A/N: I've written tons of it, but this is the first time I've posted HP fic, and Remus and Tonks are totally my OTP. Feedback/concrit is much appreciated. :)
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling does. Two Seconds
Sparks fly as Remus duels with Greyback, werewolf against werewolf, as the destruction continues around them. He dodges curses and casts offensive and defensive spells of his own almost without thinking, because his mind is very much somewhere else.
Teddy is all he can think about. His son, who very well might end up without a father before the night is through. He remembers the day he was born, remembers how deliriously happy he had been upon discovering that his son had not inherited his lycanthropy, would not be cursed as his father is. He's a metamorphmagus, instead, like his mother, and Remus had smiled as the baby's short tufts of hair had promptly turned a dark shade of copper.
He narrowly avoids another Killing Curse, and then he suddenly realises that he's got to win this. He's got to get out of this night alive and return to his wife and his son, because if he doesn't, he can't bear to think how devastated it would leave them. He thinks of her, how he'd finally given in and how marrying her had been the best mistake of his life. He remembers kissing her, finally, in a dark corridor in the castle after Dumbledore died, telling her he loved her right before he'd left the safety of her mother's house to go and join the battle.
When he hears her shout his name, he thinks he's imagining it, at first. Then he looks over his shoulder and sees her running towards him, her face illuminated by random jets of light shooting everywhere, very real reminders of the war going on in their midst.
All it takes is that split second, as his back is turned to his opponent and he's staring at Nymphadora with a mix of shock and horror, because she isn't supposed to be there. And then there's a burst of green light and a snarl of triumph from Greyback. Remus's eyes meet hers in that second, and he watches as a look of pain and anguish crosses her face and she's so near to him now—and then nothing.
Remus Lupin is dead, the light behind his still-open eyes extinguished even as his body falls to the damp ground.
His wife rushes over, dropping to the grass beside him and enveloping him in her arms. "Remus," she cries. "Remus!" Her cheek against his already cold one and she starts trembling, crying into his chest, aware of nothing else as the war rages on without them.
"Well, well. Isn't this a sad little sight?" someone coos behind her. Tonks turns to face the speaker, the ragged, dirty murderer Greyback, and she stands and whips out her wand.
"You killed him!" she shouts, tears still falling from her eyes.
Greyback laughs. "Yeah, I killed 'im," the werewolf sneers in his gravelly voice. "But you helped."
A flash of pain across her eyes as she utters the Unforgivable, but he's ready, and he's faster than her.
In another brief second, she finds herself falling and landing on wet grass, right beside the unmoving form of her husband. An apology forms on her lips, to him, to her son, but she doesn't get a chance to speak it.
The werewolf stands, staring at his victims for a moment, before running back into the fray. The Battle of Hogwarts continues, unaware of the loss just sustained.