13

Chapter 13 - Borrowed Time

Once upon a time, there lived a woman.

Bold and clever was she, and such was her way that for her, all things were vibrant. In life, she had spent every day and every moment living.

Naomi Lupin was a witch who noticed every detail in her vicinity, but few noticed her, for in the time it took for someone to reach out to her, she was already gone, already off to the next grand discovery.

Her older brother and her professors had known her best. Watching her grow, answering her endless stream of questions, questions that led to more questions as well as questions that had no answers.

After she graduated, someone should have warned her that there were some questions one should not ask. Some stones that should not be turned over, some paths that should not be taken.

But she had, and she had paid for her curiosity in blood and pain under claws and teeth too sharp to be human.

She had not become a wolf, unlike her poor nephew, but she had not escaped unchanged, unmarred.

People noticed her like they never had before. Naomi had never considered herself beautiful, nor had anyone else for that matter, but she hadn't been unseemly either. The werewolf had changed that, and in strangers' eyes she saw that she was both hideous and unwelcome. In loved ones' eyes, she was pitiable and diminished.

It had been a difficult adjustment, it had made her feel, for the first time in her life, truly alone.

Her vibrancy had been coated with grey.

But the scars on her body, her heart, had not deterred her, it had merely proven that the questions she had begun to ask were the right ones. Questions that should not have been asked but had needed to be asked.

And when the long buried secrets finally began to reveal themselves, she knew she could not stay near her family, could not further endanger her brother, sister-in-law, and her dear, dear nephew.

So she had disappeared, left the wizarding world completely, well, almost completely.

Years passed.

The next change that came to her life had been unexpected, unplanned.

That change came in the form of Henry Black Peverell, the town librarian.

He was a stunningly beautiful man, who saw past her scars, saw her as no one ever had. She never met someone like him before, both gentle yet intense, soft-spoken yet direct.

He had stolen her heart that night, and she had invited him home, invited him in.

She had accidentally called him 'Harry' instead of Henry in the heat of the moment. But he had only laughed and kissed her nose when she apologized afterwards, saying that Harry was indeed, a nickname for Henry.

He had made her breakfast in the morning. If he hadn't already seduced her, the sight of him in the sunlight, shirtless, cooking for her the single best breakfast she had ever tasted, she would have been enthralled.

He had left his number.

Naomi didn't call him, though she had wanted to, Harry had made her feel real. But she couldn't put him into harm's way. Not the muggle librarian who deserved someone more beautiful, deserved someone better than her.

And besides, she was so close in her research. So close discovering the impossible.

The day she finally blew the cover off the secrets corresponded with the same day she learned she was pregnant.

It had broken her heart.

In her discovery, she had found her death, certain and assured, she was going to die. And yet in her body she held new life. Naomi had cried herself sick, having no way of knowing if she would live long enough to deliver the child.

She warred with herself for months in whether or not to call Harry. He was a good man, who would have liked to know. But how could she tell him? It would put his life at risk, and she had no way of promising him that there would be a child.

But the months passed and no one came for her, the prospect of becoming a mother became suddenly and immediately real to her.

She was going to have a baby.

She hadn't seen her brother in years, she hadn't been in the wizarding world in years, and it was likely what had kept her alive. Once a witch or wizard immersed themselves in the muggle world, it became nearly impossible to track them. Everyone knew everyone in the wizarding world, even the recluses were known as recluses. Everyone in the wizarding world talked to one another. If she went to her brother, someone would hear about it.

Missing, she was safe, missing, she could stay hidden, and maybe, just maybe, live long enough to see her child grow up.

She grabbed her keys, feeling in her bones, as well as in other places, that the baby was coming today.

Her son. She had only recently gone to the doctors, and they had told her it was a boy.

She let herself absorb that as she drove to the library, it was a Thursday, and she just hoped Henry hadn't closed up early. She still had his number but…

But he was there, locking up, and looking as handsome as she remembered.

She felt suddenly possessive. She knew she wasn't good enough for him, but she wanted him. And she wanted a father for her son.

It had only been one night, one morning, she didn't know him, or rather she didn't know much about him. But she knew he was-

Her water broke.

Taking in deliberately even breaths, she got out of the car.

Harry was already looking at her, looking at her as if she had answered his dearest wish. She saw him see the additional mass of her.

His addition, she thought.

There was so much she wanted to tell him, but what came out was, "I can't do this alone." She leaned back against the car as a spasm of pain shot up her spine.

He ran to her, and in that moment, Naomi fell in love with him.

"Did your water break?" he asked, the open concern on his face made her want to cry.

It had been so long since someone cared. She could only nod.

He offered her his hand, and she took it, feeling both like a thief and reconnected to pulse of the world. He helped her into the backseat. He didn't ask if the baby was his, he didn't reprimand her for driving here, he didn't make assumptions or assertions, he just helped her with a tenderness that remade her.

As he was about to close the door, she caught his wrist and did the single most selfish thing she had ever done. She asked, with more bluntness than she had intended, "Will you marry me?"

"What?" he asked, his emerald eyes going wide. He looked startled but not repulsed.

A wave of pain racked her, she didn't scream, she'd been through worse, but her voice was rough when she repeated, "Marry me."

She watched emotions blow over his face, none of them bad. He looked into her eyes, emerald to honey, he said, "Yes."

The contraction hit her like a blow, she saw spots, but if they were going to do this, she wanted there to be no doubts about who the baby belonged to. The chance that she wouldn't live long enough to be a mother was all to present in her mind, and if she couldn't be there for this new little person, she wanted to gift her son with a father.

She hurt too much to be eloquent, Lyall would have been appalled. Nodding to herself, to the phantom chiding of her brother, she said, "Then drive to the court, I don't want my son to be born a bastard."

Harry, sweet, considerate Harry, attempted to be reasonable, "A hospi-"

Naomi wasn't feeling reasonable. "We are getting married today!" she screamed at him as another wave crested through her body.

The hospital would have been the wiser idea.

She wasn't all that coherent as he worked through paperwork in the town hall parking lot. She could only note the swift proficiency Harry proceded with and the question of if she wanted to take his name.

She did.

Naomi Peverell barely made it through the doors of the hospital when her son started his reach for air.

He was beautiful, their son.

"What do you want to name him?" Harry asked, leaning on the side of the hospital bed, brushing the hair back from her face as the doctors cleaned and checked over their son.

"Don't know," she murmured weakly, "Lupin Peverell."

Harry hmmed, then asked, "First name?" His eyes were bright, and she wished she could focus better.

"History," she said softly, "history and mag- and science were my favourite subjects."

Harry grinned, "History, huh? Well as the town librarian, I'll have you know that your husband knows a lot of historical names."

The delight in the way he said, your husband, warmed her to her toes. Marrying him, had not been a mistake.

"Someone who was a great man," she offered, "an explorer, someone… someone sciencey."

His smile grew, "Sciencey? But not a scientist?"

She nodded, wondering what was taking the doctors so long.

Harry's fingers continued to brush through her hair. She closed her eyes for a moment, relishing his touch. He was, inexplicably hers.

"Er… Theodore Roosevelt? He was America's 26th president and he was an explorer."

Her eyes flicked open and she smiled, "Teddy."

She didn't know all that much about muggle history, but she had made it a point to read up on some major world leaders and events that had happened in the last hundred years. America sounded like an odd, big place, she had always wanted to visit, and maybe if she had she would have investigated-

"He is your son, completely healthy little boy," the doctor said, resting the infant in her arms, "Ten fingers and ten toes."

"Theodore Lupin Peverell," she greeted the child in a whisper. He was so small, but he wiggled around as he been doing in recent months with more strength than such a tiny person she thought should have.

Harry rested his hand over hers hand and over their son's back. "Teddy," he repeated in soft awe.

Her heart lurched. Seeing the way he looked at her son, the way he looked at her holding her son against her scared chest, she was surrounded by more love than she thought she would ever have; her life seemed wasteful until now.

Her desire for life, for a life with her new husband and son, overwhelmed her as Harry kissed the scar on the edge of her ruined lips, then kissed the brow of their newborn. He began to murmur the most lovely endearments to their son, and she knew he would be there, always be there for his son.

And she knew that she would have traded every secret, gone back and have rewritten time itself, to unlearn what she had learned. Harry and Teddy accomplished something Greyback had never been able to achieve.

She was afraid for herself, because for the life she held in her arms, for the man who was beside her she would trade it all to be with them.

oOo

Despite her fear, despite her ever growing wariness of the night, the next few months were the best of her life.

Harry did more than his fair share with the baby care, to the point where she sometimes had to fight to do chores before he got to them. The more she got to know him the more incredible he became. He doted on her endlessly, more so than she imagined any woman who had a 'shot gun' marriage would expect.

But of the things she learned about her husband, that he was an incredible cook, nerdishly studious, and heartbreakingly kind, it was the day Teddy turned his hair pink, then baby blue, then black, then brown, and then resettled on pink that things between them changed.

How does one tell their muggle husband that his baby can change colours because their baby is a wizard because his mother is a witch?

Answer: One's husband struggles with the reverse.

"There's something I have to tell you," they said together.

And both said in a rush before the other could finish, "I'm a witch." "I'm a wizard."

They blinked at each other, "What did you say?"

Then Harry buried his face in against the curve her neck, his body shaking with suppressed laughter. Her own laughter caught her and they both started howling with it. Teddy, their little metamorphmegas- Merlin, he was going to get into such trouble, looked up at his parents with interest.

And then the baby started laughing too, his first laugh.

Naomi and Harry immediately began cooing over him. Teddy, for his part, seemed to fully understand that he was the apple of his parents' eyes and delighted in it.

Later that night she asked, "So, you're a wizard, Harry?"

He chuckled, "You're the first I've told. My foster family knew, of course, and a few of my bullies. Well, they didn't know I was a wizard, but those kids must have realized something amiss. But I never told anyone."

She frowned, "So you didn't go to any of the schools?"

He sighed, "I wish. No, my foster parents wouldn't allow it. I had a trunk of my parents' old things, my father's old wand -or I think it's his, guess it could be my mum's, and their old textbooks."

"Self-taught?" she asked, wondering how powerful he was versus how actually skilled he was. Being self-taught, he could only go so far.

He nodded, "But you went to Hogwarts? What was it like?"

"It's a magical castle," she deadpanned, "with magic."

He tickled her, until she was squeaking and wheezing for breath, "Stop, stop, you'll wake Teddy!" she pleaded.

He kissed her senseless, then nipped her bottom lip, "Tell me about Hogwarts." He stretched out beside her under the covers.

"Well, before that, you should know that Peverell is a family line of one of the oldest purebloods ever. The Peverell's are a part of the Wizarding World fairy tales."

"Are you telling me our son is a lordling?"

She whacked his shoulder, "The lord system was done away with, but you, Mr. Henry Black Peverell, indeed, would have been a lord."

He kissed her cheek, "And you, my Lady."

She giggled, she couldn't help it, he always managed to bring out the softer sides of her.

He wrapped his arms around her, and asked again, "So… Hogwarts?"

She sobered a bit, understanding that being barred from Hogwarts, that staying at home with his foster family, had been a shadow on his life. Who knows who he might have become had he learned magic properly? Though, honestly speaking, she loved him just as he was.

She told him about her years at Hogwarts. Her love of all things magical, how her professors had pushed and challenged her -because she had been 'the Girl-of-Questions,' and her constant strives to keep up with her older brother.

"You have a brother?" he asked cautiously. Neither of them talked much about their families.

He didn't, because she doubted there had ever been love to lose between them, and her, because she was utterly terrified to lose everything.

"Lyall Lupin, and his wife Hope. They are good people." She sighed, "We're estranged. They have a son, Remus, he must be eleven or twelve now. He-" her breath caught, and she felt Harry still beside her. He was incredibly good at reading people, at reading her. "He was turned by a werewolf when he was four years old."

Sorrow crossed Harry's face, "I'm so sorry."

"Lyall…" she shook her head, "Both Lyall and I have made terrible mistakes, Harry."

He traced a scar along her shoulder that spilled down her back, when she shuddered, it wasn't from remembered horror.

She nodded, "It was the same wolf, but I didn't turn when the full moon rose. He didn't bite me deep enough." The last came out more bitter than she had intended.

He pulled her on top of him, cupping her face between his palms, "Naomi, you and Teddy are the very best things to ever happen to me, I am so-" it was his turn to catch his breath. She felt his heart thundering beneath her hands where they rested on his chest, "I am so grateful, for you, for all that you are. I love you."

She saw her tears drop on his cheeks before she felt them. "I love you, too," she croaked, and she hated herself as she leaned down to claim his kiss.

One day she would be taken from him, from them. She could only hope he understood how very much she wanted to stay.

oOo

Six months, six wonderful, unimaginable months with the unexpected love of her life and her son, and it was all borrowed time.

"Naomi," Harry pushed, "come on, come watch the sunset with us, we will make it back before the light disappears."

She wanted to go, she did, she really did, but she was afraid, afraid of the night and the dark. Greyback had gotten her beneath the stars. And tonight her anxiety had risen to a head.

She would have run if she had anywhere to run to. But she knew Harry, he didn't like to leave her to battle her nightmares alone. If she ran, he would tear through Hell and Heaven to find her, and likely get himself killed in the process.

"What is wrong?" he asked, stubborn as ever.

"Nothing more than usual," she lied. She didn't know if she was gifted, but she had a second sense for trouble, normally she would have chased that danger. But after having Teddy, after falling in love with Harry, she cursed every instance she had chosen adventure over sanity.

Harry secured Teddy in his stroller, the baby oddly quiet today, typically Teddy babbled in a constant stream of syllables. It was the music in their lives.

But today he was quiet, and her sense of doom grew. Once they left for their walk, she would ward they property against them specifically.

It would fall when she died.

"Go," she urged, "I'll be here when you get back."

He gave her a suspicious look, crossed the room, lifted her off her feet and kissed her like he meant to burn away the demons.

For a space of racing heart falls, she let herself forget, let herself be loved, and gave back as good as she got.

She nearly stumbled when he lowered her back to the floor.

"Husband," she breathed shakily, "I love you."

He laughed, his emerald eyes bright as sunlit gems, "Wife, I love you, to the moon and back."

"To the moon and back again," she repeated, pulling him down for one last kiss.

oOo

Harry disappeared with Teddy's stroller around the corner when the dark silhouettes popped into the yard.

Oddly, they hadn't waited for nightfall. Sunlight from an orange and gold sunset bathed the room.

All those months being afraid of the dark and she was going to die in the sun. Naomi didn't know if it was a blessing or some perverted joke.

Voldemort walked through her front door, her wards not stopping him at all. She had cast a spell over the house, a complex glamour she had been weaving for weeks. It would not fade when she died. She was pretty sure Harry would figure out how to reverse it. Voldemort wouldn't know there was anything to reverse.

The picture frames were filled with landscapes, owls, and cats. She doubted the Dark Lord would notice that they didn't have a cat. To him and his followers, it would be the house of a single woman living alone.

So long as Harry stayed away long enough.

"Naomi Lupin," the monster in a human body purred.

She had thought Tom Riddle objectively handsome when she had first encountered him. Seeing as he hadn't aged at all, she supposed he was still objectively handsome, with his symmetrical face and thick head of dark hair.

But his eyes were red, and no physical feature could disguise the person he was on the inside.

Harry had taught her that, shown her with every touch and look that who she was, was beautiful.

The reverse was equally true of Lord Voldemort's innards.

"What?" she asked, cocking a hip, "Didn't bring any puppies with you today?" She wasn't unafraid, she was riding a high of anxiety that Harry would come back too soon. She didn't want to die, but she didn't fear it, she feared for her family.

"Crucio," the Dark Lord cast at her almost lazily.

Naomi twisted, avoiding the curse and shot back with her own.

He flicked her spells away, and the next time he cursed her, he got her.

She didn't give him the satisfaction of screaming. His hooded and masked friends laughed at her as she writhed on the ground.

The curse was lifted, and she focused on breathing, before she turned to look up at the monster, "That the best you've got? So basic."

She needed him to kill her quick.

He pulled her up with some levitation spell that felt like a rope around her neck. "I have her, leave," he ordered the others, "the poor Lupin girl, is all by herself."

The Death Eaters disapparated without being told twice.

The invisible rope jerked around her neck, "Why have you kept your silence? I knew the instant you, little minx, learned what you should have kept your nose out of." He took a step toward her, "Why so quiet?"

She spat in his face.

The torture curse hit her with a veracity she had never imagined. She couldn't tell if she screamed or not. One the spell lifted her ears rang as if she were the bell that had been rung.

"Who have you told?" the Dark Lord asked.

She bared her teeth, "Only you and I know, Tommy boy."

Another round of Crucio. At this rate, her mind would snap before he ended her.

"Who have you told?" he asked again in a silken voice.

The sun was setting. She let fear colour her voice, "Please," she begged, though not for her own life, "please, I told no one, no one." She sounded so pitiful, she wanted to puke. Mostly, because even she couldn't tell if it were an act or not.

The invisible rope raised her to her toes. Would she die from suffocation? Hung, good old witch execution style.

"Why not?" he asked, "You could have changed everything."

She met his scarlet gaze, "I was afraid."

He smiled like a cat playing with a chick. "Afraid of what?" he purred, "Afraid of whom?"

She let herself go weak in the knees, her air withheld, she exhaled, "Death."

Something like understanding flashed in the Dark Lord's eyes. He traced a finger across her cheek, "A pity, perhaps you could have been of use to me." His face turned cruel, "But I don't need damaged goods."

The rope dropped. Naomi closed her eyes as she hit the ground, she thought of her precious baby and Harry. Her husband with his raven hair, emerald eyes, and ready smile.

It had been a good life, with more love and joy from start to end than she could have dreamed of. She had been loved and she had in turn loved.

She imagined Harry beside her, reaching out to hold her hand, and with her last breath, she said, "I would have stayed-"

The killing curse ended her instantaneously, and her last thought was lost to the universe. Lord Voldemort left her crumpled on a heap on the ground, the tears cooling on her scarred face.

A sickly green snake and skull floated and coiled above their home. Something he had only seen once before in his life.

"Naomi," Harry asked, then shouted, "Naomi!"

He pulled Teddy from his stroller, and ran toward the house, wand in hand.

The door was unlocked and all the magical wards stripped away.

"Naomi!" he called.

No one answered. Aside from the wrongness that permeated their home and the skull thing floating above the house, there was something different about the living room. He had enough time to register something was wrong with the pictures on the walls and that Teddy's playset was gone, before he saw her.

Time seemed to stop.

Harry forced himself to check the room. He throughout a spell that would inform him of other people or newly placed wards or cursed. Naomi thought he wasn't good at magic, that all he really knew were the parlour tricks he learned for muggle children. She never realized that he was as paranoid as she was.

According to the spell, only he and Teddy were in the house. Harry accioed the stroller into the house, placing their crying son back into the soft blanket nest.

Harry fell to his knees and crawled to his wife. "Naomi, Naomi, Naomi," he spoke the litany under his breath, "Please Naomi…"

He touched her shoulder, and she rolled over limply, as limp as the dead.

"No, no, no," he said, tears blurring his vision. He pulled her into his arms, "Naomi, Naomi, please, you're all I have. You're the only one who-"

He couldn't breathe, he hugged her body to him, rocking her back and forth. Teddy's cries turned into screaming wails. And Harry sobbed with him.

They were alone now. His wife, Teddy's mother, stolen away by a monster.

Harry buried his hand in her hair and pressed his forehead to hers. Collapsing around her, he surrendered himself to a grief he would never recover from.