Summary

[Oneshot[DH Spoiler alert! When you've got .08 seconds to live, it's amazing what thoughts pass through your mind. [RLNT

Curse Words

By C.K.

Well, fuck.

I'm not a big user of curse words; really, I'm not. The simple terms that act as springy diving boards to every adolescent's vocabulary never fit well on my own tongue, even when I was younger. Bad words always left me with the taste of muddy coffee and shame. Nope, curse words were best left to Padfoot, with his unusual slang and his badass appeal. I was Moony; Remus Lupin, the least exciting of the group, the enigma with a brain, the secret werewolf turned marauder. Curse words did not suit me well.

Except for the occasional slip-up on 'Crap!' or 'Dammit!' I was doing pretty well, until now.

But desperate times call for desperate measures, and I'd just been served one big spoonful of 'royally fucked.'

There were about .08 seconds that I had to live, seeing as that green light was moving fast towards me, the tip of Yaxely's want pointed directly at my heart. And in those .08 seconds, my final feelings all stumbled over each other, trying to make themselves known before I died, my last, futile, conscious, fleeting thoughts.

The first was Teddy, of course, my son, my bouncing baby boy with his mother's ever-changing hair and eyes. Would he be like me; a werewolf, shunned for life, a lonely boy? Would he find good people as I had, or would he be without marauders to help him cope? No, I remind myself, his mother would teach him everything he needed to know about being a tough individual—enough so to stand on his own two feet and not take any crap (sorry!) from anyone.

The second, Harry Potter, Teddy's godfather. I would never see the world he created, the Voldemort-less existence in which my son would grow. Or would he die by the Dark Lord's hand, and leave Teddy and his mother to live in a world of hatred and a blinding lust for power? No, I think. He is James's son, and James would never let that happen. He's far too good for that.

And at last, I think of Tonks. Sweet, childishly adorable and yet laden with the grief of the world Tonks. Mother, wife…would she be all right raising Teddy by herself? Would she struggle under society's strain of being a single parent, or would she flourish in all of her confident glory? Would she meet another man, and have him take the place of me as the head of the family? The thought makes my stomach heave unexpectedly, but considering I have .03 seconds left to ponder, I don't have time to actually do anything about it.

The green is coming closer, and all I can imagine is her adorable, heart-shaped face with intense pink eyes matching the exact shade of her hair, her favorite color, because it's so different and so uniquely her, something no one can take away from her, something so individually Nymphadora Tonks. In my mind's eye, though, she looks pissed at me—pissed that I lied about coming here tonight, pissed that I went behind her back to save other people's husbands and wives and sons, pissed that I won't be able to hold Teddy, whom I love so dearly, one last time, and pissed off mostly because I left her behind, when I've always known that all she strives to do is stand beside me.

And then, like a burst of pink starlight, she's in the room, and her eyes are pink and wide, and all I have time to see is her hand lifting to her mouth, and suddenly her eyes are changing to every color you can think of, including those in-between colors that might not even be colors at all. Emotions that I see flicker with each color—anger, love, annoyance, regret, sarcasm, hatred, and please, God, don't let that hate be for me…

.01 second left, and my thoughts run from me, leaving me with two words in my head and Tonks's eyes boring into my own. Maybe my last words should have been more eloquent—perhaps a simple yet heartfelt "I love you," to her might have been a tactful approach, but she's rubbed off on me quite a bit in these last vital few months. Besides, from the look I'm getting, if I were to hypothetically survive the curse (which I absolutely will not, I know for sure) I'd be certainly killed by the pissed-off-shocked-hurt-confused-horrified look she's aimed at me right now.

Maybe she hears my mental sigh, or maybe she doesn't, but it won't matter in .01 second anyway because all I've left to say is something that once sounded awkward by my mouth, but now sounds perfectly relevant and undeniably natural, as if I've said it in every sentence my whole life through when, in reality, this will be the first time I've ever said it, and the last thing I'll ever say.

"Well…fuck."

+Fin+