I'd like to say THANK YOU to everyone who has read and/or reviewed any of my stories, but especially the "No Angel" series. I promise, this is the last installment, and I believe it wraps things up quite nicely. Reviews always help inspire my muse, as I know they do for other authors. If you have a suggestion or question, let me know! I try to respond as much as possible. This story is not the only thing I have sitting around in a notebook waiting to be typed; I always write on paper first, it's one of my little quirks. Reviews encourage me to type! ;-) On with the story! As always, the characters and any recognizeable places belong to Joanne, and the song belongs to Dido and her album "No Angel."
Thank You – Moon
Remus sighed as he relaxed further into the down-filled bedding the surrounded him. Nym's soft, sleepy breaths ghosted over his ear as she subconsciously snuggled closer. Her warm and familiar presence lulled him into a half-conscious dreamland, where him mind drew him into the past.
My tea's gone cold, and I'm wondering why
I got out of bed at all.
The morning rain clouds up my window,
And I can't see at all.
He had lost his last "brother," the last fellow Marauder, only two years after getting him back. Granted, the blame was a mixture of causes: Dumbledore's insistence that Sirius remain a virtual prisoner in a house he loathed; Sirius' own pig-headed lack of respect for anything—aside from the Marauder Code of Ethics and Regulations™—that remotely resembled a rule; Severus Snape's blinkered reluctance to consider that Harry was not a reborn James; and poor Harry's all-too-fallible memory.
In fact, Remus attribute that last factor to Harry himself, but to the Dursley family and Dumbledore. He'd scented something foul every time he saw the young wizard, but it had taken four years for Harry to confide in the werewolf.
When they had all gathered for Bill and Fleur's wedding, just after Harry came of age, Remus had been shocked to find that the foul odour covered Ron and Hermione as well, especially when told that all three had been at Number Four Privet Drive since Dumbledore's funeral. The small, dark-haired teen had glanced at his friends with something dark haunting his eyes, and the pair had mimed zipping their mouths shut. Then Harry had turned to his father's last best friend.
"We need to talk, and I know a spot where we won't be overheard." They had trooped off into the woods and stopped at the edge of a burbling stream. Their talk had lasted nearly four hours, but Harry had haltingly recalled all that the Muggles had forced him to endure over the years. Even worse, this year, Harry had shown up a week early without any warning—and with two friends in tow who were quite legally allowed to perform magic. The Muggles had been furious, snatching the teens' wands and belongings, then locking them all into the tiny bedroom Harry usually inhabited.
"I don't ever have to go back, though," Harry had sighed at the end of his tale. "I put a quiet little charm on Dudley before we left, to let me know if he happens to father a magical child. That way, I can take it away before he gets the chance to do any harm." Remus had stared at the young man for a full minute, then he'd smiled sadly.
"Despite everything you've been through, cub, you're a better man than I could ever be." He'd been this close to going and mutilating the Muggles immediately, never mind his calm exterior. The devil could take the Ministry; he'd tear them to pieces and take his punishment, whatever it was, with a smile. A big, tooth-filled, satisfied-wolf grin, fit to make Voldemort soil himself in fear.
Even if I could, it'd all be grey.
I put your picture on my wall.
It reminds me that it's not so bad,
It's not so bad…
"So what's going on between you and Nymphadora Tonks?" Harry's teasing, singsong tone, coupled with that particular name, had jolted the werewolf from his dark thoughts of vengeance. The serious conversation had quickly devolved into a tickling war, which ended in a pair of gasping, laughing, smiling wizards who had grown much closer in those few hours.
Despite the recent, violent death of the man most of the participants had looked up to, Bill and Fleur's wedding was quite the joyous occasion. The Weasley heir had fully recovered from Fenrir Greyback's attack, and only a few faint scars remained on his face and throat to show how close he had come to Death's door. The newlyweds were a smashing couple.
It hadn't hurt, at least in Remus' eyes, that Nym had been at his side almost the entire day. Nothing could have spoiled the happy occasion.
I drank too much last night, got bills to pay.
My head just feels in pain.
I missed the bus, and there'll be hell today,
I'm late for work again.
A week later, Remus had been at Grimmauld Place with Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny, when they'd heard three unmistakeable sounds: the loud "pop" of a side-along apparition, Mrs. Black's screams working up to another rant, and the venomous oaths of a man they'd thought a traitor—Severus Snape.
The five Gryffindors had stormed out to the landing, wands in hand, to peer carefully over the railing. Snape had begun to berate the portrait, his deep voice overpowering her screeching. A very dirty, bruised, and unconscious Draco Malfoy had been sprawled at the man's feet, his torso propped against the former professor's long shins.
None of them had been expecting Snape's side of the argument with Mrs. Black. He had argued for the inclusion of Muggleborns in wizarding society, starting with the little-realized fact that ninety percent of the most powerful wizards and witches since 1870 could trace their families back and find Muggles within three generations—or less. Mrs. Black had quieted under the onslaught, and never spoke again.
Snape had then further proven his dedication to Harry's cause by warning them of an pending attack on the Burrow, though he didn't know exactly when it would happen. Other than the Death Eaters who had been chosen to participate in the raid, he and Malfoy had been the only ones to know of it, and then only because they'd been eavesdropping. They'd been caught, and Draco punished, before Snape could activate a Portkey he'd prepared months earlier.
Snape had hoped to get the information to the Order before the attack could happen, but it had already been too late. By the time they all got to Ottery St Catchpole, the welcoming, ramshackle house was little more than a funeral pyre for six Weasleys and over two dozen Death Eaters. Even Malfoy, who'd roused during Snape's frantic warning, was overwhelmed by the destruction.
The seven of them grew closer with this experience as they came to terms with the deaths over the next week. Together, they sought out the horcruxes Voldemort had created with almost obsessive determination. All of them had consumed far too much alcohol during this period in attempts to dull their emotional hurts.
And even if I'm there, they'll all imply
I might not last the day.
And then you call me, and it's not so bad,
It's not so bad…
Shortly after they found the first of the remaining horcruxes, Nym joined them. Rufus Scrimgeour had ordered her to arrest Augusta Longbottom—Neville's grandmother, of all people—on the charge of being a Death Eater. Since Nym knew the woman's feelings about Voldemort, she'd refused outright, then continued to tell Scrimgeour that his accusation was false, trumped up to make it appear to the wizarding public and the Muggle government that he was doing something about the problem, when he was really just sitting on his hands and waiting for Harry to solve it for him. The Minister hadn't liked that someone had seen through his act.
Nym had been sacked on the spot.
However, more than half of the Aurors in the department had been present for the entire conversation, including the revelation that Frank and Alice Longbottom, two beloved former comrades and Augusta's son and daughter-in-law, had been tortured into insanity by Death Eaters. Within two days, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was echoingly empty. Every last one had resigned, sending a veritable horde of owls to Harry with offers of support.
Ron had organized the volunteers, spreading teams all across Britain to find and investigate magical anomalies. Several Unspeakables had joined the mass exodus, and two of them deduced that the potion Dumbledore had consumed just before his death had been the true horcrux in the cave by the sea. The entire defensive setup, including the Inferi, had been meant to protect the potion, not the locket.
Ex-Aurors had located both the last horcrux and Voldemort's lair within a month. However, it was already mid-November, and Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco, and Ginny had been missing school. Remus, Nym, and Snape had been doing their best to keep the teens up to the level of their peers who had returned to Hogwarts, but it had been rather difficult.
At Yule, Harry had destroyed both horcruxes, leaving the snake Nagini as the remaining barrier to Voldemort's destruction. Before a move could be made against the Dark Lord himself, the enemy disappeared from the known lair without a trace. Remus had then convinced the teens to finish out the school year at Hogwarts, and the spring term had passed so quietly that the magical community was on the verge of complete panic.
Time had continued to pass with only the occasional Death Eater raid, and no sign of Voldemort himself. Then, in March, over a year after losing their trace on the Inner Circle, Aurors found the Death Eaters again.
They'd moved on the old manor house at midnight, as 31 March had become 1 April. A few of the Order's fighters got separated from the main group during the vicious room-to-room battle, But Remus had stayed close to his best friend's son. The werewolf had been the one to snap Nagini's spine, releasing the fragment of soul that she'd borne.
Harry, wielding the famous Sword of Godric Gryffindor, had deflected three curses from Voldemort's wand before a flick of the wrist separated the Dark Lord from his wand hand. The evil man had only gotten time for a brief scream before Harry's next stroke took off his head.
The aftermath had seemed to drag on forever, but was sorted out within three months. When the dust settled, Remus had been floored to find Harry wed to Ginny and the pair of them raising a baby. He knew that Ginny hadn't been pregnant, but it remained a mystery to him. He'd visited the little family at their cottage once, and he could only describe the home's scent as "strange." Not wrong, as with the Dursley smell, just… weird. There was a faint air of illness, but it was something Remus had never encountered before and could not identify. He'd mentioned Draco just once, and Ginny's scent had gone heavy with guilt, while Harry became solid stone in face and smell. Remus could have sworn that his face was bruised after that encounter.
Grimmauld Place had switched hands after the war, with Harry giving it to Snape. They all called him Severus by then, and he'd become a much more pleasant person as well. Shortly after moving in, Severus had invited Remus to stay as a "roommate" of sorts. He was then designated as Severus' guinea pig for the Wolfsbane potion, and had survived countless variations. None resulted in progress until rather recently, when circumstances changed.
And I want to thank you
For giving me the best days of my life.
Oh, just to be with you
Is having the best day of my life.
For nearly a decade, Severus and Remus had been two old bachelors sharing a house. Then Nym decided she'd had enough of Remus' waffling about commitment when they'd been seeing each other for so long, and moved in. She'd added a great deal of laughter to all of their lives, and sparked the first significant improvement in the Wolfsbane.
She'd been teasing Severus one afternoon while he brewed—a common enough event—and tripped over her own feet—still not unusual—crashing into a supply cabinet and knocking a vial of Essence of St. John's Wort into a half-brewed batch of Wolfsbane. Feeling adventurous, Severus had decided to work with the change in formula. Wen Remus regained human shape after the next full moon, his body had become that of a normal wizard of fifty-odd years and moderately good fitness, rather than that of the oldest surviving werewolf. Granted, he'd still endured all the aches and pains of an unrelieved transformation, but the complete reversal of his premature aging was quite the blessing.
Three months later, Hermione arrived, announcing that she'd just annulled her marriage to Ron, a move Remus thought long overdue. A week later, she'd joined Severus in the lab. They'd done something to the Wolfsbane in the next two months—Remus wasn't about to ask what—which caused his transformation between human and wolf to become nearly instantaneous. It was a little more painful, but there were no other adverse effects, so the adjustment remained.
Then tragedy had struck. Ginny passed away on a rainy spring afternoon, and Harry revealed to his "family" of friends that she'd been fighting ovarian cancer since the end of the war. On top of that, their son Tom, who was Remus' godson, was actually adopted. The werewolf could barely believe that the sweet, kind young wizard was spawned by Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange, but Harry and Ginny's care had completely overridden any possible genetic temperament flaws. It didn't change Remus' feeling for the little guy one iota; he still adored his "nephew."
It rained at Ginny's funeral, giving the impression that Nature itself mourned the loss of such a gentle and lovely soul. Remus had absently noted the fact that Draco and Ron were not present, though no one missed Ron. Harry's first friend had fallen too far in the last eleven years.
A few weeks later, Harry had brought Tom to visit his "aunts and uncles"—the kid called them Moony, Caw, Switch, and Verse. Harry had no idea when he'd be back for his son; he would only say that he had "business to see to."
Still, Remus had caught a breath of scent from him that He'd long ago dubbed "madly in love." It had earned that description during the lull in the war, when Harry and Draco had been lovers and nigh on inseparable. He was pretty sure that Harry was going to find Draco and attempt to convince him of the truth of Harry's marriage. Tom spent three weeks at Grimmauld Place being spoiled rotten.
Harry had returned with the blond wizard in tow, the pair even more clingy than they had been during the height of the war. A heart-warming scene had ensued as Draco promised Tom that his "Mum" wasn't being replaced, and never would be. Remus understood; no one could be entirely sure that Tom had because he wasn't about to tell anyone, but it was wise not to underestimate the child.
Last Monday, Draco had made an unexpected call from the huge flat that the three wizards now inhabited. Remus had answered only to face a Cheshire Cat grin.
"Sev and Mi gave me their notes on the Wolfsbane, and I've had a brainstorm. Would you mind getting them for me, Moony?" Remus called the other two potions aficionados with pleasure. Draco was fitting into their lives as if he'd never left.
His entire "family" had gathered last night to semi-formally present him with the new formula before his Change.
Push the door, I'm home at last,
And I'm soaking through and through.
Then you handed me a towel,
And all I see is you.
And even if my house fell down now,
I wouldn't have a clue,
Because you're near me…
He would never have believed it if it hadn't happened to him. The potion, once so foul he'd nearly gagged on it, tasted like a venti double latte with hazelnut syrup. The full moon had risen, and he'd Changed in front of his friends. Severus' stopwatch clocked the transition at something close to a third of a second, and Remus felt no pain. None whatsoever. He was not just in control of his lycan body, it felt as though the human and lycan minds were beginning to merge, with the human dominant.
Better yet, the change back to human was just as swift and painless. He felt only his proper number of years, not the extra fifty or sixty he was used to, and his human and lycan minds continued to gradually merge. Never again would he feel overwhelmed by some crazes instinct, or afraid of hurting someone with his lycanthrope strength. It was also much easier to put labels on different scents.
Nym shifted again at his side, and an increase in her breathing told him that she was awake. Her scent was demanding, but he knew he wouldn't have to get out of the warm bed. What Nymphadora Tonks wanted was laying right next to her, and he was about to show her exactly how much she was appreciated.
And I want to thank you
For giving me the best days of my life.
Oh, just to be with you
Is having the best day of my life.
Sirius would be shocked to know how much Remus was using was using the prank gift he'd been given in seventh year. The Wizard's Guide to the Kama Sutra was getting an awful lot of use these days.
Fin!
Yeah, I know, finally. Tell me how much you like it. Tell me what you dislike. Tell me something, 'cause I was up for THREE HOURS typing this, and I adore reviews. ;-D
Beth Weasley