Title: Goodbyes
Word count: 849
Pairings: Remus/Tonks
Summary: He has to say goodbye, even if it is too late and he can not save them.
Warnings: Character death.
Disclaimer: Not mine. I do not make any money off of them.
It is not hard to find them.
The room they are placed in used to be where Firenze taught class, he remembers it vividly from fifth year, the magically enchanted room that could be mistaken for the forest by a careless eye. There are magically scribbled words on the large oak door; three or four names are listed above those he is looking for, but he does not recognize them. They must have been people from other houses; people he’d never met before but fought anyway… who died anyway.
Harry traced the pad of his finger over the letters in his mentor’s name. It hurt to breathe; to even imagine what lay behind the door. And all the things he never got to say or even worse, the things he wished never left his mouth. His finger moved on its own accord, down to her name.
He burned with shame.
Part of him wishes he would of stopped her, knew that he could have stopped her if he would have thought… the other part can’t entertain the thought of Tonks without Remus, a more empty shell than Harry’s sixth year.
His palm flat against the wood, it opens without a sound and he is mildly surprised to see only their bodies. His mind vaguely registers that the parents of those names he did not recognize have already claimed the bodies of their sons and daughters. But his vision is narrowed and his thoughts scattered to the two bodies that lay on the forest floor, a white sheet that must have been covering them tossed to the side.
Someone has already been here.
Harry can feel the shame and anger swell from somewhere deep inside. He should have been here first, he should have run after the battle in the Great Hall… he should have saved them.
He wipes angrily at his damp cheeks and walks toward them; their faces look as if they are sleeping. They do not glow with death, like Cedric’s did; they are not hallowed and empty. The furrow in Remus’ brow is gone, a place where worry had lived each time Harry had seen him and Tonks’ hair is still pink, although limp, her laughter still keeping its shape after the life has left.
Every part of Harry’s body protests as he squeezes between the two forms and he is reminded how just hours ago he was saving the world and even though it was over, he found himself feeling as if he had lost anyhow. Because this was where the battle really was, here in this moment.
“I-“ The first word sticks in his mouth, like sandpaper on his tongue and claws at his insides. He tries again. “I’m sorry.”
Even though it is a whisper, it echoes in the room; mocking him. Harry doesn’t bother to wipe the tears away now, as they flow continuously down his cheeks. His hand finds Remus’, it is cool to the touch but not yet cold. It makes the tears fall faster.
“I’m sorry for calling you a coward. Here I was lecturing you about leaving your son and now I’ve taken you away forever.” Harry’s face is almost pressed against Remus’. He wants so badly to run into the forest and retrieve the stone, if only to be able to get Remus to hear him… to get Tonks to forgive him.
He turns toward her body, her arm pressed against his thigh.
“I’ll take care of him. I really will, and tell him great stories and buy him loads of stuff and-“
It’s not helping. The pain wrenches deeper into him like a thousand knives. They were the last link he had to his father, to Sirius and to family. And it hurt. Because he can already see the longing in Ted’s face, Harry already knows and it makes him hate himself even more.
Harry can not help but feel alone.
He knows he’s not. He knows that there is the Weasley’s and Hermione, but it’s not the same. It’s just not the same.
Because they didn’t grow up his father or Sirius and they didn’t teach him to fight off Dementors or make a boggart look like Snape in Neville’s Gran’s clothes. They didn’t rescue him from the Dursley’s with smiles and jokes, they didn’t pack his trunk and they didn’t make him feel as if he were equal. They just weren’t…
They weren’t Remus and they weren’t Tonks. And they were alive when these two people were dead, these two people who deserved happiness beyond anyone he’d ever known.
“I’ll make up for it.” He squeezed Remus hand and twisted Tonks’ hair between his fingers. “I promise you.”
His body ached as he got up and with once last glace at the bodies of two fallen soldiers, he pulled the sheet over them. The steps to the door were long and painful, his chest felt compressed and his eyes itchy.
“Goodbye."
And then Harry stepped through the door to find Teddy. Because they had more than just dead parents in common… they were family.
