The Last Lieutenant

The After

Remus is the one who comes to find her.

Audra wonders how long it had taken them before they noticed her absence.  If they thought they had to look, or if everyone had said that she was a traitor, too, just like Snape and they shouldn't even bother to look, and Remus had gotten to his feet with a weary sigh, saying that he would go check the grounds, just in case.

She wondered if he expected to find her.  Or if he did, if he thought she would even be alive.

"Audra."  He falls to his knees beside her, taking in the sight of the splintered bits of her wand still digging into her palm and the blood that has smeared across her face, trickling down past her mouth.  It's a sorry sight.  "Are you hurt?"

"I tried."  She chokes out a sound that was half way between a groan and a sob, and a blood bubble bursts at the corner of her mouth.  "I tried to stop him.  I thought..." Another cough, another sob.  "I thought that we were the good guys."

"We all did."  He grabs her under the arms and drags her to her feet, and she almost drags them both back to the ground when she can't hold her wait.  It's only then that she let's herself look at the Astronomy Tower, at the hundreds of wands illuminating the sky in Dumbledore's honor and even though it wasn't possible from this distance, she imagines that she can see the figure of the Professor spread out on the ground.  "Let's get you to the hospital wing, alright?  It's all over."

"No."  She does not know what she's saying no to.  No, she doesn't want someone to heal her?  No, it's not over?  "Not yet."  Audra's fingers scrabble at his arm to try and push him away, but they had been crushed under Snape's boot and she cannot make him let go.  "I don't want to see him."

There's a sigh, deep and heavy and she can feel it vibrate in his chest. 

He doesn't promise her that she will not have to look.  There's no longer any time for comforts like that.

The hospital wing is full to bursting.  Audra had spent a lot of time in here before, having been friends with Fred and George for most of her Hogwarts days, but she had never seen it like this, so quiet that you could hear every breath and creak of the chair, everyone not able to look each other in the eye because they are afraid of what they might find there.

Everyone stares at her when they walk through the door.  Audra offers up a weak smile and collapses in the nearest empty chair, curls in on herself and spits blood into the floor.  There are thin hands running over her back almost immediately, and when Audra finally finds the strength to lift her hand, she finds McGonagall standing beside her.

"Audra."  When McGonagall speaks, her voice breaks.  "We thought..." Thought that you were gone, Audra heard, and does not want to ask what it means, if they thought she was turned traitor or dead.  "What happened to you?"

"I'm sorry."  She is not talking to her.  She is looking past her, at Harry and Ron and Hermione, all standing shoulder to shoulder.  Ron had nudged himself in front of both of them, like he had jumped into the defensive as soon as the door opened.  "I didn't know.  This whole time, I thought I was saving him."  She wanted someone to know.  Someone to look at her and understand, to tell her that it was okay that Snape had wrapped her up in the lie, too.  "This wasn't the plan."

But maybe it was.  Did they even have a plan?  Audra always assumed that they did, that it was all leading to something that would make this all worth while, but maybe she was wrong.  Maybe Dumbledore was just making it up as he went along and she had been stupid enough to believe in him.