the barrier and Disapparated. He was full of concern, perhaps more than he'd had since Lorcan's proposal, and he wanted to find Lily, maybe because this Potter he still trusted and because she wasn't one who should be alone in a war, or maybe just because he needed someone to save.

He landed at the old pavilion that had been used in one of the three tasks of the last Triwizard Tournament, and from there Lysander had a straight shot through the Forest and out onto a stretch of beach that overlooked the Black Lake and had a view of the brightly lit Hogsmeade from across the water. There were patches of melting snow covering the ground beneath the tall, swindling trees, and through the white Lysander wondered if he'd find the abnormally large paw prints of a certain abnormal witch, but instead he followed a trail of black spiders all the way to the Forest Edge. It was there he heard snarls, these ones even more pained than the ones voiced by the dragons, and it was there the fog began to clear just enough so that he could see the stars.

The smoke must have scattered from the center flank, for the skies were wide open and undisturbed in this part of the grounds, and as two distinct voices became louder and louder, Lysander realized that those were the only sounds he could hear. There were no other screams or yells or hopeless shuffling. There was no fighting here but for the muffled celebration of a couple Forbidden Flock peasants over by Hagrid's Hut. There was no struggle, no war but for the single battle he was about to walk into. He'd been right all along during his argument with Al: the Order had already lost, and it was now only a matter of surviving long enough to escape.

"You can't run forever, dog!" yelled a female voice Lysander didn't recognize. Its owner couldn't be farther from him than ten meters, though, so he quickly jumped back into the forest and hid behind the thickest trunk he could find.

Flaming red hair could be seen in the light of the slowly rising sun. Lily was running alongside the lake with a type of fury Lysander rarely saw on anyone but her. The youngest Potter had always been the wild one, often snarky and mean and other times fiercely open, but she always knew everyone's secrets and was always impossible to predict. She'd been bitten by Teddy's werewolf daughter only four months ago, and for the first time in her life, Lily's secrets were written all over her face in the scars she'd earned on every full moon.

Focused on watching Lily's every movement, which were as uncouth as they'd always been yet somehow stronger and perhaps even faster, Lysander was thrown off guard when he saw a shadow closer to him transform into a small blue bird. Then the bird itself was flying toward the water, toward the red-haired girl, toward the dog it was so adamant to chase. It was a blue jay, harsh and aggressive in its attack, and Lysander wasn't an idiot. He knew that this bird was actually an Animagus, but he couldn't stand the thought that just about every important Flock member was – Knox Rookwood, the infamous crow, and Astoria, the golden hawk. From what he knew about transfiguration, becoming an Animagus was no simple task, though the black leopard in him was beginning to regret not becoming one himself, because these pesky birds could use some predatory cats to run from.

Still in motion, Lily started sending stunning spells behind her but her aim was weak and the blue jay was a small target. Lysander thought that perhaps he could help as the jay grew so close to Lily that she actually managed to pull out some of that beautifully unkempt hair, so he carefully hopped from tree to tree until he was closer to the water and then pointed his fir and Veela hair wand at the bird and silently voiced the Homorphus Charm.

The blue jay instantly transformed back into her human form – still so small that she looked unhealthy, with olive-colored skin and large round eyes that held nothing but darkness - but was now only a foot or so away from her prey. Luckily, she didn't seem to notice that the charm hadn't come from Lily, so Lysander remained unseen as Lily turned around and put up a defensive spell between herself and her attacker.

"Lily Luna Potter, hiding behind some invisible screen," sneered the Flock woman. "That's very brave of you. I'm sure your parents would be so proud."

Swallowing her pride, Lily spat, "Ryder Rookwood, losing all sanity over an ex-boyfriend. That's very strong of you. I'm sure Astoria would be so proud." If her goal was to infuriate Ryder, it was working, but Lysander wasn't paying either reaction much mind. He was too caught up in learning that Lily had been named after his mother, something Luna had never told him before and yet another tie to the Potter family he'd never be able to break.

Ryder broke right through the barrier then, almost as if it was a piece of glass that she could simply shatter with her clawed nails. Her eyes widened to an unfathomable size as she stared Lily down, and in return Lily kicked away the snow so that her feet were digging into the ground and she bore a set of werewolf teeth in a howling growl. These women were no Veelas or mermaids. They were animals. They were beasts.

The first beast to bite was Lily. If Lysander had seen her over an hour ago, then that meant all this time she'd been running from Ryder, and she was nothing if not frustrated. That frustration was released in a series of silent spells, most of which produced punctures all along Ryder's oddly bare arms. At first, Lysander wondered what good this would do, but when Ryder had had enough of Lily's daggers, she tried to transform once more and her wings were so broken and bloody that she could barely fly. Within seconds, Ryder's blue jay form was being crushed in Lily's teeth and only just managed to wriggle free and land back-first on the icy shore.

Slowly transfiguring, Ryder attempted to buy herself some time by crawling backwards up the shore. Lily wasn't about to let her disappear, however, for Lysander had the perfect view of her wiping the coppery blood off her face as she took a few steps forward and looked into Ryder's hopeless brown eyes. Both the sun and nearly full moon were out at the moment, allowing a sliver of light to illuminate the marks on Lily's once flawless skin, where the blood she'd just wiped off looked no different from the puss of her own wounds, boiling and bubbling like a freshly hatched rumor.

It was Ryder's turn to be desperate, and desperate she was when she lifted her hands in surrender (though of course failed to surrender her wand) and groveled by saying, "You want me to stop chasing you? Then kill me. But do know that this war is far from over, and Astoria will kill every last one of you so long as she lives. Who knows? Your entire family could already be dead, and you wouldn't even know it yet. In fact, I thought I saw that leggy girlfriend of your brother's running toward the Quidditch pitch, and you know who's being taken there. You could be all alone."

"Shut it!" screamed Lily long after she'd had enough of Ryder's taunting. Lysander and Lily both knew just how right Ryder may be, especially considering the quiet surroundings they were in, but it wouldn't do either of them any good to think of their families being killed without them there to witness it.

Because Lysander understood this and because Lily was too teary-eyed to fire another spell at Ryder, he decided to finally step in. He wasn't sure how he'd come up with such a brilliant plan, but all of the sudden he was thinking about fire and its blinding ability, and then he was walking out from within the forest, turning his wand in a churning motion, and yelling, "Obscuro!"

Ryder made it abhorrently clear that she'd lost all her vision when she scrambled to her feet in a panic and slipped three times in the process. Lily was shocked in a good way, but when she laid her eyes on Lysander he put his finger to his lips to make sure she didn't give away the presence of a second opponent to Ryder.

Regardless of what Ryder know of this or the vision she'd lost thanks to Lysander's spell, she wasn't about to give up. Once she was standing, she was also twisting and turning, pointing her blackened wand in every possible direction and using spells that could blast large or multiple targets in the hopes of increasing her chances of hitting Lily. And hit her she did.

"Deprimo!" and a gust of wind came from Ryder and swept Lily off her feet so that the younger woman was flying into the air plummeting out onto the ice of the Black Lake, only that ice was melting like crumbling pastries.

Lysander did everything he could to try to slow Lily down, but in the meantime Lily was thinking faster and actually sent one last spell Ryder's way. Miraculously, it was enough, since all it took were two words to transfer the disappearing cold from the ice to Ryder's heart… two words that Lysander had never uttered and that he'd never expected to hear from a fifteen year old… two words that were Avada and kedavra.

One was in the earth and the other was in the water, but both were unmoving. Lysander ran past Ryder's stony body with only one glance to make sure she was fully and not mostly dead, and by the time his dress shoes were touching the cursed waters, he couldn't see Lily's fire anymore. He tried to apply what little knowledge of physics he had to her fall, and he wound up thinking about a constellation that was just barely visible now.

It was shaped as a scorpion, the creature it was named after thanks to its bending and clawed shape. In reality, however, the stars that made it up were much more like a hook than a pinching bug, with one long trunk that branched into three sections at its tip. Lily's fall had been just like that long, bent trunk, and Lysander was still waiting for the splash that made up its branches, but they never came. One minute had gone by, and Lysander saw no red hair pop up from the surface. Then five minutes had gone, and Lysander didn't want to wonder or wait anymore. He wanted to make a splash.

His jacket, collared shirt, and tighter-than-he-liked pants were off in seconds, leaving Lysander only in a pair of briefs as he dove beneath the shiver-inducing water and started to swim with the help of the Bubble-Head Charm, which allowed him to breathe underwater. He passed by mad little Grindylows and unfriendly mermaids on his journey, but he wasn't scared of any of them. He was scared of losing Lily, or having to carry her drowned body all the way to the Quidditch pitch and tell James that his sister had been killed and that Lysander hadn't been able to rescue her. He was scared of yet again failing to be the savior.

But the water was cold, so cold that it froze his mind, and he suddenly couldn't think of anything but that last thought that had come to him – the thought of the Scorpius constellation, with its branches that could also be a bouquet of arrows, or spears on a trident, or forks in a road. They could be directions, like potential choices that made or broke a decision, like Al and his vacillation between good and evil or James and his relationship with Mercy or Lily and her hidden bestiality. Those stars represented all possible options and once again it was Lysander making a decision that would change another's life, because he had the ability to separate his emotion from his logic. He knew where Lily would be based on where she'd fallen rather than where he felt driven to, and just because he couldn't move mountains like Scorpius had done for Rose didn't mean that he wouldn't one day find his ladder to the stars.

She was sinking down the deepest part of the lake, which made sense to Lysander because, like him, Lily was the type of person who hit rock bottom with every stumble. It was dark in these depths, and when Lysander lit his wand he lost his breathing charm, so he found himself diving and then ascending with the use of every speck of energy he had left. He grabbed Lily by the wrist and was thankful that her dress was light when it didn't drag them down. Trying to search for a heartbeat, Lysander kept swimming but pressed two fingers into her wrist, but felt no pulse. Then he kept swimming but pressed two fingers to the part of her stilled neck that met her collarbone, but felt no pulse. He swam so far that he was able to stand on his feet when they surfaced, carrying Lily's limp body in his arms while pressing his fingers to the left side of her chest, but felt no pulse.

The stars were gone by now, but Lysander refused to believe that Lily was too. Still, there was a part of him – no logical side, but perhaps a feeling stemming from his gut – that told him something was wrong. Something was inconstant, incomplete, intolerable and life-altering, and he was no longer sure if it had been his decision that had caused it. All he could do was make the right decisions that could bring Lily back, because at that moment, she was the only other person in the world.

He laid her down a few feet from Ryder's body and tried to focus on the fact that while Ryder looked fully dead, Lily only looked mostly dead. Her skin was nowhere near flawless, and her scars were bubbling with more than just puss, and her hair was unkempt in the worst possible way. She was cold too, too cold, but Lysander tried to tell himself that that was him as he pulled his dry jacket over her wet body and shivered at the sight of clothing in this deadly winter.

The perfectly timed strokes he used to pump her chest were contrasted by deep breaths of fire and widely flapping wings in the sky. Lysander wasn't sure if the dragons had left the forest or if the birds had left the castle, but it didn't matter. Only Lily mattered, and with every pound her body heaved but she still didn't breathe. He was heaving too, because at this point, Lysander had pushed about a hundred times.

"Come on, Lil, fight!" he yelled at her when he was about to give up. "You know what Ryder said was all lies. You know that your family's still alive. You know what James would always say – you Potters are survivors. You survived the werewolf bite and the funeral and the secrets, and you can survive this."

Water sprayed directly onto his face, from his open eyes to his flared nostrils to his gaping mouth, and he took it all without protest, because by doing so he was releasing it from her. There must have been gallons of it inside Lily's stomach, because it took minutes to spill out of her and slow enough for her to start coughing, then breathing, then talking. Lily had always loved to talk, and just this once, Lysander didn't give a damn what that husky voice of hers said so long as it said something.

"Scor-pi-us?" she croaked with her eyes half-open, and he knew that it wasn't the constellation she was asking about. She'd been in love with the Malfoy boy for even longer than Lysander had been in love with Rose.

"Lily?" he replied. "Lily, it's me." He didn't want to tell her who he was for fear that it would make her drift into sleep once more. She needed to stay awake, open her eyes fully and see the blond hair that was shorter and dirtier than Scorpius's, the eyes that were greener and darker than Scorpius's, the face that belonged to a soldier but not a leader, a sub but not a player, a student but not a savior.

She said, "Lysander."

He nodded.

They spent half an hour sitting on the shore and regaining their body heat, Lily looking at the sky and waiting to catch sight of the dragons or the birds, and Lysander peering across the lake and wondering why there was what looked to be a small sailboat floating by the river, a pirate's flag attached to its deck. As soon as he noticed, the boat vanished as if magically, and the only reason Lysander didn't seriously consider that he may be hallucinating was because he knew that magic really did exist. When Lily was ready, he helped her up and they decided to walk through the empty grounds to the Quidditch pitch, where the dead and the wounded and the waiting were stationed.

Following the lake most of the way, each of them watched the sun rise over the returning ice and lost themselves in their worries as they left the product of their wrath – Ryder's body – behind. Lysander wanted to ask Lily about Ryder at first, because she was a member of the Forbidden Flock he knew very little about, but decided against it because he bet that he had a fairly good idea of just how guilty Lily felt.

He had felt guilty too, once. He had felt guilty every day of his life for committing a crime far crueler than murder, and for deciding the fate and future of someone other than himself. He had been even younger than she was now, and like Lily, he had been trying to do the right thing. He had never forgiven himself, so logically he assumed that neither would she.

Then again, they were different people, and Lysander had had a relationship with his father before he'd driven him away. Could the same be said about Ryder for Lily? He thought not. And because he didn't want her to live the life that he had for the last eight years, he soon found himself saying, "You were amazing back there. You've been amazing for through all of this." He was trying to comfort her on their long walk, but it just so happened that he was being honest.

She scoffed and he repeated his words. He'd seen her at Arthur's funeral following her first full moon as a werewolf, and she hadn't broken down or suffered any dramatic outrages. She'd hidden, but it had worked. And later, in November at his and James's apartment, she had made it through the night after traveling miles and miles on a single scent. Lysander had never known any other werewolf, but he couldn't imagine a better person for the job than Lily, the girl who lived for darkness and secrets and who had always been the leader of her Hogwarts pack.

For some reason, though, she still didn't believe him. "Amazing?" she asked as they passed by Hagrid's rundown hut and successfully avoided some snooping snatchers. "I'm not amazing. I'm terrible. I – I killed someone."

"You killed Ryder out of self-defense," argued Lysander; she was being ridiculous. "Anyone who valued their life in the slightest would have done the same."

"No. I'm not talking about Ryder. I'm not talking about self-defense." He had continued walking, and only then did he realize that Lily hadn't. Turning around, he faced her and saw her staring at the ground and blocking his view of the large red mark his hands had branded onto her chest. "I killed a man named Calder Anhinga during the last full moon.

"I told myself that it wasn't my fault, that I couldn't control my werewolf self and that he was a member of the Forbidden Flock anyway. But my own brother is a member of the Forbidden Flock, and it wouldn't be all that forgivable if I'd killed him, would it?"

The question was rhetorical, but she looked at Lysander as if expecting an answer. She looked at him as if expecting a friend. She looked at him as if expecting her family, and he was only sorry that he couldn't quite live up to her expectations.

"Funny," she said when she looked down once more. "It feels like it's been forever, but that was only four days ago as of this morning."

Lysander didn't know what to say. He'd had no way of knowing that Lily had killed someone else, because of course she was skilled at keeping secrets, especially her own. But for such a talented, strong young witch, she was awfully broken. She was scarred and battered and exhausted, possibly even more than he was, and while he knew that she had saved herself back there the minute she'd killed Ryder, she hadn't exactly saved herself in the water. In fact, she barely even swam.

That was what made Lysander ask, "Is that why you stopped swimming?" He was wondering if perhaps she hadn't felt worthy enough to survive.

When she stopped kicking the snow and looked up at him as if she'd been physically attacked, her arms crossed tightly against her chest and eyebrows furrowed into knots, he explained, "I know that you could have saved yourself back there, Lil, but for some reason you didn't even try."

With a few deep breaths and a couple steps forward, Lily was back in a walking pace and was talking at the same time. "It isn't because I killed Calder," she said. "It isn't even because I'm a werewolf now, or because of the way people look at the scars on my face and talk about me behind my back. It's for the same reason I became a werewolf in the first place, the same reason I used to break out of the castle or the house every night just to walk under the stars. I walked in the night because I was afraid for the morning to come, and I stopped swimming because I was afraid I would survive. I was afraid of waking up and having to realize all over again that I'm still alone."

He wanted to tell her that she wasn't alone, but he had no way to prove it. He wanted to tell her that she had nothing to be afraid of, but he had no way of knowing what further monsters lurked in her future. He wanted to tell her that he felt alone too, more than she could ever know, but he didn't think she'd want to hear it. After all, he wouldn't believe her if she told him that he had nothing to be afraid of or that he wasn't alone. She was the wolf who cried boy, and he trusted her loyalty far more than her honesty.

So, instead of saying something, he remained silent up until the two of them were standing on the edge of the pitch they'd both played on, and paused momentarily to look at the fading stars one last time. "They're quite beautiful like this, in the morning, with the light," she said.

Lysander shook his head and said, "They've always been beautiful, Lily. You just hadn't been looking."

She was staring at him as he walked away from the stars and onto the pitch, where the snow had turned to mud and the ice had turned to blood. They must have entered through the side belonging to the wounded, for Lily was quick to walk toward her older cousin, Fred Weasley, as he crouched over his unconscious girlfriend. Fred didn't start crying until Lily was beside him, though, practically turning catatonic in her presence and gesturing all the way across the field and past the temporary Christmas tree where a line of dead bodies had replaced the dance floor from Luna and Neville's reception.

Lily was purposefully slow to follow Fred's line of vision, and Lysander was even slower. As the two saw a horizontal figure in the distance and began the long trek over to it, more and more eyes watched them and shed tears that neither Lysander nor Lily knew how to shed – tears of grief and of pity. These were two young people who were used to being pitied, but they rarely felt it for anyone else.

The Finnigan girls almost looked as if they were going to approach Lysander to apologize, for what Lysander still didn't know. A few yards from the sisters, Ron Weasley was sitting beside a bedraggled Nigel Creevey and the latter's murdered parents. Ron wasn't as pitiful as Caitlin and Cassidy, but he looked far colder than even the winter could make him, like he wasn't convinced that spring would ever come. Then there was Mercy, and it was when Lysander spotted her and the long blonde braid that had been violently pulled apart that he began to understand what was going on.

Lily walked right past her arch nemesis and stopped up ahead to make the discovery alone, but Lysander waited. He wanted an explanation, not because he couldn't put two and two together himself, but because he didn't want to. There was no part of this war he had ever wanted, no part of his family history he had ever wanted stained, no part of his best friend he had ever wanted taken from him. When he wished on the stars, it was never for this.

Mercy's arms wrapped around him feebly, and he could feel her collapsing into his sopping chest, could hear her sniffling into his shoulder, as if she needed him more than he needed her. Lysander was unable to reciprocate the gesture, though, instead keeping his arms glued to his sides because they were too stiff to move and staring at the far side of the pitch where Lily stood with her knees about to buckle to the floor.

When Lysander's logic finally returned to him and began to override his emotion just like it was so skilled at doing, he had to unravel Mercy's arms and lightly push her away from him to move forward himself. Because she was hurting and he didn't want to make her hurt more, he said as he left her behind, "Don't stop now, Mercy. Soldiers never stop fighting."

He caught Lily before she shrunk completely into a quaffle-sized ball in the frozen mud, and he tried to look at her – her crumpled, heaving face and flooded eyes and dripping hair – to stop himself from looking at James. His eyes didn't listen to such orders, though, and soon he saw that James looked even worse than Lily – dry, wounded skin and foreign eyes and hair that would never grey. While the alive Lily looked whole, she was broken inside, and while the dead James looked broken, Lysander could only hope that in his last moments he had felt whole.

"Breathe, Lily, please breathe," Lysander said as he focused all his energy on the youngest Potter, reminded suddenly of how she'd nearly died only an hour ago.

Above them, bird cries and dragon flames were filling the grounds, and as Lysander looked up at the creatures that were obscuring the stars, he wished on them for this war to end. He didn't much care at this point whether or not the Order won; he just wanted everything to be finished. He wanted to close his eyes and be able to sleep, wanted to move and be able to run, wanted to be alone and be able to cry.

"Why is this happening?" Lily's trembling voice brought him back to the present, where she was clutching on his shirt collar so hard that it was slowly ripping down the length of his pale chest. "We're supposed to be survivors."

Every word and sound that came from her mouth sounded like a cello with its strings out of tune. He cringed just from hearing her and had no idea how to respond. There was nothing to say that could console her anymore, nothing that he hadn't told her an hour ago, and this time he knew that she was beyond comforting because he understood exactly how terrified she was. He was terrified, too. He was terrified for the moment his best friend's body would be taken away by the Potter family, as if Lysander wasn't part of it. He was terrified for the moment he would have to leave this castle and return to an apartment in Montrose forever filled with his best friend's things. He was terrified for the first Quidditch practice he would have without his best friend flying beside him.

So, all Lysander could manage to say was, "I dunno'. I don't know why this is happening, or why some people survive and others don't. And I don't if I'll be able to survive without him."

"Me either," said Lily.

The fires and screams escalated over the next half hour as the sun revealed its full self and the moon and stars disappeared. People at the pitch seemed to be locked in an alternate universe of time, for they had no concern of the goings on above or around them when their loved ones were sick or dying right here. Lysander was one of those people, his arms never leaving Lily's scrawny, fifteen year-old body as he helped to pull her upright and rock her in a dance of death. Before long, he could have pointed out every single scar on her skin, and although it may have been unfair for him to hold her so long when no one was there to hold him, there was something to be said about being entwined with a werewolf. The simple threat of her claws and teeth were like thorns upon his flesh: torturous but inescapable.

When all the noise disappeared, Lysander had a bad feeling. Lily had been strong enough to separate from him momentarily, but he found himself looking to her as everyone at the pitch took in the blatant silence. It was too quiet here, and quiet was never good in war. Looking back up, Lysander saw that the dragons were gone and only the forest appeared to be alive as the trees sighed in the wind and the snow blew off the ground like crackling embers, a dying fire.

It took all but thirty seconds for Lysander's worst fear to be realized. Four bodies popped out of nowhere on James's other side, Albus and Lucy holding parts of one that was still and the other backing away as soon as he could as if he couldn't face either the truth or the future. Al was stepping away toward the older man when Lysander saw the latter's face and recognized his overgrown hair and awkwardly pointed ears and tried to blink away the sight of his father. Lily's hand was gripping his when Lysander avoided eye contact with Rolf and took in the sight of Lucy, who was still crouched on the ground and was crying into a suit that was the exact replica that Lysander was wearing. He was shaking Lily off when he saw the body beneath the suit and realized that it too was an exact replica of his.

Tears started or finished falling (he wasn't sure which) as Lysander took Al's spot and reached for every part of Lorcan that Lucy wasn't already holding. His brother was a different temperature than James had been – warmer, as if freshly killed – and stiller in his porcelain skin that hadn't received a singly crack. He was most definitely whole, just like he'd been his entire life while Lysander had felt empty without him.

Al was walking toward Lily and attempting to confess something that Lysander couldn't hear just before the word Expelliarmus came from outside the pitch. The war had returned to its home base and starting point, but Lysander didn't care. Everyone except Lucy and his father – the bits of his family he currently refused to see – retreated from the bodies to face what must have been Astoria and a number of fighting Order members, but Lysander didn't care. Spells started firing and then a sword shone in the light, but Lysander didn't care. Astoria was literally stabbed in the back by the boy who had at some point or other been everyone's ally, but Lysander didn't care. His wish came true and the war was over, but he still didn't care. He didn't know how to care anymore, because Lorcan had been the person who'd taught him how. There was no longer an if in Lysander's future survival; all that was left was a certainty that he would never survive without his brother.

Somewhere amidst the aftermath, perhaps before Luna and Neville had appeared and started searching for someone to grieve with, Lysander ran off for the most familiar place he could find. Ironically, the Astronomy Tower was the one part of the Hogwarts castle that Lorcan had never shared with Lysander, for it was James Lysander had led here after discovering what a strong view the tower had of the Quidditch pitch. It was also one of the few parts of the castle that hadn't been destroyed in the war, though the staircases that spiralled up to it weren't exactly in top shape.

Lysander leaned over the railing and took in the pitch for hours, watching groups of speck-sized humans come and go as every last trace of battle was scraped from the field like memories stolen by time. Most of the Weasleys had survived and were huddled around the Potters or the Creeveys or the Jordans, all the people who needed them. Holly was with the Creeveys whenever she wasn't with her father and new step-mother, whom Lysander was thankful he didn't have a good view of. He'd seen her mother cry for years on end, and he didn't think that he could see that again. He didn't think that he could save her again, and only hoped that Neville could. He didn't think that he could save anyone anymore.

Anyone who'd been lucky enough not to experience the death of a close relative Disapparated rather quickly, and even those grieving didn't stay at the castle for long. Most went with their beloved bodies in preparation of a burial, though Lysander did notice that Rose and the Potters decided to bury James right on the pitch, thinking that was the place he'd most want to be. If Lysander could have felt anything, he'd have been pleased.

But he couldn't feel. All he could do was watch and wait and wish, because even if he always did the right thing, he couldn't do anything if he no longer knew what was right. And because there was only one star in the sky today, he wished on the sun that he could turn back time and be there when James died and then Lorcan. Even his logic couldn't fathom the deaths of his two best mates, his two brothers, as if they were stars shining from so far away that it was impossible to tell if they were still alive.

"Lorcan was killed by a dragon and a hawk – creatures, not stars." The voice came from behind, over toward the tower landing where a pile of telescopes had been thrown from their table. It was familiar to Lysander even though he hadn't heard it in eight years, and it was quite possibly the only voice that acted as a trigger for his tears.

Just as Lysander had caught Lily earlier, Rolf reached him now before he fell backward onto the wooden floor. He wept into his father's foul-smelling shirt as if he was ten years old again, and suddenly he reminisced on the good old days, before the hasty divorce and heart wrenching decision and Hogwarts. Lysander remembered growing up in Ottery St. Catchpole, just a few doors down from his crazy grandfather on one side and Ron and Hermione Weasley on the other. Luna worked at home managing and writing for the Quibbler while Rolf worked as a traveling naturalist and reporter for the family magazine. This meant that Rolf would be out most days, and when he returned home he'd escort Lorcan around the yard and sometimes even the back woods, showing him all its hidden creatures and magical fairies until Lorcan was so exhausted that he'd be put to bed early. That was always when Lysander would have his own turn with his father, and they would lie in the grass and look at the stars until Lysander could name every constellation in the night sky and all the bestial creatures that had inspired them. Of course Rolf would know where to find Lysander today, because he knew at least their traditions wouldn't ever change.

But of course, they had changed. Everything was different now, and Lysander couldn't help but feel like such was his fault. "What did I do wrong?" he asked Rolf when he'd calmed down enough to speak through his crying. "Why couldn't I save him? Why couldn't I save you?"

Xenophilius wasn't the only one who'd been crazy. Rolf's work had driven him mad, his search for Nargles and other nonexistent creatures leading him to invade people's homes and rob them of their possessions and, in special cases, their minds. Lysander remembered the way Luna would refuse to acknowledge Rolf's crimes when the Aurors came for a visit. He remembered the way Lorcan would wait for Rolf to come home every day for their walks in the woods even when Rolf had gone into hiding in their house's basement. He remembered sleeping in that basement himself the night after he'd turned Rolf in to his neighboring Auror, not understanding then just how long it would take for his family to accept that he'd done the right thing, or that he'd never understand so himself.

Now, Rolf was haggard and aged and sad, and though Lysander had no idea how he'd gotten here from Azkaban Prison, he was thankful that he had someone and listened with open ears when Rolf replied, "You can't save anyone before you've saved yourself."

Lysander looked up at the green eyes he'd inherited and thought to himself that while he may have had the better hair between the two of them, Lorcan had had the better eyes. He tried not to think about the fact that he'd never see those eyes again.

"You need to know," Rolf added after a moment, "That while I might have been gone, I never walked out."

He seemed better now. Rolf was less panicky, less gullible, less brainwashed by a family of Lovegoods and an impressive Scamander legacy. Azkaban hadn't killed him after all; it had cured him. And Lysander loved this Rolf. He'd never stopped loving his true father or missing him after he'd gone, even if he'd disappeared far sooner than Luna and Lorcan had liked to believe.

"Anyway, you won't have to deal with me for very long. I'm heading back to Azkaban tonight before Shacklebolt comes and has to take me there himself."

"You're going back? So soon?" asked Lysander. He hadn't meant to sound so panicked, but he couldn't much help himself from anything at this point. He was experiencing a complete lack of control for perhaps the first time in his life, and he wondered how Rolf could, also for the first time, suddenly have so much of it.

"I just wanted to stop by for a visit," Rolf tried to be humorous, though it didn't really work. "You know, I'm not sure that I'll ever see you again, son, but perhaps that's for the best. It wouldn't feel right to see just one of your faces."

It didn't feel right to be just one of those faces. Hoping that one was enough, Lysander sat up straight and said in an announcement, "I wear this face for both of us now."

"Aye," Rolf nodded. "You'd better not ruin it then."

Chuckling sadly, Lysander asked without being rhetorical, "He always was the better twin, wasn't he?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Rolf, looking away from Lorcan toward the landing, where his pirate sister had silently appeared and was now rummaging through the telescopes and inspecting them as if getting ready to lead a robbery. Once his attention was back on Lysander, he said, "I think it depends on who you ask."

Then both Rolf and Lysander's aunt were gone, walking out together and heading toward the Black Lake, where a ship was waiting to sail them back to the Hebrides to let Rolf finish out his sentence. It was funny, but the farther away Rolf went, the more connected to him Lysander felt, because if there was one thing he had inherited from his father, it was his uncanny desire to always do the right thing.

When he was ready, Lysander left the castle to return to the Quidditch pitch where his mother was waiting for him. Upon arriving at Lorcan's body, however, he learned that Luna had gone looking for him a while back and thus had no one to face but the severely distraught Lucy, who still hadn't left her fiancé's side.

As soon as her arid eyes saw Lysander sit down across from her, she had her hand on the beautiful engagement ring Lorcan had given her only two days ago and was throwing it at Lysander. She'd meant to hit him in the face, but had missed and instead let the ring land flat in his palm, where he kept it safe by balancing it atop his steadily flowing blood.

"You've said it yourself loads of times: you were our match-maker," said Lucy pointedly, referring to Lysander's sixth year when he had bragged about his brother's new girlfriend by taking all the credit for their romance. "It should be you who tears us apart."

They both knew what an unfair request this was, but Lysander didn't have the energy to argue anymore. He would do whatever Lucy wanted him to, because she was right: he had been the one to convince Lorcan to ask her out in the first place, and he never would have done so if he'd thought she wasn't good enough for his brother.

To make this and many other things as clear as possible for Lucy, Lysander told her, "He loved you more than anything in this world."

"How do you know that?" she asked.

"Because I'm his brother."

"Were. You were his brother. You're not anyone's brother anymore."

Lysander Scamander had gone from having one twin brother, one surrogate brother, and two extended sisters, to having absolutely no one. Maybe that was because he had never believed in heaven. He believed in the utter vastness of time, though he was beginning to wonder if it was only vast because it was dead, because it was empty, because it was alone.