I don't own Harry Potter :(
It's a green light that sets it off. Sets off the memories, the feelings. Sets of everything I wish I could forget right in this moment.
Though I'm falling to the hard stone ground of the school that has been my home for more years than I care to admit. I'm not thinking about the oblivion that I'm about to enter. I'm not thinking about how I'm about to become part of a vast space of nothing. I'm thinking about how, at many points in my life I had wanted this to happen to me, I had wanted to die. But now, as the memories of my life take over, I don't know what I was thinking. I want to walk away from this, from this battle. But I can't.
My first clear memories, the first ones I can still recall as I fall; are of the latter half of my childhood. I was already infected and I had already seen the way people looked at me and thought I was nothing. I felt like nothing, because I'd been treated as nothing. I skittered around, not getting in the way. Trying to do my best to control what cards fate had dealt me. At school James, Sirius, Lily Peter, they'd helped. I had a somewhat normal school life I had friends. More friends than I'd ever thought I could have. They had been the first step of me believing I was something.
But then they were gone, all at once. Three of them dead and one the reason they were. At least, that's what I'd thought. I'd lost my only real companions that night. The only people who'd write to me, who'd talk to me. The only ones who wouldn't run for the hills when learning about my "fury little problem."
Harry looked so much like James. My first sighting of him in twelve years and I was struck down to the bone by the similarities. I hadn't known what to do after I'd sent the dementor away. Here was this boy, the boy who lived, reminding me so much of what I'd lost. But he'd lost James, Lily, Sirius and Peter too. And me. I'd considered many times going to get him, but by law and my own moral code, I couldn't. In front of me was a boy who'd lived unspeakable horrors, enough to gain favoritism with the dementors. I couldn't just let him suffer like I had suffered.
I'd watched him, monitored him throughout the year. Again and again I was astounded by the similarities between James and his son. They could be the same person, but they weren't. I didn't have my friend back, I didn't have my accepting group of friends to make me feel I was worth something.
I had my faith was restored, at the end of the year. It hadn't been Sirius, but spineless little Peter;who wasn't dead at all. The gaunt, dirty and greasy man in the shrieking shack may have looked like a murderer. But he was an innocent man, he was still the man I called my friend.
And that night I nearly killed him. It was like fate, telling me that somebody like me doesn't deserve friends. Look what'll happen. They'll die at your hands, you'll be a murderer because they cared.
But he forgave me, as I knew he would. He gave me a place to stay, I'd helped with the refurbishing of Grimauld Place. I'd been in the kitchen when he returned with the news: Voldemort was back. Harry had seen him, they fought face to face. Peter had been there too, helping to resurrect the Dark Lord. Our anger an fear had bubbled below the surface, we'd been through this once. We knew what was going to happen now. We knew we may not make it out. We knew, in the end, it could get to the point where there was nothing we could do. We'd have to give up. Become nothing under Voldemorts reign. So I'd joined the order, we started fighting for something worthwhile. It had been going well, we'd been making progress, gaining members, building an army.
But then we lost Sirius in the ministry. It was a shock none of us expected, it knocked us all on our arses. There was a collective sense of hollowness, but for me particularly. Him dying so soon after getting him back, brought on my nothingness again. He knew I was something, he knew me like nobody else. But he was gone. So, I'd decided, if the only person who'd believed I was something was gone:I was nothing. Why not go somewhere where everybody was nothing?
Turns out though, while I was busy being nothing, she was busy missing something. Something being me.
Now, as I fall, I'm recalling the time where I truly felt like I was something.
Nymphadora Andromeda Tonks.
It is such a beautiful name. I remember how it felt as those syllables past my lips in the dead of night as I held her close. She did not believe me when I told her she was beautiful as she slept. All her features and proportions their natural form. Her hair the same soft brown as tea. And her face, so calm. Devoid of all the lines of worry a face that young shouldn't have to support in the first place.
It took me a while, when I got back, to get my head out of the metaphorical gutter and believe what Tonks told me over out many cups of tea.
"You matter, Remus," she'd said.
"You are a person, you do have a soul, anybody thinking otherwise can have a chat with me." it had been that, and many varying affirmations for a while. Then we started getting personal. I'd became an expert on her, and she on me.
"I really like you Remus." She'd said. Then it had occurred to me that being something might be dangerous. I was old, I was dangerous. A aging werewolf with a target on his back. I couldn't mean anything to her, I'd only hurt her more than she deserved. So I backed away, we'd gotten closer and closer until I'd realized that getting any closer would be detrimental.
Then, Dumbledore was gone. That one man, who was the only one keeping this war at bay was gone. It was do or die now. And Tonks chose to do. And I was too enchanted with her to even stop.
She became my world, my one colorful spot in all this back and grey.
She was cheery, she was optimistic, in a time when everybody felt they were living their last year of life. She was a fighter, she made me a fighter. She made me a fighter by giving me something to fight for.
Before I'd been Remus, get -the-job- done- Remus. At all costs. To the best of my knowledge I had nothing to survive for, nobody left to nurse a broken heart after my death. So, I'd just fought, patrolled and spied; it was my life. But I hadn't known why I'd been doing it.
Then I knew, because as clichéd as the saying is, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Or, in this case, in the tunnel. Tonks, if I could save her, save us, from what Voldemort and his followers intended for the wizarding world I would do it. I had a drive I never had before, I had a real, personal goal. It wasn't just kill the bad guy.
Teddy. Not even half of a year in life. My son. As soon as I saw him I couldn't even fathom why I'd wanted to leave in the first place. The personification of innocence. Suddenly, I had one more thing to fight for. I just couldn't imagine him growing up in a world like the one we were living in. Teddy, so sweet and young, to grow up in a world of war, it couldn't happen. Dora and I knew, we saw it in each others eyes. We were going to help, we were going to rid the world of the people threatening our little Teddy.
Teddy, I hope you know, all I did was for you. I hope you realize I didn't walk off to war intending to kill myself. That was far from my intention. I wanted to go home after this was all done, kiss your mum right on the lips and say 'we did it,'. The Dark Lord would be gone, then we could watch you grow up. We'd see you take your first steps, say your first word, get your Hogwarts letter. Then we'd take you to diagonally, your hair changing into a multitude of different colours in your excitement. Then we'd see you off on the train, and as it steamed away, your mother and I would stand there and wonder what we'd do without our little boy at home.
What will you do without me? What will you think of me when you have no memory of me? I trust your mum and Harry will tell you, tell you how I was. I hope Harry will do right by you, be the father figure that I'm terribly sorry I will not be there to be. If I was given the choice between not being able to see you grow up in a peaceful world, or watch your every moment in a world riddled with war, I'm not sure which one I would choose,because each option seems unbearable to me. I didn't want to leave you, Teddy. I didn't want to leave your mother.
Tonks, I hope you know that. You must. You must know you were the most important thing in my world, in my existence. I promise you, you made my last year the best I've ever had, I've never felt so loved, so needed, so human in my entire life. You lit up my life, your spunk and faith kept me young. Reminded me what I was fighting for.
Now I see you, you've just Appeared in the hallway with me. You're not supposed to be here. You're supposed to be with Teddy. Nymphadora, no, please. I want to run to you, scoop you up in my arms and take you away. I can't have you hurt. But I can't move forward to touch you, kiss you and hold you close one last time. Because I am dying.
I feel my head connect to the tile floor with a crack. I hear the cackle of the death eater. I see you, your pink hair and dark robes. Running towards me, tears streaming down your face, because you saw with perfect clarity what just happened. You're watching me die. I'm almost there, you crouch down beside me as my eyes close. I'm my last fraction of life I see your face, your beautiful, tear stained face. But I'm filled with panic as I live out my last millisecond,
No!
Because Nymphadora Tonks, the stunning young face that brought so much into my life;is surrounded by a halo of green.
Any good? Any praise to give? Any critiques?
