House: Slytherin
Category: Theme
Prompt: Screaming
Word Count (excluding A/N): 673
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Remus dodged a spell, retaliated with one of his own, then glanced over to see how his wife was faring in her duel against three Death Eaters.
His heart skipped a beat.
She stood, her back to him, skillfully keeping three of her assailants at bay, but then a fourth masked figure crept up behind her and, as he watched, send a deep purple curse flying towards her unprotected side.
"Tonks!" he cried. "To—!"
He was too late. At his call, she'd turned toward him, but only in time to see the deadly purple light streaming toward her. Time slowed, and Remus saw how realisation began to dawn in her eyes, how her mouth opened in shock, how she began to cast a Protego a second too late, and how the curse hit her left shoulder and arced through her body.
When she crumpled, screaming, to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, Remus, ignoring the battle raging around them, raced to his wife.
"Tonks," he breathed, pushing her pink bubble-gum hair out of her face. "Please."
She laughed weakly in his arms, her breathing shallow. "This feels like a goodbye."
"Tonks… I can't do this without you. I can't raise Teddy alone!" he said, pulling her close to him in a desperate attempt to keep her safe.
"Yes, you can." She ran a trembling hand along his jawline, then coughed a deep, hacking cough that left her shaking in his arms. "You must."
Blood. There was blood dripping from her nose. Tonks was on the brink of death. Galvanized by the thought, Remus clenched his wand and cast all the healing spells he knew, even the ones he'd only glimpsed MediWizards use when, as a child, he'd had a particularly difficult full moon.
But she only shrieked at the infusion of his magic, and the drip of blood from her nose became a steady stream.
"No— No— No—" Remus screamed, "I can't lose you, Tonks!"
She blinked up at him, her bubble-gum pink hair slowly fading back to its natural brown. "Watch over Teddy. I love you, Remus. Please—" She took a deep, shuddering breath. "I—"
But the light in her eyes, which had already begun to fade, was finally extinguished; Remus knelt in the middle of a battlefield holding his wife's corpse.
"Noooo!" he screamed, his eyes flashing amber. He'd lost Tonks. The only good thing in his life since James and Lily and Sirius, and now he'd lost her as well…
He rose, Tonk's empty body falling to the ground beside him. He strode through the battlefield, his wand held before him like the staff of Merlin himself, slaughtering each and every Death Eater he came across. It would never replace the gaping hole in his life, but hearing the Death Eaters scream as he cut them down felt so damn good.
He had annihilated nearly twenty Death Eaters before he came to the attention of Voldemort himself.
"Well, what do we have here?" the monster drawled, smirking. "A big bad wolf?"
Remus snarled in reply, then sent a rapid volley of offensive spells at Voldemort. It was this creature's fault that Tonks was dead.
Voldemort's smirk disappeared, and was replaced by a scowl. "I see," Voldemort said, his tone like ice. "You will regret that, wolf."
As the Dark Lord advanced in him, spells flying, Remus prayed Tonks would forgive him. As she lay dying, she'd told him to watch over Teddy, and he'd failed her.
Voldemort landed a crucio, and Remus began to scream as his bones ground together, his spine twisted and his skin bubbled; however, he was at peace. He'd see his love again, and beg for her forgiveness himself.
When a green light flew toward him, Remus stopped screaming. He'd be reunited with Tonks now, and after this, they'd be together forever in death, watching Teddy grow up in a normal family, one where the father wasn't a werewolf.
His death was for the best. He only wished he'd taken another Death Eater with him.