Emmaline was helping Dora Potter just like she promised James she would do when it happened.

She'd gone in to give Dora the hourly dousing potion the head mediwizard had prescribed. "Hey Mrs. P," she said gently, smiling as she put the tray with the bubbling purple potion on the night stand. As required by Mungo's, she wore a discreet bubble-charm mask over her mouth and nose, since Dragon Pox can be very contagious in some stages. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

Dora lay in the bed on her back, her eyes sad, breath shaky and shallow. Smoke rose through her nostrils and she reached out a hand for Emmaline, clasping her fingers.

Emmaline took Dora's hand in both of hers.

Dora started coughing. The harder she coughed, the deeper black the smoke became. The heaving came from lower in her chest. Emmaline sent a patronus for help, and hurried to help Dora Potter sit up. Every sharp inhale of air between coughs fanned the flame in Dora's chest, Emmaline could hear it. A sound that started a bit like raspy, rustling paper, grew louder into something like a loud wind that echoed up the airways. Then it came forth - a shot of actual flame, which blazed from Dora Potter and would have set the blanket over her lap on fire had there not been an anti-flammable charm set upon it. Emma yelled for help, and more mediwitches and wizards streamed into the room.

Every inhale stoked the flame.

Every exhale set it loose.

The room glowed orange and smoke billowed around the mediwitches and wizards. Aguamenti charms sprayed over head, raining over them all, and Emmaline fought against the jostling to keep her promise to James, to stay closest to Dora, her fingers clinging to Dora Potter's.

Fear was bright in Dora's eyes, each burst of flame sending fresh tears from her eyes. Soot covered her face, sweat mixing with the tears. Emmaline held all the tighter, staring into Dora's eyes as spells and charms and incantations were being worked all around her - a great flurry of sound.

So focused on the attempt to heal, the mediwitches and wizards didn't see what Emmaline saw.

They didn't see the moment Dora Potter's life left her.

"Mia? Dora, honey? Is that you, love?"

She opened her eyes and she was standing in a dark room - all grey and black, vignetted around the edges. She looked around, turning about, and finally saw him, emerging from the shadows.

"Fleamont?"

Her voice was higher than she remembered it being in some time. The smoke had deepened her tone, ravished her vocal cords and made her tone raspier. But now it came out just as clear and ringing as it had been when she was a girl. His, too, had sounded younger, she realized, and so he looked younger as well. He was wearing the oxford and black trousers she remembered him most vividly in - his Hogwarts uniform, the top button undone, his tie hanging loose, unknotted after a long day.

Slowly, the dark around them faded into view, as though the opacity was being turned up, and there were stone walls - the corridor in the dungeons, past the potions room, 'round the bend that went down to the docks.

Charlus looked around at the walls and a smirk trembled across his face. "Interesting," he said.

"What's interesting?" she asked, and she was aware suddenly of the thick curls of hair that surrounded her face, volumnous and long, hanging to her mid-back. She ran a hand over the pleated skirt she realized she was wearing, the grey wool hung to her knees.

Charlus's grin spread across his face and he came over, leaning one arm against the wall, facing her. Her back hit the stone and she let out a small giggle as his free hand played with one of her curls, his eyes staring right into hers. "Of all the places we've known, adorable Mia, this is where you choose to meet me?"

"Why not?" she asked. She flushed and stared up at him, doe-eyes wide. "This is where we were when you first told me you had feelings for me. This is where we were the first time that I had hope that things might not turn out the way my parents always planned for me... the first time I dared to think maybe there was hope that I could be married for love and not for obligation."

Charlus smiled and leaned closer, kissing her cheek, "And this is where we were the first time that I kissed you," he said, voice husky as his lips moved against the skin of her jaw.

Dora smiled, too, and tilted her head slightly to give him better access to her face for kissing. She closed her eyes, relishing the smell of him and the feeling of his proximity... after so long missing him... an entire year and a half...

She froze. "Wait," she said, her hands going up onto Charlus's chest. "Wait. Honey. Wait. Why am I here?"

Charlus drew back. "I thought we just covered why?"

"No I mean, not why am I here - but why - why am I here? With you?"

He stared into her eyes. "Dora... honey."

"No," she said, and she shook her head. "No, wait. Charlus - I can't yet. I can't be dead yet." She shrugged out from under his arm, pushing off from the stone wall. The wall puffed away like smoke when she pushed away from it and Charlus lost his balance and nearly fell forward, managing to catch himself just in time before going down. "I have to go back." She was hurrying down the corridor now, pausing to yank open doorways as she went.

"Mia, love - wait. Wait. I know you're scared," Charlus said, and he was hurrying after her, their footfalls echoing as they clapped against the flagstone floor. "But it's alright, honey, there's nothing to be afraid of. I'm here, after all, and --"

"I love you so much Charlus, but I'm not ready yet."

"But -"

"Our grandbaby isn't here yet, Charlus, and I have to see him. I have to see him before I go."

"Grandbaby?" Charlus asked.

Dora stopped running, turning back to stare at Charlus, her eyes wide. "James and Lily are trying," she said. "I live with them right now. Because of the Pox. It's been getting worse, but I've been so good. I've been so good, not hiding it or anything, been going to Mungo's for all my appointments. Lily helps me so much, she's so gentle and kind and understanding and - oh Flea, she's going to be the best mum..."

Charlus stared at her, eyes full of unshed, happy tears. "Yeah?"

"Yes. They're trying and I just know it's going to happen soon and I - I have to see my grandbaby. I have to hold him. Even if it's just once, even if it's just for a second."

Charlus stared at her. "You want that more than you want to be with me?"

"Oh don't be hurt, please don't be hurt. I want to be with you, too, so badly. I dream about you every single night, about bing with you again. Just - just not yet."

Charlus asked, "You're sure?"

He stood there, all floppy-haired and handsom, and it was so tempting to stay with him. So tempting.

"I can come back - one day - when I'm ready? It's not... an either-or, is it?" she asked.

"It's not an either-or," Charlus answered.

She walked up to him, lay a hand on his chest, stood on her tip-toes and kissed his chin. When she drew back, she whispered, "I'll take one more kiss, if you don't mind, to make it through until I see you again."

He nodded.

"Love?" he whispered.

"Yes?"

"Tell Harry hullo for me."

Before she could respond, he leaned in and kissed her. She closed her eyes, feeling it with every bit of her... breathing in his scent...

And when Dora opened her eyes in the bed in St. Mungo's, she still had the taste of him on her lips.

Not the taste of fire.

Emmaline gasped.

Dora's eyes met Emmaline's.

The mediwitches and wizards were shouting in surprise and joy - suddenly the fire was stopping. The incantations were working. Had worked already. Completely, no less. The smoke was clearing. Within moments, the smoke was going from black to grey to -- to steam. From the roar of a rage to the whisper of a fire put out.

Emmaline stared in shock.

It couldn't be explained.

Dora's eyes fluttered, exhausted, and she fell into a peaceful sleep.

Emmaline walked, surrounded by mediwitches and wizards talking in excited, amazed tones about the "incredible incantation" that had just secured a miracle in the Dragon Pox wing. She couldn't explain what she saw, only knew that she'd seen it: the incantation had nothing to do with the healing. It had been spontaneous. Or at least seemed that way. By all natural law of medicine, Mrs. Potter should have been dead.

This should have been a walk to deliver the worst possible news.

But instead a stunned Emmaline was turning the corner of the hall, pushing open the waiting room door, and meeting James Potter's eyes. Her robes were still smoking, the top singed all down the front. She could feel the paleness of her skin, the dried crust of sweat and tears on her face.

"Em?" James stood up, his face full of fear.

"Oh please no," Lily gasped, and she, too, stood up, grabbing onto James's arm.

"What's happened?!" Sirius awoke, the combined jolt of their anxieties sharp in his senses. He rolled himself off the seat he was sprawled across in his effort to get up and he landed on the floor. Sirius's motion woke Remus.

"Alright, Em?" James asked because that was all he could manage.

"She's... she's alright," Emma stammered. "But we've had quite - quite the scare just now."