Clara wants to hear him speak. She needs to hear him speak, more than she needs her next breath. She spent what felt like every moment since their departure waiting for this moment, only for such hopes to be in vain. Even at his arrival, she hadn’t been sure what to expect at the sight of him. Was he there to offer welcome or a warning? The latter had seemed like the far more likely option, given their last interaction. Only at their embrace does she find the assurance she craves, one that confirms this is real, that he has come all this way, to find her. For a moment, wrapped in his arms, she can breathe easy. Even if these moments will be the last she sees of him, for now, it is enough.
“I did try to find you, you know. To try and give you the explanation you deserve, that you still deserve. Hoped I might be able to catch you in one of your usual spots. But after four days of running around London — looking like an absolute fucking tikvenik, I might add — I figured you didn’t want anything more to do with me. And… I understood. I understand. You deserve so much better than that, Alastor. Better than me.” She pauses briefly, thinking upon those days, and how excruciatingly unbearable they had been. The most painful of her transformations paled in comparison, and revisiting them was the last night she wanted to do. But for his sake, she wanted to. She needed to.
Reaching for him, she interlocks her fingers with his, pulling both of their hands against her chest. “I swear to you on my mother and sister, I will tell you everything. Every rotten, dirty and agonizing detail. But it’s probably better we don’t have this conversation out here in the open. Baba Yaga over there looks like she’s about come at us both with her spoon.” Averting her eyes towards the woman who still lurked in the background, Clara wasted no time in glaring at her, shouting at the elderly villager in Bulgarian before offering a particularly obscene gesture before quickly pulling them away. As they entered the clearing towards the woods, an area that is still mostly covered in ash and debris, she reluctantly pulls away from him, turning away completely as she encounters a set of bricks sticking out from the muddy ground beneath them. “Well, here you have it. Where it all began. Where my childhood home was burned to the ground, where the remains of my mother and sister are still buried somewhere, where Greyback gave me every assurance of a better life, all in exchange for…”
“There is no one better for me than you,” he mutters against her onslaught of self doubt, “that’s the thing about it Clara. I’m sorry it took me more than those few days to realize it. That I let you just wander around with nothing to go on and even when the full moon came and I laid the protective enchantments on your door I still didn’t knock. I owed you more. I’m sorry,” he squeezes her hand again, looking into her eyes.
Alastor nods and followers her away from the town center, if that’s what it can even be called. The whole village seems to be built of scraps and left overs, held together with little more than the power of prayer. It was what rose from the ashes of war. He recognized it. The ministry had felt the same in the days after Voldemort’s death. He felt the same when the battles were over and he had to piece himself together. When they reach the ruins of what must have been her childhood home.
“When he took what you had left to give and than kept on taking. That’s what he does. He destroys lives and blames other people for not being the kind of monster he is. I should have. . .” his jaw clenches. What should he have done? Killed him? Taken another life in the name of protecting others? Would that have made a difference for her? They survived without each other, they could again if they had to but he hoped that day wouldn’t come to pass. He shifts the subject, “what were their names? Your mom and sister? Did they trick poor unsuspecting aurors into buying them valentine candies and new shoes?”
As he speaks he takes his wand from his pocket and holding it like a pencil, gives it a surprisingly delicate swish. The overgrowth shrinks back. The rubble pieces itself back together and the fallen bricks arrange themselves into a humble monument. It’s far from anything spectacular but it’s something besides a decayed house, enough to say someone who mattered was here. Alastor knew he could never give her back the family she missed or even the time she had lost but he could do this.
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