Author note: This chapters contains dialogue from J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (New York: Scholastic, 2005), pp. 613-614, 622-624. And just in case it isn't clear from the contents, this is the penultimate chapter of "Home," not the final chapter.
Chapter 20: The Battle of Hogwarts
The Patronus came to him in the fields at twilight, as he tried once again to wrest the attention of Jonathan Longsnout from a tattered porn magazine. It rose like a phoenix from the ashes of the werewolves' garbage heap. The message was short: "Leaving Hogwarts tonight. Come."
At Hogwarts he met Tonks and Bill, who had agreed to patrol the corridors along with several members of the faculty. Dumbledore was already gone and no one, not even Minerva, knew whither, though Minerva did know that he had taken Harry with him. A stony lump settled in Remus's stomach when he heard this. He knew that Dumbledore would not take Harry into danger unless he truly needed him, and he could think of no reason why Dumbledore would need Harry unless he anticipated a direct, personal confrontation with Voldemort.
In silence they patrolled the still and silent corridors. Every half hour they gathered in the nook before the corridor that sheltered the Room of Requirement and compared notes. And then, suddenly, from the sea of silence erupted the sound of children running, and Ginny, Ron, and Neville pelted into their arms.
The disruption proved a blessing, for the trio brought with them the Marauder's Map and further details of Harry's half-baked theory (which most of them had already heard) about Draco Malfoy, Death Eater. Minutes later, they surprised a nest of Death Eaters in the Astronomy Tower, and a full-scale battle broke out. There were only seven of them—four adults and three teenagers—against at least as many Death Eaters, including, to Remus's chagrin, the werewolf Fenrir Greyback. As they chased the Death Eaters through the corridors, Ron cried incoherently that Hermione and Luna were standing guard elsewhere. Minerva sent the caretaker Filch to fetch Severus Snape from his office. Tiny Professor Flitwick sprinted through the chaos and ran shouting to the students' dormitories to lock them in. Bill, distracted, turned his head and Greyback leapt on him with a shriek of triumph. Remus drew in his breath as his heart contracted violently; he looked up to see a garish beam of light—an Avada Kedavra—flying at him. In an instant, he leapt aside.
With a violent thud, the Death Eater Gibbon fell behind him.
The rest of the battle was one furious, blurry nightmare. Tonks fought valiantly and cleverly but Remus's mind was clouded with anxiety for Ginny, who was brutally teased and tormented by a condescending, lumpy little Death Eater, and for Neville, who conjured a magnificent Patronus only to realize that it would not save him from the particular jinx that had been aimed at him. Through their midst hurtled first Severus Snape, then Draco Malfoy, then, moments later, Harry, all without a word of explanation; nor could the fighters stop to question them. Three flashes of dark cloth, a few shouts, a few screams, and, one by one, they were gone. Neville tried to follow in Snape's footsteps, was tossed in the air, and fell; Remus tried too, was tossed, and fell beside him on the blood-soaked floor. Half the ceiling fell in, and those still on their feet ran forward. And then, from amid the rubble, came the voice of Severus Snape screaming, "It's over! It's over!"
Silence fell eerily in the ruined corridor. Slender fingers touched his shoulder. "Remus, it's over."
Still he stared into the rubble, into the dusty cavity where Severus Snape has stood, tense and angry and forlorn.
She ran her fingers down his back and kneaded it. "Remus, it's over." And then, with quiet authority, "Remus, come."
He turned slowly from the rubble. He knew what he would see. The fragile hopes that had stirred in him that spring, his fey, feverish hopes, lay mauled and bleeding on the grimy stone floor.
Not for nothing was he the son of a Healer. He scooped up the bloody mess, the unconscious, unevenly breathing, disgusting bloody mess, and carried it to the infirmary. Tonks followed with Neville.
When Neville had been put to bed with a calming draught, Madam Pomfrey turned her attention to Bill. They sat in a circle round his bed, Ron and Hermione, Luna, Remus and Tonks, like a sentient curtain, staring silently as Madam Pomfrey dabbed his wounds, one by one, hundreds of separate toothmarks, hundreds of tiny gashes, with a foul-smelling green ointment. It was the worst thing that could have happened . . . and yet it wasn't. It had not escaped Remus that there had been several people missing from the battle. Several people who might be dead.
When Ginny came in with Harry, his heart sighed with relief.
"Are you all right, Harry?"
"I'm fine . . . How's Bill?"
No one found the words to answer. Harry stared over Hermione's shoulder. "Can't you fix them with a charm or something?" he asked Madam Pomfrey. So grown-up, thought Remus, so naïve.
"No charm will work on these," she said. "I've tried everything I know, but there is no cure for werewolf bites."
"But he wasn't bitten at the full moon." It was the first thing Ron had said since he saw his brother. "Greyback hadn't transformed, so surely Bill won't be a—a real—?"
"No," said Remus quietly, knowing he was guessing, hoping he was guessing right. "I don't think that Bill will be a true werewolf, but that does not mean that there won't be some contamination. Those are cursed wounds. They are unlikely ever to heal fully, and—and Bill might have some wolfish characteristics from now on."
"Dumbledore might know something that'd work, though," said Ron. So grown-up, thought Remus, so naïve. "Where is he? Bill fought those maniacs on Dumbledore's orders, Dumbledore owes him, he can't leave him in this state—"
"Ron," said Ginny, "Dumbledore's dead."
"No!"
He had known it in his bones, hadn't he? He had seen it coming—or had not let himself see. When Harry walked in uninjured, more concerned about Bill than anything else, he had thought, well, everything's okay . . . we'll all survive. Nothing was okay, and he was no longer sure that any of them would survive. He didn't want to be in charge, he didn't want to be alone. He collapsed, he nearly passed out, clutching his head in his hands.
Next to him, she whispered, "How did he die? How did it happen?" And he thought, she can be strong at a time like this? I knew she was strong, but Merlin, she can find her voice at a time like this . . .
"Snape killed him . . ."
An hour? Two hours? They sat in the infirmary, Ginny and Harry, Ron and Hermione, Luna, Remus and Tonks, like a sentient curtain round Bill's bed, watching as Madam Pomfrey dabbed his wounds, one by one, hundreds of separate toothmarks, hundreds of tiny gashes, with a foul-smelling green ointment. They replayed the battle in conversation. They puzzled over Albus Dumbledore's implicit trust in Severus Snape. Minerva came, then Molly and Arthur, trailing Fleur behind them. Minerva and Remus between them tried to explain to the Weasleys what had happened to their son . . .
"Dumbledore gone," whispered Arthur, as Remus and Tonks stepped aside to make room for him by his son's hospital bed.
"Of course, it doesn't matter how he looks," sobbed Molly softly. "It's not r-really important . . . but he was a very handsome little b-boy . . .always very handsome. . . and he was g-going to be married!"
"And what do you mean by zat?" exclaimed Fleur. Everyone jumped. "What do you mean, ''e was going to be married'?"
"Well—only that—"
"You theenk Bill will not wish to marry me anymore? You theenk, because of these bites, he will not love me?"
"No, that's not what I—"
"Because 'e will! It would take more zan a werewolf to stop Bill loving me!"
"Well, yes," said Molly, "I'm sure, but I thought perhaps—given how—how he—"
"You thought I would not weesh to marry him? What do I care how he looks! I am good-looking enough for both of us, I theenk! All these scars show is zat my husband is brave! And I shall do zat!" she finished abruptly, grabbing the sponge and the foul-smelling ointment from Molly's hand.
They waited, in the wake of this explosion. They waited. And then Molly said slowly, in a far-away voice, "Our Great-Auntie Muriel has a very beautiful tiara—goblin-made—which I am sure I could persuade her to lend you for the wedding. She is very fond of Bill, you know, and it would look lovely with your hair."
"Thank you," said Fleur, with stiff dignity. "I am sure zat would be lovely."
And all of a sudden the two women were embracing, hugging and crying, over the unconscious bloody mess in the hospital bed.
"You see!" she cried. "You see! She still wants to marry him, even though he's been bitten! She doesn't care!"
He looked into Tonks's mournful heart-shaped face. He looked up to see nine people staring at him, as Fleur quietly mopped Bill's wounds. "It's different," he said quietly, wanting to sink through the floor. "Bill will not be a full werewolf. The cases are completely—"
"But I don't care either!" she cried, seizing the lapels of his robes. "I don't care! I've told you a million times . . ."
Her hands were on his chest. He felt them through the layers of cloth, and his heart skipped a beat. And he thought, oh Merlin, this isn't how this is supposed to be happening. In a sickroom, in front of a savaged body, a werewolf-savaged body. With nine people staring at us. If only—that morning at her flat—we could have—I would have—if I hadn't been afraid of hurting her . . . of doing this to her . . .
"And I've told you a million times," he said aloud, knowing it was inadequate, not knowing what else to say, "that I am too old for you, too poor . . . too dangerous . . ."
"I've said all along you're taking a ridiculous line on this, Remus," said Molly.
"I am not being ridiculous," he said steadily. I am a werewolf. A violent, aggressive, destructive werewolf. I am a beast. Arthur, you're an adult. An old married man with seven children. You know what I mean. "Tonks deserves somebody young and whole."
"But she wants you," said Arthur. "And after all, Remus, young and whole men do not necessarily remain so." He gestured at the mess, the disgusting bloody mess, that he and Molly and Fleur and all of them so loved.
I need my mentor. I need my headmaster. I need Albus Dumbledore.
"This is . . . not the moment to discuss it. Dumbledore is dead . . ."
"Dumbledore," said Minerva dryly, "would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world."
The doors swung open and Hagrid strode in. Tonks looked from Minerva to Remus, turned, and walked unsteadily away. He watched her sad shoulders as far as the swing doors. She looked tired. She looked tense. She looked—he gazed after her unbelievingly—she looked old.
He turned away, and his mind was one big question mark. Slightly, very slightly, Arthur nodded towards the door.
Very well then.
He ran.
He pushed the swing door aside and yelled, "Tonks!"
She turned and looked at him. Her expression was inscrutable. He took her hand and pulled her out into the stone-walled courtyard, where moths swam in the blue-grey summer dawn.
"I'll think about it," he said softly. "Tonks, I—I don't want to hurt you. I love you. I wish—I want to spend my life with you. I want your home to be my home. I want your children to be my children. I—I'll try to see my way to it."
She threw herself in his arms, burrowing in the folds of his slashed and singed robe. He turned her face up towards his and kissed her gently and lingeringly.