AN: This is for the prompt, my captain's favorite pairing (Tonks/Lupin) for the Quidditch League Fanfiction competition.
There were only three hopes floating around in Remus Lupin's mind right before he died.
For one, I hope I see Lily, James, and Sirius again.
For two, I hope Teddy grows up in a better world than this.
For three, I hope Dora stays.
Tonks was looking around at the chaos ensuing. There was only one face she cared to see in the midst, and one that she hoped would show up. Funny, how things would've worked out. Earlier that very year, Remus was the one looking for her.
It's the morning of February 14th, 1998. Andromeda asks Tonks to go get the door when it rings, but Tonks hesitates. She is still a wanted member of the Order of the Phoenix, after all, but then she hears the voice that has haunted her dreams ever since it left her the previous September.
"It is I, Remus John Lupin, werewolf, member of the Order of the Phoenix! I'm here to see Nymphadora!" Tonks runs, although annoyed at the use of her full first name, to the door, and flings it open. There he is, standing on the snow-covered doorstep, ragged robes, unkempt reddish-brown hair, sorry green eyes, and that tattered briefcase he practically lived out of these days.
"What are you doing here, Remus?" Tonks asks, trying to hide the sting of the pain inside- no, that was the baby kicking.
"I thought about it, and I realized I was wrong." He admitted quietly.
"About what?" Tonks demands. "Marrying me? Conceiving a child together? Falling in love? What were you so wrong about?"
"About leaving you."
Almost like in one of those muggle movies Ted had liked before he was on the run, the couple embraced, and then finally went inside. Andromeda was staring matronly at the couple, amazed at the luck that had brought the star-crossed lovers back together.
"You know, I have something to give you," Remus tells Tonks conversationally over the breakfast table when Andromeda left, smirking.
"Really?" Tonks asked.
"Well, it is Valentine's Day, isn't it?" He replied.
Then he leaned in and kissed her, his hand on top of hers.
That was the best present for Valentine's Day ever.
Tonks kept searching, when she found the body at the feet of Antonin Dolohov, who gave Remus's corpse one last contemptuous glance. Tonks surged forwards, taking the body into her arms, to hold him one last time.
Tears streamed down the shape-shifter's face. That was all. She didn't scream "No!" or wail like Moaning Myrtle. She always knew there was a chance of this happening. She just didn't know how devastating it would be in the moment. Yet, somehow, knowing made it only a pinprick less devastating. But a pin-prick was nothing.
She wiped her cheeks, and stood up. She had to be strong for Teddy. Teddy.
Teddy was back home with Andromeda. Last she'd seen, he'd morphed to have hair the same shade of Remus's, and had a striking resemblance. She remembered how much pride and joy she felt holding him in her arms just last night after he was born. She remembered even more how much Remus was sobbing like the baby (maybe more, but he'd never admit that), and taking so many pictures, every time the kid's hair changed, practically.
So Tonks ran, not away from the scene. She ran after the murderer, who had bloodlust in his eyes, and the shape-shifter ran to take her revenge. That was when Bellatrix Lestrange, the aunt of all terror, descended upon Tonks to a destiny Tonks could not escape.
"Avada Kedavra!" Bellatrix screamed, and before Tonks knew it, she could hear the roar of her life escaping.
In Andromeda Tonks's cottage, Teddy wailed. That's when Andromeda knew. Teddy wailed for a mother and father that would never come back, that would never tell him that they loved him, give him another bear hug, another kiss on the cheek.
What a pity, seeing the fall of a family that had been so happy only just yesterday. Was it yesterday? April 31, 1998. Teddy's birthday.
Andromeda rushed into the nursery, and saw his little tuft of hair turn the blackest of blacks. Andromeda cradled the baby into her own arms and wailed along with him. United they'd fall, united they'd learn to stand up and fight again.
Some of the seventh-years were helping drag the bodies over to a section of the hall, for a few reasons. For one, they didn't want to walk over all those dead people. Wasn't it bad enough that they were still alive but those poor saps weren't? For two, it organized, and created that barrier that existed in metaphysical and physical form that kept the dead from the living. Unless you were a ghost, of course. For third, they wanted to see and for others to see which of their friends and families had died courageously in the Battle of Hogwarts. Plus, the Ministry wanted a headcount of casualties.
"Why?" Luna Lovegood had to wonder. What made it better, having a headcount? It wouldn't bring the dead back. She knew that all two well. As she helped carry the bodies over, for death wasn't any enemy or nightmare or fear of hers.
She saw the man who'd rushed into Shell Cottage just the night before, proclaiming his firstborn's son's birth. Next to him, laid a woman with pink hair and a ring on her finger that matched the one he was wearing. Was that his wife?
Luna took their hands, and outstretched them so they could be lovers, even in death.
When Tonks awoke in the Limbo, Remus was waiting for her.