“REMUS!” a voice called over the grounds, drowned by the cries and yells of those fighting. “Remus, where are you?” Tonks added in a quieter, more shaky voice.
She had last seen Remus through the window, fighting Dolohov, as Aberforth had told her. But they weren’t where she had seen them anymore, and nowhere in sight either. Dozens of spells illuminated the night, and Tonks constantly had to dodge curses and fire Stunning Spells or Shield Charms in every direction as she ran, stumbling over bodies, back towards the castle.
She could not pay attention to the battle around her, could not see whether those falling were friends or enemies; her whole mind was focussed on this one thought “ where was Remus? As Tonks hurried up the stairs to the castle’s front gates, something in the distance made the ground shake and caused her to stumble into someone. A quick glance up “ it wasn’t Remus. Only he mattered. She ran on through the entrance hall, passing duelers all the way, but Remus was still nowhere to be seen. Maybe up the stairs, there was definitely fighting going on up there.
Her heart pounding madly, Tonks hurried up the marble staircase. The first floor corridor was crowded too; people, faces; curses and hexes flying everywhere; but Tonks didn’t care “ she couldn’t, she had to find Remus first, make sure he was well, and then they could fight together, and then she would care about the others. Just not now, not now.
Where are you, Remus?
Tonks turned a corner, and another one, and suddenly found herself in a completely deserted corridor. She slowed her pace and looked around carefully. The sounds of the battle were strangely muffled here, as though they weren’t real.
“Remus?” she called out tentatively, although she had no idea why she would expect him here.
“Oooh,” a high-pitched voice suddenly came from somewhere.
Tonks turned on her heel nervously and looked in all directions. “Who’s there?”
“Who’s there?” the voice replied, in a horrible imitation of Tonks. And suddenly Tonks realised who it was, just as Bellatrix Lestrange stepped out of the shadows ahead, laughing like mad. “Now if it isn’t my itsy niecey looking for her pet wolfey!” Her cackle filled the empty corridor, echoing from the blank stone walls. “Ooh, but you won’t find him here, Dory, you won’t find him!” Bellatrix’ eyes and mouth were round in mock surprise. “You won’t find him here nor anywhere else! You want to know why, little Mudblood-lover, you want to know why?” A wide grin spread over her face again. “Because he’s dead!” Again she burst into laughter.
“No!” Tonks yelled, but at the same time slumped against the wall as she felt her knees give way. But Remus wasn’t dead, surely he wasn’t, Bellatrix was just playing her evil games…
“Oh, and you would know that, wouldn’t you! But look little niecey, look what I got here, look what he gave to me, what I took from his pocket as he lay there, dead, unable to keep me from taking it!” She threw her head back in mad cackling laughter as she held up a picture between two of her long, thin fingers. “Now isn’t that a sweet little cub... I’ll have to make sure to remember his face, so that I know where to aim when I find him...”
As Tonks saw a shock of turquoise hair on the picture Bellatrix was waving around in the air, she felt herself regaining her strength and pushed herself up against the wall. “No. NO! I’m going to“”
“What?” interrupted Bellatrix. “Kill me with your bare hands? Oh I don’t think so. Impedimenta! Now look what I saw you lose, little niecey, look what I found on the stairs. Thought I’d follow you to tell you you’ve lost your wand!”
Tonks knew that what Bellatrix was twirling between the fingers of her other hand was Tonks’ wand, but she still patted her pockets in a vain attempt to find it. But before she could do anything to defend herself“
“Crucio!”
Realisation hit Tonks as Bellatrix screamed the curse. She fell to the floor, writhing, but it was not the physical pain of the Cruciatus Curse that she felt. Remus was dead. She was sure now. She just wished they could have held each other one last time “ she could almost imagine hearing him call out “Dora!” and hurrying to save her... but he would never come. And Teddy, poor Teddy; he would grow up alone, an orphan, if he ever would grow up... Because Tonks knew that Bellatrix was going to kill her soon, and there was nothing she could do about it. She had had so many plans for their little family, such a happy life laid out after the war “ and now it would never be. The thought that she would never see her son again tore her heart apart; and Remus, Teddy would never see Remus again, Remus would never sit on the rug in the living room with Teddy on his lap, and tickle him, and Teddy would never look at them and laugh and change his hair from turquoise to purple to“
She felt a tear run down a face, but distant, as though it weren’t really her face; and somewhere, far, far away, the cackling laughter of Bellatrix Lestrange. But it was all strangely muffled through the pain in her heart. She knew that the Cruciatus Curse was torturing every particle of her body, but she did not feel it; the thoughts of Remus and Teddy drowned everything else out. And her mother, her poor mother “ hadn’t she lost enough already? Hadn’t the grief over Ted Tonks’ death and the terror of the past months been enough?
Suddenly she felt something lift off of her, and only now that the Cruciatus Curse was gone did she realise the torture it had inflicted upon her. It didn’t take away the burning pain in her soul, but at least she was able to stagger back to her feet and face Bellatrix.
“Now isn’t that just so romantic,” Bellatrix said in a sickly sweet voice, “almost ironic really. You run out to find your cutie wolfie, but now he’s dead... and you’re going to die too. Isn’t that sad, all for nothing!”
Tonks felt dizzy. Was it all for nothing? She couldn’t have saved Remus; should she have listened to him and stayed with Teddy? Teddy could have had a mother, he could have had her... But then, the only thing that consoled her about Remus’ death was that she was going to see him again, soon, and that they weren’t going to be parted for that long after all. She thought of when he first looked at her with love in his eyes, and of their wedding day. She thought of the day when Remus came back to her to raise Teddy with her, of how happy and proud he had been on the day of their child’s birth. She thought of all the happy moments they had shared together, as a couple and as a family; and as she felt a hot tear trickle down her cheek, she shut her eyes tightly. She wasn’t going to die facing Bellatrix Lestrange “ she was going to die with the memory of those she loved in her heart.
She hardly even felt it as the green jet of light hit her.