Falling For

Tonks and Lupin, my old Defence Against Dark Arts teacher for my fifth year, had birthed a child. Not that I had ever met the mother, but I heard from George that she was a sweet hearted woman who liked a good laugh. She seemed terribly lovely from all the stories that were told.

The thought of new life in such a dark time inspired George to think of the future instead of the end. He poured over ideas of where we were going to live, and where we what we were going to name our children. I think we decided on Derrick if it was a boy, and Winnifred if it was a girl – we knew that Fred had to get a kick out of that.

He spent his days kissing my neck and brushing my hair with his lazy fingers, and when he wasn’t with me he was with his family. It had balanced out perfectly, pulling us out of the storm that had been lurking in our minds for months. It was like he was George again – that goofy boy that I seduced after a school dance. He was my beautiful man, who laughed at my stupid jokes and still managed to keep calm when I cried.

April was ending and we were heading towards summer, the whole atmosphere beginning to feel a bit less desperate. Sun was shining through our windows and bringing out a luscious shine in our floorboards.

Noël, who had suddenly stopped going to work, returned home each day with a worried look on his face. His eyes, that were once such a lovely bright blue, were now dull and bored looking. He wouldn’t tell me where he had been all day, but when I left him to sit alone in the parlour he would sit and stare at the pictures of his family.

One night though, probably the 28th of April (looking back on my diaries I was more than worried about Noël at this point), he sat me down next to him.

“Mignon,” he said, taking my hands in his “I am worried about you.”

“About me?”

“Well, about everyone, really.” He paused. “But you specifically. You’re very small and weak and I don’t think you’re living right.”

He let my hands go and returned them to his lap. His face screwed up and he pushed his hair back off of his forehead.

“What are you trying to say? If this is about this whole ‘you and me’ thing, I really don’t think this is the time to be talking about it…--“

“No, no, definitely not! Listen, listen…” he leant back on the couch “I’ve been dealing with all these muggle borns… the ones who get locked in their houses and can’t get food or water. Some are hurt from escape injuries but most are just scared.”

“And what does this have to do with me?” I asked, leaning forward and scanning his face. “And are you safe looking after these people? You’re fullblood, you shouldn’t be risking your safety like this.”

“Well you let your boyfriend and his family do it, so why can’t I?” He sniffed at me and I let my eyes widen. Noël never really sniped a comment at me. It was different. “What I’m saying is, is that if you’re going to be involved in a main circle of this war, you need to know how to protect yourself.”

“I’ve already been over this with Fleur, Noël. I have been practising my defence skills.” He was getting so worked up over nothing. It was beginning to worry me, the way his eyes were so wide and pleading.

“But can you look after yourself if you’re hurt? What if George lost another ear in battle and you were the only one there?” He breathed deeply. “Could you save him if he was going to bleed to death?”

“Noël, calm down! Of course I don’t know how to! But that’s not the point here, because we won’t be getting into any trouble. By the rate George is talking about his brother and his friends, there’s a good chance we’ll win this thing.”

“You’re too optimistic for your own good.” His words stung me, like George’s all those nights ago. I didn’t think I looked so calm all the time. I just wanted to keep spirits high so we all didn’t drown ourselves again. “I want you to learn a few spells. Healing spells… Just a few to keep you safe… and to keep others safe. It probably wont happen but if it does, I know you, and you’ll never forgive yourself if something goes wrong.”

His eyes ran over my face, looking for any sort of emotion. The only thing I could offer was a reluctant acceptance, my neck creaking to nod at him. From his lips escaped a breath of worried air.




A few days later I was told Gringotts had been broken into. As I read the front page, Noël just sat there staring at me from the lip of his tea. I paused every few sentences, knowing that he was not really listening to me. He just had this look on his face, like he had run a whole marathon and came only second place. When I finished my paragraph, he placed his mug down and shut his eyes, rubbing his temples with his slender fingers.

It was not like him to be so quiet. Sure, his lack of voice was something that was normal, but today it was like all he could do was think. Even on bad days he could manage a word or two.

I watched him, waiting for him to comment on the story that I had just told. He didn’t bite though, he just let his eyes snap towards mine and let them naturally widen.

“We have somewhere to go.” He suddenly stood up and tapped his hands on his thighs. “We have somewhere to be and we should be packing.”

“Where are we going?” I sniffed at him, giving him an ‘I think you’re crazy, Noël’ look.

“Hogwarts.”

“What?”

He said nothing and paced off down the hall. I followed after him, placing the paper on the bench near the kitchen archway. He fled into his bedroom, opening the linen closet and pulling out sheets and blankets. He threw them into his old Hogwarts trunk. I watched as they tumbled somewhere into the abyss of the never-ending box, Noël skimming past me to raid his bathroom of bandages and small vials of potions I could not pronounce.

“Why are we going to Hogwarts, Noël?”

He stopped to look at me for just one second.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for a while now, Mignon. I’ve been tracking this so closely it’s like my brain is about to melt!” He ran his hands through his hair. “A while back I treated a young girl at the hospital who had splinched herself. We had a big conversation about how worried she was about the war and I ended up telling her that I was looking after Muggle Borns… She took a fancy to me, I assume, and gave me this galleon that flashes and blinks and tells me all these things… this morning it invited me to Hogwarts. It says that we have to join the cause to fight… fight for our freedom.”

I was leaning against the doorway, finally taking in what he was saying. I remember George fiddling with a galleon one day, the spinning words that trimmed the edges just whispers of worried students. I leant over and took him by the shoulders.

“Why am I going?”

“Because I am going to be running a hospital in one of the classrooms. We’ll need to secure one at first, and that is why I need you. You know more about defensive spells than I do, and I know more about medicinal spells than you. This could be a good thing to have in this situation.”

“What situation, Noël? When did you get this message?”

“About half an hour ago. We need to get there as soon as possible.”

“You’re scaring me, Noël.” I warned him and he leant forward quickly, placing his forehead against mine. His nose brushed against mine and I could feel the soft wisps of his breath on my lips.

“We have to do all we can for the people that have cared for us the most.” He shook me a little “I’m sure everyone that has had even the tiniest part in this war will be there, and I know that You-Know-Who will not go down without a fight.” His eyes were bearing into mine. I couldn’t help but widen my own, my heart racing like a steam-powered muggle down this strange track that I realised was better than I had ever expected. “We have to be there, Mignon. We have to protect the people that have been protecting us.”

He pulled back suddenly and I found myself reaching for him, faintly touching his shoulder. He lurched around suddenly and grabbed me, holding me against the sink. I didn’t know what I had gotten myself into and I couldn’t place a finger on what exactly I was feeling at that point in time. I wanted to run away and hide but yet the little strands of his brown hair that fell into his eyes made my thighs squeeze together.

To take time to explain the feelings that overwhelmed me in that moment, all I can really say is that I had never felt anything close to what I felt when Noël’s hands were on the bare skin of my hips. The look in his eyes was the single most intense bond I had shared with someone. All I wanted to do, if I didn’t have the guiltiest, heaviest heart a split second after thinking it, was kiss him.

“No time for this, Mignon.” He turned his head away, his face suddenly clouded with shame. “We will talk about this when we get home.”

I nodded, shuddering at his absence when he swept off down the hall to find our wands. My heart was beating overtime and my stomach wanted to fall out in the most gruesome way possible. All I felt was this sickening guilt tinged with the slightest bit of longing.

But I regained whatever conscience I had and crept into Noël’s bedroom to close the trunk, only to push it into the hall. He found me and snapped it open once more before piling more clothes, rags and vials in, handing me my wand. I tucked it into my jeans and his eyes flashed one more time. “Ready?”

The adrenalin that was suddenly rushing through my body made me feel like I wanted to die. My eyes squeezed shut and I nodded. He took my hand and the trunk, squeezing me off between space with him. At that moment of limbo, I realised that things weren’t going to be the same after that day. Nothing was going to stay the same.