finally. im sorry this took so damn long.

March 9, 1978
6:08 pm
Hospital Wing

Things were getting very scary very fast.

Sirius's knees ached with bruising pain from kneeling on the stone hospital wing floor next to Regulus's bed for so long, but he didn't care as long as he could keep watching over his little brother that he had so horribly failed to protect.

Regulus's fairy like features were completely restful, chest rising and falling with a steady, slow rhythm. There was a curl of dark hair resting out of place on his forehead, making him look even younger and more vulnerable.

Sirius nimbly moved his hand forward to brush it out of the way before looking up to McGonagall, Slughorn and Pomfrey with a cold, pained expression.

"How did this happen?" he asked, voice just as steel as his eyes. "Who did this to him?"

"We don't know," McGonagall said, tone forcefully steady. "A fourth year Hufflepuff student found him while looking for their lost wand, and they immediately found Slughorn, who found me since I'm serving in Dumbledore's potion for the time being."

"Is there any way to tell how long he's been like this?" Sirius pressed. "So we can narrow down the suspects? Do we even have any suspects?"

"Not at the moment, no," McGonagall sighed apologetically, and Black squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. "But we're planning on asking around to see if students saw anything suspicious. The process will take a long time, but hopefully we'll catch whoever is behind this."

"Hopefully?" Sirius repeated. "My brother's life is riding on hopefully?"

None of the adults said anything as they looked down at the boy pressing his forehead against the white, boring sheets. They didn't want to answer him, didn't want to depress him any further than the potential loss of his brother already was.

Black's mind flitted again to the drop of blood on Anneliese's shoe, but pushed away the doubt in his stomach. Callaway's life was far from uneventful. It could have been from anything.

"So what can we do?" Sirius asked, in need of some good news. "Is there anything at all?"

"There's no use in trying to keep this under wraps, the whole school probably knows by now by the way things spread here," McGonagall said plainly. "So we're starting questioning in a matter of minutes with the seventh years and going down from there, each head of house taking their own students."

"Can I stay with him while you do that?" Sirius asked, tone almost begging. "Please?"

"Of course," McGonagall said with a firm nod. "If anything happens or progress is made, you will be one of the first to know."

"If anything happens or any progress is made, Sirius is going to be one of the first people to know," Frank pointed out wisely, smoking a rare cigarette as he paced across the common room. "So we can just ask him."

Anneliese slumped further on the couch, picking at a hole in the fabric of her sheer black tights with a frown. She knew she shouldn't be ripping the stocking further, but it was just a coping mechanism for stress at this point.

"If he even is gonna want to talk about it," she said in a soft tone, moving her eyes up to Frank, who was still pacing. "I know I wouldn't in his place."

"Yea, well at a point, he has to talk," Marlene said in a hard tone. "Because if no one tells me, then I'm going to figure out what's going on myself. I'm too curious for this bullshit."

"This isn't some play detective case that you get a lollipop when you solve, Lene," Dorcas snapped, running a hand down her face. "What if one of us is the one who is found unconscious in a closet next?"

"It was one of us, Dor," Anneliese retorted sharply. "Just because Regulus isn't in our year and house doesn't mean that his suffering doesn't have value."

"He's a Death Eater, A," Meadowes snapped back. "You of all people should be upset about that. You're muggleborn, which means that you have just as much of a chance of being poisoned like that than Regulus did! More, actually. I mean-"

"What she's trying to say is that if Regulus isn't a stereotypical target and he was attacked, then this could mean very bad things for muggleborns," Alice said calmly, trying to calm Anneliese's angry expression down. "And she's right."

"You're all completely discrediting the fact that it could have been someone on yalls side of the war," Anneliese said quickly. "A war. People on both sides do awful things like this, it's just that one of them thinks that their cause is right and more people believe them."

"She has a point," Marlene said slowly. "Regulus is a Death Eater, we just said that. What if it was someone in the Order doing this because he was starting to get too dangerous?"

"The Order doesn't just casually kill people," Frank said factually. "Death is always a last resort. And this was sloppy, hasty. Not Dumbledore's style of order to give."

Something about this conversation reminded Anneliese of the one she and Sirius had on the train back to school after Christmas break with their discovery of her being confounded to kiss him down by the lake on the night of the Yule Ball.

A hurried, messy plan with highly dangerous spells involved, barely performed correctly.

If only Callaway could figure out who was behind one of the attacks, then she would have the answer to both.

"Yea, well Dumbledore isn't here right now, either, is he?" James pointed out. "What if it was some too headstrong, arrogant member just doing what they thought was right and not taking in the consequences?"

"Or just a downright psychopath," Anneliese muttered.

"You know, James, you pretty much just described yourself," Dorcas said, chin tilting upwards in suspicion. "And you basically replaced Regulus as Sirius's brother. That could certainly cause a lot of hostility to back this up."

"Excuse me?" James snapped, taking a threatening step towards Meadowes.

"Then again, it could have been out of defense," Dorcas mused casually with a wave of her hand, brushing aside her previous thought. "He could have attacked you first-"

"And then I just pulled a deadly potion out of my pocket?" Potter hissed. "I don't think so. Listen, I care about Regulus. I know him better than you all think I do, alright? So if someone accuses me again, I'm going to lose my shit."

"I'm terrified," Alice muttered.

"Peter, Remus, Lily, any helpful opinions that you would like to share with the group?" Frank asked hopefully, turning to the three of them in hopes to leech some of the tension out of the thick cloud that was growing around them.

Peter was sitting alone in a chair by the fire, staring silently into the flames until the heat burned itself into his blue eyes.

He didn't think that saying anything would be too wise right now. He had gone for hours without speaking in front of the other Marauders before, and they didn't question it.

He could hide behind his personality for now.

Remus and Lily, on the other hand, had been whispering furiously to each other on the corner of a couch this whole time, occasional glances shot at Anneliese in the process of listening to the conversation around them and talking in unison.

"A, what do you mean our side of the war?" Remus asked slowly as he tilted his frame towards her. "Are you not with us?"

Callaway's cheeks flushed. She hadn't meant it like that, only that she just wasn't technically a member of the Order and therefore wasn't part of the group they were specifically discussing at the given moment.

Anneliese automatically turned to the chair where Leo usually sat to defend her, only to see that the seat was completely empty. In fact, upon further inspection, Anderson was nowhere in the common room to be seen.

"You know what I meant," she said hastily. "Of course I'm on your side. Do you think I want Voldemort to take over our world?"

Several of them cringed at the use of his name, but Anneliese didn't care. She hadn't been brought up to fear this man like they had. A name only had as much power as you gave it, and she wouldn't let just a word scare her.

"Then why aren't you a member of the Order?" Lily asked, tone suspicious as she thought of Anneliese covered in blood earlier that day. "That's the only way to really help like you're saying you want to."

Callaway wanted to slap her across the face.

The only way to help?

Had Lily been stabbed for the Order? Had she spent Christmas away from her best friend? Had she been kidnapped and had no idea where she was? Had she been pressured to do the perfect thing for the greater good?

Had she been slammed against a wall, left bruises on, and kissed against her will?

Was she still suffering the consequences? Was she feeling it grow harder and harder everyday to keep her secret from her best friends? Was she obliviating people to keep her cover?

Was she violently tying off loose ends, getting pinned down to an icy ground and threatened with horrific things, half of which were executed?

How dare Lily suggest that she wasn't helping, that she wasn't going through anything for their side of the war.

How dare she.

Lily instantly seemed to realize that she had said something to upset Anneliese, because her already pale face drained of all the color it had left. She wasn't sorry, but her features turned into ones hoping, even pleading for forgiveness.

All of the side arguments faded as they watched Anneliese look at Lily, their nervous glances darting between the two girls. They all had the sudden instinct to run, a gut feeling pulling on their stomachs, yanking them away from Callaway for their own safety.

The fire flickered against Anneliese's features.

The flames caught on the contours of her face, making the shadows sharper and light more severe. The reflection seemed to dissolve into her eyes, fire joining the stormy blue as if they belonged together.

Half threatening, half beautiful.

"Choose your next words carefully, Lily," she said finally, voice barely a breath. "I wouldn't want to think that you were accusing me of something, now would I?"

"I'm not," Lily said softly, not meeting Callaway's eyes.

"That's what I thought," Anneliese said in a slightly louder tone, standing up from the couch. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go find Leo. I'll see you all at dinner."

No one said a word as she left, tension melting away from all of their shoulders. A synchronous exhale went through the remaining Gryffindors, relief that whatever they had just seen in Anneliese hadn't come out to play.

"I think I just pissed myself," James muttered, and there were a few light laughs, glad to have something to relieve the tension with. "I'm not joking."

"It wasn't her who did this," Frank said, but his tone was uncertain. "She wouldn't, no matter how scary she looked just then. She's a kind person."

"That we know absolutely nothing about," Dorcas muttered. "Devil's advocate here, but really guys, come on. Someone say something about Anneliese's past besides that she's an orphan or the name of one of her friends back at Ilvermorny. That's weird. We've known her for two years."

Lily sat back, hands folded on her stomach. Alice noticed her expression.

"What are you thinking of?" Fortescue asked, gently wrapping her hand in Lily's.

Evans glanced to Lupin, who gave her a warning look not to say anything.

Even though Remus and Lily had been best friends since they could remember, even liking each other for a good bit of time during their early years of Hogwarts before then becoming prefects together, they still disagreed and fought just as much as any other friendships did.

Now was one of those times.

Lily thought that they all deserved to know what she and Remus had seen. The timeline fit perfectly, Anneliese covered in blood and not telling them why and then Regulus being found unconscious in a closet a few hours later.

Then they could get multiple opinions, try and sort it out. If Anneliese was innocent, then she didn't have anything to worry about.

But Remus felt so strongly the opposite that he actually voiced it.

"Lily," he said in a warning tone, only a few words needed to get his point across. "Don't."

Evans ignored him.

"We saw Anneliese covered in blood with a black eye and bruises in between lunch and Transfiguration," Lily said bluntly, and Remus's eyes widened in shocked horror. "She wouldn't tell us anything besides that the other person and her were both fine. But given that Anneliese's standard of fine is breathing, I wouldn't count on it."

"Is she okay?" James asked immediately, and Lily glared at him. "Right. Sorry."

Peter's brow furrowed. If it wasn't Regulus, which he knew for a fact, then who had unfortunately crossed paths with Anneliese that they were all so suspicious of?

Pettigrew didn't say anything in her defense, though. As long as he wasn't the one in the heat, he would do as much as he could to keep it that way. He wasn't about to risk his neck for another hastily made plan.

"Today?" Alice confirmed dubiously, and Lily nodded. "But she walked into Transfiguration without a mark on her, I don't understand-"

"Did you guys see the bathroom counter?" Dorcas interrupted, and all the girls nodded again in response. "Tons of foundation and concealer. She could have used the makeup and some spells to hide them for the time being. And we all know she has the pain tolerance to hide that part."

"I don't understand why you're all just talking about her injuries and stuff so casually, only worrying about what she did wrong and who she did it to," James said, tone turning bitterly angry by the second. "She's hurt. We know that for a fact, so shouldn't we be focused on that part for now?"

"She's clearly fine if she can just walk around like she didn't just beat someone up," Marlene muttered. "How much do you have to want to hide something to-"

"Obviously enough," Remus snapped, done with all of the suspicion towards Anneliese even though he had ashamedly felt the same way at first. "I agree with James here. Lily, you should have kept your mouth shut. We have no idea about the context. The rest of you, you know Anneliese. She wouldn't almost fucking kill someone."

Lupin narrowed his eyes at them, standing up alongside James.

"Now, we're going to go see if we can actually help and not just mindlessly bicker and turn against one another," Remus said coldly, tone like ice. "Let me know if any of you mature up enough to join us."

Peter, Lily, Alice, Frank, Marlene, and Dorcas watched them go silently.

They all knew that they were lucky even if none of them said it. If they had just said those things and acted that way in front of Sirius or Leo, the entire Gryffindor tower would have been blown up by now.

Evans was about to say something else before McGonagall walked into the common room again. All heads anxiously turned to her, waiting for news.

"Miss Evans, I'll speak to you next," she said, gesturing Lily over as Leo walked back into the room after her, a slightly shaken expression on his face from whatever McGonagall had just talked to him about. "Mr. Anderson, thank you."

"Are you alright?" Alice asked, nervously eying Leo's expression.

"I'm fine," he muttered, running a stressed hand down his face as he sat down heavily on his usual chair. "It was just really intense. They obviously want to figure out who did this very badly. It's completely necessary, obviously. Just scary."

"Does this not remind you of a war movie or something?" Dorcas asked, half blood knowledge coming into play. "Everyone getting pulled aside one by one, like an interrogation montage when the detectives are trying to solve the case? With dramatic music playing in the background?"

"Don't make it sound pretty like that," Marlene grumbled as she slumped back where Anneliese had just been sitting, lighting another cigarette. "But yes."

"It isn't like a movie about war," Leo said slowly. "Don't you guys get it yet? This is a war. We are all those characters that we don't know who's going to get killed or not or who is a spy or who we can trust. We don't have the advantage of being the audience or the writer."

"Lovely," Frank sighed, wrapping an arm tighter around Alice. "I think spending so much time with Remus is rubbing off on you with the metaphors."

"Oversimplifying things is the only way they make sense right now," Leo replied, anxiously popping his knuckles and then tracing the back of his skeleton tattoo. "And I still have no idea what the hell is going on."

There was a heavy pause.

"None of us do."

Anneliese gritted her teeth as she walked out of the library.

She couldn't find Leo anywhere after he left the common room, and at least thirty minutes had passed. Not the Great Hall where students were studying before dinnertime, not the library, not the kitchens to get extra food, not taking a walk around the Black Lake.

As much as she hated the Map, she understood how it could be useful in times like these.

Unfortunately, someone wanted to find her before she managed to find Anderson.

She was walking past the entrance to Dumbledore's office when McGonagall rushed to the bottom of the staircase, Lily following shortly behind her. Evans had a slightly apologetic expression on her face, although Anneliese couldn't fathom why.

"Oh, perfect timing," McGonagall said in a breathless voice, pressing her hand into Anneliese's back and practically shoving her up the stairs. "You're next, Miss Callaway."

"Excuse me-" Anneliese stumbled as she walked, trying to look back at Lily only to see that the redhead was already gone, probably back to the common room. "I was just trying to find Leo-"

"You can talk to Mr. Anderson after this," McGonagall replied, hastily shutting the heavy office door behind her. "Sit, please."

The chair magically placed itself under Anneliese with quite a bit of aggression, knocking her feet right out from under her and then whizzing her over to across from the headmaster's chair where it belonged.

"This is about Regulus, right?" Callaway asked, continuing before McGonagall had a chance to answer. "I promise you, I had nothing to do with that. Isn't it pretty inefficient to question all the students, I mean there's no way-"

"Previous suggestions would suggest otherwise, Anneliese," McGonagall said, the sternness of her tone and use of Anneliese's first name startling Callaway into silence. "I was told by another student that you were seen covered in blood and bruises earlier this evening. Is this true?"

Anneliese's heart stopped in her throat. Now she knew why Lily had given her that apologetic look. Remus wouldn't have said anything, she knew that much for sure.

But Evans on the other hand, maybe. Callaway should have known she would say something the second she started rambling about her duties as Head Girl when she had first ran into her in her injured state.

"I don't see how that's relevant," Anneliese said coldly, trying her best not to let any of her panic or annoyance show and make her more suspicious. "I didn't do that to Regulus."

"You don't have a very good look right now,