Disclaimer: The characters here and the world they inhabit are the creation and proptery of JK Rowling and her assigns.

Septima awoke with a delicious feeling all through her body. Severus had told her that they would be together. He wanted her for himself enough to keep her from Remus. She recalled them sharing the sort of passion she felt when she simply knew Severus cared for her. Then she noticed the sound of something coming down the hall. She got up and pulled a robe around herself. The sound focused and became speech.

“You have to be in the infirmary! You have injuries.”

“A few scrapes and scratches, no more.”

“You were hit by a spell!”

“By the very people you have in your infirmary as we speak, Madam Pomfrey. Too much has happened. I won't be their laughing stock as you work me over.”

It was Severus. She looked toward the bed and realized it was empty; how had he been injured? Septima glanced at a clock and realized that several hours had passed. She went to the door and turned the handle, but it wouldn't open. She was locked in.

“Severus, how are you to recover if I can't look at that wound?”

“All three hit me with the same harmless spell at the same time. How bad could it be?”

“Severus.” Poppy was not taking no for an answer.

There was a mumble at the door and then the sound of unlocking. “You may look at it as I sit down on my own couch. I'm warning you though; I have company. You're not allowed to be shocked.”

“I've known school boys long enough to not be shocked by anything—Septima!”

She pulled the robe tighter around herself as she saw the school's Matron. Then she saw Severus and smiled shyly. His face looked like a dark night but softened as he looked at her. “Did you rest well?” he asked.

She nodded. “I only just woke... but you're injured! Sit down and let Poppy look at you. I can go back into...” She pointed behind herself at the bedroom door.

“Sit next to me, please,” he said. She did, and he sat quietly while Poppy poked and muttered to herself.

“I suppose they might have done worse to you,” she said. “I'll send down an ointment for the bruises and scrapes.” Then she tapped his forehead and whispered a spell. He clutched Septima's hand when it stung. The skin around his wound smoothed out and the angry red color of it disappeared.

A few minutes later, Severus and Septima were staring at each other while sitting on his couch. “I just woke up. I had no idea you were gone until I heard you coming down the hall.”

“I don't know how to explain it all.”

She watched various emotions play over his face. “Tell me, if you like.” She looked down at her hands. “Or you don't have to if you don't want to. I don't mean to pry.”

He pulled her close when she said that. “You're so easy on me, Septima, far easier than I deserve.”

“I never know exactly how you want me to be,” she said. “I want to know everything, but I know you like your privacy.”

“My damn privacy has destroyed the family we could have had,” he said. He took a deep breath and said, “You were sleeping so sweetly that I went to take Lupin his Wolfsbane. I was determined that he would understand that you are going to be with me from now on. Plus, there was a safety consideration.”

She nodded. “We wouldn't want a full-strength werewolf wandering the halls of the school.”

“Exactly. When I got to his office, I found a special map that showed me he was headed for the Shrieking Shack. I was nearly killed there by Lupin as a werewolf when we were students. I had to go.”

A wave of worry went through her. “You went back to where you might have been killed!”

“When I got there it was even worse. Sirius Black and three students were there. Our—Miss Granger and her friends Potter and Weasley.”

Septima suddenly felt a pang of worry. “With a convict and a werewolf? Are the students safe?”

“There was quite a bit of scuffle, but I was finally able to apprehend the man who—who...”

Septima knew what he meant. She had long since figured out that his special witch must have been one of those killed when Sirius Black had blasted that London street. “The wizard who killed the witch you love.”

“Yes.”

She folded her hands around herself. “So it's over now?”

“Not hardly.”

A house-elf popped into the room and handed Septima a jar. “Mistress Matron says to puts on all cuts, scrapes, and bruises.”

“Thank you,” said Septima as the elf popped away. She turned her attention back to Severus. “More happened?”

“You know Miss Granger has that Time-turner?”

“Yes, and I understand she's been quite careful of it.”

“I think she's used it inappropriately tonight, but she was brilliant. W—her parents should be proud of her. Dumbledore seemed quite pleased when he told me that Black has escaped.”

“So a mad killer is still out on the loose?”

“No—yes! The killer is still out there, but it turns out the traitor to the Potters was never Black.”

She looked at the jar in her hands. Was he so tired that he was getting confused? “You're going to have to explain that one to me.”

“We all thought that Black had blasted Peter Pettigrew and a street full of bystanders. Black's story, tonight, was that Pettigrew had been the traitor, Pettigrew had killed all those people, and Pettigrew has been living all these years, often within this castle, in an Animagus form.”

She waved the jar in her hand and nearly dropped it. She had forgotten it was there. “Is any of that true?”

“Dumbledore believes Black.”

A/N: Thank you to Kyria of Delphi and Owlbait for the beta reading!