Remus paced around the living room in a manner that was startingly similar to how Moony would prowl around any small space in which he'd been confined during a full moon. Every now and then, he would break off from his circuit and head to the kitchen to begin preparing the dinner he and Lena would share when she returned; but each time he set foot in the kitchen, he would immediately retrace his steps to the living room, terrified he was tempting fate.
Was it possible that two such wonderful things – the end of the war, and the end of the Nekrosía – could happen on the same day? Lena had certainly thought so, and Remus, over the last few years, had learned that she was more often right than wrong.
Tizzy, having realised that trying to soothe his agitation with assurances of her mistress' cleverness and talent had little to no effect, was in her little room, waiting with Mortimer.
Lena didn't have her housekeys with her, so Remus' ears strained for the sound of a knock on the front door. But all he heard was the sound of traffic outside, the occasional voice of a neighbour calling out to their family that they were home, the wind softly rustling the trees that neatly lined the street…
Until just before ten p.m., when the knock finally came. His breath hitching, Remus ran to the door, grabbing the key off the front table, and fumbling with it in his excitement. At last, the key was in the lock and it was turned, and Remus could open the door to see–
Harry, with the Invisibility Cloak unceremoniously bundled under his arm, and his eyes reddened behind his glasses. And trembling.
"No," said Remus, before Harry could open his mouth. It wasn't a cry of devastation, or a plead of desperation. It was just a resolute denial.
Harry choked on his words, a violent shudder running through him. On the second attempt, he managed to get them out, beginning to leak tears: "I'm so sorry, Remus. I didn't–"
"No," repeated Remus, louder this time. His hand was still on the doorknob, and he was gripping it so tightly his knuckles had gone white. "No, where is she?"
A sob burst out of Harry. "Remus, she – I – I didn't – there wasn't – she didn't–"
He lurched forward, the Cloak falling to the ground, and grabbed Remus, clinging to him as his body shook.
Remus didn't move, frozen in shock. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening, because there was no way that Lena – brave, beautiful, brilliant Lena – could be…
He pushed Harry off him and grabbed his wand off the table. Ignoring Tizzy, who had finally heard there was someone at the door and had come to find out what had happened, and not caring that he was barefoot and without a coat, Remus stepped onto the doorstep, and Apparated to the gates of the Lestrange Estate.
Only there was no longer an estate. The giant stone house was gone. Only the gates still stood; the rest was a barren field, dimly illuminated by the moonlight and covered in ash. Numbly, Remus lit the end of his wand and walked through it, searching for… for…
But there was only ash, which coated his feet and the bottom of his trousers.
"Remus?"
He hadn't heard Harry's Apparition, but the young man was standing behind him now. His face was still wet with tears, and he was holding the half-unravelled Cloak in his hand, its edges dragging in the ash.
"What happened?" asked Remus, his voice sounding distant to his own ears.
Harry took a few slow, deep breaths. Finally, he said hoarsely, "It started out like we'd planned. We made the crack, and L-lena–" his tongue tripped over her name, "–exchanged the hearts. She threw Hecate's into the void, and the Nekrosía was destroyed. But then…" He broke off for a moment, closing his eyes, his hand covering his face. After about ten seconds, he continued, "The crack didn't close. It started to grow. And I looked to her, and she, she…" His voice cracked. "She knew, Remus. She knew it was going to happen, and that the only way to close it was to… to…"
He started crying again, but Remus pressed him. "To what, Harry?"
"Someone needed to die. And I wanted it to be me, I told her it should be me, but she said it had to be her, and that I had to… I had to…" Pain grotesquely contorted Harry's face as the words tumbled out of his mouth: "I killed her, Remus."
Remus stared at him, not really understanding.
"I stopped death," explained Harry, wiping his face, "to open the crack. To close it, I had to… take a life. And Lena… Remus, she knew. She'd known it from this morning, when she'd first told me the plan."
"No," said Remus, shaking his head stubbornly. "If she'd known, she would have told me. She would have said…"
'Don't you dare say goodbye to me.'
The sudden memory of that day at Svartlager sent a powerful shudder through Remus, and his denial was finally penetrated.
Lena was dead.
The full force of the realisation made his legs give out, and he dropped to his knees, his ears filled with white noise. He couldn't breathe.
Harry rushed to his side. Remus could see his mouth moving, saying his name, but he didn't hear him. His gaze fell upon the Invisibility Cloak.
"The Resurrection Stone," he said suddenly, and grabbed Harry by the shoulders. "Use it. Bring her back."
"I can't," whispered Harry, agonised. "The Stone's gone. When Lena… the crack was forced shut, and the Stone… it exploded." He gestured around. "That's why everything is gone. The Stone exploded and everything was destroyed." He dug into his pocket, and pulled out two sticks. "Even the Elder Wand broke in two. I only survived because I was wearing the Cloak; it shielded me from…" He swallowed. "From death." He dropped the broken Hallow. "So, I can't… I can't…" Another sob wracked his body. "I can't bring her back, Remus. She's gone."
Then Harry was hugging Remus again, crying into his shoulder. This time, Remus held him as his own tears finally fell, and an anguished howl burst out of him. And in the dark night, their weeping echoing around the empty field of ash, the two men clung to each other, as though afraid that if they let the other go, he would disappear forever too.
She was surrounded by water, enveloped by it. It was dark and difficult to see through, and made her limbs heavy as she tried to find the surface. But the water was so very deep, and so very dark…
And then, above her was a hand, reaching down through the water, as if searching for her. Desperately, Lena reached up for it, pushing through the oppressive water. At last, her hand closed around her saviour's. It felt strange, but she didn't care, because it was pulling her up and up, until she broke through the surface.
Lena gasped, and air flooded her lungs. At least, that was what it felt like. But it couldn't have been air, because…
Her eyes fixed on the hand that was holding hers. It was the hand of a skeleton; no flesh, only bone. Her gaze followed up the skeletal hand's arm, which was covered by black cloth, up to the face of the arm's owner. It was a skull, shrouded in a dark hood.
But the skull's eye-sockets were not empty. Inhuman, dark eyes peered down at her.
Lena stared back, mesmerised, as comprehension gradually dawned. She was staring Death in the face.
Then, with unnatural strength, the black-garbed skeleton pulled her fully out of the water, and into the small rowboat in which It was sitting. As It deposited her on the seat opposite It, Lena noticed, for the first time, that she was naked. Only her long hair – which had dried the moment it had left the water – provided coverage. But for some reason, the bareness of her body did not bother her.
Glancing down at her left hand, Lena saw there was, in fact, one thing she still wore: her wedding ring. The sight of it filled her with a sudden calm confidence. She looked back to the figure opposite her, who gazed back at her wordlessly.
"Are you Death?" she asked It.
Death inclined Its head.
Lena slowly nodded. "So, this is…" She took a deep breath. "I'm dead."
"Yes." The voice was distinctly male. "Once again."
"Again?" repeated Lena, confused. She shook her head. "I think you might have confused me with someone else."
"No," replied Death calmly, "we have met once before."
"I don't think so," Lena disagreed politely. "I'm fairly certain I would remember if I'd met you before. You're–" she searched for the right phrase, "–kind of a big deal."
"In a way, you did remember. It was what set you apart from everyone else." He tilted his head to the side, with a wry sort of smile that was incredibly disconcerting to see on a skull. "Such an extraordinarily intelligent child; unnaturally so. Because after seeing Death, the world of the living was so easy to comprehend. Of course reading and writing and using magic and learning how things worked would be so simple; you already had knowledge of something far greater."
Lena eyed him warily. "And when exactly was it this meeting took place?"
"It was the day you know as the sixth of December, 1975."
She furrowed her brow. "That's the day before I was born."
"It is the day you were intended to die."
For a moment, Lena was speechless. "I was supposed to die," she said at last, "while still in my mother's womb?"
"You did die then," Death corrected her. "I found you–" he gestured outside the boat, "–floating in the water. I picked you up, and I looked into your eyes. And then I sent you back."
Again, she simply stared at him for a while, before incredulously echoing, "You sent me back?"
And again, Death nodded once, the movement slow and considered.
"I don't understand."
Death folded his skeletal hands in his lap, and Lena got the sense he was taking the time to arrange his thoughts properly. Finally, he began his explanation.
"I was not always Death. Thousands and thousands of years ago, I was a man with another name. And I was the first human to have not only blood flow through my veins, but magic too. When I died, there was only Chaos in the realm of the dead. So the Universe decided that because my life had been made easier with the gift of magic, my death should then be spent in service. I became the custodian of the afterlife. It was my duty to find the souls who emerged from this water, and help them move onwards.
But despite my new role, traces of my humanity remained. So every soul I helped, I still felt their loss. Year after year, decade after decade, century after century, and millennia after millennia, I had to watch people leave behind their loved ones, and all the aspirations they had not yet accomplished, and tell them they could not go back, because death was the only way forward for them. For those who had lived long lives, it was not so painful. But the children…
I continued to do my duty, because I knew it was the only way. I watched a million lives end, and another million, and another, until it became a billion. And yet, there were still more and more. Inside me, those last remnants of my humanity clung on, weeping for every life lost. And I knew there would come a time when I would say, 'Not today'.
That day came. I reached the point where I had to break the rule, just once. I had to give one child, just one, a second chance, because that was the human thing to do. And you, Lena Lestrange, happened to be that child. Not because you were special, but because I had just seen too many children die before you.
So, I put you back in the water, and you sunk back to the world of the living. And as I did, the Universe told me it would be recompensed for the rule I had broken."
At this point, Death lifted one of his hands and, to Lena's shock, she saw that the bone was slowly disintegrating.
"And today, the Universe is receiving its reparation," he said, a smile that was almost a grimace upon the skull's face. "Of course I should meet my final destruction at the hand of the one life I saved."
Lena stared at him, slowly understanding what he was saying. In order to destroy the Nekrosía, they'd had to…
'To kill what is already dead.'
Death was dying. Because of her. Was there nothing she didn't destroy at her touch? Her grandmother, the Other world, Remus' heart…
"But if you go," she asked, trying to bury her guilt with concern, "what happens to the afterlife? You said that before you came, there was chaos."
"And there will be again," replied Death quietly. "Unless, of course, someone else takes my place." He gave her a meaningful look.
"Me?" exclaimed Lena. "But you just said I wasn't special–"
"I said I did not send you back to life because you were special. But the life you then lived… I know you do not believe in destiny, Lena. But surely you must see that you were always heading down a path that lead to somewhere… beyond the norm."
Lena bit her lip, unable to tear her gaze away from the hand that had almost finished disintegrating. Was this how she was supposed to spend her eternal sleep? To become Death; to spend her future guiding the dead onwards, soul after soul after soul… He had made it sound so terrible, something that wore you down until you were nothing but bones with only the faintest glimmer of humanity remaining. To be Death, rather than simply dead, did not sound like a peaceful afterlife.
'But someone has to do it. Somebody has to do the hard thing, to make things better for everyone else.'
To do good, without expectation of recognition or reward, but just because it was the right thing to do. That was what accepting this mantle meant. There were worse ways, Lena decided, to spend eternity.
"Okay," she said. "What do I have to do?"
Death smiled, and held out the one hand he had left. As Lena grasped it, he told her, "Oh, you'll figure it out. You always do." Then the bone hand turned to dust, as did the rest of the man who had been the First Wizard, floating away across the dark water.
And Lena was enveloped by the black robes of Death.
Saturday 31 October, 1998:
"In the chilly hours and minutes of uncertainty
I want to be in the warm heart of your loving mind,
To feel you all around me
And to take your hand along the sand;
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind…"
As Remus stared at the photograph on his desk, he subconsciously mouthed the words of the song. He had listened to it so many times over the past six months that he instinctively knew the lyrics. In his mind, he watched Lena dancing in the garage of the Lestrange Estate; perhaps on the very spot where she had died three years afterwards.
On the desk, Mortimer was playing with a tiny puzzle box that Rolf had bought him before he'd returned to Brazil a few months ago. Next to the Bowtruckle was the pile of Third Year essays Remus had just finished marking. Directly in front of him was a letter from Alice Longbottom, inviting him to a dinner for Frank's birthday, the Sunday a couple of weekends from now.
It was one of the things Lena had left behind in the boxes she had packed away that day: a half-full vial from Circe's vault, with a small, simple note attached. For Frank and Alice. Remus had discovered it a few days after her death, when he'd been going through all the boxes. He had taken it to Neville, who took it to St. Mungo's, and gave his parents each a mouthful. The effect had been instantaneous – their minds were repaired, although missing sixteen-and-a-half years had been somewhat disorienting.
The Longbottoms hadn't been the only previously permanent residents of St. Mungo's to find themselves cured. When the Nekrosía had been destroyed, Lenora Travers had found herself suddenly well again, although Remus didn't know whether her anti-Muggle-born sentiments had also been eradicated. In any case, she hadn't done anything to draw the attention of Harry or the rest of the Auror department.
A knock on his office door brought Remus out of his reverie. He quickly got up and pressed pause on the cassette-player that sat on the table behind him, calling out, "Come in."
The door opened, revealing Eve Nyambura. She was wearing jeans and a jumper, her curly hair held back in a hair scarf that was tied into a bow, and carrying a book, which she held up.
"Hi, Professor. I just finished it last night."
It was Lena's copy of A Tale of Two Cities, which Remus had lent to Eve a few weeks ago after she had expressed an interest in reading more Muggle literature.
"Did you like it?" he asked her, as she handed the book back to him over the desk.
"Yeah, it was great– oops!" Drawing her hand back, she had knocked over the photograph, startling Mortimer. "Sorry," she said quickly, picking up the photograph, only to pause as her gaze locked onto its subject. She stared at it for a few seconds, before murmuring with a small smile, "Of course Lena would wear a leather jacket to her own wedding."
A lump formed in Remus' throat, and his eyes burned for a moment. "Yeah," he said quietly, twisting his wedding ring around his finger.
Eve carefully placed the photograph of Lena and Remus on their wedding day back on his desk. "It's a beautiful picture." She glanced up at Remus with a soft smile. "Harry told me about the ceremony. He said it was just… perfect."
Looking away from her, Remus wiped the couple of tears that had formed out of his eyes. "It was." When he had composed himself, he turned back to her, and politely asked, "Did you see him today at Hogsmeade?"
She nodded. "I wish I could go with him to Godric's Hollow tonight. But I'm glad you'll be there for him."
It was the seventeenth anniversary of James and Lily's deaths. The last time Remus had made the trip to Godric's Hollow to visit their graves had been the tenth, and it felt like a lifetime ago.
He glanced at the clock on his office wall. It had just reached four o'clock. "Actually, I should get a move on," he said to Eve. "I've got… some jobs to do before I meet him there, so…"
"Oh, of course," said Eve hurriedly, starting to back away. "Thank you for lending me the book, I really enjoyed it."
Remus smiled at her. "Just let me know if there's anything else you'd like to check out. Lena really amassed quite the collection."
"I'll definitely take you up on that." She gave Mortimer a little wave. "Bye, Mortimer."
He made a small noise of farewell.
"Enjoy the Halloween feast, Eve."
"Thanks, sir, I will."
Eve closed the door behind her as she left, and Remus exhaled deeply. He'd actually managed to say Lena's name for once without starting to break down. He wasn't sure if that made him glad, or angry with himself.
Pulling open his top desk drawer, he took out the crammed notebook that was kept in it, full of Lena's handwriting – another one of his discoveries from going through the boxes she'd packed.
The notebook was not a journal, but a record of quotes, poems and lyrics that had particularly struck a chord with her. Sitting back down, Remus opened it up at a random page, and was greeted with the words:
Because love's such an old-fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And loves dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves.
This is our last dance,
This is our last dance,
This is ourselves under pressure.
Lena's lofty voice from that first car trip to Switzerland filled his head. "I can't believe you've never heard of either Queen or David Bowie. They're literal icons of British musical history – living icons, mostly. Seriously, we're going to work on your musical education this summer."
He flicked through a few more pages, pausing to read a Shakespearean line from Much Ado About Nothing that she had circled in red: 'I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.' He remembered her saying it to him one night after they'd finished making love, their limbs still entwined, a blissful smile on her face.
Then he turned to the page that when he'd first discovered the notebook had been bookmarked with a small scrap of parchment that said his name. Inscribed upon the page, under the title, 'Turn Again to Life', by Mary Lee Hall, was the following poem:
If I should die and leave you here a while,
Be not like others sore undone,
Who keep long vigil by the silent dust.
For my sake turn again to life and smile,
Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do
Something to comfort other hearts than thine.
Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mine
And I perchance may therein comfort you.
Remus traced the handwritten words with a finger, imagining Lena on that final day, not wanting to give away that she was about to die, but trying to find something that could say the things she wanted him to hear after she was gone. It was with those words in mind that Remus had once again accepted the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher (with now the added responsibility of Head of Gryffindor) when Minerva had offered it to him five months ago. It was those words that made him get out of bed every morning, that gave him the strength to face and teach his students – many of whom had also lost someone in the past year. They were the words that held back his desire to follow her into that sleep of death.
Closing the notebook, Remus slipped it back into the desk drawer and stood again, stretching. Picking up his wand, he asked Mortimer, "Sure you don't want to come?"
The Bowtruckle shook his tiny head, moving closer to the photograph of Remus and Lena. He sat down in front of it, gazing at the smiling woman longingly. For a second, Remus considered just doing the same thing.
He sighed. 'Pull yourself together,' he told himself in a voice that sounded unnervingly like Minerva, and grabbed his overcoat.
On his walk down to the ground floor he passed a few students, many of whom were talking excitedly about tonight's feast. He paused at the memorial in the Entrance Hall, his eyes searching out the same names he always looked for: Severus Snape, Theodora Konstantinidis, Fred Weasley, the other students he had once taught…
As he strode down the winding path to the school gates, he could have sworn he saw a Thestral standing at the Forbidden Forest's edge, watching him. But before he could be certain, it had gone.
Once outside the school's boundary, he Apparated – not to Godric's Hollow, but to his first destination.
Pushing open the gates of the Lestrange Estate, Remus was greeted by the sight of a field that was no longer covered in ash, but in flowers. It was a species not even Maggie could identify – she believed they were entirely new. All Remus knew about them was that they had started to grow a few days after the explosion, that they each had exactly seven petals, and that they were precisely the same shade of blue-grey as Lena's eyes.
As Remus walked through the field to its centre, where the white marble headstone stood, he remembered the full moons when Moony had run around the estate, constantly checking that Lena was following him. Now, the wolf barely moved during full moons. He just lay on the floor of the Shrieking Shack, letting out the occasional miserable whimper. He wasn't interested in hunting anymore, or hurting himself. He was just… sad.
Stopping in front of the headstone, Remus stared at the inscription:
LENA VIOLETTA LESTRANGE
7 December 1975 – 2 May 1998
Wife of Remus
Beloved Sister
Cherished Friend
'Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.'
Remus stayed standing there, the odd tear running down his face, until the sun sank below the horizon. As a gentle breeze ran through the field, he bent over and picked a bunch of flowers to take with him to James and Lily's graves.
But when he turned around, he found he was no longer alone. Standing about ten metres away from him was a black-robed figure, who pulled back their hood.
Remus' heart temporarily froze, and he heard himself say, "No, that's not fair."
He wasn't sure whether his mind had finally cracked and he was hallucinating, or if this was just the universe playing yet another cruel trick on him. Either way, this figure that had suddenly appeared in front of him bore the face of his dead wife, and he didn't think that was fair at all.
"Remus," said the figure, using her voice, which felt like a stab in the heart.
He shook his head, taking a step back. "No," he whispered, although he wanted to scream with all the breath in his lungs. This wasn't real. It couldn't be.
The imposter – or more likely, the hallucination – said his name again. "Remus." She began to advance slowly, the movement inhumanly graceful. "It's me."
"No, it's not." The words spilled out of his mouth, tormented and disbelieving. "You're not. Not… real."
She cocked her head in a painfully familiar way. "You don't think I'm real?" As she drew closer, she extended a hand, reaching up to his face. "Then why can you feel this?" Using the back of the hand, she touched his cheek.
Remus dropped the bunch of flowers in his right hand and let out a shuddering gasp, closing his eyes. He could feel it: icy cold skin against his. But still…
"I'm just imagining this," he muttered. "Just remembering… vividly. I can't really feel you; my mind's playing tricks on me." He was sure when he opened his eyes again, she would be gone. But as he felt her taking his hand, he didn't want the illusion to end, so he kept them closed, pretending for just a few seconds more that she was really there–
"Argh!" he yelped, as teeth firmly closed around the side of his hand. His eyes flew open, quickly drawing back the hand. He inspected it, and saw there were deep, distinct bite-marks. Realisation dawning on him, he stared at the woman, who met his gaze with one arched eyebrow.
"That real enough for you?" asked Lena wryly.
Remus' breath hitched. Merlin, it was her. Trembling, he held her face between his hands. Like her hand, her cheeks were cold, almost freezing.
"How?" was all Remus could manage at first, his voice cracking on that single syllable. He swallowed. "Harry saw you – I thought… how can you be alive?"
"I'm not," she replied. "I'm quite dead, I assure you."
Remus stared at her. "But you're here. I'm talking to you; I can feel you."
"But you're not truly looking," she told him softly. "Look at my face, Remus."
Not really understanding, Remus still did as she asked and studied her face: the pale skin, the beautiful eyes, the protruding cheekbones, the straight nose, the pink lips. It was the face he'd seen every night in his dreams for the last six months, that he recalled in every corridor and room at Hogwarts, that he had missed with an ache that refused to dull. But he still wasn't seeing what Lena wanted him to do, so he looked harder, trying to see past the familiarity.
Then he saw it: the skull beneath her face. He saw it as clearly as if it hadn't been covered in skin, like the Grim Reaper staring back at him. And with some sort of primal understanding – something that couldn't be taught or explained, only felt intrinsically – the answer hit Remus. How she could be there when she was dead, why she felt so cold…
She was Death.
Once again, there was only one word Remus could say. "How?"
"There was a vacancy. My predecessor asked me to fill it."
The mundanity of her response forced a half-laugh, half-sob out of Remus. Although he could still clearly see the skull beneath her face, he did not recoil, his hands caressing her cheeks. She was here. With him. He could talk to her, hold her, see her smile again – all things that until mere minutes ago, he had thought were impossible. 'But of course,' he thought, 'Lena's never liked to draw the line at impossible.'
Aloud, he demanded, "Why has it taken six months for you to let me know that you're now… this?"
"There's only one night of the year where the barrier between the lands of the living and the dead is fragile enough for me to cross it," she explained.
Hallowe'en – or Samhain, as it was called in the Gaelic tradition. Of course.
"So, you're saying that every night of the 31st of October, you can come back–"
"No," said Lena, and Remus saw the sadness in her eyes. "Not every year. That would be too often to leave my–" she hesitated for a moment, trying to select the best word, "–realm. It can only last for a short time without me before it descends into chaos." She put a hand over one of his, and for the first time, Remus noticed she still wore her wedding ring. "The universe only permits me to leave once every hundred years."
A hundred years. Remus almost certainly wouldn't be alive a century from now. So, that meant…
"Then, this is it?" he asked, his breathing grower quicker. "This is all we have? Just–" he did a quick mental calculation, "–fourteen hours?"
"Oh, Remus," said Lena quietly, and moved even closer, so they were chest to chest. "I know it seems like such a short time, especially after losing all the years we could have lived together." She gave him a small smile. "But the truth is, no amount of time would have ever been enough for us; so let's use what we have left well."
As Remus began to imagine what constituted as fourteen hours well-spent, Lena looked over his shoulder, her eyes widening.
"Is that my gravestone?" she inquired interestedly. "Although, I suppose without a body to bury, it's more of a memorial stone..." She moved around Remus to inspect the white marble. After reading the inscription, she turned to Remus, who had wrapped an arm around her waist, and wrinkled her nose at him. "Robert Frost? I thought I told you I wanted a Shakespearean epitaph."
"You did," conceded Remus. "But I couldn't find any quotations in your notebook that worked as well as this one."
Lena sighed. "I suppose it'll have to do," she said in a long-suffering voice.
Remus raised his eyebrows. "May I remind you that you didn't even bother to write me a proper goodbye note? So don't start complaining–"
"Well, my usual eloquence was somewhat dampened by the distress of the whole impending death thing. But I did leave you a very good poem."
"Still, just a few words from you would have been nice."
"Oh, in that case, shall I spend the next fourteen hours composing a nice, long essay about love, grief, life and death for you?"
Remus couldn't contain a smile. "Why don't you tell me the abstract of it, and I'll give you some feedback?"
Lena grinned. "All right, Professor." She cleared her throat. "Loving you was the best part of my life – and I did some pretty amazing things, so that's saying a lot. It broke my heart to leave you behind, just as I know it broke yours when you learned I was gone. We both wanted more time. Well, tonight we have that. I get the chance to walk with you a few more steps down the road you're travelling. Then, when the sun rises tomorrow, I will take a shortcut, while you continue the long way round. And when your journey is over, I'll be there, waiting for you. Then we'll have as much time together as we want." She tilted her head slightly, a satisfied look on her face. "There. How was that?"
Remus' response was to pull her closer and press his warm mouth against her cold lips. Lena kissed him back, her arms thrown around him. And in that moment of Time, standing there in the field of blue-grey flowers in the evening twilight, even Death was conquered by Love.
One more chapter left (an epilogue, really), but I'm going to do my final author's note now. So:
Thank you for reading this story. It's been such a lovely experience to write something knowing that I'm not just shouting into a void. And a huge thank you to everyone who reviewed over the last three years, the feedback and encouragement you gave me was truly so helpful :)
I also want to take a moment to acknowledge and thank JK Rowling for giving children a story that is full of beautifully complex, layered and well-developed characters. Harry is brave and kind, and sometimes acts too quickly. Ron is frequently insensitive, and would give his life for his friends. Hermione's fight for the rights of house-elves is noble, but she doesn't actually listen to those she's trying to protect. Hagrid's empathetic love of potentially dangerous creatures often blinds him to the harm they could actually cause. Fred and George immediately take Harry under their wing, but constantly belittle their actual younger brother. Molly can be overbearing and overprotective – she also, after just one very brief meeting, sends Harry a Christmas present when he wasn't expecting anything at all. Narcissa Malfoy is unashamedly prejudiced, but her love for her son gives her the strength to tell Voldemort an important lie. At school, James and Sirius were bullies; when they left, they fought against persecution that wasn't directed towards them, but others. The greatest threat Umbridge poses is not her cruelty nor intolerance, but her unshakeable, absolute moral certainty. Snape is an ill-treated, embittered, vindictive man who does something he sees as irredeemable, yet afterwards still chooses to try to do the right thing. And Dumbledore – well, there's so much I could say, but I think the best way to summarise it is his own words: "I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being – forgive me – rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger."
Look, I could write a whole essay about this – maybe even a book. It's why I wasn't interested in writing a Fanfiction that intentionally reduced the characters I didn't like as much to caricatures, or idealised the ones I loved. It's also why I wanted to write a female protagonist who could be clever and exceptional and do the wrong thing over and over again. Hopefully, together that all has made a story that is at least mildly entertaining and at best reasonably compelling.
And thank you to William Shakespeare, Niccolò Machiavelli, Charles Dickens, Carole King & Gerry Goffin, Joe Strummer & Mick Jones, Paul McCartney, Bernie Taupin, Bob Dylan, Pablo Neruda, Donovan, Kate Bush, Queen & David Bowie, Mary Lee Hall, Robert Frost and Ray Davies; whose words I stole. Cheers.
It feels a little weird after three-and-a-bit years and a word-count almost equivalent to the first four Potter books combined to finally be saying goodbye to Lena, but the time has finally arrived. I hope you enjoy the final chapter, and I'll do my best to respond to any reviews or messages via PM. I will always appreciate any responses or questions.
Oh, and if you check out my profile, you'll see I've put up what I think of as the soundtrack for To Be Human – just in case anyone's interested in seeing some of the songs that played an important role in my writing of the story.
Once again, thank you, and take care of yourselves :)
