1. Losing
Headache. Merlin, it hurts. Like knives and sledgehammers at the same time.
The stabbing pain made it hard to think, but there was a sick, urgent feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she knew there was something dreadfully important. Something she absolutely had to do.
Tonks fought to remember. She'd been looking for someone—
Remus.
Bellatrix.
Her eyes snapped open and her fingers scrabbled desperately for her wand, even as her sluggish brain was realizing that it couldn't possibly matter anymore—Bellatrix must not still be there, or Tonks would already be dead.
She blinked a few times, waiting for her vision to clear. No fire, no falling rocks, no panicked shouting. No battle. She seemed to be in the hospital wing at Hogwarts. And then a pale Black face with wide grey eyes swam into view after all, leaning over her anxiously. But it was the wrong sister.
Thank heavens.
"Mum?" Her voice came out as a rasping whisper.
"Nymphadora! You're awake!" Mum snatched up Tonks's hand and held it to her cheek, and a tear or two squeezed out between her lashes. "The fight is over, love. Harry Potter's done it. You-Know-Who—V-Voldemort—is dead."
Tonks's throat was raw, probably from all the shouting she'd been doing at the battle, and maybe from breathing too much dust and smoke. But there were things she had to ask. "I was fighting Bellatrix... What happened?"
"She's dead, too." Her mother's face was suddenly hard and fierce. "She'll never threaten our family again."
Tonks shuddered, remembering the scrawny, malevolent owl that had found her as she stood over Teddy's cot. The fact that it had penetrated the security spells around her mother's house was ominous enough, but the message it brought frightened her more than anything she had ever seen. That's right, hide at home with your half-breed spawn and see if it does you any good. I will find the werewolf at Hogwarts, and I will kill him myself. And then I will come for you, and your brat, and your blood-traitor mother. The Black family tree will be pruned.
"I wanted to kill her."
"From what I hear, you came awfully close." Mum gave a little laugh, but halfway through, it caught in her throat and turned into a sob. "You had her cornered, didn't you? I'm told she shot a Killing Curse at you, but you—you tripped, and hit your head on a piece of fallen masonry. Only, Bella thought it was her curse that got you, so she ran off and left you lying there." Mum blinked, hard. "Everyone thought you were dead, until the fighting was over and Poppy Pomfrey found a pulse..."
So the clumsiness that was the bane of her existence had probably saved her life. It should've been funny. But somehow, Tonks had no mental energy to spare for humour just now.
The Black family tree will be pruned.
She looked around wildly, half-expecting her husband to be standing there with their son in his arms, ready to start scolding her for coming to the battle—for losing to Bellatrix again—for being unconscious and worrying everyone.
But Mum was the only one here.
Tonks clutched at her mother's hand. "Where's Remus? And Teddy? Tell me Bellatrix didn't find them!"
"Teddy's at home," said Mum quickly. "He's fine. A few friends of Harry's offered to look after him so that I could stay with you."
Her baby was safe. Tonks closed her eyes and clung, for just a moment, to that one piece of happy news. But even so, the bottom was falling out of her world, because of the question that her mother hadn't answered. She looked up, straight into Mum's grey gaze, full of sympathy overlaid with the pain of her own all too recent loss.
"Remus is dead, isn't he," Tonks whispered.
She didn't quite know how she'd forced her own mouth to shape those words, words that she'd never really believed—no matter how much she'd pretended to be ready for anything in this war—never really believed she'd have a reason to say. Not for, oh, another hundred years, anyway.
But her mother was shaking her head slowly, biting her lip. "It's—it's not clear."
o—o—o
Lily took advantage of a quiet moment to curl up under a shady tree and have a look at Harry through her scrying-glass. She still couldn't quite believe how close she'd been able to get to him last night—and he'd seen her. He'd spoken to her. The memory alone gave her a fresh surge of joy; then she sighed, smiling a little wistfully at his image in the glass. No matter how much she missed her son, it was all for the best that he wasn't here yet. Although, from what Dumbledore had said this morning, that was something of a miracle in itself.The scrying-glass was showing Gryffindor Tower, where Harry seemed to have just awakened from a well-deserved nap in his old bed. Lily watched him rub his eyes and stretch, settling his glasses on his nose. Then he pulled a towel from a cupboard and set off for the shower. Grinning a little, she cleared the glass to give him some privacy and slipped it back into her pocket.
"Oi, Lily!"
Quiet moments were surprisingly hard to come by, even in the afterlife. Lily looked up to see Sirius making a beeline for her tree, with James right behind him.
Sirius plopped down cross-legged beside her. "You haven't seen Moony at all, have you?"
James stooped to plant a light kiss on the top of her head and then leaned against the tree, looming benevolently above as he waited for her answer.
"Not for a while." She tilted her head to one side, considering. "Not since he said he wanted to go for a walk."
"Mmm," said James, somewhat grimly. "We haven't either."
"And it's probably not a good idea to leave him alone too long just yet," Sirius elaborated. "He's had quite a shock, after all." He jumped up again and held out a hand to Lily. "Come and help us look for him?"
They each chose a direction and set off across the sunny meadow.
Lily had been a bit worried about Remus herself; death wasn't the easiest idea to come to terms with. But so far, he seemed to be doing surprisingly well. He was shaky and disoriented when he first turned up, but then, most people were. He'd found his feet remarkably quickly once Dumbledore pulled the four of them aside and started to explain what might happen if Harry used the Resurrection Stone. Then, in the Forbidden Forest, Remus had been nothing short of marvellous—standing tall and proud, telling Harry not to be sorry, that he had died for something he believed in. Even this morning, when James offered to let Remus choose a new landscape, he had risen to the occasion with flair, shaping the formless mist into rolling meadows cris-crossed with low walls of white stone under a mild sun and a gentle breeze. He really did seem to be just fine—
Lily stopped short, catching sight of a brown shape huddled against one of the stone walls.
Maybe Remus wasn't holding up so terribly well after all.
"I've found him!" she called over her shoulder, setting off at a run.
When Lily got closer, she could see that he was sitting with his knees drawn up and his face buried in his folded arms, shaking. "Oh, Remus." She dropped down into the soft fragrant grass, slipped an arm around his shoulders, and gave him a squeeze. "I'm so, so sorry."
James slid to a stop next to his old friend and patted him rather awkwardly on the back. "I know it's rough, leaving people behind. But it'll get easier with time. Believe me."
Sirius, however, came loping over and wasted no time in giving Remus an emphatic thump on the head. "You prat. Haven't you learned after all this time not to go off by yourself with your troubles, when you've got friends who want to help? I reckon you're even thicker than I thought you were."
That earned a shaky laugh, and then Remus straightened up slowly and looked around at the three of them. His eyes were so full of pain that it made Lily swallow hard, but he gave an apologetic smile and shrugged slightly. "I'm sorry," he said, a bit hoarsely. "I just didn't want to worry you lot."
"Well," growled Sirius, "disappearing for hours is a bloody brilliant way to accomplish that."
Remus laughed again, a little more easily this time. Then he leaned back against the stone wall and stretched out his long legs with a small sigh.
"You know, Moony," said James, reaching over and giving Remus's hair a bit of a tousle, "it's only a matter of waiting. Dora and Teddy will be here too, someday."
"You'd best get in the habit of calling her Tonks, or she'll pummel you when she gets here," Sirius stage-whispered. "Not even I'm allowed to call her Dora, and I'm family."
And this actually made Remus snigger. Lily gave Sirius a surreptitious pat on the back. He might have a little too much fun pushing her buttons sometimes, but boy, did he know how to handle Remus.
They sat in companionable silence for a while, listening to the songs of larks and thrushes that Remus's imagination had supplied when he'd arranged the landscape.
"The birdsong is a lovely touch." Lily smiled at him.
Remus raised his eyebrows. "You can hear it over the buzzing? I can't hear it at all."
"Buzzing?" James was the one who asked, but Lily and Sirius exchanged puzzled looks as well.
"I thought it was just part of being...here." Remus frowned, but Lily was pleased to see that it was merely his familiar old frown of concentration. "I hear a buzzing sound all the time, and sometimes there even seem to be voices, but I can't make out what they're saying."
"I've never heard of that happening before," said James slowly. "I'll ask some of the folks who've been here longer—see if they know what it means."
Remus watched James for a moment. "What you said just now, about this being easier to bear over time—does it really get better? It must have been horrible for you and Lily, leaving Harry behind."
"It was," said Lily. "It is. Every day I wish I could be there for my son when he needs me." James scooted closer and put an arm around her waist, and she sank gratefully against the solid warmth of his shoulder. "But at first it was like a searing, crushing pain—" Remus nodded ruefully—"and now it's more like a dull ache."
"And at least you two have each other," said Remus, almost too quietly to hear.
Sirius looked over at her, his face twisted with grief and regret. "Lily, he's been here long enough. You ought to let him see the glass."
She hesitated. "You know we're supposed to wait a week after someone crosses over before we do that!"
But Remus looked lost and alone, and Sirius had his arms crossed and his eyes half closed in that incorrigible I-dare-you pose of his. Lily sighed, pulled her scrying-glass from her pocket, and held it out toward Remus. "Here you go, then."
He looked at her curiously.
"It will show you anyone alive you ask to see. Just touch the glass and think of the person you want to watch."
Remus took the scrying-glass in unsteady hands and whispered, "My Dora."
The view through the glass was foggy for a moment, and then it cleared, showing the hospital wing at Hogwarts. There was Tonks, with a large white bandage on her head. She looked pale and strained, but at least she was awake and alert, talking animatedly to her mother. Remus touched her image almost reverently, running a finger along her cheek, stroking her fine brown hair. Lily had to look away.
"She'll be all right," said Sirius quietly. "Blacks have hard heads, you know."
Remus nodded, unable to speak.
"Let's have a look at the sprog, too, shall we?" James kept his voice light.
Remus's eyes widened. "Good heavens. If Andromeda's at Hogwarts, who is watching Teddy?" He touched the scrying-glass again, and the scene shifted to Andromeda's small, comfortable-looking house. Teddy was lying on a blanket on the living-room floor, yowling. His eyes were screwed up tight, and his tiny fists were flailing. Next to him sat Harry's friend Hermione, frantically flipping through a very thick book, darting panicked glances at the screaming infant. Then someone else came into view—Frank and Alice's boy, Neville. He picked Teddy up and swung him around a bit, and the baby immediately left off crying and started blowing little spittle bubbles instead. His hair even turned bright green, matching Neville's T-shirt. Hermione sat back on her heels and gaped.
Lily suddenly realized that Remus was laughing quietly, despite the tears in his eyes. "Poor Hermione," he chuckled. "That had to rankle. She hates it when she can't look up what to do."
They watched Teddy and the two young people for a while. Neville really seemed to have a knack with babies, and even Hermione eventually relaxed and began to look like she was having fun.
"Can we look in on Harry?" Lily asked. "The last time I checked, he'd just been up in Gryffindor Tower having a bit of a nap."
Remus handed back the glass, and Lily touched it, thinking, Harry Potter. The view shifted unexpectedly back to the Hogwarts hospital wing. Harry was sitting by a bed, talking quietly. And he was holding the hand of none other than one Remus Lupin.
No one said anything for quite a while. Finally, Remus broke the silence, staring fixedly at the ground. "Dammit, Harry. You need to be out with the people who love you, celebrating the end of the bloody war. Never mind my old corpse."
"Maybe," said Sirius tightly, "he's telling that old corpse goodbye because he cares about your sorry arse."
But Lily had seen something. She tapped the glass again, shifting the angle of the view, moving closer to the figure on the hospital bed.
"It's not a corpse," she whispered.
Three pairs of eyes turned to her in shock and disbelief.
"Remus, you're—" She looked at him and shook her head. "I don't understand how this is possible, but down there, you're still breathing."
o—o—o
Author's Note: While this story is obviously counter to JKR's stated intentions, it is intended to be compliant with what is actually written in DH. Chapter 1 was originally written for the rt-challenge community on LiveJournal. Many thanks to my beta, jncar, for her excellent suggestions and for encouraging me to keep on with this despite my initial reservations about writing AU.