The grounds were cold, the chill of Dementors that gnawed at the soul, ate away all happiness. The mist creeping from the Forbidden Forest lay like smoke along the grounds, twisting and writhing like a living thing in pain with the movement through it.
Remus Lupin took a passing pleasure in the thought of causing that pain, as he surged through it, twisting to aim another stunning spell in the direction of a flash of green light, the tattered hem of his Wizard's robes setting the mist at his ankles swirling in eddies along ground cracked by curses. The children surrounded him, calls of encouragement shouted back and forth over the roar of battle. "Great shot, Professor!"
And for a moment, the surge of heated pleasure could have kept a hundred dementors at bay. He was no Sirius. No James. He was not one to come alive only in battle. But he would remain Professor Remus Lupin in the minds of his brave students, who fought beside him now.
And that was everything to him. In the Great Hall, as the leaders stood, their squads aligning in front of them, he watched as one after another of his students lined facing him, their faces resolute, wands at ready, until Minerva had to chivvy those in the back of the line into other squads to even the ranks.
And for a moment, he wondered what it would have been like if he'd stayed. If he hadn't let the censure of parents force him from Hogwarts, the one place he'd ever felt truly accepted, however fleeting that had proved to be.
A scream rent the air, and a snarl he would know anywhere yanked him firmly back to reality. Twisting again, he sought the man he most wanted, of all on the battlefield, to be done with. Beast. Animal. As bad as Voldemort, in his ways.
Fenrir Grayback's savage yellow claws raked the face of a tiny blonde boy, whose face contorted beyond recognition in pain. Colin Creevy. The image of his own assailant preying on another small, weak boy was enough to cause a surge of rage that would have dimmed even that of his fellow Mauraders.
"CRUCIO!"
The blast slammed into the snarling Grayback, sending him soaring backwards into the night, and Remus ran through the mist to Creevy's side, kneeling in the wet grass. He hoped it was merely dew. From the look of the young boy, though, it might not be. "Stay with us, Colin. . ."
"Remus, get up!" The voice that drifted across the grounds pulled at the depths of his soul, and it always had. The desperation in it, the strain, shook him. Dropping the boy's hand, wand at the ready, Remus Lupin spun to find his wife's attackers.
"We're pruning, little Nymphadora. You're a blight, you and your mangy mutt of a husband. And look, there he is." The patronizing, shrill voice grated against him, but was nothing to seeing Tonks falling back in the onslaught of Bellatrix's attack. Their wands sliced through the air like swords, hissing, lights flashing back and forth between them, twisting and shielding. The young auror, his wife and the mother of their son, fought with a determination spurred by desperation. She'd come to find him, he realized, rushed the field of battle, and had been ambushed.
It seemed Voldemort's chief lieutenant had something to prove, and it would be her niece's blood that would pay her way back into favor.
Lunging across the space between, Remus put himself shoulder to shoulder with Tonks, bracing her, and together they circled, wands out, fixed on the sneering face of Lestrange. Their shield charm kept them temporarily safe as the jets of red light seemed to break apart across it.
"You should be with Teddy."
"I should be with my husband, and with the Order." The defiance was there, the bit of Black that looked odd shining from the face of gentle Ted Tonk's daughter. He'd seen it often enough to recognize the futility of arguing.
And he loved her all the more for it.
"Are you going to hide all day?"
"I'm having a conversation with my wife, Bella. You can wait." There was a feral quality to his expression, a snarl that creased his prematurely lined face, and for that moment he forgot to stoop, proud in their defiance. Lowering his voice again for Tonks alone, he hated himself for the quake in it, for his inability to look away from the jeering face of Bella for a last glance at his wife.
"If anything happens. . ."
"I'll meet you on the other side."
Her quiet comment, a press of her shoulder to his, and suddenly their moment was broken. The battle on the grounds surged across their area again, as a side of Hogwarts suddenly caved under spell damage. The heavy footfalls of giants gave warning as they broke apart, together facing Bella, spells surging again.
Until a jet of purple flame seared through the air just between them, singeing Remus's hair as he turned to put himself back to back with his wife to face Dolohov's pinched pale face.
He felt it happen, behind him. Green light cast his shadow along the ground, stretching it along the suddenly illuminated ground, and Bella's shriek of laughter pierced even through the roar of the battle. And while he was still turning, one foot over the other, Tonks had fallen still behind him, her weight suddenly unsuspended he moved on, back no longer to her.
She died without a cry, defiance and concentration still etched across her face, her hair the vibrant pink it had been when he first met her, as she fell slowly at his side.
The world flashed green, and he died with her name on his lips, a hand stretch out to stay her fall.
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Footsteps on a forest path, his dearest friends beside him, Remus Lupin follows Harry Potter, offering him strength with his sad smile. He knows, now. Teddy, beautiful as his mother, is the responsibility of the boy walking beside him, determined to face a hero's death.
As the stone falls, the world washes in white again, and he feels a shoulder to his, a presence, love ebbing up against him like the tide that in life he'd never believed he deserved.
"I waited for you."