2. Searching

"What do you mean, it's not clear whether Remus is dead?" Tonks lurched to a sitting position—and almost lost consciousness again when the sudden movement made her head throb and black spots swarm across her vision.

"Here, love." Mum handed her a phial from the bedside table that contained a violently orange, slightly foamy potion. "Madam Pomfrey said you'd have a nasty headache when you woke up, and this would help."

Tonks swallowed the potion and set the phial down, but her eyes never left her mother's. "Where is he? What's going on?"

"He's right here," said Mum carefully, "just up the ward. It's—"

Tonks swung her legs over the side of the bed and slid her feet into the slippers that waited there. She pushed herself up, managing to stand, even if she was rather wobbly.

"Nymphadora!"

"Help me there, Mum." She set her jaw and refused to acknowledge her mother's worried frown.

After a few silent seconds, Mum sighed and nodded, wrapping an arm around Tonks's waist for support as Tonks leaned on her shoulder.

The two of them slowly made their way along the ward. Many of the beds they passed were occupied, and several witches and wizards in the lime-green robes of St. Mungo's moved among the injured, doing rapid silent wandwork and making notes on charts.

They gradually drew even with Madam Pomfrey's familiar form, bent over a potions cabinet. Tonks, with years of experience trying to sneak out of the hospital wing too soon after a Quidditch collision or a Potions class gone wrong, braced herself without even thinking. Sure enough, the matron's sixth sense seemed to warn her: patient out of bed! She puffed up at once, theatrically indignant, fully prepared to restore order single-handedly. It was exactly what she always used to do. And it should have been funny.

Would anything ever be funny again?

As soon as Madam Pomfrey turned around to see who the disobedient patient actually was, though, something unprecedented happened—her stern expression crumpled. "Come along, then," she said, trying and failing to sound gruff, as she took Tonks gently by the free arm. They set off again, moving a little faster now with two people for support.

"We've got him in the private room right by my office," the matron explained in a low voice, looking straight ahead. "There's someone with him at all times—Minerva and Filius have sat with him, and several of his former students. And your mother, of course."

"Mum did?" Tonks had thought that Mum and Remus were getting on more comfortably lately, but she couldn't quite picture her mother keeping vigil by his bedside.

Mum raised an eyebrow, looking almost sheepish. "This morning they told me you weren't likely to wake up for a while, so I thought I might have some time to spare."

Tonks squeezed her mother's shoulder in silent gratitude. Then she turned back to Madam Pomfrey, because she had about a million questions to ask. But a familiar voice came drifting faintly out of Remus's room as they drew nearer, and she held her breath to listen instead.

o—o—o

Lily stared at the image in the scrying-glass. Remus's body was lying in the hospital wing, pale and inert, but undeniably still breathing.

She stood and brushed the grass from her skirt, dropping the scrying-glass into her pocket. "I think we'd better go and talk to Dumbledore. Right now. If he doesn't know what this means, he'll know who will—and I have a feeling it might be important."

The others stood too, but Remus frowned. "How do we find Dumbledore?"

"There's, well, a place—for lack of a better word—where he usually is, just like we're usually here." James pushed his glasses up higher on his nose. "So we'll go there first. And if he's not there, we have various ways of looking for him." He grinned at Remus. "There are lots of new things you can do now. We'll have to show you."

If he stays, Lily found herself thinking. Then she gave her head a shake. Surely it wasn't possible for someone to go back—someone who wasn't bound by blood magic to a Dark wizard with a Horcrux, at least.

"We should hold hands so we don't lose each other." Lily reached out for James and Remus, and waited until Sirius caught Remus's hand on the other side. Then she focused her thoughts on Dumbledore's usual location and led the way, falling forward into swirls of white mist.

o—o—o

"...because you're going to be a great dad," Harry was saying earnestly. "You can teach him to fly, and you can show him all about things like grindylows and kappas, just like you taught us. Teddy needs you, Remus. He needs you here. And—I don't want to lose you, either, just when I was finally going to have a chance to get to know you better."

Harry started and went rather red when Tonks's awkward procession appeared in the doorway; he obviously hadn't meant his words to be overheard. Tonks mustered a reassuring smile for him.

"Wotcher, Harry. Thank you for telling Remus the kinds of things he really needs to hear."

Then her throat closed up, and her eyes were drawn to her husband—to the slow steady rise and fall of his chest, the only sign of life in the pale, still form.

"Hi, Tonks. I'm really glad you're okay." Harry stood so that Mum and Madam Pomfrey could get Tonks settled in the chair. Then he carefully placed Remus's hand in hers. With a tight, wordless smile of thanks, she clutched the lifeless fingers in both hands, as though holding on for all she was worth could help keep her husband from slipping away.

"Any change, Mr. Potter?" asked the matron, gently brushing the hair away from Remus's face so that she could feel his forehead.

"I don't think so." Harry sounded worried.

"Well," said Madam Pomfrey briskly, searching for a pulse at the wrist, "we still have him with us, then." She flicked her wand, and the soft red glow of a diagnostic spell moved along his frame. It went particularly bright around his head and his stomach, and she made a soft clucking noise, shaking her head.

"What's wrong with Remus? What happened?" The hand Tonks was holding felt cold, though not much colder than her own.

The matron pressed her lips together. "To begin with, he took a nasty Sectumsempra to the stomach."

Tonks drew a sharp breath, thinking of blood and entrails and other horrible things she'd seen when she was still an Auror.

But Madam Pomfrey spared her a grim smile. "That will be all right. I've seen him almost as bad after full moons sometimes, and I closed all the wounds and dosed him with plenty of Blood Replenishing Potion. As for the other—" Her attempt at a smile vanished completely. "He was hit in the head with some kind of Dark curse." She brushed a hand over Remus's hair again. "It should have been fatal, but it seems that something distracted the curse-caster at the last second, so the spell wasn't fully completed."

"Wasn't fully completed?" Tonks echoed, trying not to let her growing worry and frustration show in her voice—none of this was the matron's fault, after all. "What does that mean?"

"This is an extremely rare condition," Madam Pomfrey replied. "There hasn't been a confirmed case in the last hundred years or so, but there are descriptions in old books." She sighed. "Let me show you." She pointed her wand at her own chest. "Animam Revelo."

A glowing purple sphere appeared, hovering around her middle.

"That shows you that my soul is intact. If I were dead, or had been Kissed by a dementor, there would be nothing at all." She waved her wand and the sphere vanished. "Now watch what happens with Remus."

Tonks felt Mum's hand come to rest on her shoulder.

"Animam Revelo," said Madam Pomfrey again, aiming the spell at Remus this time.

No sphere appeared.

"So—so his soul is gone?" Tonks could only whisper.

"Not entirely," said Madam Pomfrey quickly. "Look there."

Tonks looked again, and this time she saw it. There was no sphere, but there was a fine purple line, like a thread, that started somewhere near Remus's heart and stretched up and up, disappearing through the ceiling overhead.

"As long as he keeps breathing—as long as that connection isn't broken—there's a possibility his soul will return." The matron hesitated. "I have to tell you that his chances of recovery are not very good. But the successful cases have always had someone in physical contact with the patient, or at least talking to him, so we've been doing both."

Tonks squeezed the thin hand that lay limply in hers. An idea came floating up, and she turned back to Madam Pomfrey with her chin raised. This was not usual procedure for the Hogwarts hospital wing, but neither was this a usual situation. "I want to lie down with him. Maybe it will help more than just holding his hand."

Madam Pomfrey looked away and blinked once, hard. "I do not bend the rules in this infirmary. And I most certainly do not have favourites among my patients, not even those I saw every month when they were at school."

Tonks ground her teeth and started to protest. Wasn't Remus's life more important than petty rules and regulations?

But then the matron jabbed her wand toward the bed and enlarged it to twice its normal width. "Which is why I must insist that you lie down at once." She rounded on Tonks with a scowl. "It is much too soon for you to be up walking around in the first place, young woman. I don't want to see you out of bed again until I say it's time."

Should've been funny, Tonks thought again, as though watching the scene from a long way off. But all she felt was a desperate need to be as close to Remus as possible.

Mum helped Tonks out of the chair and into the bed, with Harry keeping a hand on Remus's arm during the shuffle. Tonks slid under the covers and fitted herself to her husband's inert form, bringing his head to rest on her shoulder.

"I must get back to my rounds on the ward," said the matron. Her voice was a little thicker than usual.

All at once, Tonks found that she couldn't face the prospect of another hour without her son. "Would it be all right to have Teddy here with us too?"

"Certainly." Madam Pomfrey gave a brisk nod. "I'll put a Muffling Charm on this room, so the wee one can make as much noise as he likes." With that, she was gone.

"Mum, would—"

"Right away, love." Mum kissed her on the side of her head that wasn't bandaged, placed a hand on Remus's shoulder for a moment, and turned to Harry. "Would you come with me to fetch your godson and his things?"

"Glad to." Harry looked pleased to have something active he could do.

Once the room was empty, Tonks rested her forehead against her husband's. "Now you listen to me, Remus Lupin." She ran her fingertips over his face, his hair, his shoulder. His pulse fluttered faintly in his throat, and the breaths he was still taking were soft and warm on her cheek. "I'm going to tell you why you need to come back, and I won't stop talking until you do."

o—o—o


Author's Note: Many thanks to jncar for the excellent beta work—and the encouragement.