ALEX.
Cloaked silhouette grabbed Alex's hair in a fist and pulled her backwards, she was on her knees in a room where she thought she had spent eternity. Now she looked at the dirty ceiling with tears in her eyes from all the pain she felt, seemed like she could lose half of her scalp.
"What do you know about Sirius Black? Where is he?" sharp voice asked right in her ear.
"I know nothing," Alex gasped.
"Nothing?! You are lying. You are his girlfriend, how can you know nothing?" voice was very insistent.
"No," Alex gasped once again, it was hard to talk. "I am not his girlfriend, I don't know anything!"
"I don't believe you," figure let her go. "We will try again later." Alex fell to the ground, she panted rapidly.
"Crucio!" said another voice what Alex hadn't heard before. Her body contorted in unnatural way and pain rushed through her body, once again she felt like there existed nothing but pain in this world.
Alex was on her basement floor once again. It was so cold but she had no strength to get up, not right away at least. She lingered in the nightmare memory; she knew that she was ready to die before she betrayed anyone she loved. And Alex had almost died, she had thought for so much moments that that room would be the place where she would die. Nevertheless, she survived.
These kind of mornings and days after every full moon was a reminder that she almost died but still managed somehow save her own life. But this evening she would probably get some answers to what exactly happened, things she didn't knew and hadn't asked Dumbledore. She wasn't ready for this evening, but she had no choice. And she always knew that this day would come.
Alex slowly got up and climbed the stairs to get all her potions, which would make pain disappear and feel her better. She opened the wooden cabinet and realized that she had made a mistake – with Dumbledore's visit she had forgotten to brew potion for pain. There was just a little left in a vile, and it was most definitely not enough. Now she had no strength to brew some more.
She unceremoniously drank potion leftovers and some other potions to make herself feel better. Then she took from other shelf firewhiskey, bad combination but she needed something to take the edge off the pain.
She walked to the living room and fell on the couch; Alex moaned in pain, her back was on fire. She drank a couple big gulps of firewhiskey, wrapped herself in the blanket and fell asleep.
Alex felt someone kick her in the stomach, she screamed in pain, but she could not move because her body was barely functioning.
"Oh, you are awake," she heard cold voice. "Tell me what Dumbledore is plotting against the Dark Lord?"
"I don't know," Alex tried to convince her capturer, but could not say anything more because her body once again was under the Cruciatus Curse.
"And now? Do you know now?" other man asked her, when they stopped torturing her.
"How many times do I need to tell you that I don't know anything?" Alex tried to scream, but she was unsuccessful. And for the countless time she felt the pain overtake her body, twisting and turning it.
Alex sharply opened her eyes, she had slept too little and her body hurt way too much, but there was nothing to do about it. It was almost evening and she needed to get ready. She sat on the couch and tried to get in a mindset for this evening. And then she felt nauseous, she hurried to the kitchen sink where she emptied her stomach contents. It had been a while since the last time she threw up after the full moon.
She slid down on the floor with her back pressed against the cupboard. She needed to get up, but she left too weak, Alex inhaled and exhaled deeply and gathered herself to get up. She slowly stumbled to bedroom and looked in the mirror; she took out her wand and tried to heal all her scars and bruises. But after a while she gave up because her hands were shaking uncontrollably how tired she was. Well at least nothing was bleeding anymore, which was a good sign.
She stepped into the shower, warm water licked her painful body, and she felt scars on her back pulsating, in her everyday life she didn't even felt them. Water made her feel better, but as soon as she would get out, she would feel like shit again, Alex knew that.
Alex's body trembled, it was from pain and because she was very nervous, it was almost seven and she needed to leave soon. Alex could not decide what to wear, because her body was so sore, clothes seemed like a torture to her. She took out from the closet soft fabric pants and dark green cashmere sweater – that should do.
Heading for the door, Alex couldn't stop judging herself for not brewing some potion for pain yesterday. She did not even had any muggle painkillers, but she was not sure they even would work on her.
She put on boots and coat, and threw on warm scarf, then she stepped outside. It was uncharacteristically cold October evening, as a sign for what was going to happen next. She walked through the gates and stepped on to the gravel road, she concentrated to apparate to the Order headquarters.
She materialized at the end of empty street where only movement were tree branches swaying in the wind. She started to walk down the street. After a while, she reached the house with white columns on the both sides of entrance doors, she stood outside. Alex had been here just once at the beginning of this year, now these memories seemed so far and distant.
She stood there contemplating what she really wanted to do now. She closed her eyes, this was hard, she was not ready, she was nervous as fuck. Then she opened her eyes and went inside.
House seemed deserted, but everything here was neat and clean. She knew that Dumbledore was waiting for her and that's why she headed up the stairs to the living room, which was filled with all kind of couches and chairs that made the room very cozy.
Dumbledore was sitting in front of the window by the small table and looked outside. Fire was crackling in the room and many candles and lamps illuminated the room.
"Good evening, Miss Watson," he looked at her and smiled. "It is so cold outside for the middle of October. Tea?" he spoke calmly as if Alex was here to talk about some especially delicious dessert recipe.
"Evening, yes, tea would be just in time," Alex took off her coat and scarf and sat down by the little table in front of Dumbledore who poured a tea in light blue teacup.
"I apologize in advance but," Dumbledore began looking truly apologetic, "you look terrible."
Alex laughed; she perfectly knew how bad she looked. She had big dark circles underneath her yes, scar over her cheek and another one on her neck, and very tired and painful body. All her being screamed that Alex was in pain and felt awful.
"It's fine," she smiled to Dumbledore. "I know how terribly I look today."
Alex looked outside the window and realized that Dumbledore was watching her while she stood on the street, because there was a clear view to the street from this window. And then she saw Lily and James walking to the house. James's hand was around her waist and they talked among themselves, Lily laughed about something James had said.
Remus and Sirius followed them, looked like they were arguing about something, but it seemed like their usual married couple bickering, because they started to laugh. Peter walked behind them dragging his feet.
Alex's heart stopped when she saw all of them. And she realized how much she had missed them. She was so nervous that she felt her hands sweat.
"Looks like your friends are here," Dumbledore stated and sipped his tea, and then he took a biscuit and started to study it.
Alex sipped on her tea to calm her nerves, but it didn't help. She stood up and tried to smooth her clothes and hair to look more presentable, but she knew that she still looked tired and like shit.
Living room door opened. Alex held her breath. First came in Lily and James and suddenly stopped seeing her, Lily's hand shot over her mouth in surprise, but James just looked at her without doing anything. Then Sirius, Remus and Peter appeared.
Without noticing Alex Sirius spoke: "Why are you not..." but Remus elbowed him in his side and Sirius finally looked at Alex, which was scared of Sirius's look the most.
Silence fell in the room, everybody was looking at Alex, except Dumbledore who looked out the window, and Alex could swear that he was humming something to himself.
Alex opened her mouth to say something, but she did not know what. Did she needed to apologize or just to greet them? She had no clue; Alex closed her mouth and looked down to the floor. She was ashamed, Alex almost never was ashamed, she didn't knew what to do with this emotion, but she realized that tears had started to fell from her eyes.
"Alex..." it was Lily who spoke first, "Thank Merlin you are okay."
Alex looked at her, but Lily was already closing distance between them and throwing her hands around her. Alex's back hurt from the embrace, but she swallowed painful moan because it was so good to finally see Lily.
She felt relief overwhelming her body, maybe they could forgive her for everything. Next one in line for a hug was Remus, he looked happy to see her. His embrace was as painful as Lily's, but Alex tried to not show her pain on the outside.
"You my dear friend have a lot of gray hairs," he said running his fingers through her hair.
"So do you," Alex smiled weakly while Remus quietly chuckled.
Alex looked at James and Peter who was still too surprised, but Alex understood them. And then she looked at Sirius who stood behind everyone.
And there he was – dangerously handsome with stone hard look in his eyes. Sirius slowly crossed his arms across his chest and looked straight into Alex's eyes without saying a word. Alex did not knew this Sirius; she could not guess what he was thinking or what he was capable of. She did not have a courage to speak to him.
"Where the hell have you been all this time?" finally James broke this awkward silence.
"I..." Dumbledore interrupted Alex's attempt to say something. He checked his watch and furrowed his brows.
"Dear friends this is the reason why we are here, because Miss Watson would like to tell you something," he looked outside the window and then returned back to all of them. "I think we can begin, please, sit down," he waved his hand towards couch and chairs so that they sit. After everyone was seated except Alex, Dumbledore sat down and sipped his tea as if nothing had happened.
Alex didn't wanted to sit down, she thought that standing up would be a motivation to start talking. She was almost ready to begin her story when living room doors opened and someone entered the room.
The floor beneath her feet disappeared, she felt like she was falling down, her body shivered. Because the man who had entered the room was Noah Thompson.
NOAH.
This couldn't be happening, this wasn't like he had imagined it. This couldn't be how Alex found out that he was a wizard, this ruined everything. Noah stood in the Order's living room and was shook to the bone. Someone said something but he was not listening, Noah looked at Alex and he did not liked what he saw.
Alex looked back at him with wide eyes in complete disbelief. He saw disappointment in her eye, and it made him feel almost physical pain. He couldn't take his eyes off of Alex, she was the only one that mattered right now. In a way, he had betrayed Alex, but she did not needed to find out like this. Dumbledore had said that there were important things to discuss about Alex, but he had not mentioned that she would be here as well.
Woman, which he loved, was looking at him as if he had ripped her heart out and stomped on it. Noah saw how tears fell from her eyes, she looked away and brushed them away, looked like no one was noticing that.
"Oh, Mister Thompson, wasn't sure if you could make it," Dumbledore was up on his feet and walked towards him. They shook hands, and then he pointed for him to sit down. Noah sat down in the chair right next to the door.
"Miss Watson, maybe we could start now when everybody is here," Dumbledore kindly turned to Alex and then sat down by the table.
"I'm sorry," James interrupted, "but why Thompson is here?"
Noah felt how everyone looked at him, but he still watched Alex, only Dumbledore was looking out of the window. Noah did not knew how much he could say.
"I don't know how much I am allowed to say," Noah noted still looking at Alex, silently asking for forgiveness, but it seemed not to work. "Professor?"
"Yes, we could start with that actually," Dumbledore turned to everyone and put his hands on the table.
"I am so sorry, Alex," he said gently, Noah never had heard that Dumbledore used someone's first name. "But I have to apologize in advance and beg for your forgiveness if I am worthy of that," he guilty looked at Alex who looked shocked now.
"I had broken my promise right at the exact moment when I promised you to keep your secret," he confessed. "See, I know that you are very gifted witch, but I was very worried about you, and that's why I asked Mister Thompson to keep an eye on you. I did not do that because I did not believe in your powers, but just to keep my old soul at peace. Well after everything that had happened, can you blame me?" he continued to look at her with his piercingly blue eyes. "Can you forgive me?"
"I..." Alex started to speak.
"What are you talking about? What had happened?" Lily interrupted Alex almost immediately.
"I will let Alex herself explain everything," he answered to Lily and returned to his tea and biscuits. Everybody now turned to Alex; she looked very nervous and scared.
"I don't know how to start, how to begin explaining what happened last summer, but I will try," Noah noticed how tired she looked; she did not looked like herself.
She looked like she had not slept for a week and had not eaten for a month; he did not knew this Alex at all, like this she was a stranger to him.
"Last summer I was captured by Death Eaters or Voldemort's followers, I am not sure," she began to explain, Lily's mouth opened, the rest of them looked thunderstrucked as well. "I was tortured with the Cruciatus curse, humiliated and physically assaulted," she was ashamed about what had happened, it was written all over her face.
Noah wanted to hug her, to soothe her, to tell her that nothing like that would ever happen again to her. But he couldn't.
"They wanted to know everything about you all," she motioned to everyone, "especially about Lily, James, Sirius and Dumbledore and the plans against Voldemort," with a corner of his eye Noah saw Sirius shift in his seat. "I have no idea why they thought that I knew something, but I said nothing," Alex sighed.
"I don't know why," after a brief moment of silence Alex continued, "but they left me in a house where they tortured me, they left me to die," Alex fidgeted with her hands. "I think that something went completely wrong, that's why they left me," tears started to stream from her eyes, "because when I woke up and realized that I was alone, I couldn't move, I was paralyzed." Dumbledore handed her a handkerchief, which she gladly accepted and wiped her tears away.
Everybody looked at her with horror on their faces. Noah was surprised that no one knew anything except Dumbledore. Dumbledore had not told any details to Noah when he had gotten this assignment.
At the beginning of February when Noah started his assignment, he only knew that Alex was a witch who had experienced something dreadful, and he just needed to keep an eye out for her not interrupting her life. Oh, yeah, maybe Noah had completely ignored the last part, but he did not knew anything about her past.
"It was a miracle that I survived," Alex stated. "The rest of the last year I spent at St. Mungo's, where everybody tried to heal me. At the beginning of February I got out and realized that I needed to go into hiding to protect all of you," she confessed, obviously she did not knew how everyone would react.
"I am so sorry, but I didn't knew what else to do. I needed to get away from you, because I was afraid that I could be captured again," Alex cried once again, "and I couldn't forgive myself if I would have betrayed my friends." Lily stood up and hugged Alex.
"That's why Dumbledore didn't let us go and search for you," Remus stated shaking his head. Everyone looked at him, but of course Remus was smart and he put two and two together the fastest. "You made him promise."
"Unfortunately you are completely right," silently confessed Dumbledore. "But I tried to change Alex's mind every time I saw her."
Noah could not believe what Alex had lived through. And that made him see her in different light, she was much stronger than he thought.
"What exactly happened, why you were in hospital?" for the first time this evening Peter spoke. Alex looked at him and shook her head.
"I actually don't know what happened, because almost all the time I was captured and later in hospital I spent unconscious," Alex said very quietly, it looked like she did not wanted to talk about this particular topic. "Professor Dumbledore, maybe you could answer this question?" Alex turned to him.
"Yes, I and healers from St. Mungo had concluded that Miss Watson had been cursed simultaneously with the Cruciatus Curse and Severing Charm, which performed on human body could be even deadly," Dumbledore explained. "And it resulted in the fact that Alex's spine was crushed to pieces leaving her paralyzed."
Noah felt terror creep in his body; he looked at Alex, who heard this information for the first time. Seemed like she could just break down, she was pale as a snow. Rest of them was speechless; they did not expected something like that.
That was the reason why her scar on her back looked like that. Oh, Merlin, it was terrible, Noah hid his face in his palms. How one person can go through all of that and still be alive?
"Why did you choose to hide? We could have protected you?" James asked.
"I thought that I was protecting you all," Alex looked at James with pleading eyes. "I didn't care about myself."
"What have you been doing all this time while you were out of St. Mungo's?" Remus asked.
"I hid in a muggle world," she said ashamed. "I worked at a pub, but in the rest of the time I helped the Order however I could. I gathered, studied and analyzed documents, files, almost anything to help, anything I could do from home," Alex waved her hands as if saying that it was the best she could do.
"Then you are that mysterious informant who gives that useful information to Dumbledore?" Noah asked suddenly, everyone looked at him as if they had forgotten that he was still here.
"I guess so," Alex looked at him.
"Exactly," Dumbledore confirmed. "Miss Watson was very useful all this time."
"What happened to those bastards who captured you?" Sirius asked in a stern voice.
"I don't know that either," Alex glanced at Sirius who sat the furthest away from her except Noah.
"Robinson and Green," Dumbledore explained, "they are in Azkaban where they are living out the rest of their life sentence."
Robinson and Green, Noah knew those names, but he could not remember where he had heard them.
"When did they captured you?" Lily asked politely.
"The day we returned from Hogwarts," Alex said very sadly, she looked down at the floor. Seemed like she did not wanted to see anyone's faces right now.
Noah noticed that Remus, James and Peter looked at Sirius, who now looked devastated. He sat in his chair with slumped shoulders and ran a nervous hand through his hair. Apparently, they knew something Noah did not.
"How long did they tortured you?" Remus asked in a grave voice.
"Professor?" Alex looked at Dumbledore, because she apparently did not knew that either.
"More than three weeks," he answered silently.
"But that means..." Remus worriedly looked at Alex who looked like she could faint; she grabbed the fireplace mantel to keep her balance.
"What does it mean?" James asked looking very confused, his look traveled from Remus to Alex and back.
"Did I... No, it can't be... professor, please tell me that..." Alex mumbled, Noah did not understood what she was trying to say.
And then it looked like Alex was falling, that finally this moment had come when she had lost all her strength and her body gave in. Noah stood up without thinking what the rest of them would think about that. He started to walk towards Alex, but noticed that also Remus was reaching out to catch her if she falls to the ground. But Sirius was the fastest, he was already by her side, pressing her to his chest not letting her fall.
Alex barely could stand, she had cramped her hands in Sirius's vest and held on for her dear life, her face was hidden by his chest.
"No, Alex," Dumbledore was now standing by her side and put a hand on her shoulder, "you didn't do any harm to them."
Noah looked at everybody, seemed like James and Peter was in the dark and did not understood a thing. There was a silence for a moment.
"Can someone please explain?" James asked raising his eyebrows.
Remus walked to Alex and asked her something very quietly. She just murmured something and nodded her head, which she still hid in Sirius's chest.
"Alex is a werewolf just like me," Remus said, "and in that three week period was a full moon."
There was a silence for a moment; it was possible to hear only fire crackling and Alex's sobs. She worried that she may have hurt those assholes while she was in her werewolf form.
Alex was a werewolf, who would have thought. Noah was shocked; he did not expected anything like this. He studied everyone in the room – Lily, Remus and Sirius knew because they didn't looked surprised at all. Of course, that Dumbledore knew, there was no other way. But the rest was as much surprised as he.
Noah knew that Remus was a werewolf, it was not a secret amongst the members of Order, and he did not mind. But Alex hid it so well. She really had been to hell and back, and not even once in her life.
Damn it, yesterday was full moon, that's why she looked so horrible. Did she looked like this after every full moon? If it was so, then Noah wanted to be with her, to help her get through it. He just wanted the best for her.
Dumbledore stood up and glanced at his watch, he pursed his lips. "I have to go, but looks like I am not needed here anymore," he said and walked to the door. "Mister Thompson, our agreement still stands," he said in a much quieter voice. "It doesn't matter what have you heard here tonight." And then he said goodbyes to others and disappeared behind doors.
Noah's eyes traveled to Alex who still was in Sirius's embrace. He hold her tightly pressed against his body, he was leaning in and quietly saying something in Alex's ear.
"Sirius..." James said putting a hand on his shoulder, but he just shook his head and continued to hold Alex in his arms.
Sirius slowly and gently stroked her hair, all these movements were so well known, because that was the way Noah calmed Alex. In this moment, this minute, this second Noah realized that he was madly angry at Sirius. How he dared to stand there and comfort her when it was his Noah's place.
Well fucking shit, Noah noticed ring on Sirius's hand who ran across Alex's hair, exactly the same ring as Alex had, the one she never took off. Black onyx stone ring.
The first thought that shot through his mind was that Alex was married to Sirius, but could it be?! He would have known, would he?
Noah finally sat back down; his head fell heavy in his hands. This was not happening – Alex, woman he loved like nobody else, loved not only him but also Sirius Black.