The Illusion of Whole

~*~*~*~

Magic intends the furtherance of life. In that way it is, essentially, a force of good. Humans, with all their capacity for hate, have over the years managed to find ways bend it to their will. Though its nature still prevails. To bring about death through magic is such a heinous breach of the laws of nature that as a punishment it demands a heavy price of the castor. Remus knows this.

He doubted an outside observer would notice any change. The pair of them spending their time together looking through travel brochures and discussing the mundane details of her day. Just like every other couple in the hospital. Her hair is pink; his body is healing. The two of them will be just fine.

The pink hair, the travel brochures, they are just part of her elaborate illusion. Pink has not been her colour for a few years now. It is her symbol of defiance to those that oppose her and reassurance to those that know her. While her hair is so, all is right in the world.

Where others would not, he notices that her eyes spend too much time lingering on the travel brochures and not at him. He knows she spends her time when she is not working or visiting at travel agencies, discussing her fantasies with name-tagged strangers with no idea of the horrors she has seen.

She never speaks of what happened to them or him. If she did the illusion she had created would surely be exposed.

~*~*~*~

The amount of hate that is required to cast the killing curse damages the soul, rips and tears a portion of it away. But Remus decides it is worth the sacrifice to destroy such a monster.

Remus found Fenrir Greyback in an unused classroom in a quiet part of the castle while on his way to join the main fray in the great hall. The screams of first year boy trapped in Fenrir's arms drew him there.

In the ensuing fight Remus managed to get the boy away, but not at the cost of his own victory. Fenrir whispered things between the times he tore into Remus' flesh with his teeth, inconsequential ravings that Remus either did not hear or no longer remembers.

It was the sound of her shoes running down the corridor was what brought Remus back, and it was when she stopped that dread set in. Somehow, though he could not see, he knew it was her.

Greyback threw his body to the ground. Face down in a pool of his own blood, his body is shock, the only thing Remus could do was listen to sound of her boot heel on the stone floor as she took two steps towards him. Greyback made not a sound.

All he could focus on was how he had to save her, how he had to stop Greyback once and for all and how there is no question about it, he was capable of killing.

Avada Kedavra

In the silence of his ward at St. Mungo's his mind plays her words over and over again. A near inhuman level of grief, bitterness and despair that he never knew she was capable of reverberate in his brain to the point where he does not know if that was how she actually said the words.

The sound Remus remembers is the heavy thump as Greyback's body collides with the ground, followed by the sound of retching from not far away.

~*~*~*~

To kill; to murder; damages the soul beyond repair. The further penalty for the few with kind hearts that use such a spell is that the guilt consumes them while they are forced to go on living. It corrupts the things they once loved.

He awoke in St. Mungo's his beaten and torn body now bandaged and slowly beginning to heal. And she was there at his side with not a cut or a bruise on her, any physical ailments long since transfigured away.

Still, his failure taunts him when he looks in her eyes. The deep sadness, the guilt present in the way she acts, those should all be his. For all his scars, he had failed to protect her and the wound she had taken for him would never heal.

He knows that when she looks at him she sees the soul witness to the act, the lone reminder of what occurred that day. While she can escape the consequences with strangers, she never will be able to do so in his presence.

Should they ever talk about it, their illusion would surely dissolve. Exposed, the shadow the act has cast upon them would surely tear them apart. The killing curse demands a punishment of its castors and they would surely not survive.

So they continue looking at travel brochures and discussing the mundane details of her day. Her hair is pink; his body is healing. The two of them living the elaborate illusion that they are whole.