Fire and Water

Chapter Thirty



She had thought she was ready, but hearing him say that it was time, she realised she’d been kidding herself. She sat up quickly, and crossed her arms across her chest.

‘I know I owe you answers, and I really did think I was ready to give them to you,’ she said softly, her face strained as she bit her lip. ‘But I don’t think I can - not yet.’



Remus stared at her, trying to control his sudden anger and frustration. ‘I need to know, Krystal,’ he said, his voice hard now.

‘I know,’ she whispered, looking at the ground. ‘It’s taken a long time for me to even remember it all, Remus, and seeing you again…. Can you just give me another day to get it all straight in my head?’

‘No,’ he said, suddenly impatient, and not listening to what she was saying. ‘I can’t. You’ve had eighteen years to get it sorted. Tonks and I are getting married in a week. I need to be able to move on, to leave you behind. I need to know why you did it at least. Why you betrayed us.’

He saw the pain on her face as he spoke, and he was shocked to realise he had wanted to hurt her with his words.



‘You’re getting married so quickly?’ she said, her voice faint.

‘We don’t see the point in waiting,’ he answered, resenting her for the bolt of doubt that now shot through him. Krystal bit her lip again, and this time he saw a drop of blood bead there. She must have felt it too: her tongue quickly flicked at her lip and Remus felt heat in his groin.

‘I’ve only ever seen you so impulsive once before,’ she said, with a frown. ‘You’ve either changed, or you must really l…love her.’

Her tongue tripped over her words, as she felt a horrible hollow feeling in her stomach. He’d asked her to marry him at school - so impatient when she kept convincing him to put it off.



Remus also felt like he’d been punched in the gut, but for a different reason. He didn’t love Tonks, not the way he should; not the way he loved Krystal when he‘d proposed to her. Tonks loved him, and he wanted to make her happy. When she had proposed to him, he’d been overwhelmed. He was only just getting used to being with someone other than Krystal; and he knew he didn’t love her. But he had to try and move on, so he’d agreed. Now he felt regret for his spontaneous decision.



‘Neither of us are the same as we were, Krystal,’ he said, looking at her, his anger fading when he saw the absolute misery on her face. He felt an urge to hold her, to kiss her sorrow away. He took a breath.

‘How about I tell you what I know, and you can fill in the blanks for me?’ he said, a little more gently.

She nodded, finally accepting that he wasn’t going to let it go. That he needed his answers to get on with his life. She couldn’t take it back, but she could help him move on.



They looked at each other silently for what seemed like an eternity, neither knowing where to begin. Krystal finally tore her gaze away from his, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She felt his eyes still on her. “Go ahead, yell at me. There is nothing you can say to me that I don‘t deserve, or that I haven‘t said to myself,” she said miserably.



He frowned and looked up at the stars dotting the sky overhead. Now she’d agreed to tell him what he wanted, he didn’t think he really wanted to know anymore.

“I honestly don’t know what I want or what I feel,” he said eventually, shaking his head.

“I never believed you were dead. Don‘t ask me why, I just didn‘t. I spent a long time looking for you, Krystal, trying to persuade Dumbledore to tell me what had really happened.”

Krystal looked at him, blinking hard when she heard the hurt in his voice.

“But he stuck to the story: that you had been bewitched by the Dark Side, that you had taken the Mark and turned your back on m…….on us,’ he said, stumbling over his words.

“That you were killed in an attack on a half blood, that there was nothing left of you.’



He swallowed hard and continued. “Lily was devastated. It took James a long time to convince her to let it go, to stop asking why. Sirius…….he was shattered. He drank a lot, until Lily got pregnant and told him to get his act together so he could be a godfather. Dumbledore was convincing. The others believed him. Why wouldn’t they? After what you did…..’

He stopped talking and shook his head, his anger getting the best of him again.



‘It nearly killed me, Krys,’ he said, his voice harsh with pain. ‘Losing you like that. To think that in all that time, I hadn’t really known you. I never wanted to believe Albus. It didn’t make sense - they weren’t talking about the girl I knew. The girl I loved.’

His eyes closed for a moment, then he looked at her. Her own eyes had closed to hold back tears and she now lowered her head to her bent knees.

‘But eventually, Sirius and Lily persuaded me to stop looking for you; told me that I was only prolonging the grief….’



He stared at her bent head, carefully controlling his voice, as he asked, “Would you show me your arm?”

Krystal held out her arms, not raising her head. Taking a breath, he reached over and pushed both of the sleeves of her shirt up past her elbow. He let out the breath he’d been holding in one short, relieved blast. There was no Dark Mark on her skin.



He looked at her, her head still bent. “Look at me, Krystal. Please.“

Swallowing her despair, she faced him; ready to tell him what he needed. “I don’t understand. Why would you suddenly do that - turn to You Know Who; turn against us.” He let out a shaky breath, and she noticed his hands trembling.

‘You knew what you were there to do that night? You knew it was us? You went willingly with Snape?



“Yes, I knew,” she said softly, her voice shaking. Remus shook his head.

“And you were happy to just go along with it?” he said, disbelief dripping from every word.

“Happy?” She stood up abruptly and stared down at him, her temper flaring.

“No, Remus, I wasn’t ‘happy’ about it. I wasn’t ‘thrilled’ to be told to hurt my friends; I wasn’t ‘overjoyed’ to be told to torture the man I wanted to marry….”

She choked back the misery that had risen in her throat, and ran her hand across her face. Remus stood as well, standing silently watching her, his expression pained.



‘I can’t offer you any peace, Remus,’ she said in a tired voice, looking back up at him. ‘I can only try to explain what happened; why I did what I did. I‘m not offering any excuses, what I did was inexcusable. But I‘ll tell you the truth.’



He nodded, saying, ‘I need to know everything. I need answers, Krys.’

She bit her lip at his use of her nickname, a tremor running through her as she remembered how he used to whisper it in her ear. Pushing the memory away, she took a deep breath and began to speak.



“I know you always wondered why, after we left Hogwarts, I didn’t join the Order straight away when you and the others did?’

She saw him nod, looking a little puzzled by her change of direction, and continued, trying to sort her muddled thoughts into some order.

“Albus wouldn‘t let me. He told me he’d received information that Vol….You Know Who planned on trying to recruit me for his side. I told Albus that I would never fight with him, but he still refused to allow me to join. You remember how dark I became in Sixth Year?’

Remus nodded, feeling a little guilt still over how much he’d hurt her back then.

’He didn’t trust me not to fall back into that darkness if things went wrong. I think he knew me better than I knew myself,’ she said, her voice lowering in shame. “He knew I was weaker than the rest of you, that I would fail you…”



Krystal stopped and rubbed at her face, trying to regain some control over herself. She had spent years trying to drag herself out from under all the self recriminations she’d buried herself in, she didn’t want to do that again. Remus watched her, crossing his arms across his chest to stop himself from reaching out for her.

“Albus was right,’ she said. ‘You Know Who sent a envoy the next night to try and convince me I should join him, that I could have more power than I knew what to do with if I came over to his side. I sent him away, but he warned me that You Know Who wanted me, and he would do whatever it took to get me to cross over.



Remus interrupted. “He came to you? You didn’t go to him?’ He was surprised at the sense of relief he felt.

She nodded, watching him silently as he spoke again. ‘Snape was the envoy?’ he guessed, with a frown.

She nodded again. “Albus warned me that the Death Eaters could come after my parents if I refused him,’ she said, seeing his startled gaze.

’He got them to a safe house, but he didn’t know there was a traitor in the Order - Peter; that the little bastard had already given You Know Who the addresses of all the safe houses, and Bellatrix was waiting there for word of what I’d decided. As soon as the Dark Lord found out I had refused him, she took them - my mum and dad.”



She closed her eyes and held her lips together tightly, not wanting to allow a single sign of weakness to escape. She didn’t want him to feel sorry for her. This was about giving him answers, and he needed to know everything.

“Did you know they’d been killed? Do you know what they did to them - to my parents?” she asked him quietly.

He shook his head, speechless with shock, involuntarily taking a step towards her. He knew her parents had died, but he hadn‘t known that they‘d been murdered; he was told it was a car accident months later.

‘God, Krys. I‘m sorry. I didn‘t know,’ he said, wanting to reach out for her, to comfort her. Why had Dumbledore kept this from him? He knew how close she’d been to her parents; it must have been devastating for her to lose them.



Krystal took a deep, shaking breath. ‘Severus took me to them; they were in their house. They returned their bodies because they wanted me to see what they could do; what they would do.’ She swallowed hard.

‘I didn’t recognise them. Albus told me later the Ministry had to use their medical and dental records to identify them, they were so disfigured.’



Remus was in shock and didn’t even try to stop himself. He went to her and she felt his hand grip her shoulder tightly.

“I made Severus tell me what the Death Eaters did to them before they died. They tortured them; they forced them to torture each other by telling them they would kill me if they didn‘t. They raped my mother, and made my father watch. In just hours, they destroyed their minds.”



She looked up at him, her face wracked with grief and a tear rolled down her cheek. She impatiently wiped it away.

“I was just about holding on, you know. I might have been ok still,’ she said, beginning to pace. “But Severus told me that if I refused You Know Who again…..’

She stopped and looked up at him, a plea in her eyes.

“They wouldn’t give up, Remus. They weren’t going to stop until I agreed.”

Her face began to collapse before she turned her face away. When she looked back at him, her eyes were shining, but she was more composed.

“If I didn’t agree to join him, you were going to be killed next.”



Remus felt another wave of shock roll over him. His mouth opened but he couldn’t get any words out. No one had ever told him; Dumbledore had never told him. Even though he had asked him, no, begged him for details about why Krystal had turned against them. He felt his shock turn to anger towards the man, which he struggled to contain as Krystal continued.

“If there hadn‘t had been a full moon that night, I would already have been trying to identify your body as well as my parents. And if I still didn‘t agree, who would have been next? Sirius, or Lily, or James?”



“God, it hurt so much, Remus,’ she cried, the words sounding as if they were torn from deep inside her. She sank to the ground, drawing her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them as the pain rose in her, as fresh as the night it had all happened.

“I didn‘t think I could survive it; I didn’t want to survive it.’



Remus crouched in front of her, his own heart aching. He had loved her parents as well, and knew how devastated she must have been to see them like that; to know that she may have to see him like that.

“But then, after Sev said they were coming after you, I felt like a switch was flipped inside me. Suddenly I wasn’t hurting anymore; I wasn’t angry anymore. Everything seemed so clear - like I knew what I had to do.’

She paused. ‘It wasn’t only my parents’ minds they destroyed that night,’ she whispered, not seeing his stricken look at her words.

‘Everything was dark, so dark and cold. It consumed me. It frightened me that I could just lose myself like that. But as long as I didn‘t fight it, I was numb. I didn’t hurt anymore. And I didn’t want to hurt anymore, so I let myself get taken over. I was weak.’ She raised her head and looked him in the eye.



“If I could change what I did…..”,’ she began, but he interrupted her.

“You could have talked to one of us; to me. If you’d told me, you know I would have helped you through it; we could’ve fought him together.”

She shook her head vigorously and took his face in her hands, desperate to make him understand. “There wasn’t time! This all happened so quickly, Remus. After they found my parents, I didn’t know who to trust anymore. The only person I knew was on my side was you, but I couldn’t contact you. You were transformed when I made my decision and I couldn‘t go back after that.’



He still looked as though he was going to argue with her, but she got in first.

‘They knew where you transformed and they were there; outside, waiting for you; and the moment you changed back, they would have taken you. You would have been so tired, so weak. You couldn’t have fought them. They hate half breeds Remus: they would have destroyed you.’



Uncertainty crept across Remus’ face. He was beginning to understand. Krystal took her hands off his face and continued.

“Sev told me to run, told me to leave. But I couldn’t. You Know Who would have killed you all one by one to get me to come back - I couldn’t trust the Order to keep you safe anymore. And what about my parents? If I ran away, they had died for nothing. I wanted to protect you all; I wanted to kill Bellatrix and the others who had done that to mum and dad.’

She stopped, her face contorted as she said, ‘I told Sev I’d join You Know Who if he called the Death Eaters off you all.’

She stopped talking when he held up a shaking hand, needing a minute to take in what she was telling him. His breath escaped in a short, sharp blast as his mind struggled to accept that everything he thought he knew was wrong.



‘How did you know he wouldn‘t betray you; that he wouldn‘t tell You Know Who what you were up to?” he said finally, his voice shaking slightly.

Krystal sighed. ‘I know you’ve never understood our friendship,‘ she said. ‘It is a…..complicated relationship. But I know him, Remus. I knew he would help me. I think he was in deeper than he wanted to be.‘ She sighed again. Sev’s choices had been just as bad as hers

‘I wanted revenge. I wanted to hurt those who hurt my family, who threatened my friends. Severus was my way to get to them. You Know Who never would have believed I was on their side if he hadn’t helped me, Remus. When I told him what I wanted to do; he knew what sort of task I would have to do to show my loyalty, and he tried to talk me out of it. When he couldn’t, he agreed to help me.”



Krystal stood now, walking away from Remus until she was standing in the shadows. “It was Bellatrix’s idea; making me torture you all myself to prove that I was ready to leave you all behind; ready to join the Dark Lord.” She shuddered as the name of the woman who’d helped kill her parents passed her lips and pulled a hand over her head, dislodging some strands of hair from her ponytail.

‘I wasn’t supposed to leave you alive,’ she whispered, seeing him close his eyes tight. ‘I was supposed to kill you all.’



She shook her head and took a deep breath. “I couldn’t do it. I told Severus I couldn’t, but…….. he said that you’d all be killed by the Death Eaters anyway; that I’d be killed; that he had an idea.”

She began to pace the grass again, unable to stand still. “Sev told You Know Who that he wanted to be the one to go with me; that he wanted to watch while I completed my task and, given that he despised James and Sirius, You Know Who allowed him.”



She tried desperately to blink back the tears she couldn’t stand for him to see. She twisted her hands together, continuing to move.

“He made sure I hurt you all enough to make it look convincing, then told You Know Who that some of the Order had come looking for you; that we had to get out of there before we‘d finished. He helped me afterwards when I couldn‘t stop vomiting and carried me back to his house when I couldn’t walk. He altered my memory so that when the Dark Lord took it, he saw me enjoying hurting you all; saw some of the Order interrupting us; saw us leaving before we could finish our job.”

She stopped, her body now shaking badly, the hated tears again rising. Remus’ mind was whirling: he’d always thought Snape was taunting her that night, but he’d been helping her, making her do what they were supposed to do to save all of their lives.



“If it weren’t for him, they would have known I wasn’t loyal; you would have been taken; I would have been killed.’ She looked over at him. ‘Because I couldn’t have done it. I had enough trouble doing what I did; living with what I did.’ Her last words were spoken quietly, but he heard them.



He frowned but she continued before he could speak. “You Know Who wanted to give me the Dark Mark as soon as he could - that night, in fact. He wanted to brand me as his own. I….’ She frowned, recalling entering the Dark Lord’s mind.

‘I broke into his mind. I planted the suggestion that he should wait until the next night. There was no way I was letting him mark me as his.’

Her lip trembled and her expression changed from one of disgust to fear. ‘I saw things in his head……things I wish I hadn’t seen; things no one should have to see.’

She ran shaking hands over her eyes and forehead, trying to forget the depravity she’d seen in his mind.

‘I managed to convince him that he wanted to wait, and Sev helped me get to Antolli and Crank the next day; I knew that they’d helped Bellatrix murder my parents that night.”



Her eyes closed against the memory of what she had done. “I killed them, Remus.” she said, her voice trembling. She opened her eyes and stared right at Remus, who looked pained. “I killed them, and do you know what? That is the only part of all of this that I don‘t regret.”



She didn’t know how much longer she could remain standing, her whole body was shaking. “But I made a mistake. Bellatrix was supposed to be with them but she wasn’t.’ She let out a bark of hysterical laughter. “She was running late.”

Her laughter faded and she shook her head, grasping the back of her neck. “I couldn’t believe it. Everything I’d done; everything Sev had risked; all for nothing. Bellatrix would know that it was me that killed them and You Know Who would do worse to us than either of my parents suffered.”

Her jaw clenched. Remus was still standing in the same spot, his face now in shadow. She started pacing again, her shaking legs making it difficult, but she couldn’t stay still any longer.



“Sev had a Plan B in case something went wrong. He knew Bellatrix would be there at any moment. He gave me a potion, Draught of the Living Death. Then he told me to hurt him; make it look as though we’d battled. He hit me with something; a spell.’

She paused for a moment and touched her stomach, remembering the pain that had ripped through her and the scar she still bore.

“When we heard Bellatrix arrive, I took the potion. Severus waited until she could hear him and then cursed me. The Killing Spell - with his wand pointing at the ground. When Bellatrix ran into the room, she saw what we wanted her to see. I was dead. Killed by Severus Snape.”



She wrapped her arms around herself. She felt chilled to the bone. “He returned later that night with Albus and gave me the counter potion. Sev contacted Albus at my request; I knew he was the only one that You Know Who couldn‘t get to and I had to know if you were all safe; if I had done enough to protect you. I think I knew in my heart he couldn’t have been the spy, and I knew he could try and hide you all, if You Know Who didn’t believe I was dead.’



A shaky breath escaped as she remembered how panic stricken she had been. So worried that You Know Who would take his anger out on her friends.

‘Albus arranged for me to leave the country, and he promised me he’d watch over you all,’ she said.

She glanced over at him, her eyes grief-stricken. “I wanted to contact you, Remus. I begged Albus to let me, at the very least to try and explain, but he convinced me it would have put you in too much danger if you knew the truth; that you would already be a target if You Know Who didn‘t accept I was dead.’ Her lips shook as she spoke.

“I loved you too much to let them hurt you anymore; I‘d already hurt you enough.” She could see the pain in his face.

‘So I made him promise that he would tell you that story; that he would never let you know what had really happened. If I couldn’t come back to you, I wanted you to be able to hate me; to believe I was dead; to be able to get on with your life and forget about me.”



Her voice broke and a sob escaped, though she quickly tried to stifle it. He finally moved until he was standing right in front of her - only inches away. She stared at the ground, unable to face him, as she felt her grief cracking through the walls she had put up all those years ago. Remus, sensing this, bought up both his hands to cup her shoulders, physically and emotionally supporting her even though she knew she didn’t deserve his help.



“I wouldn’t have cared about the danger, Krys. I just wanted to be with you, even if it meant spending our lives on the run.’

He felt another silent suppressed sob shake her and grasped her face, making her look up at him. He saw the tears she’d always hated shedding had begun to run down her cheeks, and could feel his own escaping.

‘I loved you, Krys,’ he whispered. ‘I would have understood. I would have forgiven you anything.’



Krystal shook her head. ‘There was a traitor, Remus,’ she reminded him. ‘We didn’t know it was Peter, but we knew there was someone who was feeding You Know Who information. If you had disappeared at the same time I had, they would have known I wasn’t really dead, and they would have used the others to get to us; they would have hunted us for the rest of our lives. I didn’t want that kind of life for you.’

She saw her words shake him as he remembered that he had said that very thing once to her. Krystal could see that he understood now, and noticed several more tears streak down his face. Her lip shook, hating seeing his distress.

‘I thought you’d turned on us,’ he said, so softly she could barely hear him. ‘That I loved you so much I hadn’t seen the part of you that could do this; that you hadn’t ever really lov…..’

His mouth shook and he clenched his jaw as he finally put voice to his greatest fear - that she’d never loved him.



‘The one thing I was so afraid of all these years was knowing that you must have thought that I had never really loved you,‘ she said, unable to hold back her tears anymore, and they flowed unchecked down her face.

‘I did,’ she said shakily. ‘I loved you too much to let that be your end, to let you die for me. I’m sorry, Remus. I’m sorry I hurt you; that I did this the way I did. But I‘d do it again in a second, because you and the others were safe. You had a chance to go on, and live your lives. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy.’



****



Inside The Burrow, Harry felt cold. He couldn’t comprehend what he’d just overheard. He looked at Ron and Hermione who each held an Extendable Ear in their hand as they crouched next to him in the hall. Their pale faces echoed the shock he felt, and Hermione’s face was wet with tears.

“She tortured your parents?” Ron asked in a frightened voice. Harry shook his head in disbelief.



When they had seen Krystal and Lupin talking outside, the trio had thought they would use the eavesdropping device to hear more about Krystal’s plans for them tomorrow. They never dreamed that they would overhear such a private conversation; or one that would disturb them so completely.

“We can’t tell them we heard that,” said Hermione, quickly wiping her face. “Krystal is trying to help us…” Her voice trailed off as she saw the look of anger on Harry’s face. “I know you want some answers Harry, but we were never supposed to hear this - Lupin told us not to ask; he’d be so angry if he knew..”



“If who knew what?” They hadn’t noticed Mrs Weasley come into the hall. All three of them stared at her for a moment; speechless. Then Hermione held up the Extendable Ears.

“Fred and George,” she said. “Crookshanks was playing with one of their products.” Mrs Weasley waved her hand

“Let him eat it!” she said and turned to walk into the kitchen, not seeing the impressed look Ron was giving Hermione. She shrugged modestly and followed Mrs Weasley.

Ron, his stomach letting out a loud growl, stood. “You coming, mate?” he asked Harry. He nodded and said, “In a second.”

He waited until Ron disappeared lifted the Extendable Ear and held it to his own again, looking out at Remus and Krystal.



Remus needed to know one more thing. ‘The night you left,’ he said quietly, looking into her eyes. ‘You told me to ask you again.’

Krystal felt fresh tears welling up as she saw uncertainty and hurt in his eyes. ‘It wasn’t a trick, or a lie, Remus. I wanted you to ask me,’ she whispered. ‘I would have said yes. I wanted to be your wife more than anything.’

She could no longer hold the pain back when she remembered why he had insisted on them talking tonight. He loved someone else; he was marrying someone else.



‘Remus, is that enough for now?’ she asked, her voice shaking hard as she tried not to break down completely. ‘Please? I can’t….’

She shook her head. He could see her distress, and realised she had nothing left to give him tonight.

‘That’s enough,’ he said softly.

She tried to smile at him, but failed. She walked past him towards the house.



Harry was a little stunned as he listened to the last piece of their conversation. They were supposed to get married. No wonder they both looked in such pain around each other. He saw Krystal walk past Lupin, towards the house. Remus, his face tormented and struggling for control, stood watching her for a moment as she walked away from him, then he turned and stepped out of the house enchantments.



As she got closer to the house, Harry saw the tear tracks on Krystal’s face and the grief that etched furrows in her brow, and the last remnants of his anger faded. He realised that, for now, Hermione was right. He couldn’t ask her about what he’d heard. He didn’t want to add any more pain to her face. Ducking into the kitchen as the front door opened, he sat at the table as Krystal disappeared up the stairs. His questions could wait.



Remus walked for a long time after he left The Burrow. His mind was racing. Now he had his answers; knew why Krystal had done it. He had seen her pain tonight. So long after her parent’s death, her grief was still so raw; he could only imagine how overwhelming it must have felt all those years ago. He felt a fresh surge of anger at Dumbledore. If only the man had told him Krystal had been in danger, that he and their friends had been threatened; that she’d had no choice. If only Albus had told him she was alive.



He realised as soon as he saw her Patronus, that, no matter how much he thought he had, he’d never accepted she was dead - maybe it had just been wishful thinking or maybe they really had that strong of a connection, he didn‘t know. Back then, he had been in love with her - crazy, madly, deeply in love; and her supposed betrayal had very nearly destroyed him. For so many years, he’d ripped himself apart trying to figure out what he hadn’t seen, what he’d missed, something that would have warned him about Krystal’s treachery. But now he knew why she’d done it. However misguided, she had done what she did to save him; she’d done what she did out of love.



When Tonks arrived at his house looking for him, she found Remus sitting in the dark on the couch with a glass of Firewhiskey in his hand. She switched the light on and was shocked by the look on his face. “What’s happened?” she said, moving quickly to his side.

“It’s alright,” he told her. “I just….. I need to tell you something.” She sat and listened as he told her about Krystal; about all that had happened.



When he finished talking, she sat in silence for several minutes. Finally she shook her head. “How could she have done that to you?” she said angrily. Remus shook his head, standing up and pacing.

“She was trying to protect us. She felt like she had no choice: she had to join him or see us all killed.”

Tonks frowned. “She wanted revenge; she wanted to kill those Death Eaters that murdered her parents!’ she said.

Remus stopped in front of her, saying, “Her parents were reduced to lumps of flesh, you can’t blame her for wanting to fight back. This was the only way she could see to stop it.”

Tonks made a sceptical noise. “By hurting people who cared about her? She hurt you, Remus! How could she do that to someone she said she loved?”



Remus looked at her. ‘She was only a small child when all this occurred,’ he realised. Their age difference had always niggled at him, and suddenly she seemed very young.

“There was a war going on,’ he said flatly. ‘We all did things we weren‘t proud of. Not all choices are simple.”

He frowned as he remembered Lily telling him that Krystal had said those words to her that night. Now he realised she’d been giving them a clue, unconsciously maybe, but she hadn’t wanted them to believe her capable of this. But they had. And maybe, by believing she was, they’d betrayed her as much as they thought she’d betrayed them.

Tonks stood up and glared at him. “I couldn’t do that to you - not to someone I loved.”He looked at her, her words breaking through his reverie.

“Not even to protect me?” he questioned. “Would you hurt me if it meant I got to live?”



She shook her head. “There were other ways. She could have gone to the Ministry….” Remus stared blankly into the fireplace. “She wasn‘t thinking like that,” he said sadly. “She lost her mind. It twisted her; made her irrational. It all happened so quickly, she didn’t have time to sit and evaluate every possible choice, she just reacted.”

Tonks looked at him disbelievingly. “You’re defending her; after what she did to you?” Remus nodded. ‘I understand why she did it,’ he said in a low voice. ‘And I can’t honestly say I might not have done the same in her shoes.’



Tonks sank back onto the couch as Remus poured himself another Firewhiskey. They were both silent for several minutes.

“Do you think you could stay at your parent’s house for a couple of nights?” he asked finally, not looking at her.

“Why? What are you going to do?” she asked, hurt evident on her face.

He looked down at the glass in his hand. “Right now, I am going to get well and truly pissed, and then….” He shook his head and looked up at her.

“I just need to think; to try and sort out my head.” Tonks breath caught in her throat. She had never seen the usually cool and calm Remus like this - so unnerved and unsettled.



She always knew he had a side to him he didn’t let her see, but now, looking into his eyes, she was frightened to see the shadows that stirred there; to see the side of him that could understand the desperation that could drive someone to torture the people they loved. She stood and went to the bedroom they’d been sharing to pack a few things. When she came out again, he hadn’t moved. He was still standing, staring into the fireplace holding his drink. He didn’t look at her as she went to the door and stopped. She had to ask before she left. The question that had been bothering her since he first mentioned Krystal. The way he said her name; the way he talked about her disturbed her.



“You told me you never thought she was really dead?“ He nodded. “She’s the reason you didn’t want to get involved with me, isn’t she? The reason you’ve never gotten close to anyone else? You were waiting for her to come back?”

He looked up at her; she saw the misery in his face. “Tonks…” he began.

She shook her head. “I want to know; I need to know,” she insisted.

He stared at her, his answer written all over his face. “Not consciously but, I think so. Yes.”



Her breath came out in a rush as she felt his answer knock the wind out of her. “Do you still have feelings for her?” she asked hesitantly.

Remus had hoped she wouldn‘t ask. He tried a delaying tactic.

“Nothing was ever resolved between us. One moment we were together, the next it was over. It ended so violently; so quickly,” he said.

“I need you to answer me,” she said, distressed by his attempt to avoid the question. “Do you have feelings for her?”

He closed his eyes and nodded. ‘Yes. Yes I do,’ he admitted. ‘I’m not sure what it is I’m feeling right now but….I loved her for a long time, Tonks. Seeing her again….I can’t just turn it all off.’



“Are you still in love with her?” she whispered, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer.

He couldn’t look at her as he responded sadly, “I love the girl I used to know - I don‘t know if she even exists anymore. I don‘t know what I feel for this woman who‘s come back, or if there‘s anything left of the Krystal I knew in her. I can‘t give you an answer, Tonks. I just don‘t know anything right now.”



Tonks lip shook and tears rolled down her cheeks at his words. “Are you going to see her anymore?’ she asked.

He looked at her and nodded. “Harry’s training lessons,’ he said.

‘So, what happens to us?’ she asked, struggling to contain her tears.

Shaking his head, he looked back at the fire. ‘I don’t know. Maybe we should put the wedding back a little?’

He felt awful, knowing he was hurting her. ‘Can we talk again in a day or two?’ He looked up at her and saw her nod.



She looked down and saw something glittering in his hand. He noticed her looking and put his hand in his pocket, turning back to the fire.

Tonks left, and Remus closed his eyes. He had given in to her proposal against his better judgement, knowing that he didn’t love her the way a man should love his wife, and, worse still, that he still loved someone else.

He’d lied to his fiancée tonight. He knew exactly how he felt, how he’d always felt, about Krystal. The moment he saw her last night, he knew that he’d never even begun to get over her. But was Bill right? Was she still the same person he’d loved all those years ago? Or was this a stranger who looked like someone he used to love?



He felt in his pocket and pulled out a fine gold chain with a filigree heart on it. Running his fingers over the delicate charm, he was taken back to the night he gave Krystal this - her seventeenth birthday; just before they fell asleep in each other’s arms. Then, he remembered the night he’d found it in his pocket after she‘d disappeared. He felt hot tears fill his eyes, and he clutched the necklace to his lips as he cried for everything that had been taken from them.