Time by InFabula
Disclaimer: these wonderful characters belong to JK: I just borrowed them for a bit.
A/N This is a companion piece to "Rosemary": these are two alternatives, both of which will be gloriously AU after 21 July.
He has just put Crabbe down when he feels claws – nails? – slice and slash his back open and he is slammed to the floor. Hot, fetid breath lies on his neck, he feels the weight pinning him down and he is transported back to the night of the bite.
"Did you think you'd escaped me?" Fenrir snarls in his ear. "Child of mine?"
Then the weight lifts and he realises someone has Stupefied his attacker. He rolls clear and forces himself back up on his feet.
Somehow, he is in the eye of the storm that rages round him. There is no immediate Death Eater to fight and his fingers tighten on his wand as he looks for where he can help others.
"Petrificus Totalus!" he cries, catching Goyle unawares as he stands over a fallen Kingsley.
He spots Malfoy, newly escaped from Azkaban, locked in a duel with Moody, and then spies Peter and McGonagall, hurling spells at each other at the top of the Great Hall and starts to head towards them. Peter is surely his responsibility.
Suddenly, the cry goes up amongst the Death Eaters.
"Our Lord is defeated! Fly! Fly!"
His heart rejoices at the news. Harry has fulfilled the prophecy and saved them again.
"Crucio!"
Pain wraps itself around his body and burns into his brain. He falls down, writhing in torment. He glimpses Bellatrix, teeth bared, full of bitter vengeance and then he screws his eyes closed, unable to focus on anything but the searing agony.
Without warning and miraculously, his suffering ends.
He blinks back the sweat and pushes himself up on one arm. He sees Tonks, wand drawn, with an unconscious Bellatrix, whose body is wrapped tightly in cords.
"You alright?" she calls over and he smiles at her before collapsing.
-----
He comes to in St Mungo's and stares up at the ceiling of the ward.
"At last!" he hears and struggling, he sits up.
Tonks is sitting cross-legged in a chair beside him, munching her way through a bag of grapes.
"You've been out the whole night. You missed all the celebrations," she mock-scolds, passing him a grape.
"What happened?" he asks, popping the fruit in his mouth and leaning back against the pillows.
"Oh, not much. Voldemort defeated, Death Eaters caught and put into Azkaban, the world breathes again," Tonks ticks the answers off on her fingers. "As for you," she breaks off and looks at him. "The injuries Fenrir gave you were serious. You lost a whole lot of blood."
"Werewolves heal quickly," he assures her. "It's one of the few perks."
She flashes him a grin and neither of them mention the fact that the wounds are cursed wounds and therefore likely to provide complications.
"How's Harry?"
"Glad it's all over, I think. I don't know. I didn't see much of him. I just came straight here with you."
He thinks about what Harry must be feeling. After all these years, he is finally free of the being that has sought to destroy him, that has taken away his family, that has relentlessly driven him to embark on this desperate crusade to defeat him.
The War is ended, he tells himself. This time, it really is. He catches sight of Tonks's face, unusually solemn and guesses the reason.
"Who did we lose?"
She is silent for a moment then sighs.
"Moody. And Kingsley's can't use his right arm."
He grimaces. Foolish to think that they would all come through this unscathed.
"Ah, you're awake, Professor," a beaming Healer's Assistant appears and business-like, rolls him on his side towards Tonks.
He sees her stifling a smile at his helplessness as the Assistant checks his wounds.
"Coming along nicely," the Assistant says. She fills in a few notes on the chart at the end of his bed and then nods and leaves.
Tonks unbends her legs and moves forward to perch on the edge of his bed.
"I thought I'd lost you, Remus," she says quietly and reaches over and squeezes his hand. "I was scared silly."
He thinks about everything they've fought for and everything they have to look forward to. He looks into her eyes and sees many things: hope and love and a future. And he finds that they are things he feels and wants too. Here and now.
He squeezes her hand in return.