'Only the dead have seen the end of war' - Plato
He watched the spider web of protective charms form above the Castle, only half listening to the chaos around him. The night air was full of shouts and footfalls. He could smell the dread on the people around him, permeating the air like a great, dark cloud.
Witches and wizards of all ages were grimly clattering about, preparing to defend their school, their home: their very lives. They were fighting for a better, fairer world, where people weren't murdered in their homes just because they didn't fit with some maniac's concept of perfection.
They had to.
The alternative, a world without hope, was too appalling to consider.
No.
They would either win the day, or they would die trying.
He watched, sadly, as Arthur Weasley patted Molly on the shoulder, sharing a speaking look with her as he took up his station. Remus inched closer to the man: no one would really miss an ageing, penniless werewolf, but losing Arthur would be devastating. His children and grandchildren needed him to survive, and Remus resolved to do his utmost to see that he did.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dean Thomas making his way along the line, handing out Weasley made Shield hats and cloaks to the younger combatants; he nodded to him in the pale light of the magic that was only just holding their enemies at bay and felt a surge of sadness. Dean, like too many of his classmates, had grown up far too quickly.
He sighed heavily, glancing around at the soldiers by his side, lamenting their youth. Children shouldn't have to face things like this… But then, after the year they had had, none of them were really children anymore, anyway.
He looked up as Tonks climbed the ladder to the top of the Clocktower. He stared at her.
What was she doing here? She had two, bright-eyed mischievous, red-headed babies at home, she shouldn't be in a battle.
She caught sight of him as she stood back to let Kingsley pass her and gave him a wry grin that almost reached her eyes, guessing the direction of his thoughts.
He returned it, feeling helpless, and gestured in the direction her husband had hurried off in. She nodded in thanks and ran off, looking for Charlie.
There were too many people here that needed to get home to their families, he mused, as Tonks's brothers in law made their way past him to the battlements, assuring one another that they were both fine and not worried in the slightest.
He felt the corner of his mouth twitch into a brief smile. He was surrounded by extraordinary people: the good, the kind, the peaceful – and all had come out tonight, answering Neville Longbottom's clarion call.
It was uncertain whether any of them would see the dawn.
His thoughts turned to his old friends and he felt a stab of envy; they were all well out of this, either dead, or blissfully unaware. The losses had been so numerous in the past few years, and he didn't feel that he had even begun to mourn them: lovely Lily, with her sharp wit and kind heart; sweet Alice, with her stout heart and innocent gentleness; Frank with his wisdom and patience; James with his loyalty and ferocity; Sirius with his bizarre sense of humour and his strange inner fire; his beautiful, shining Jenny…
He felt his throat constrict as he thought of them, and their offspring. They would have been so very, very proud of them.
He missed them all terribly, even Peter, on the few occasions when he made himself remember the shy, music-loving boy that he had been and not the wretched traitor he had become. He looked out into the grounds, wondering for the hundredth time whether there had been anything he could have done to prevent it – to be a better friend to Peter, the way James and Sirius had been for him – a brother in arms…
He had marvelled at their passing, never understanding why it was that he had been the one to watch them fall, untouched. With every loss, he had known in his heart that it should have been him instead. They had had so much more to lose than he did – their deaths were a waste, while his…
He seemed doomed to linger, watching those he loved fall away from him, one by one, a little piece of himself dying alongside them. Perhaps this was his curse – retribution for what he had done to Jenny, what he had let happen.
Then, as now, he couldn't bear to live without her – without them, and now, as then, he couldn't bring himself to do anything about it. For years now he had been hiding behind a duty to Harry and his classmates, putting off the inevitable.
Death, when it came, would almost be welcome.
He caught her sweet scent on the night air, and closed his eyes. He was grateful for her presence, even now, in the midst of war. He risked a glance sideways and was surprised to see her there, pale and transparent in the torchlight of the Clocktower.
She turned to him, expression grim, and he was struck with an awful notion. What would happen to his faithful ghost when he was gone? Would she be trapped here, for eternity, alone?
He would be leaving her all over again.
The pain in her eyes suggested that she had come to a similar conclusion, and he looked away, unable to hold her gaze.
A sharp, insistent wave of cold froze his left hand and brought him back to her: she had taken hold of his hand, looking out across the ranks of armoured statues that had come to the aid of their school in its time of need.
"Will you stay until I'm asleep?" he whispered, voice catching.
"To the end," she said, a single tear rolling down her ice-cold cheek.
0o0o0o0
He'd seen Greyback fall, watching with some satisfaction as the bastard's body was crushed on the rocks below the Castle; someone had thrown him through a window with sufficient force to propel him past the wards and all the way to the very bottom of the gorge below.
He had little time to reflect as he darted here and there about the corridor, parrying curses, leaping over his fallen comrades, too many to number, shoes slipping on the stones beneath his feet, slick with blood. He, along with Kingsley and Arthur, had been forced to beat a hasty retreat as part of the floor of the Clocktower had collapsed following an almighty curse that had – in all likelihood – been deflected from somewhere else. There were limbs sticking out of the rubble now – many of them far too small to belong to adults – but there was too much chaos to check if their owners were still alive. The three men turned their back on their friends, hate and anger sketched on their usually gentle features.
Kingsley was battling two Death Eaters at once, and making it look easy. Remus jumped forward as he felt the bite of cold at his back; he felt a rush of hot, charged air as a curse missed him by a hair and hit one of Kingsley's opponents in the side. The man crumpled instantly, screaming as his skin began to blister and bubble.
She had been at his side all night, moving him to where he needed to be, whether that was out of the way of a curse or to the defence of an ailing friend.
"You have quite some guardian angel," Arthur grunted, pressing his back against Remus's as he fought a vicious little witch who could easily have been part-banshee. He had caught glimpses of her throughout the battle as she darted between the combatants, surprising foes and pushing people out of harms way, curses passing through her harmlessly like bright pulses of light. "Who is she?" Arthur panted.
"My shining girl," he managed to say, deftly returning a hex that would have shattered his ribs. He watched, detached, as his opponent toppled over the battlements, before turning to help Arthur.
The witch had been joined by a hulking man with a balaclava covering his face; he and Arthur staggered backwards against the wall as the attack intensified. Their opponents were grinning in predicted triumph, an eerie silver light building behind them. Both of them shrieked as Jenny walked through them; she applied herself grimly, keeping herself in time with the stumbling steps of the tiny witch, silently freezing the foul woman to death. Remus took the opportunity to finish off the balaclava-ed wizard while he and Arthur were distracted by the witch's desperate screams.
She fell to the floor a few, tortured steps away, ice crystals forming on her blue-tinged skin. Jenny stood above, her, tears mingling with the water cascading from her ruined flesh, hating what battle had forced her to become.
Arthur stared at her in disbelief.
"It's the girl from the photograph!" he gasped, as the fight continued around them. "By Merlin…"
He looked at Remus, who couldn't tear his eyes from her.
"You loved her," Arthur said, understanding crossing his weary features.
"I always will," he said, and the ghost of a smile passed across Jenny's lips.
Abruptly, she frowned.
"There are more coming," she said, and they could hear clearly, even over the noise of the battle, as if she was speaking inside there heads. "Hold the door – I'll try to draw them away."
She flickered out of existence and the two men took her advice, rushing between fighters and over the bodies of children to the door to the staircase. Kingsley followed them, sensing trouble.
The three of them heaved the great, oak door shut, heaping charm after charm on the ancient wood to keep it closed.
"Behind you!" someone shouted, and Remus turned, narrowly avoiding a hex that caught their would-be rescuer directly in the chest. He watched the boy fall, numbly; Colin Creevey, always so fierce and loyal, toppled to the floor before him, his boyish face stained with blood and dirt. He had been seventeen for only three weeks.
He looked up at his murderer, rage and loathing boiling through his veins, and for a moment he forgot he was a wizard at all. Snarling, he leapt towards the unlucky Death Eater, ready to tear him apart; the man fell beneath him, unprepared for such a violent attack.
Remus tore at his flesh, mercilessly, his hands drenched in the man's blood.
If the wolf wanted to join the fight, then that was fine by him.
He felt Arthur and Kingsley pull him away, and he struggled with them for a few moments, until he realised that the man beneath him was dead. He stared at his bloody remains and slumped, disgusted with himself, before pulling himself together.
There would be time for shame in the morning, if they ever saw it.
Now was the time for war.
0o0o0o0
Jenny ran through the packed corridor, charging through Death Eaters and trying to avoid their enemies. She had noted, with some satisfaction, that her passage scattered them like skittles, giving the people fighting them time to defeat them. She was glad that she could help, in any small way.
The Death Eaters she had burst through on the staircase of the Clocktower were still chasing her, enraged that they couldn't kill her; she led them through one of the high colonnades of the building continuing to run on when her footfalls no longer hit the stones beneath her and danced across the night air. Intent on their prey, they followed her, forgetting themselves; they plunged, screaming into the smoke below, and Jenny smiled, grimly.
Fires were breaking out all over the corridor behind her, and she hurried towards them. Fire held no terror for her anymore, since she could neither feel nor be injured, and walking through it a few times with the insatiable cold that clung to her every step made it sputter and die.
Despite the fires, the fighting seemed to have moved away from this part of the school for the moment. She put out another blaze that was threatening to spread to the floor above and hurried around the corner, careening into a group of young wizards, sending them sprawling. She turned to apologise, recognising them, but she didn't get far.
It seemed as if the world had exploded, dust and stones rained through her like great, black hailstones. She staggered backwards in shock as the silence fell around her like a shroud.
"Oh Gods," she gasped, as the smoke began to clear, revealing the body strewn floor.
One by one, the fallen men began to stir, groaning and coughing; they staggered to their feet, winded.
"Everyone in one piece?" George asked, pulling Percy to his feet.
"Just about," his twin replied, squinting at Jenny through the dust. "Don't know who you are, Miss, but thanks."
"Jenny?" asked Ron, who – along with Harry – had been staring at her for a full minute.
She nodded, surprised, aware of her wretched appearance.
"Thanks," he said, weakly, as they others watched their youngest brother in confusion.
She nodded and went to turn away, but she paused, cocking her head to the sounds that only she could hear.
"There's another wave coming," she told them, over her shoulder. "And big, ugly spiders… and they're hungry."
Ron paled.
"Get up high," she said. "They'll make easier targets from above. I have to get back to Remus."
She heard them make for the stairs as she shot away, sprinting back through the Castle, taking out as many of the enemy as she could as she went. She caught sight of Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood, back to back in a circle of Death Eaters. They were holding their own, two against eight, but their luck would only hold for so long.
She dove towards them, dogging the steps of one Death Eater after another until they fell, screaming in agony, frozen to the core. Neville and Luna made quick work of their remaining foes; they turned to look at her, stunned.
Luna regarded her for a moment and then grinned in a dreamy sort of way.
"You have a kind heart," she said, and moved off to help Ginny and Hermione, who were being pinned down by three more Death Eaters.
Jenny stared after her, astonished.
"Extraordinary," she breathed, and Neville laughed, despite the raging battle.
"Absolutely," he said, and looked as though he would very much have liked to say more, if a war hadn't been going on around them.
Jenny touched his arm and he flinched away from the cold.
"Your father was the best friend I ever had," she blurted, wanting him to know this, taking the last chance they might ever had. "He and Alice would have been so very, very proud of you – no matter what you did, they would have been proud. But today you are fighting like your father did, leading an army, even – and he wouldn't have been able to find the words for how much he loved you, right in this moment."
Neville stared at her, and for a moment he seemed to grow in height.
She left him behind and he turned to rejoin the battle, taller and more ferocious than before.
On the final turn before the staircase to the Clocktower, she ran through Evan Rosier, a cruel boy that had grown into a cruel man, and distracted him enough for Charlie Weasley to get a curse through his defences, leaving him free to tackle another.
He and Tonks were stood shoulder to shoulder, trying to keep the Acromantulas out of the Clocktower; they fired curse after curse into the mass of tangled, hairy limbs until a particularly powerful charm rebounded off the ceiling and collapsed part of the outer wall, burying the spiders.
They took a moment to catch their breath before hurrying away. Jenny carried on to the Tower above, still under bombardment from flying Death Eaters.
She watched in fascination as one of them froze in mid flight before being dematerialised entirely by a grim-faced Arthur Weasley. Remus was beside him, covered in blood that she hoped wasn't his and duelling a ferocious looking Snatcher with deep scars in the place of one of his eyes. She jumped through him, making the big man scream in pain; Remus hit him in the neck with a particularly nasty curse that she suspected had originated with Sirius. The man fell, scrabbling at his throat ineffectually.
Kingsley fell back towards them, and Jenny dodged out of the way, not wanting to distract him with her icy grip. He, Remus and Arthur backed tightly together, defending one another from the furious onslaught. It was, in its own way, a marvel to watch; they were too close to the Death Eaters for Jenny to intercede, and she watched, helpless as hexes flew around them like a great net of light.
A shout rang out from the far end of the gantry, and she pelted along it, startling a Death Eater so much that he plunged out of one of the gaping holes in the wall of the tower. He and four of his friends had been duelling Dean Thomas, and the young man's arm hung uselessly at his side; Jenny ran at them, shrieking.
The nearest Death Eater flailed ineffectually at her as she proceeded to freeze him; Kingsley's booming voice sounded behind her as he came to the aid of his young friend.
Arthur cried out and she hurtled back towards him, having evened the odds sufficiently for Dean. He had fallen through one of the gaps in the wall, and was holding on for dear life, his wand just beyond his reach; Remus was fighting hard, trying to reach him.
Jenny pushed her way through the Death Eaters, trying to buy the moments Remus needed to pull his friend to safety; they leaned against the balustrade, panting as the Death Eaters fled from her gnawing cold.
Remus sent a curse at one that had just joined the fight, dropping down from a broom through a hole in the roof; he moved to intercept him, and Arthur bent to retrieve his wand, ready to help.
She felt it build in the air before it happened, and she pushed herself in front of Remus, for all the good that would do.
An explosion of latent magic ripped through the Clocktower, like an enormous bubble of heat; it shattered the gantry, leaving Arthur at one end and Dean and Kingsley at the other.
Remus and Jenny, caught in the middle of the thing, were thrown backwards with the force of it. They bounced like ragdolls on the stone ledge at the far end of the Clocktower.
She felt the heat of the magic scorch her and she screamed in agony, the power of the explosion ripping through her like barbed wire. She climbed to her knees, dizzy and frightened.
Remus was lying beside her, broken and bloodied. She knew without checking that he was dead, his sightless eyes staring up at her in the dim, battle-torn light. She reached out to him in horror, still shaking with the shock of feeling that the explosion had rent in her. Her hand hovered above his face; she longed to shake him, to beg him to wake up, but she knew it was too late. She had known before this battle had begun that it would be his last.
The man she had loved even beyond her own death was gone.
She watched in fascination as droplets of water hit his skin; puzzled, she looked up, but all there was above them was smoke and stone.
She cried out in unfamiliar pain and clutched her neck; this time, her hand came away bloodied. She stared at it, transfixed, as the blood and water ran off her hand. Her chest burned, and she gasped for the breath she hadn't needed in twenty years; panic seized her, and she struggled against a fresh wave of pain.
She was drowning, she realised, in the midst of her agony. Whatever had kept her in the lake was losing its hold, defeated by the sheer force of magic that had passed through her.
Jenny collapsed to the floor, weak with pain and fear; with her last ounce of strength she scrabbled in the dirt to find Remus's hand, refusing to let go of him until her strength left her and the darkness took her.
0o0o0o0
It was so dark.
He'd tried opening his eyes, but it hadn't made much of a difference. Perhaps he'd been buried – the explosion had caught him off guard, and had been big enough to throw him across the room – it must have taken out part of the ceiling. He tried to move, but he couldn't feel anything.
He hoped the others were ok…
The sounds of the battle were more distant now, and he tried again to move.
Nothing.
He frowned, puzzled.
After an explosion like that he would have expected a significant amount of pain…
He chuckled as realisation dawned.
So this is what dying feels like, he thought. He relaxed against the tide of numbness that surrounded him, guiltily grateful to whoever had unleashed that last, fatal curse. He thought he should probably feel ashamed at the relief he felt, but nothing really seemed to matter any more.
The sounds around him were distorting oddly. He thought he caught a bark of laughter somewhere nearby… a few bars of violin music… someone's footsteps.
The smells were changing too: singed stone and blood were becoming fresh, clean air and – he sniffed – fire and meat… a barbecue?
He frowned at himself; perhaps his mind was fragmenting as he died…
There was a pressure on his body now that he hadn't felt before, as though he was lying on the ground.
The scent of sweet summer grass took hold of his consciousness; he could feel the blades of it, pressing gently against his skin.
There was the laughter again, closer now, and more voices together. Madly, he wondered who would be having a party – perhaps he was unconscious – yes, he was unconscious and they had won! The victory party must be happening…
But why would anyone hold a victory party in the Hospital Wing?
No, he reasoned, I must be dead…
Warm fingers closed around his hand and he froze.
"Shh," someone said, and he breathed in her cotton and soil scent as if it was manna from heaven. "It's alright now…"
He opened his eyes again, and this time there was sunlight – a warm breeze – blue skies above – and her.
His shining girl.
Right there, in front of him.
He reached up as her golden hair fell around him and tucked a strand of it behind her ear.
A smile broke out across her face – a real one, that stretched right up into her eyes; he skimmed his fingers across her perfect neck as she bent down to kiss him, pressing her warm lips to his cheeks, his eyes, his mouth.
He grinned up at her as she finally pulled away; he could hear Sirius saying something lewd, somewhere nearby, and heard the tell-tale thwack of Lily hitting him over the head for it.
Jenny smiled down at him and he hoped that she could stay like this forever: his shining girl.
Finally, he was home.