7: Memories
A grip upon his shoulder, his wand snatched from his grasp, the air filled with flickering light and a flashing hint of emerald. He could feel Dora’s hand clasped desperately in his and then suddenly he was falling, tumbling, shrouded in red light that folded around his body like the coils of some great serpent, crushing his life away. He could feel it squeezing, pulling, twisting and wrenching at his body like a transformation gone terribly wrong and oh sweet Merlin, the pain, the pain was tearing him apart, ripping him limb from limb, body and soul alike. A voice screamed, filling his ears with the tortured sound. It was a moment before he realised the scream was his own.
And then suddenly the grasp on his shoulder and Dora’s precious, precious hand were gone.
She’s gone. I’ve lost her. She’s gone…
It was his last coherent thought for quite some time.
How long did he writhe there, lost in a world of red light, of silver and shadows and rending agony? He didn’t know. All he knew was that he was trapped, that some part of him was clamped in place, imprisoned within the rush of light. He could feel a yank, a drag but only parts of him could follow and oh dear gods it was ripping him apart, he was going to tear down the middle and be scattered here, there, everywhere…
And then, the pain was gone. His body was gone.
The light had torn him out of it.
I’m dead. I must be. My body’s gone. I’m dead.
And…
Someone needs me.
It was like a beacon flashing in the darkness. A call for help.
Harry?
He followed.
He remembered only vague hints of what had happened after that. There were trees, the Forbidden Forest, glimpses of Harry’s face both terrified and resolved and they had spoken, spoken of Teddy, spoken of death. And there were others, Lily, James, Sirius…
And as he had faded back into the trees to let Harry continue, inevitably alone, he had heard their voices whispering, whispering only to him.
“You shouldn’t be here, Remus.”
“It’s not your time, mate, not yet.”
“Go back to your body, Moony. Follow the call and go back to where you should be…”
He tried to speak, to tell them he couldn’t go back, he didn’t know the way, but suddenly he could feel the pull once more, red light filling his vision and then…
Pain. Physical pain.
Limbs screaming, heart pounding, blood boiling.
He was back.
And it felt…different.
Moonshine. Like moonshine.
He could feel the scrape of the wolf within his mind, vicious, clawing, yearning to be free as though the moon was high and bright but it was stuck, sealed just beneath the surface like at moonset. His body was shaking with anguish once more but this was not just the serpentine grasp of the light but a more familiar agony, the torment of a change that matched the mental rising of his wolf, but no that wasn’t right, there was no moon in this place and he couldn’t be transforming if the moon wasn’t full, he couldn’t, he couldn’t, he couldn’t…
And the light seemed to agree. It pulsed. Contracted. Screamed.
And then as though revolted, it spat him out like poison, shrinking away from him, vanishing, dissolving, leaving him teetering, falling, slumping towards the ground, real ground, solid ground that jarred against his body. He felt himself hit the floor, shaking, shuddering as the wolf still fought to surface and he fought to hold it back as he never normally was able and then came soft, familiar hands, a soft, familiar voice, Dora, God it was Dora…
“Remus! Remus, wake up! Remus!”
But the voice was no dream and the hands were there, were real upon his skin…
His eyes flew open.
Dora’s dark eyes and tousled hair stared down at him wide-eyed from a couple of inches distance. To judge by the forceful grip that her hands had just taken on his shoulders, she had been on the verge of shaking him awake.
Relief poured across her features. “Remus,” she whispered, slumping down against his chest as though her forceful release of breath had drained the energy from her body. “Merlin, Remus, you scared the life out of me!”
“And me.” The shaky echo came from the doorway and for a moment Remus almost started, his mind racing “ who was this strange young man inside their house, why was he here, what…?
And then his brain kicked in and he remembered.
Battle. Portal. Son.
His eyes lifted away from his wife to find Teddy slumped in equal relief against the doorframe, his dishevelled and bizarrely familiar mop of brown hair seeming an odd contrast to the vivid turquoise of earlier that evening. Dressed in untidy sky blue pyjamas, he smiled wanly and gestured over his shoulder.
“I heard you screaming from my room,” he said, unable to conceal the shakiness from his tone. “For a minute, I thought…”
Remus blinked as he pulled himself up onto his elbows on the pillow, gently shifting the weight of his wife against his shoulder as he did so. “I was screaming?” he managed hoarsely, wincing as he did so at the dryness of his own throat. Apparently it knew something he didn’t.
A heart-shaped face rose sharply into his field of vision. “Yeah, you were screaming.” Tonks’ voice was oddly breathless. “And shaking and shivering like you were having a seizure, just like you were when…” She swallowed sharply. “It was like when you fell out of that bloody Portal all over again. I thought you were…”
The tremor in her voice was more than enough of an incentive. Ignoring the shakiness in his muscles and bones, and the odd trembling of his nerves, Remus pushed himself up against the headboard and engulfed her in his arms. He felt her face bury into his shoulder, her arms contract around his chest as she squeezed him tightly, her breath a whisper against the skin of his neck. He could feel her shoulders shaking.
“What happened, Remus?” He felt rather than heard the words that slipped through her lips. “Then and now. What happened?”
He could feel the curious burn of his son’s gaze over the top of his wife’s head. It was a silent reiteration of the same question.
He glanced up at the clock, illuminated by the light creeping through the gap in the thick, dark curtains. 5:30am. As good a time as any for a family heart to heart, I suppose.
“Honestly?” he said softly. “I’m not sure.” He sighed deeply, fighting to hold down the still lingering panic that had risen within him as the memory had consumed him so vividly. “I was dreaming… well, remembering it just now…” He heard his son’s sharp intake of breath, felt his wife’s embrace tighten and he increased his own hold upon her in turn. It felt oddly as though he were clinging to a Dora-shaped lifeline that kept him from slipping back into that terrible crashing sea of red. “It was…” He closed his eyes as memories washed over him once more - of astounding pain, of the tearing, of the jerk as his soul seemed to rip free of his body. “Painful. Very painful. After more than thirty years of transformations, I thought I’d experienced everything life could throw at me on that front but that-” he forced himself to breathe out “-was above and beyond.”
His wife’s lips, cool and soothing, pressed against the skin of his neck. Teddy’s eyes met his, brim full of a cocktail of horror, reassurance and guilt.
“Was it kind of… like squeezing? And tearing?” Remus could tell that Teddy was struggling to keep his voice level. “Because I felt it too.”
“And me.” Dora raised herself away from his shoulder, resting her forehead against his temple, her eyes closed, her features worn. “But I think… because my body’s used to being manipulated…”
“It wasn’t so bad for you. Either of you.” Remus completed the sentence ruefully. “Whereas mine still takes it rather badly even after thirty years of monthly practice. Which is probably how I ended up…well, stuck.”
Teddy was biting his lip. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, gently shaking his head. “If I’d had any idea that was going to happen, I would have…”
“It doesn’t matter.” As a man highly experienced in the art of self-flagellation, Remus knew it was a good idea for someone to cut off such litanies before they reached full flow. “I’m here now, aren’t I? One nightmare doesn’t make much difference in the long run.”
“A nightmare that was my fault.” Teddy sighed and Remus suspected further preventative action would be needed imminently. He was right. “You were stuck in there in unbearable pain because of me and I was next to useless, I couldn’t even get you out…”
“It wasn’t unbearable,” Remus lied calmly and one jab of a small finger told him that his wife at least had seen straight through his attempt to placate their son. “And I had a pretty impressive hallucination that didn’t hurt at all so…”
“Hallucination?” He felt Tonks’ forehead wrinkle against his face. “What did you see?”
Remus sighed as vivid flashes of the Forbidden Forest and terrified green eyes whipped across his minds eye. “Harry,” he answered quietly. “Although I guess that’s not really so surprising considering how much he was on my mind that night. I was in the Forbidden Forest with him.” He smiled humourlessly. “And since I was pretty convinced I was dead, I managed to conjure up James, Lily and Sirius as well. They told me off for being dead when I shouldn’t be and sent me back to my body and the pain.” Over by the door, he heard Teddy’s abrupt gasp, but before he could muster a glance in his direction, the sorrowful features and deep eyes of his wife filled his vision.
“Oh, Remus,” she whispered softly.
He shook his head gently, resting his forehead against hers. “It wasn’t so bad,” he murmured gently. “Not seeing them, anyway. It was Harry I was worried about. He seemed to think… He was convinced he was going to his death and he wanted us there with him for support. He even asked what dying was like.” He felt Dora’s hands tighten against him once more. “So as I’m sure you can imagine, it was a bit of a relief last night to hear his voice. That was when I knew the whole wretched thing had all been in my imagination.”
“Maybe it wasn’t.”
At Teddy’s uncertain intervention, Remus lifted his head away from Tonks and stared up at his son. Teddy was regarding him with a mixture of shock, awe and thoughtfulness that unnerved Remus to his core. Deep inside, he felt a part of himself shiver.
“What do you mean?” he asked softly.
“It’s just…” Teddy frowned tentatively. “It’s something Harry told me. He said that when he went to face Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest, his parents, his godfather and…well, you, were with him in spirit. And he was very specific about it being the four of you because I asked about mum and he said no, she wasn’t there…” He shot Tonks an apologetic glance that she responded to by smiling wanly. “I’d always assumed he meant he’d imagined your presence because he was stressed or something, and used the memory to draw strength; I never really believed you were actually there but…” His lip twisted slightly. “The way he smiled when he said it… I can’t help but think now that maybe he really was being…literal.”
An unnerving combination of the warmth of realisation and the sting of ice-cold fear did battle throughout Remus’ body. He felt his breathing hitch. Was that possible? Could it have been real, Harry’s terror in the forest, his old friends pushing him back to his body, to his life when he’d thought both lost to him forever…
“But… how?” It was the most coherent statement he could manage. “How could that…happen? It would mean…” His chest hollowed into a gaping void. “I really was dead…”
“Not necessarily.” Teddy still hadn’t come inside the room, Remus realised distantly. Why did he detach himself so? “Penny told me once that in the moment you step through the red light into the Portal, you touch, just for an instant, all of time and space. And you were stuck there. You said your friends sent you back to your body, right? So that means you felt like you left it?” Remus nodded mutely in response to the question as Teddy ploughed on. “Well, maybe you did. Maybe from… wherever you were for those couple of minutes, you could hear Harry when he needed you and you went to him. Maybe.” He shrugged slightly. “Or you were hallucinating. I guess Harry’s the only person who’d know.”
“I suppose so.” Remus found himself staring blankly at the bedclothes, his wife’s face pressed gently against the side of his own. “Though I’m not sure I like the idea that my spirit went wandering without the rest of me.”
Against his cheek, he felt Dora’s lips curling into a smile. “At least your spirit had the good sense to go and help Harry,” she remarked with a deliberate attempt at lightness that flooded him with gratitude. “I’d be worried about you roaming around in spirit at random. Whether it was real or a hallucination, if you’d have gone on an astral trip to watch naked dancing girls, I’d have demanded a divorce.”
“But it wouldn’t have mattered since you, my dear, can look like anyone.” Remus smiled serenely, seizing the sudden lightening of the mood with both hands. “As far as I’d be concerned, they’d all be you in disguise. Ow!” He jumped sharply at the sharp jab against his still tender and bashed up back. “That was fingernails!”
“Good! Serves you right.” Dark eyes twinkled at close range. “If you’re thinking about scouting around and then persuading me to morph to satisfy your pervy fantasies, think again Lupin. You’re getting nothing but Tonks au naturale.”
“You should be flattered.” Remus grinned, relaxing into familiar banter with profound relief. “It means whenever I admire a beautiful woman, I’m thinking of you.”
“Oh, so I’m not beautiful now?”
Oops. The words had come out of her mouth playfully but that was still a spousal bear trap to avoid at all costs. “No,” he replied smoothly. “It means that in my fertile imagination, I can’t admire any woman without dreaming of her being you.”
Tonks gave a distinctly unladylike snort. “I don’t think the word fertile is one you should be tossing around lightly. Not considering it took you less than a month to impregnate me.”
“Excuse me, Mrs Lupin, I believe it takes two to…”
“Ahem.” The soft, deliberate throat-clearing came from the direction of the doorway. Tearing his eyes away from his wife, Remus found Teddy’s cheeks were tinged with pink as he gave a slightly self-conscious wave. “Son still in the room, remember?”
The chuckle slipped out almost unconsciously as he raised an eyebrow in his son’s direction. “You can talk, young man. After what you were telling me about Victoire Weasley’s window-catch, I’m surprised to see you back tonight at all.”
The flush turned rapidly to full crimson, although Remus was surprised and a little contrite to note the almost ashamed downturn of his son’s eyes.
“Well, I was tempted,” he admitted quietly. “And she was keen. But I couldn’t really. Not after I‘d just spouted off the same barefaced lies to her as I did to Harry. It wouldn’t have felt right.”
Remus felt a warm glow of fatherly pride almost in spite of himself. Maybe he hadn’t been able to raise his son himself, but someone had done a reasonable job when they’d set his moral compass. And yes, Teddy had lied to his family and his girlfriend, but it had hurt him like a physical wound to do so, and he’d done it out of love and the need to protect others. That was something that Remus could certainly relate to…
“Wait a minute.” Tonks’ hands pulled abruptly away as she scuffled to sit upright on the mattress, swivelling to face her grown-up son who was still blushing in the door. Her eyes were narrowed to suspicious slits “This… window-catch business. Is it something… in the offing or already a done deal?”
Remus had never in his life before seen so much blood drain out of a pair of cheeks so quickly. Teddy went from bright scarlet to deathly pale in the blink of an eye, his eyes stretched so wide with horror that Remus had a brief, ridiculous flash of a brown, double Mad-eyed Alastor Moody. His grasp on the doorframe tightened so sharply Remus was surprised he didn’t hear the splintering of wood.
“Oh well it’s late and oh dear, I’m so tired and you must be too, it’s been such a long day so why don’t I just go and we can all get some sleep, goodnight!”
The door slammed so hard that the lampshade covering the ceiling light swayed violently above them and the curtains shook, casting crazy dawn light patterns across the room. The books on Remus’ bedside table jumped about an inch off the wood.
Settling back against the headboard, Remus crossed his arms and fixed his wife with a long, slow look. She returned his stare defiantly.
“What?” she retorted sharply.
Remus slowly raised an eyebrow. “Congratulations,” he drawled dryly. “You can really call yourself a parent now. Because I think you just scarred our son for life.”