The dreams had left me alone for a couple of years now, but they returned tonight, one blurred image melting confusingly into the next.
She stood in a kitchen full of people who were all laughing at a joke someone had told. The kitchen door opened and she glanced over, only to freeze, wide-eyed. An exhausted, painfully-thin man stood in the doorway. Noticing her gaze, he offered a rueful smile. "I know it's the morning after the moon, but surely I don't look that lousy!" She tried to ignore the flush creeping into her cheeks and answered....but the words seemed to fade away.
Flashes of images, many featuring the man from the kitchen. And then one in particular solidified.
It must have been Christmas, because they were standing under a sprig of mistletoe. They broke from their kiss and just gazed into each others' eyes for a long moment. "Will you marry me?" he asked. "Yes," she whispered back. His face swam into focus: careworn and graying prematurely at the temples, but filled with love.
The scene faded into a disjointed swirl formed from the black of night and the red of blood.
A black-haired boy stood at the head of a pitifully small army facing an endless foe. There were gaps here and there, as if there were people who had never answered the call to arms. Their faces lacked any hope, showing only blankness. She could hear someone nearby sobbing softly.
A nudge against her leg called her wandering attention back. Glancing down, she saw a gray wolf standing next to her. His eyes gazed steadily into hers, and she felt some of her fear leave. She knelt impulsively and threw her arms around the his neck. His tongue brushed the tears that had flowed, unnoticed, down her cheeks. She stood once more, and the two of them looked outward at the approaching enemies.
Again the scene faded out
Suddenly she was lying on a battlefield, curled around a horrible wound in her side. Bodies lay all about her. Screams sounded, and the night was filled with flashes of light, each one spelling death. Creatures roamed through the carnage sucking the life from the fighters and dying alike. Worse, there were men taking pleasure in the agony they could inflict on the broken figures littering the ground. Her mind focused desperately on escape.
A small stone lay nearby and she stretched her hand out toward it. She barely recognized her own voice as she whispered, "Portus." The stone seemed to glow for a second. Even through the sounds of the battle she heard the footsteps behind her. She desperately lunged for the stone and felt herself whirled away...but not quite fast enough. An angry voice shouted, and a wave of agony swept over her. Blackness fell...
I sat up in bed, gasping desperately for breath. Despite the horror of the dream, I sought to imprint it on my mind. To no avail; it continued to fade away. The man lingered, but I could no longer picture his face. I had to stifle a sob as that realization met me. Then a thought sent me upright again. "Remus!" I slipped out of bed and crept to the doorway next to mine. He was still asleep, thankfully.
I gazed at my five year-old son, inwardly hugging him to me. Remus had been born about seven months after a local farmer had found a nearly dead young woman in a ditch. Mercifully, though my body wore a maze of scars, my son hadn't been affected. The nurses had explained that any injuries he might have received had evidently healed before he was born, but I was still thankful for the miracle.
But with each day that passed, I became ever more aware that something else was missing...that someone else was missing. Why couldn't I tear down the wall that kept me from my memories? I lowered my face into my hands and wept.
The full moon shone over a castle and reflected its image in a nearby lake. If one looked closely, there were signs of repairs, but so skillfully done that they were nearly invisible. In one of the towers, a man's quarters stood forsaken for the night. A beam of moonlight fell on a picture resting on the fireplace mantlepiece. A man and a woman stood together in their wedding robes, her head resting on his shoulder. A line of writing crossed the image. "Remus and Tonks, Spring 1998. May their love never falter." An official notice from the Ministry of Magic, dated six years previously, lay next to the picture. It read simply, "Mr. Lupin: We regret to inform you that we have been unable to confirm your wife's status, whether living or dead. Our deepest condolences."
Beneath the impersonal lines was a scribbled note. "We had over two hundred bodies that we were unable to identify after the Battle of Hogwarts, and it's almost certain that Tonks lies among them. Remus, you know as well as I do that she was a metamorphamagus. We have no way of knowing what she looked like at the moment she fell. I'm sorry."
The howl of a werewolf drifted through the open window, the cry voicing the pain the man never allowed the world to see.