Raise Your Lantern High, chapter 20: Making a Scene

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RAISE YOUR LANTERN HIGH

Summary: In which Remus and Tonks fight battles, arrest criminals, befriend werewolves, overcome inner demons and, despite it all, find themselves a happy ending. A love story, and a story of the Order years. (My Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making! This is the second half of the story, set in the Half-Blood Prince year.)

Chapter 20: Making a Scene

Nothing in the world prepared me for your heart

-Mark Knopfler, Golden Heart

“You will be in charge of patrolling the school corridors,” Professor McGonagall said. “Members of the staff are watching the passageways into Hogwarts, there are protective spells on all entrances, and no one can fly into the grounds. But nonetheless we would do well to stay alert while Dumbledore is away. Send a Patronus to me if you find anything amiss.”

It made Tonks feel rather reminiscently like a misbehaving pupil, to be standing in front of McGonagall’s desk, taking orders. It was new, though, to be standing there with Bill and Remus on either side of her.

Remus. Dumbledore had requested Remus’ presence to help patrol the castle tonight, even though Dumbledore generally tried not to take Remus away from the pack too often. It was also unusual that he’d asked Tonks here, since her duties generally lay in the village. It gave Tonks an uneasy feeling. What dangers was Dumbledore expecting might arise during this “routine” patrol on a mild June night?

Their instructions duly received, Tonks and Remus and Bill all nodded their understanding to McGonagall, then filed out of her office.

“Right,” Bill said, once they were in the corridor. He’d performed patrol duty at Hogwarts a number of times over the course of the year, and knew how this should go. “How about, I’ll take the upper floors; Tonks, you take the middle; and Remus, cover the basements. Yeah?”

“Sure,” Tonks said, carefully avoiding looking at Remus. It never got any easier, being this near to Remus and yet having to hold herself back from saying how she felt.

Bill pulled out his pocket watch and glanced at it. “All right. Let’s all head out, and check back here an hour from now.”

So the three of them parted ways, each to their respective parts of the castle. They walked the corridors and checked empty classrooms, alert for the slightest sign of anything out of the ordinary, but all was quiet. All was well.

Until it wasn’t.

Tonks, Bill and Remus had met for one of their hourly check-ins, walking together and taking a few moments to discuss what they’d seen so far, before separating again to their assigned sections of the castle, when Ron, Ginny and Neville Longbottom appeared at the far end of the corridor and dashed madly towards them.

The kids were wild-eyed and panting with exertion, all of them talking frantically over one another. Their voices came out as a desperate avalanche and it was impossible to make out a word of it.

“Okay, stop!” Tonks said. “One person talk. Ginny.”

Ginny took a deep breath, then launched into a summary. “Harry knew all along that Draco Malfoy was up to something, and just before he had to leave with Dumbledore, he figured out that Draco had made some kind of breakthrough.”

Harry’s with Dumbledore tonight? Tonks wondered, surprised. McGonagall hadn’t mentioned that.

“So we kept watch outside the Room of Requirement, where Draco was,” Ginny continued. “But when he came out, he blinded us with Instant Darkness Powder. And he’s let a bunch of people into Hogwarts through the Room of Requirement, somehow. We heard them passing by us in the darkness. Death Eaters,” she emphasised, as if they might not have caught the significance of this. She gave Tonks a pleading look, like she already despaired of being taken seriously by an adult with the power to do something about it.

“Which way did they go?” Tonks asked, and Ginny’s eyes widened in grateful disbelief.

Ron broke in. “Up to the Astronomy Tower, we think.”

“Let’s go,” Tonks said. She glanced at Remus and Bill, and they both nodded. All three of them took off at a run, wands out, the three kids right behind them. As they approached the corridor that led to the Astronomy Tower stairs, Tonks could hear voices ahead.

They rounded the corner and burst onto a nightmare scene: Draco Malfoy standing there in the middle of the corridor looking pale and frantic, surrounded by a host of Death Eaters.

Draco went wide-eyed with panic when he saw them coming, members of the Order of the Phoenix.

“Stupefy!” Tonks shouted, pointing her wand at the nearest Death Eater, a big blonde man. He dodged, and the rest of the Death Eaters scattered. One man - Gibbon, Tonks knew from the Ministry files she’d memorised on suspected Death Eaters - broke away and made a dash for the Astronomy Tower stairs.

“Follow them!” Tonks shouted to the others, even as she was casting a Patronus to summon McGonagall to help. Tonks thought she saw Remus touch one hand lightly to something that hung around his neck on a woven cord, then he was past her and duelling one of the Death Eaters.

Tonks took up a duel too, with the big blonde man. She’d placed him, now, and knew who he was: Thorfinn Rowle, a big brute of a man, but not someone previously suspected of Death Eater involvement. Great, new recruits, she thought grimly, as she got in a Leg-Locker Curse on him, though he was able to counteract it quickly. Well, the pleasure’s all mine, Mr Rowle.

“Crucio!” Rowle growled, but Tonks blocked the spell. “Reducto! Confringo! Incendio!” His curses seemed to spew out of him unpredictable and uncontrolled. It was hard work just to keep up with his haphazard volley of spells that followed no particular logic.

As the movements of the duel drew Tonks in a circle around her opponent, she saw the green flare of a Killing Curse miss Remus by inches. It hit the Death Eater Gibbon instead, who’d just come running back down the steps from the Astronomy Tower, and he crumpled to the floor. One minute Gibbon was running full tilt, and the next he was on the ground, dead. Tonks determinedly did not think about how easily that could have been Remus instead.

Everything around her was shouting, noise, chaos, battle. Then a streak of matted grey hair and tattered clothing blurred past the edge of Tonks’ vision, and with horror she recognised Fenrir Greyback. She felt ice-cold terror clutching at her, because if Greyback was here for Remus -

But it wasn’t Remus that Greyback was charging towards, it was Bill. Bill slammed to the ground from the force of the impact, and now Greyback was scratching and biting Bill, who lay helplessly pinned beneath him, and Tonks couldn’t do a thing to help, because the whole time she was fending off deadly attacks from her own opponent. All she could do was hope desperately that Bill would be able to fend off Greyback.

The Death Eaters were ferocious and they outnumbered the Order, even with the three kids - who should not be here in this battle at all - fighting too. Bill was on the floor and Neville seemed to be limping, but that was all the impression Tonks was able to gather of the battle as a whole, through the chaos and lights of curses criss-crossing through the dim, enclosed space of the corridor.

Draco had disappeared, as far as Tonks could see as she kept up a stream of curses and counter-curses at Rowle. Where had he gone - had he run from the battle? Or had Draco, too, run up to the top of the Astronomy Tower?

Suddenly, four Death Eaters broke away from the fighting and ran in precisely that direction, towards the stairs and up to the tower, one of them blocking the way behind them with a curse Tonks didn’t recognise. Neville tried to run after them, but an invisible barrier flung him back and he landed on the floor, winded.

Seizing on a sliver of inattention from her opponent, Tonks ran to Neville and picked him up off the floor, making sure he could stand on his own. Then she threw her own weight against the invisible barrier, flung against it every spell she could think of, but nothing worked. What were the Death Eaters doing up there?

But at the same time Tonks was wondering about this, massive Thorfinn Rowle was still firing curses in every direction, and several of them just barely missed Ginny and Ron, who were still valiantly duelling other Death Eaters. Tonks rushed to intercept Rowle again, before he could hurt one of the kids.

Then, thank Merlin, reinforcements arrived: McGonagall, leading members of the Hogwarts staff. Finally, the two sides of the battle were evenly matched.

“They’ve blocked the stairs!” Tonks yelled to McGonagall. Aiming again at the barrier, she shouted one more time, “Reducto! REDUCTO!” But her spells still bounced uselessly off the invisible barrier. McGonagall nodded to show she understood, as she too raised her wand and plunged into the fray of the battle.

Then Snape was there, and then he was gone again, rushing through the cursed barrier as if it were nothing but air. Tonks saw Remus plunge after Snape through the melee, but the barrier threw him back just as it had done Neville. Remus didn’t spare a second, just picked himself up off the floor and rejoined the fight.

Tonks spun at the sound of a massive rumbling behind her, and turned in time to see an entire section of the ceiling crumble to the floor in massive chunks - Rowle, with his complete lack of sense, had hit the stone ceiling with a jinx and now it was all coming down in great pieces. Tonks grabbed the injured Neville and yanked him out of the way of the heavy falling rocks.

Remus was the first to notice that the collapse of the ceiling had also broken the invisible barrier that blocked the stairs. He sprinted that way, McGonagall and several others right behind him, but they stopped abruptly at the sight of Snape, descending the stairs at a run. Snape was dragging Draco with him, the boy ghostly white but apparently unharmed. Hot on their heels came two of the Death Eaters - the awful Carrow sister and brother - as well as Greyback, who snarled and plunged back into the fight.

Then, out of nowhere, Harry was there. But if Harry was here - where was Dumbledore?

Snape shouted something, but Tonks couldn’t hear it over the noise of the battle. Everything was a nightmare of dark and dust, falling rocks and the sizzling light of spells. Rowle continued to attack wildly, and fending him off took all Tonks’ strength and concentration.

At the edge of her vision, Tonks saw Greyback lunge at Harry and knock him to the floor. Those horrible, sharp, yellow teeth aimed unerringly for Harry’s throat, and Tonks cried out in horror -

Beside her, Remus’ voice, brimming with a wrath she’d never heard from him before, bellowed, “Petrificus Totalis!”

Greyback slumped on top of Harry, insensible.

Tonks had just enough time to see Harry push Greyback off of himself and stand up, uninjured, before her attention was yanked back to Rowle, whose uncontrollable curses first cracked the stone wall behind her, then shattered a window.

Remus, McGonagall, Ginny and Ron were all battling Death Eaters, too. Neville was on the floor, but sitting up. Bill lay in a pool of blood, horribly still, but there was no time to let herself think about that right now, not when there were children in this fight.

Tonks saw Harry get in a well-aimed Impedimenta at the Carrow brother, who was duelling Ginny. The force of Harry’s jinx slammed the Death Eater into a wall.

Ginny called out, “Harry, where did you come from?” but already Harry was gone again, sprinting through the chaos, dodging curses and blasts of light that exploded above his head.

McGonagall shouted something that sounded like “Take that!” and Tonks saw the Carrows fleeing away down the corridor. Harry had tripped over Neville in his dash through the fighting, but he still managed to aim a hex accurately at Rowle, who shouted in pain, then wheeled and pounded away after the Carrows, Harry chasing after them.

“Harry!” Tonks shouted, because whatever Harry was planning to run off and do by himself, it couldn’t possibly be a good idea.

Remus and McGonagall called after him too, but Harry was gone.

And then, very suddenly, the battle was a flame that had flickered out. The Death Eaters were retreating - not defeated, but simply no longer interested in battle. In the space of the time it took Tonks to catch her breath, all of them were gone. Even Greyback was gone. He must have been revived by one of the Death Eaters before they fled, because he was no longer anywhere to be seen.

Tonks cursed in anger. How she had longed to arrest that man, for Remus’ sake.

She scanned the room a last time to be sure there was no danger, then ran to Remus, who was kneeling beside Bill and feeling for a pulse. “He’s breathing,” Remus said at last, raising his eyes to meet Tonks’. She saw relief painfully etched in his face.

“Oh, thank Merlin,” McGonagall gasped, appearing at Remus’ shoulder. She helped him turn Bill over, so he was no longer face down in the blood that smeared the floor. Meanwhile, Ron was helping Neville to stand. Ginny disappeared down the corridor, seeking Harry.

“Everyone to the hospital wing,” McGonagall decreed. Her face was scratched and her robes ripped, and her hair was white with dust from the ceiling, loosed from its tight bun and floating around her face.

McGonagall cast a spell that lifted Bill up until he was floating in front of her. She glanced down at the dead Death Eater, Gibbon, the one who’d been hit by a killing curse cast by the uncontrollable Thorfinn Rowle. For a flicker of a moment, McGonagall looked uncertain. Then she said with determination, “It wouldn’t do for students to come along and see him,” and levitated him up as well.

They made a strange procession through the corridors of the school, McGonagall levitating Bill and the Death Eater’s body in front of her, Ron helping a barely conscious Neville to walk. Tonks and Remus took up the rear of the group, not looking at each other. Determinedly not looking at each other.

You nearly died, Tonks thought, and the intensity of feeling that came with that fact was all the more frantic now that the danger itself was past. That killing curse was aimed at you. Bill could have been killed tonight. Or Harry, or any of us. So what in Merlin’s name are we doing, trying not to feel what we feel?

Her whole body thrummed with an awareness of death, and of the narrowness of their brush with it. Her skin was electric with the knowledge of Remus’ human warmth there beside her.

Madam Pomfrey met them at the door of the hospital wing and bustled Bill and Neville immediately into beds. McGonagall disappeared behind a curtain at the back of the wing, to lay the Death Eater’s body there, and Tonks decided she would just have to not think about that for now, the fact that there was a dead Death Eater here in the room with them.

Already waiting in the hospital wing were Hermione - and Luna Lovegood. The girl who befriended Thestrals. Hermione was bouncing anxiously, rocking from heel to toe, but Luna simply gazed at all of them from her big, luminous eyes.

“Oh, Professor!” Hermione cried, when McGonagall re-emerged from the behind the curtain. “I’m so sorry, Professor McGonagall, we were supposed to be watching Snape, I think he attacked Flitwick, but we didn’t realise -”

“Flitwick?” McGonagall asked sharply. “What’s happened to Flitwick?”

“He was here, and he’s fine,” Madam Pomfrey cut in, in her no-nonsense way, already bending over Bill’s bed. “He was knocked out and is still a bit shaky on his feet, but he’s gone to look after the students of his house. Nothing to fret about.”

“I must notify Molly and Arthur of Bill’s injuries,” McGonagall said. Her voice was steely with the emotion she was holding back. She strode across the hospital wing and out the door, shutting it firmly behind her.

Madam Pomfrey straightened up from Bill’s bed, her eyes sweeping the room until they landed on Remus. “Here,” she said, reaching into the voluminous pockets of her Healer’s apron. “Healing and sleeping potions. Administer them to the injured boy.”

Remus hurried to Madam Pomfrey and she deposited several vials in his hands. It struck Tonks forcefully, in that moment of efficient, almost wordless coordination between the two of them, that this was the woman who had cared for Remus through seven years of full moon nights. Madam Pomfrey knew better than almost anyone that she could depend on Remus’ capable mind and hands. And she surely knew, too, how it must affect him to see someone else attacked by a werewolf.

Remus went to Neville, as Madam Pomfrey returned the entirety of her redoubtable focus to Bill.

The kids, too, drifted towards Bill’s bed at the far end of the ward - Ron, Hermione and Luna. With a last glance back at Remus, Tonks followed them.

Bill looked horrible. It was only as Madam Pomfrey cleaned away the blood that they could see just how gruesome his injuries were. His face was so badly torn up, Tonks wasn’t sure she would have recognised him. Pomfrey, unfazed, dabbed at his wounds with a potent concoction of Dittany and astringent-smelling herbs, muttering healing charms as her hands moved deftly over Bill’s injured body.

A noise behind them, at the door, drew Tonks’ attention. She turned and saw Harry and Ginny stepping into the hospital wing, framed in the wide doorway. Harry’s face was strangely blank, and Ginny was clutching his hand in hers.

- - - - -

Remus looked up from Neville’s bed to see Harry in the hospital wing doorway, Ginny by his side. Harry’s eyes were wide and shocked, and there was something terribly blank in his stare. Remus’ heart plummeted, even as Hermione flew past him, running to the door and throwing her arms around Harry, where he stood there blinking, his face stoic and strange.

Remus set aside the now-empty potion vials he had administered to Neville and followed in Hermione’s wake, asking urgently, “Are you all right, Harry?”

“I’m fine…how’s Bill?” Harry asked with effort. Without waiting for an answer, he crossed the room to Bill’s bed. Horror bloomed across Harry’s face as he took in the sight of Bill’s injuries. “Can’t you fix them with a charm or something?”

This last was addressed to Madam Pomfrey, who glanced up, her hands still busily applying ointment to Bill’s wounds. Her gaze at Harry was kindly, but when she spoke her voice was as matter-of-fact as ever. “No charm will work on these. I’ve tried everything I know, but there is no cure for werewolf bites.”

“But he wasn’t bitten at the full moon,” Ron protested, staring down at his brother’s face. “Greyback hadn’t transformed, so surely Bill won’t be a - a real -?” And he looked up, distraught, straight at Remus.

Remus carefully set aside all his own emotions. He braced his palms against the sides of his legs, steadying himself, and focused on being only the teacher, the calm and strong adult, the one who could be here to help a boy who needed reassurance. “No, I don’t think that Bill will be a true werewolf,” he told Ron, “but that does not mean that there won’t be some contamination. Those are cursed wounds. They are unlikely ever to heal fully and - and Bill might have some wolfish characteristics from now on.”

“Dumbledore might know something that’d work, though,” Ron plunged on, his eyes darting feverishly around the room. “Where is he? Bill fought those maniacs on Dumbledore’s orders, Dumbledore owes him, he can’t leave him in this state -”

Ginny let out a small, pained sound.

“Ron,” she said. “Dumbledore’s dead.”

“No!” It escaped Remus’ lips without his control, as the shock of Ginny’ words slammed into him. He looked wildly between Ginny and Harry, desperate to hear either one of them take those words back. But Ginny’s lips were pressed tightly together in grief, and Harry still just stared and stared. Remus stumbled, then dropped into a chair by Bill’s bed, his face landing in the cradle of his own hands. Dumbledore couldn’t be - no - no -

He heard Tonks’ voice nearby, a pained whisper. “How did he die? How did it happen?”

Harry told them the story, his voice still strange with shock. He told of returning to Hogsmeade with a weakened Dumbledore, seeing the Dark Mark above the Astronomy Tower. Then of Harry Petrified, Draco terrified - and Snape bursting in.

Snape. Whom they had allowed to pass at will through the melee of the battle, believing him to be one of their own.

Into the horrified silence, unflappable Madam Pomfrey burst into tears.

“Shh! Listen!” Ginny whispered. Somewhere outside, somewhere high in the air above the Hogwarts grounds, Dumbledore’s phoenix Fawkes was singing an unearthly lament.

Everyone in the hospital wing went still as the phoenix’s song washed over them, soothing their shock. For those few precious moments, it didn’t have to be real yet. Dumbledore was not yet gone, for these few moments suspended between the minutes and hours of the normal world. Remus, with his head still in his hands, let himself float in the cradle of the phoenix’s comforting lament.

Then the hospital wing door opened, breaking the spell of the song, and McGonagall came in, looking weary and battle-worn. She glanced to Neville, sleeping peacefully in his bed near the door, then crossed the room to Bill’s bed.

“Molly and Arthur are on their way,” she said. “Harry, what happened? According to Hagrid you were with Professor Dumbledore when he - when it happened. He says Professor Snape was involved in some -”

“Snape killed Dumbledore,” Harry said, and his words hit the quiet room like a shock wave, reverberating into stunned silence.

“Snape,” McGonagall repeated, dazed, dropping into a chair Madam Pomfrey quickly Conjured for her. “We all wondered… but he trusted… always… Snape… I can’t believe it…”

“Snape was a highly accomplished Occlumens. We always knew that.” Remus’ voice sounded strange to his own ears, harsh and full of pain. He had trusted Snape. He had been so determined not to perpetuate against Snape the same prejudiced mistrust he himself had so often endured from others.

“But Dumbledore swore he was on our side!” he heard Tonks whisper. “I always thought Dumbledore must know something about Snape that we didn’t…”

“He always hinted that he had an iron-clad reason for trusting Snape.” McGonagall’s voice was thick with emotion. “I mean… with Snape’s history… of course people were bound to wonder… but Dumbledore told me explicitly that Snape’s repentance was absolutely genuine… wouldn’t hear a word against him!”

“I’d love to know what Snape told him to convince him,” Tonks growled.

“I know.” Harry’s voice rang out, and there was the anger, now, punching through the shock of his grief. He stood there looking defiantly around at them, even as he wore his heartbreak on his face. “Snape passed Voldemort the information that made Voldemort hunt down my mum and dad. Then Snape told Dumbledore he hadn’t realised what he was doing, he was really sorry he’d done it, sorry that they were dead.” Harry’s voice twisted sharply downwards into bitterness.

“And Dumbledore believed that?” Remus demanded. He still felt pinned in his chair, as if his body were no longer capable of moving. “Dumbledore believed Snape was sorry James was dead? Snape hated James…”

“And he didn’t think my mother was worth a damn, either, because she was Muggle-born,” Harry said, his voice curdling with hatred. “‘Mudblood,’ he called her…”

“This is all my fault,” McGonagall exclaimed. And she began a tortured summation of all the ways in which she felt she should have prevented this night from happening.

Pulling himself together with great effort, Remus said, “It isn’t your fault, Minerva. We all wanted more help, we were glad to think Snape was on his way…”

Again, horribly, Remus remembered Snape dashing through the thick of the battle and up the Astronomy Tower stairs, and none of them had thought to question what he intended to do there.

Then bit by bit all of them there in the hospital wing began to relate the night’s events, each filling in their own pieces of what had happened, and where and when, until the picture was more or less complete. Outside the windows, Fawkes’ lament continued to reverberate over the dark school grounds.

Then there was a commotion at the door, and Molly, Arthur and Fleur burst into the room. McGonagall leapt from her seat and went to meet them, saying, “Molly - Arthur - I am so sorry -”

“Bill, oh, Bill!” Molly gasped, rushing to his bedside.

Remus jumped up to make space for them, leaving his seat and stepping away from the bed. He could feel Tonks near to his side, a warm presence radiating grief and strength.

Molly bent and pressed kisses to Bill’s mangled face, as Arthur spoke distractedly to McGonagall: “You said Greyback attacked him? But he hadn’t transformed? So what does that mean? What will happen to Bill?”

“We don’t yet know,” McGonagall said helplessly, and she, too, looked to Remus, as if he could provide the answers.

“There will probably be some contamination, Arthur,” Remus said gently. “It is an odd case, possibly unique… we don’t know what his behaviour might be like when he wakes up…”

Meanwhile, Molly had eyes for nothing but Bill. She’d taken the ointment from Madam Pomfrey and begun applying it to Bill’s wounds herself.

“And Dumbledore?” Arthur asked, his hands tugging distractedly at his own thinning hair. “Minerva, is it true… is he really…?”

McGonagall nodded tightly.

“Dumbledore gone,” Arthur breathed, disbelieving.

Still gazing down into Bill’s damaged face, Molly began to sob, her words growing mangled as her crying became wilder. “Of course, it doesn’t matter how he looks… it’s not r - really important… but he was a very handsome little b - boy… always very handsome… and he was g - going to be married!”

A silvery-blonde Gallic explosion erupted at her side. “And what do you mean by zat?” Fleur demanded, all the force of her redoubtable personality coming to bear on this moment. “What do you mean, ‘e was going to be married?”

Molly raised her tear-drenched face, her sobs startled into silence. “Well - only that -”

“You theenk Bill will not wish to marry me any more? You theenk, because of these bites, he will not love me?”

“No, that’s not what I -”

“Because ‘e will!” Fleur exclaimed, her voice loud enough to rouse all but the most deeply sedated of hospital patients. “It would take more zan a werewolf to stop Bill loving me!”

“Well, yes, I’m sure, but I thought perhaps - given how - how he -” Molly fumbled, staring in bafflement at her future daughter-in-law.

“You thought I would not weesh to marry him? Or per’aps, you ‘oped?” Fleur cried, unstoppable now. “What do I care how ‘e looks? I am good-looking enough for both of us, I theenk! All these scars show is zat my husband is brave! And I shall do that!” She snatched the ointment from Molly’s nerveless fingers and turned her fierce concentration to her fiancé’s wounds.

It would take more than a werewolf to stop him loving me, she’d said. Remus stared, stricken, as Fleur tenderly dabbed Bill’s face.

Molly, her voice gone very soft and strange, said, “Our Great Auntie Muriel has a very beautiful tiara - goblin-made - which I am sure I could persuade her to lend you for the wedding. She is very fond of Bill, you know, and it would look lovely with your hair.”

“Thank you, I’m sure zat will be lovely,” said Fleur, still stiff and angry.

And then, in less than the time it took to think it, something shifted between them, subtly but profoundly, like the movement of a tectonic plate deep beneath the surface of the Earth. And all at once Molly and Fleur had their arms around each other, both still in the grip of high emotion, but united now, and Remus couldn’t look away.

It would take more than a werewolf to stop him loving me.

“You see!” Tonks cried. She was closer even than Remus had realised, less than an arm’s length away from him, so close he could feel the heat of her body. And hear the pain in her voice. “She still wants to marry him, even though he’s been bitten! She doesn’t care!”

Panic spiked through Remus, because he knew he was crumbling. If he so much as looked at Tonks he would crumble in his resolve, and he couldn’t let himself do that, could he? Could he?

“It’s different,” he gasped, fixing his gaze on the scene in front of them, desperate not to let himself turn and look at Tonks, because if he let himself so much as look at her… “Bill will not be a full werewolf,” he choked out. “The cases are completely -”

Remus stumbled backwards, and only once he was already in motion did he understand that the force moving him was Tonks, who’d grabbed him and was shaking him by the front of his robes. “But I don’t care either, I don’t care!” she cried. “I’ve told you a million times -”

Remus kept his eyes frantically fixed on the floor, looking anywhere but at Tonks. “And I’ve told you a million times that I am too old for you, too poor… too dangerous…”

From somewhere far outside this small, complete world that was the two of them, joined together where Tonks’ hands clutched Remus’ robes, he heard Molly say gently, “I’ve said all along you’re taking a ridiculous line on this, Remus.”

“I am not being ridiculous,” Remus said, and his voice was steady now, because this was the thing he was sure of, the one thing he knew would always be true. “Tonks deserves somebody young and whole.”

Tonks was still clinging to his robes, and Remus clung just as hard to the sight of the floor beneath their feet, those clean-scrubbed wooden boards faded from so many years of being trodden upon by students and hospital wing matrons alike. This room right here, the Hogwarts hospital wing, was where Remus had woken torn and bruised after every full moon of his school career, to be patched painfully back together by Madam Pomfrey.

Tonks deserved so much more than a life like that.

Somewhere behind him, very softly, Remus heard Arthur say, “But she wants you. And after all, Remus, young and whole men do not necessarily remain so.”

Meaning Bill, of course. Bill, who had been young and handsome and whole mere hours before, and now might be disfigured or worse for life. And no one here thought Fleur shouldn’t love him because of it.

Remus felt himself shiver beneath Tonks’ hands.

“This is… not the moment to discuss it. Dumbledore is dead…” Remus’ voice rasped on that last word, but still he managed, barely, to keep his eyes directed at the floor. Tonks’ hands were warm against his chest, even through the layers of his robes, the warmest thing Remus could remember feeling in a very long time. He wanted more than anything to sink forward into that warmth, and stay and stay and stay.

“Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world,” Professor McGonagall said, her voice sharp, nearly a reprimand, and Remus couldn’t help it any longer, his eyes skittered, unbidden, up from the floor to meet Tonks’ fierce gaze -

The hospital wing doors burst open and the moment shattered.

Hagrid squeezed in through the doorway, telling McGonagall that he had moved Dumbledore’s body, the students were back in bed, and Slughorn had informed the Ministry - but Remus, reeling, barely heard him at all. He’d seen such extraordinary depth of feeling, in that moment when he’d looked into Tonks’ eyes.

In the babble of conversation that ensued, amongst Hagrid and the others, Tonks quietly stepped away from Remus and released her grip on his robes. But some unseen thread still joined them, and even as the conversation around them moved on, Remus was hyperaware at every moment of exactly where in the room Tonks was.

Hagrid left to gather the heads of the houses, and McGonagall departed, taking Harry with her. The mood in the room shifted too, the urgent tenor of a war room session dissipating.

Professor McGonagall, Remus thought dazedly, who was now headmistress of Hogwarts. Because Dumbledore was dead.

“They’ll be talking about closing the school,” Remus said to no one in particular, his voice coming from somewhere hollow inside him. “Scrimgeour will want it. The heads of house are likely to say the same.”

Molly sniffled, leaning against Arthur, close by Bill’s bedside. Fleur sat clasping Bill’s hand. Ron and Ginny, Hermione and Luna stood in a tight huddle nearby. And Fawkes was still singing his achingly beautiful lament.

“There’s nothing any of us can do but get some rest,” Madam Pomfrey said firmly. “Especially my patients. They need quiet to rest and recover. And you, children, should be in bed.” Ginny made a noise of protest at that, but Madam Pomfrey was already shepherding them towards the door.

Watching the kids leave, Remus was painfully aware of Tonks beside him. He was terrified to turn and look at her. What might he do if he let himself look, and see the depth of feeling in her eyes?

But the tableau that Molly and Arthur and Fleur formed around Bill’s bed was heart-breaking, and they shouldn’t intrude on the family in this private moment of grief. It was time that Remus and Tonks should go.

Remus looked up again and met Tonks’ eyes.

“Dora,” he whispered.

Sweaty and dirty and covered in dust from the ceiling that had collapsed in the battle, her hair lank and brown and dotted with flecks of plaster, her eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion, Tonks was as beautiful as the day Remus had first laid eyes on her, kicking her heels against the legs of a kitchen chair under a shock of irreverent pink hair, at her first meeting of the Order of the Phoenix.

“Dora,” he said again.

Her eyes met his, unwavering as always. “Remus.”

They didn’t need to speak a word to fall into step together. Side by side, they started towards the hospital wing doors, away from the quiet scene around Bill’s bed. Remus opened the door to the corridor, and Tonks closed it behind them once they had passed through.

Her hand still resting on the doorknob, Tonks turned to look at Remus. In the dimness of the corridor, he couldn’t read her expression. Strange elation was rising within him, although he hadn’t the least idea what would come next. Remus had never in his life been less sure of that.

All he knew was that there was so much to say, and he wanted to start saying it, tonight, right now.

He looked at Tonks and asked, “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

- - - - -

Tonks looked at Remus. His robes were ripped at the shoulder and there was dust in his hair. He moved like a man who’d been in battle and no longer felt young, and his quietly lined face was tired. But he was here, that was the extraordinary thing. Tonks had lost the self-control she’d been trying so hard to hold onto, she’d burst out with exactly the kind of messy emotions Remus usually ran from - but Remus wasn’t running.

“Come to my flat,” Tonks said, because there was a painfully bright spark of hope igniting in her chest now, making her want to dare to try again. “Come to my flat and we can talk there.”

They walked side by side down the stairs and along the corridors to the main entrance, exhausted and quiet, but calm in each other’s presence. Tonks wondered if Scrimgeour and his Ministry delegation had arrived yet to meet McGonagall, and what they were saying now.

She would find out soon enough. For this one night, work could wait.

Tonks pushed open the big oak doors, and she and Remus stepped out into the night. A cool breeze fluttered over her face, a welcome relief after the grit and sweat of the battle. Still side by side, they walked through the chill night air, down to the school gates in the dark. Midnight had passed a long time ago, sometime in the thick of the fighting.

Tonks cast the counterspells to open the enchantments that sealed the gates, wondering how many of these spells would need to be strengthened or re-cast now that Dumbledore was gone. It was a good thing, as it turned out, that Dumbledore had had the whole staff cast protective charms on the castle, instead of doing everything himself as he easily could have done. Then again, that had probably been deliberate on Dumbledore’s part, yet another precaution taken with his usual eerie perspicacity. Tonks shivered.

Remus’ voice came, warm and low, from the darkness beside her. “Shall we walk?”

Tonks nodded in the dark, though she wasn’t sure if he could see her. They could Apparate instead, of course, but right then Tonks needed the cool air on her skin and the quiet of the wooded path. She sealed the gates behind them and they started along the path to Hogsmeade, walking in silence, close beside each other though not quite touching. It felt like a vigil, this quiet walk through the darkness, a silent remembrance of the leader and mentor they’d both lost tonight. Exhausted beyond belief, Tonks had reached a place of strange calm.

They arrived in the sleeping village and made their way through the darkened streets. When they reached the Twilfit and Tattings building where Tonks had her flat, she led the way up the narrow stairs to her little attic, both of their feet scuffing softly on the worn wooden steps. Everything about this night was already so surreal that suddenly having Remus here, at her Hogsmeade home, felt strangely matter-of-fact.

Tonks undid the protective charms on the door and pushed it open. She ushered Remus inside, locked and charmed the door behind them, and with a wave of her wand lit the little lamp beside the door.

The flat was woefully untidy. Clothes were strewn all over the furniture, items dropped wherever Tonks had abandoned them that morning in the usual chaos of dressing and leaving the flat. But she didn’t care about that, not in the face of everything else.

Not with Remus here.

When she turned to him again, Remus was staring at Tonks with such fierce tenderness that for a moment it actually took her breath away.

“Dora,” he said again, the way he’d said it in the hospital wing, with so many layers of meaning in the word. The lamplight cast his face in warm angles and shadows, and Tonks had to fight against a desire to pull him to her and kiss him breathless. It would be such a relief to hold Remus again, such a relief to melt against him and pretend, even just for a night, that nothing else in the world existed. But that would not solve any of their problems.

“Come sit,” she said instead, and led him to the loveseat. Yes, the same one where she’d made that disastrous attempt at snogging someone else, anyone who wasn’t Remus.

And now here Remus was.

The strangeness of this whole day hit Tonks all at once, the sheer number of impossible-seeming things that had happened in the space of a single day. She had already put in a full day’s work in Hogsmeade before starting guard duty at the school. Then patrolling the halls, running into the kids with their panicked news of intruders in the castle, then battle, Bill’s injury, Dumbledore’s death…

And now Remus was here in her flat, and that felt even more impossible than all the rest. Tonks could have laughed from the confusion of it all, if she weren’t so exhausted. Every bone in her body ached from battle and loss.

And yet - Remus was here. That could make up for almost anything.

Tonks dropped down onto one side of the sofa and Remus settled himself politely at its other end. He turned so he was facing Tonks, with one knee bent flat on the sofa in front of him, then he cleared his throat a little awkwardly and lifted his eyes to hers.

“You know,” Remus said gravely, “lately all I seem to hear is Sirius’ voice in my head, telling me I’ve been a damn fool.”

Now Tonks did laugh, helpless and overwhelmed and pushed so far beyond any normal reaction that she had no choice but to give in to it, clutching her sides and gasping for breath until finally the hysterical laughter sputtered away into a last few hiccoughs. Remus watched her, patiently waiting out her laughing fit, but with his eyebrows lifted in mild alarm.

When Tonks finally had herself under control, she said, “Sorry, wait, you what?”

Remus was still giving her that quietly alarmed, eyebrows-raised look, so Tonks coughed a little, cleared her throat and said, “Sorry. Right, all okay now. But what did you just say?”

Remus’ eyebrows lowered at last, furrowing in thought. “It seems as if all the time I’ve got Sirius’ voice in my head, telling me that I’ve been wrong. And not only Sirius. So many people, people whose wisdom I trust, have been telling me it’s worth the risk.”

“What’s worth the risk?” Tonks asked, breath catching in her throat.

Remus slid one hand across the small stretch of knobbly green love seat cushion that lay between them, and rested it there, palm up. Hesitantly, Tonks reached out her own hand, too, until it met his. Remus’ fingers against hers were cool, and roughened with the manual labour of his many months of outdoor living. He gripped her hand in his.

“This,” he said.

Tonks looked down at their joined hands, framed by the green surface of the loveseat. Her heart beat wildly, but her brain seemed to have frozen. All she could do was stare at the sight of Remus’ hand in hers.

“I only wanted to protect you from hurt,” Remus said, so softly, his voice little more than a whisper. “I haven’t done a very good job of that, have I?”

The hysterical laughter threatened to overflow again, but Tonks fought it down. “Yeah, not so much, no.”

“I’m so sorry,” Remus said, and Tonks could hear in his voice that he really was. But Remus was always sorry when things went wrong, and it still didn’t stop those things from happening. What reason was there to think that this, right now, would be any different?

You’re the last person I would ever want to hurt,” he said. “That was so far from my intention. And I’m sorry.”

Tonks nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Remus was quiet too, his hand still holding hers.

At last he said, his voice low and hoarse, “The things I said before, at Hogwarts tonight, they’re still true. Those are facts I can’t change. I am a werewolf. I will never again be young and whole; I haven’t been that for a long time. I will never cease to worry that I might harm you, however unintentionally. I do what I can to minimise the risks, but even so, it may never be enough.”

Remus turned fully towards her, his eyes earnest in the lamplight. There was still a smudge of dust on his cheek from the battle, and he looked grave and exhausted.

Quietly, he said, “But I’m ready to try. I can’t promise more than that. But I can promise to try.”

That right there - that was what was different. The Remus of a year ago had been afraid even to make a promise, for fear he wouldn’t be able to keep it.

A promise wasn’t assurance that everything would turn out all right. No one could know that for certain. But something in Remus’ year away had changed him, to the point that he dared to give it his best shot.

“So,” Remus continued hoarsely. “If you still mean what you said tonight in the hospital wing -”

“I do,” Tonks said.

“If you still feel that way, and you want to try…”

Tonks could still feel, vividly, how it had felt to throw herself at Remus, unable to hold back for another moment - even there in front of everyone, even though the timing of it was all wrong, amidst all that death and destruction.

Or maybe the timing was exactly right, because the one thing this terrible night had shown her for certain was how fragile they all were, how close within death’s grasp, on any given day. And if that was true, then what could possibly matter more than telling each other what they felt?

“Yes,” she said. “I meant what I said. And yes, I want to try.”

The joy that blossomed across Remus’ tired face was beautiful.

But he said soberly, “It’s not a lot, what I can offer you. You know my reservations about myself as a partner.”

“I know,” Tonks said. “You’ve told me them over and over. And I’ve told you just as many times that I don’t mind. Are you going to be able to hear and believe me when I say that I don’t mind?”

Tonks looked at Remus, and she saw that the fear was still there in his eyes. Maybe it would always be there. But the difference was that he seemed to be willing to fight against it now. The difference was how he met her eyes without looking away.

“Come here,” Tonks said. “Please.” She tugged at Remus’ hand until he shifted closer, only a few inches of bright green fabric still left between them. Tonks reached up with her free hand to wipe away the dust smudge on his cheek. Remus startled, then eased again under her touch.

Gently, Tonks rested her hand against Remus’ cheek and drew him towards her, until his head came to rest on her chest. She shifted, setting her back against the arm of the loveseat so he could lean his weight against her. The hand that still held his, she circled around Remus until their joined hands rested on his chest and she could feel his heart pulsing beneath the fabric of his robes. There was no sound now but their breathing, and by slow degrees, Remus relaxed into her embrace.

Tonks looked down over his dusty, disarrayed hair, and studied their entwined hands. She’d always loved Remus’ elegant, capable hands. She loved the way he held a wand, at ease and in control.

As she watched, Remus bent his head and pressed his lips to her fingers. His lips were warm against her skin and Tonks shivered.

“Will you stay?” she whispered. “I mean - stay, and sleep here tonight. You’ve to sleep somewhere, haven’t you?”

“There’s so much we need to talk about,” Remus mumbled. He sounded like he was fighting off sleep, after this endless and exhausting night.

“Yeah,” Tonks agreed. “There is.”

Dumbledore was dead. The Order would have to change to meet that challenge. Everything would have to change. What would happen with Remus’ mission with the werewolves? What would happen in Hogsmeade, and at Hogwarts? Tonks could hardly imagine it, a future without Dumbledore to lead them. Maddening though his inscrutable ways had sometimes been, they’d always known they could count on Dumbledore to have a plan. Everything from here on out was a great unknown.

And yet, for the first time in a long time, Tonks felt inside herself a tentative unfurling of hope.

“We can talk tomorrow,” she told Remus quietly, her hand still resting against the reassuring beat of his heart. “And every day after that. But for tonight…stay here and sleep. What I want more than anything in the world right now is to fall asleep next to you.”

She felt Remus startle back to full alertness within the circle of her arms. “Really?” he asked, twisting so he could look up at her. “Really, is that what you want? Is this…all right?”

Tonks felt her face crack into the unaccustomed shape of a smile. Oh, it felt so good to smile.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s much, much more than all right. Come to bed.”

“Well,” Remus said gravely. “I wouldn’t want to presume I would be welcome there.”

Tonks leaned forward and kissed his hair, laughing now and giddy and maybe a little hysterical, too, from all the intense emotions of this long night. “Yes,” she said. “You’re welcome. You’re invited. But very unfortunately I’m not going to be able to join you there if you keep sitting on my legs.”

“Oh!” Remus gave a short laugh of surprise. “Yes, right.” He slid from her arms, his hand still holding hers, and levered himself up from the loveseat with a battle-weary groan. But tired though he might be, Remus was as strong as ever - he pulled at her hand and suddenly Tonks found herself on her feet, face to face with Remus.

Her breath caught in her throat, once again, at the tenderness in his eyes.

“I have missed you so much,” Remus said softly.

“Same,” Tonks told him, her throat tight. “You too.”

She tugged his hand, remembering the very first time Remus had surrendered his fears and come to her bed, over a year ago now. That night had been about all that was exciting and new; tonight was, at long last, a return to what was familiar and beloved. Tonight, exhausted, they would only sleep. Tonight, they would curl into each other like wounded animals and take comfort in one another’s warmth.

(continue to CHAPTER 21: Returning)