Rated PG-13 for violence.

Before he even opened the gate, Remus knew that something had happened at home. The vibrations felt wrong, as if his spell-work had been disturbed. And as he opened the front door, the whole house was too silent. Yet they were indoors, sitting quietly on the sofa.

“Ariadne – ?”

Her head moved very slightly, yet she wasn’t responding to his voice. Wondering if the children were asleep, he walked over to sit down with them, and looked her full in the face.

He knew instantly that what looked back at him was not Ariadne.

The large blue eyes were completely empty of expression. They seemed to see him, yet they were devoid of interest. The body seated on the sofa was still breathing, yet the pale face was blank and motionless. Despite himself, he seized her hand, which was limp and cool, neither resisting nor acknowledging his presence. Her mouth smelled wrong, like something putrid and decaying; he dropped the hand quickly.

The children were not asleep; their wide eyes were gazing blankly into space. They were ignoring their mother, ignoring each other, ignoring their surroundings and ignoring him. None of them seemed to experience any urge to act; they just sat.

He fought off the knowledge that crowded the edge of his brain. “Ariadne,” he began helplessly, “tell me what happened. After I went out…” But his voice died. Although a faint movement across her face indicated that she could still hear, it was obvious that she no longer understood English.

His panicked mind flew over wild fantasies. This was a new form of eyes-open Stupefaction, but there was some simple re-energisation spell… It was an efficient memory Charm, but the Healers would know what to do about it… His family had been kidnapped, and these creatures on the sofa were Transfigured animals or artificially animated dummies… Whatever the explanation, an enemy had somehow penetrated their home. He tried to push back his fears while he sent the emergency signal to St Mungo’s, but before he could raise his wand to signal the Aurors, his dark suspicion had forced itself into a certainty.

Four sentient bodies were stationed on his sofa. But Ariadne, Matthew, Elizabeth and David no longer existed.

After three very long minutes, in which everyone breathed and no-one interacted, there was a disturbance outside in the street. Remus walked out to find that a uniformed Mediwizard was performing a Memory Charm on Mrs Ponderator. He remembered as he reached the gate that of course they couldn’t enter his house because he had barricaded it against strangers. Dully, he set to work to neutralise his charms, while four Mediwizards patiently waited

“You can come in now,” said a voice that might have been his own. “My wife’s had an accident.”

The four Mediwizards followed him into the lounge, and then stopped still in a deadly unison. He saw their knowing glances, then the formal way one of them stepped forward directly in front of Ariadne – not to investigate, but simply to confirm.

The Mediwizard cast a few diagnostic spells, spoke directly to her, felt her pulse, then Conjured an overhead light while he pulled at the flesh of her eyelids and forced open her jaw to examine inside her mouth. It was horribly intrusive, and a squeal of protest shot out of Ariadne’s mouth, but she didn’t raise her hands, or make any real effort to fight him off. The Aurors arrived just as he was finishing.

“Mr Lupin.” The Mediwizard spoke with the professional gentleness of doom. “I think you’d better sit down.”

Remus didn’t think so at all. He thought he should be up and active, doing something about whatever this was. But he knew he would not be given any information unless he obeyed, so he sat.

“Mr Lupin, your wife has been Kissed by a Dementor.”

The junior Auror stepped forward; it was Kingsley Shacklebolt. “Are you certain of that? Could it be some kind of Memory Charm?”

“No. Memory Charms damage the mind, but the essential soul always remains in there, underneath the damage. But this patient did not respond to any of the spells that call to the soul. Her soul has been completely removed from her body.”

“Don’t touch that child!” cut in the other Auror. His badge stated that he was Senior Auror G. T. Robards.

A Mediwitch shuffled guiltily, and tried to look as if she hadn’t been about to examine David.

“You all need to understand that this is a crime,” explained the Auror. “We can’t disturb the scene of crime until we have finished searching for clues. Since no medical treatment is possible, there is no immediate need to move the victims.”

Remus saw the despair on Kingsley’s face before Auror Robards began to fire the questions. He didn’t really hear the words; the day had taken on a grey-edged, dreamlike quality, and he found himself answering mechanically, almost at random.

“You mean you had a hedge of defensive charms around your property, but you stripped them down again ten minutes ago?”

“Yes, because I had to let the Mediwizards in. I… I don’t suppose I’ll be needing those charms any more.”

Auror Robards groaned out loud. “You disturbed the scene. If you had left the charms intact, we could have analysed exactly how they were breached, and perhaps even traced the wand that breached them. That’s an important clue gone.”

Kingsley was scowling ferociously, as if he’d like to tell his superior to shut up or go to Azkaban, but of course he couldn’t say anything.

“We’ll have to examine the wands, of course. Your wand, please, Mr Lupin.”

Remus handed it over without comprehending why he had been asked.

“Prior Incantato!”

Out of his wand-tip floated a grey image of his own head, grinning ludicrously (he had cast a Cheering Charm just before he entered the interview); then the two books that he had read to Elizabeth; the series of coloured lights that he had Conjured to entertain David; a procession of cups and plates, because he had helped with the washing up; the teapot and a jar of marmalade; the bubbles that he had put in the children’s bath, and a cloud of steam, because he still used a Thermo charm in preference to the Muggle immersion heater; his dressing-gown; Ariadne’s underwear…

That shocked him out of his stupor. They have no right to know about that. Apparently Kingsley thought so too, because he turned his head away in distaste, while the wand regurgitated the newspaper cutting that Remus had Summoned last night. Remus moved over to sit beside Ariadne again, because she deserved to be protected from this type of intrusion whether she understood it or not.

“Deleterius,” announced Auror Robards abruptly. “It’s obvious that Mr Lupin hasn’t cast an aggressive spell at any time since his wife was last known to be alive. I’ll do her wand next. Prior Incantato!”

A shadowy image of a door arose from Ariadne’s wand on the floor. As a second door followed the first, and then an image of David, a wild hope surged in Remus’s chest, for he knew that shades of spells cast on people were imbued with some of the person’s spirit and awareness. Remus trusted that Ariadne’s shade would explain exactly what had happened and how the spell might be reversed.

The real Matthew turned his face to watch Elizabeth’s shade rising, but he was not really interested. He looked away again before he saw his own image follow. The shades of the three children hovered in the air, and then Ariadne’s form arose after them, solemn, dignified, aloof…

Sick with disappointment, he realised that Ariadne’s shade was as blind and deaf and frozen as a statue.

It was followed by a wispy, indistinct shape, as if a spell had failed, then another door, and three shields, one after the other. That meant that Ariadne, left alone with her mediocre spell-work, had tried to defend herself. The next image was of a wand, as if she had used the Disarming Charm, but it was followed by a toilet, a wash basin and bath, then a whole string of clothes, and even a few nappies… they very obviously represented the housework that Ariadne had done this morning. Auror Robards abruptly called a halt.

Ariadne had not used any spells of attack.

There was no image of the unknown enemy.

“It’s clear enough,” said Robards, as if he had just solved the whole mystery. “Madam Lupin was attacked by her own wand. But not by her own hand – the shades show that someone took her out first and the children afterwards. Madam Lupin, can you tell us… no, I suppose not. These shades won’t be revealing any secrets. Once a Dementor has destroyed the original, there’s nothing left to animate any copies.”

This time Remus did want to sit down. Auror Robards’ cool summary of the situation had torn away all his evasions.

His soulmate no longer had a soul.

The Andros the Invincible Ward on the first floor of St Mungo’s was small and poorly lit. A spider had taken up long-term residence in one corner of the ceiling, and the Mediwitch on duty had her nose buried in Fifi Lafolle’s latest novel.

“Who’s in charge here?” asked Remus.

“I am,” said Hippocrates Smethwyck. “Although there isn’t much of which to be in charge. These patients are no danger to themselves or anyone else.” He didn’t even seem annoyed at the Mediwitch’s negligence; for most of the time, he explained, there wasn’t much for her to do.

In addition to the beds, there was a table surrounded by dining chairs and an arrangement of sofas. Three patients – one very old, the others middle-aged – were sitting on the sofas, all staring at the whitewashed wall. Remus wanted to scream his protest as the Mediwitch helped Ariadne to sit with them, then arranged David on her lap and Matthew and Elizabeth on each side of her.

“Is that what they do all day? Just sit?”

“Sometimes one of them takes a wander around the room. And in fine weather we give them a few hours in the Hospital gardens. But they never notice the difference.” Healer Smethwyck spoke clinically, but there was a catch to his voice. “I’m convinced in my own mind that they aren’t… aren’t unhappy, or even bored.”

It took all Remus’s courage to ask the next question. “How long do they live after losing their souls?”

“That depends on the health of their bodies.” Healer Smethwyck indicated the aged man. “That is Patrick Ryan, whom the Dementors Kissed when he was sixteen. It happened at the time of the Muggle Queen’s Golden Jubilee. The other two were victims of the Voldemort war.”

Remus’s insides dropped to the floor. “And in all that time… over a century… has there been any effort to cure Mr Ryan?”

“Endless research,” said Healer Smethwyck. “But it always comes to the same thing. The soul isn’t simply inside the Dementor – an object that could be extracted if only we could discover a powerful enough Summoning Spell. It’s been digested. Whatever a soul is made of, its component energies are broken down inside the Dementor. It no longer exists. And even if – for the sake of argument – all the energies could be extracted from the Dementor, they still couldn’t be reconstituted in a way that would reconstruct the soul.”

“Why not? Perhaps it’s too complicated in practice, but in theory…”

Smethwyck sighed. “That question is like asking why we can’t bring the dead back from beyond the Veil. Some operations are intrinsically impossible to reverse.”

Beyond the Veil… It was a question that Remus had always avoided asking himself. On the days when he believed in an afterlife, he doubted that he qualified for it. Ariadne, of course, would inevitably qualify for whatever eternal bliss might be on offer… but in her case it was no longer an issue of qualifying. It was souls that participated in whatever happened beyond the Veil, and Ariadne’s soul had been demolished.

Of course he had to deal with the Aurors’ investigation.

“Have you any idea who it was, Mr Lupin?” They asked him again and again. “Did your wife have any enemies?”

He told them every detail he remembered about Ariadne’s relationship with the Macnair family. How Ariadne had exposed their crimes. How they had spied on her, manipulated the community against her, and attacked her person. How they would inevitably blame Ariadne for the escape of their prisoners.

“Amelia Bones has already instructed us to investigate the Macnairs,” said Robards. “But they all have an alibi for Saturday. Walden was at a Ministry committee meeting; Gertrude was visiting the Scrimgeours; Humphrey was sloshed in the Leaky Cauldron; Coira was at a Quidditch match. Even the mad old lady was renewing a prescription here at St Mungo’s, and Humphrey’s children had been farmed out to various friends’ houses. Mrs Skiveley, of course, is still on her honeymoon in the Bahamas, and Mrs Gibbon was shopping in Knockturn Alley. Every single one of them has at least three objective witnesses. Mr Lupin, did your wife have any other enemies?”

Cursing the shrewdness with which the Macnairs had covered their tracks, Remus reviewed their acquaintances. Had Fenrir Greyback given up biting in favour of subtle attacks? Had Lucius Malfoy decided that Ariadne’s werewolf association was too much of an embarrassment to the family? Had Damocles Belby been overtaken by a fit of professional jealousy? Surely not. Had Baldwin Macnair escaped from Azkaban and brought a Dementor with him?

“It can’t really be a Dementor,” said Auror Dawlish. “Whatever it looks like… that’s absurd. All the Dementors are under the control of a very few Ministry officials. All Dementor-related tasks are carefully recorded. But we checked the records, and there is no record that any Dementor was summoned or used on the date in question. Therefore there wasn’t any Dementor in Nottingham.”

“It was a Dementor,” shouted a furious Healer Smethwyck.

“No. You’ve misdiagnosed.” Auror Dawlish snapped his notebook shut.

And so the inquiry ended with no verdict on the cause of injury, and no suspects for the role of perpetrator.

Remus sat in the Andros the Invincible Ward, day after day, hoping desperately that one of his family would focus on some object for longer than five seconds, existing through the knowledge that they could not distinguish between him and the chairs on which they sat. They sat so endlessly, never becoming bored, because they had no memory of what they had been doing a moment earlier.

By daylight the nightmare never ended. In sleep Remus occasionally found respite. He might see Ariadne sitting in the sunshine among her aconites, reading to the children (for some reason, there were four children), and they all looked up at his approach and smiled at him. But he always awoke from these intervals before the moment when he actually touched them, awoke to the consciousness that he would never touch any of them again.

The fourth night was the full moon. “Sleep in my office,” said Healer Smethwyck, knowing without being told that Remus didn’t want to spend the night among other werewolves. Remus didn’t sleep, of course. He lay awake and conscious inside his wolf’s body, slowly churning over the reality that Ariadne and the children were forever unconscious inside their human bodies. Hippocrates Smethwyck sat in his winged armchair, keeping vigil over some private torment of his own. He didn’t speak a word until nearly midnight.

“This is too gloomy,” he said then. “Expecto Patronum!”

A silvery light exploded from the Healer’s wand, swirled around the room, and gathered shape. It was a tree – a huge, wide plane tree that continued to grow right up to the ceiling. Remus moved his wolf’s nose closer to the shining trunk. A couple of leaves – yes, every separate leaf was detailed – fluttered down towards him, and for a moment all his sadness receded. In the shade of the plane tree he was happy and confident, fearless to face his solitary future.

But the leaves vanished on touch; the Patronus might contain a powerful magic, but it wasn’t solid.

He had a bad recovery the next day; he had to spend the whole time being nursed in a hospital bed. The day after that, he returned to visit the Andros the Invincible Ward. Mercy Wiggleswade met him at the door with tears in her eyes.

“David died in the night,” she said. “Children do not last long in this condition; their bodies are too fragile to continue without a soul. I’m thinking his heart simply forgot to beat.”

It seemed quite natural to Remus; he didn’t know how his own heart remembered to beat, when his soul was so shredded.

“But you are quite well in body,” the Healers told him. “You can’t spend the rest of your life at St Mungo’s – you need to start going home.”

Still too stunned to be anything other than obedient, Remus went home every evening, and pretended to sleep in his own bed. Sometimes he had nightmares – Dementors were chasing his family, and he couldn’t cast a Patronus in time. But even the nightmares were comforting, for Ariadne was usually screaming or running or casting spells – or doing something that indicated she was still aware of the world. Every morning he returned to St Mungo’s.

He watched as Mercy instructed a Mediwitch on how to strap Elizabeth to a mysterious machine that pumped sustaining potions into her veins.

“It’s the only way to feed her,” Mercy half-apologised. “She’s forgotten how to swallow.”

Remus could see that Elizabeth had shrunk to the size of an elderly monkey; even the potions-pump would not help her for long. And it left ugly gashes down her inner arms, although this did not bother her. Elizabeth only outlived David by a week. She died while she was sitting on Remus’s lap; she was wide awake, but she simply stopped breathing.

“Matthew has a better chance,” said Mercy. “He has already survived the most delicate period of childhood.”

Remus could still spoon mush into Matthew’s mouth three times a day. Occasionally he lifted the child and tried to play with him, but he was a dead weight who could not play; Matthew might turn his head, but he never looked at his father.

Could Matthew really continue to exist for another century, breathing yet not living, like Patrick Ryan?

As it happened, Matthew only lasted another fortnight. A bad case of dragon pox was admitted to St Mungo’s, and a trainee Mediwitch passed it all around the two lower floors before she realised she was ill. Patrick Ryan (“he had become so frail that we knew the next virus would finish him off”) and Matthew Lupin both died before they even showed a rash.

Remus sat beside Ariadne on a bench in the hospital garden. It was a wet, windy day, but he cast an Impervius Charm around them both, just as he had on their honeymoon stroll through Sherwood Forest.

“How am I to tell you,” he addressed her empty shell, “that you are now childless?”

Ariadne’s body sat, briefly watching a ladybird climb over a dahlia, and taking no notice of him.

“Oh, but she’s not childless,” said Mercy Wiggleswade, her voice lighter than it had been for a month. “I was suspicious this morning, when the Mediwitch reported that Ariadne had been nauseous, so I ran the tests. She is definitely pregnant.”

Remus stared at Mercy. “Can she still…?”

“We’re not knowing,” said Mercy honestly. “There are no case histories on this kind of pregnancy, because there have been so few Kiss victims outside of Azkaban. But I’m thinking Ariadne can still gestate normally. And the baby, of course, will be ensouled. I brewed the testing potion this morning, so with your permission…”

He nodded, and Mercy brought a flask out of her lime-green pocket. She slid one arm around Ariadne’s shoulders and patiently hovered over her, coaxing her to drink. Then, at a wave of her wand, an enormously complex array of coloured lights sprang into the air, danced for a moment, and then collapsed onto Mercy’s writing tablet.

“Computo!”

Remus couldn’t make any sense of the mathematical symbols that arranged themselves on the tablet, but they must have meant something to Mercy.

“You have a daughter. A healthy, perfect lassie, who’s not carrying the Squib mutation, and who will have blue eyes and dark hair exactly like Ariadne.”

The searing pain receded a little. “Did you hear that?” Remus asked the statue beside him. “Your final wish has been granted. We have a daughter. We’ll name her Abigail. I’ll teach her to read, and to fly, and to play chess, and we’ll take care of your herbiary together…”

Ariadne moved her head away from him and instead watched a blackbird that was winging up to a beech tree.

Remus forced down the tightening in his throat, and finished grimly, “… and I shall teach her to cast a Patronus. Abigail will have so many happy memories that she’ll be producing a corporeal Patronus before her Hogwarts letter arrives.”

Remus forced himself to be practical. Ariadne has gone, but she loved me. And the final mercy is that I shall still have a family after all. And on this thought he was able to raise his wand and order, “Expecto Patronum!”

Huge branches of silvery wolfsbane flowers bloomed out of the tip of his wand. Not just one bush, but plant after plant shot into the air and created a warm, bright shield around the three of them. Remus found himself visualising his daughter Abigail without any sense of his other losses; and Mercy was smiling at them too.

Ariadne obviously saw the white light, for she turned her head, and her blue eyes flickered blankly at the movement. But she did not smile.

He knew that, in his own mind, Ariadne was already dead.

Remus began to stay at home for long enough to tidy the house. He paid the bills that the Muggle postman brought. He opened the weeks-old letter that informed him that he hadn’t been awarded the job at the Muggle school. He cleared away all the waste paper, noting in the process that he never had owled the application for the job at Hogwarts. It was too late now, of course.

He knew that the Muggle Government made some kind of payment to single parents, and he supposed he should claim it. But it didn’t seem right to live that way long-term; he must find some kind of work to support himself and Abigail. He went back to day-labouring in the orchards for a few weeks, but the fruit season was drawing to a close, and he had no idea what he could do when he would also have to care for a baby.

Even now, he had to gulp back his immediate instinct to consult Ariadne about the problem.

Once he saw Veleta Vablatsky in the St Mungo’s tea-room. She was sitting with Joe Fenwick, whose bulk was blocking the aisle side of their table, as if to ward off curious strangers. However, he waved to Remus to join them, while Veleta nervously stirred her tea. She looked very fragile, as if she had been crying.

It would be stupid to exchange deceitful pleasantries about everyone’s very good health, so Remus asked, “A bad day for all of us?”

Joe and Veleta both nodded.

“The Healers are doing a competent job,” Joe amended. “They think Veleta will recover all her memories in another six months. But recovering lost memories… it’s bad.”

“I remembered my mother last month,” said Veleta. “I already knew she was dead, of course… but last month I remembered who had died.”

“And you grieved as if she had died that day,” said Remus.

Veleta nodded tearfully. “And today… Remus, I remembered Ariadne. I mean, not the person who spent the last nine years trying to get me out of Foss… I remembered the Ariadne who was my best friend at school. I remembered Hogwarts, and all my friends and teachers, but most I remembered how Ariadne and I did everything together, and how close we were. It made so much sense of why she worked to hard to rescue me. I can’t believe that she… that now… that just when I’m home… just when we could have been close again…” She wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry, Remus. It can’t be as bad for me as it is for you. But she’s only just become real to me… and she’s already gone…”

Ariadne did well throughout the hazardous first trimester of her pregnancy. She seemed to be doing equally well during the easy second trimester. In the eighteenth week, her face looked slightly swollen, and Remus thought she had pain in her abdomen. But it was difficult to tell, because even something as simple as a continuous pain was outside of Ariadne’s consciousness.

“She was fine this morning,” said Healer Smethwyck. “But we should monitor her carefully.” He brought out his wand to begin testing her blood pressure.

Before he could speak the spell, Ariadne collapsed back onto the sofa, this time with unmistakeable agony crossing her face.

“Enervate!”

But Ariadne lay still.

The seizure, Healer Smethwyck later explained, was one of the hazards of pregnancy. Usually a Healer could recognise the symptoms in time to treat it. Usually it was not life-threatening. But Ariadne had died instantly, because a body without its soul had no chance against eclampsia. It seemed that pregnancy – even a normal pregnancy – was by itself a serious threat to a woman who had no soul.

Even in the act of dying, Ariadne had made a contribution to medical research.

Remus went home to grieve for Abigail.

The house was very empty.

He knew he must never again try to have a family.