Elemental Force

Chapter 13:
The Mortal Coil

And you laugh at yourself while you\'re bleeding to death.
And somebody else is always breathing down your neck
~Neil Finn


Ron Weasley blinked his eyes against the moonlight shining in on his face. He thought he had closed the curtains of his bed before he went to sleep. He had been out late on patrols as part of his Head Boy duties, so it was quite possible that he forgot to close them before he fell into bed.

He stretched and looked at the moon through his window. When he had been out the night before just as it still was this morning, the moon had been full, round and exactly the kind that brought out werewolves. The only one he personally knew was in London, so he didn\'t give much thought to Remus. Thankfully, nothing else surprising had happened on his patrols. There were no huge spiders or anything else to give him worry. He already had enough as it was with Ginny being missing.

He reached under his pillow and pulled out the piece of Ginny\'s scarf he kept. He held it superstitiously in his hand like a young child would hold a security blanket. On some deeply hidden level he felt that if he kept holding on to it Ginny would come back and all the monsters of doubt would go away.

He sighed after a moment and hid the cloth. He knew he wasn\'t going to be able to go back to sleep, so he put on his slippers and padded down the stairs to the common room. When he got there, the room wasn\'t as empty as he would have expected it to be. Harry sat in a high-backed chair, staring blankly out into the nothingness.

Ron sat down on the sofa near him, but he did not speak. They were silent together because they had the same loss. He wasn\'t sure what to say to Harry, and he didn\'t really want anyone talking to him either, not even Hermione. It had become a conspiracy of silence, and he was fine with that for the most part.

\"Are we going to have practice today?\" Ron finally asked aloud.

For the past two Saturdays there had not been any Quidditch practice for the Gryffindor team. Life went on even when some people were in mourning, and there was the fact that they needed a new Chaser to take Ginny\'s spot until she returned. Ron stubbornly reminded himself that she would return.

\"Full moon last night,\" Harry muttered.

The redhead sighed. \"I know.\"

\"Remus,\" the young wizard continued, \"he promised to find her.\"

Ron wasn\'t sure how to react, so at first he didn\'t say anything. Eventually he asked again, \"What about practice, Harry?\"

\"Oh, right,\" Potter replied limply. \"Ginny would want that. She wouldn\'t want Hufflepuff to beat us.\"

\"No, she wouldn\'t,\" her brother conferred. \"I\'ll tell the rest of the team at breakfast.\"

Harry nodded at Ron\'s offer.

\"Make sure you get something to eat this morning,\" he admonished. \"We can\'t have our captain fall off his broom because he\'s exhausted and malnourished.\"

\"I\'ll be fine, Ron,\" Harry said testily, his voice growing dangerously softer as opposed to two years previous when the slightest provocation caused him to go into shouting matches.

Weasley gave his friend an odd look but let it pass. He then excused himself to take a morning shower. He walked to it with the hopes that maybe today would get the news they\'ve been waiting to hear.

~*~

Nymphadora Tonks sat at the kitchen table in the Order Headquarters with a crochet hook in one hand and a skein of variegated yarn in her lap. She usually preferred more physical activities like a solid game of Quidditch, but she was too nervous to get on a broom. Considering her clumsy tendencies, she would more than likely fall off the broom if she tried that. She had known she wasn\'t going to sleep well after leaving Remus, so she didn\'t even try. Instead, she tried to distract herself by making a scarf. She told herself that she could give it to Ginny for Christmas when she came back.

For Tonks, the repetition involved in crocheting was calming, though, and it helped her not count the minutes ticking into hours, which was exactly what she wanted to do. Her mantra was to make one more row and then another row after that. By the time she was done, it the sun would be up and she could go retrieve Lupin from his exercise in futility.

She was trying not to mentally berate herself. The typical questions were running through her mind. Why had she let him go? Why didn\'t she bring him back to the Headquarters? She ended up with the same answers no matter how she looked at it. Lupin would have done exactly what he wanted to do with or without her. Short of cursing him, she could not have stopped him.

Then she thought about her next dilemma. She could try to Apparate to where she\'d left him and come back, hoping Alastor and Kingsley would be none the wiser, or she could wait for them. They had promised a speedy return, but that did not mean as early as sunrise. When she looked up from her work, she noticed that it was the proverbial time of day that was darkest before the dawn. The sun would be up soon, and she would go find Lupin whether or not Kingsley and Moody had returned from Wales.

She was cleaning up her craft from the table when the tall black Auror walked silently into the room. Tonks stood and gave him in inscrutable look that didn\'t show the tumult inside her while Alastor thumped around the corner.

\"Nice scarf,\" he noted gruffly as he made his way to the cupboard where the tea supplies were. He still didn\'t trust others except for occasionally Molly Weasley to make his food or drink, so he often prepared it himself.

Kingsley sat at the table and asked, \"Is Remus asleep?\"

\"I wouldn\'t know,\" she answered evasively at first.

Moody stopped with his tea preparation. \"Where is he, Dora?\"

She turned and looked over her shoulder guiltily. \"He isn\'t here, and we need to go get him.\"

\"Where is he?\" Shacklebolt repeated with a sense of growing urgency.

Tonks opened her mouth several times to begin, but it took her a moment to say anything. When she spoke, it was very slowly, and the fingers of her hands were splayed as if to still her thoughts.

\"He believed that he had found Ginny, and he threatened to go get her without my help. I went with him to make sure he was okay, but before we could return, it was too close to moonrise. I had to leave him in the forest.\"

\"You left a grown werewolf in a forest where there could be people? How could you be so reckless?\" Moody demanded to know.

Tonks retorted, \"There were no people there. I guarantee you that.\"

At the same time she spoke, Kingsley said, \"But he should have been okay. He had his potion.\"

She turned her gaze away from Moody to her other friend. \"No, he didn\'t. It seems our Remus has not been taking his potion.\"

\"This is worse than we thought,\" Kingsley concluded gravely.

\"He insisted vehemently that he had found Ginny, and he asked me to bring you both back with me to help him. I was going to go alone,\" she admitted shyly, \"if you two had not returned as quickly as you did.\"

\"We have to go immediately,\" Moody said as he looked at his empty teacup. \"Dora, lass, can you take us to where you left him?\"

Tonks closed her eyes and let out a long breath. \"Yes, of course, but there is no guarantee he will still be there.\"

\"It\'s a start. And his wand?\" Alastor asked.

\"There with him. He undressed in the forest, and I left without taking anything with me.\"

Kingsley snorted at the mention of Remus undressing, but the older Auror had a much different reaction. \"That stupid man! He should know better than to leave a wand around where anyone could find it.\"

\"I told you,\" Tonks said. \"There was no one else there. Ginny\'s not there, either, no matter what Lupin says. I don\'t want to say it, but the truth is that it\'s futile.\"

\"Let\'s stop talking about it and go,\" Shacklebolt said, rising from the table. Tonks and Moody both agreed and walked out of the room with him.

~*~

The starting point that Tonks used was not far from where she had left Lupin the night before. At least she had enough of her senses to Apparate to the location instead of traipsing through the forest acreage as she had previously done. Instantly, she took her wand out and positioned it defensively in front of her in case anything should happen.

\"Remus, are you here?\" she hissed as the other men came beside her.

The sound in the forest was deceptively quiet.

\"If you can see through trees, old man, we might need you to look for him,\" Kingsley tried to joke.

Moody let it pass and surveyed the area quickly. With his wand he tested the wards. \"There are definitely layers of magic here, but no visible signs of humans…\"

\"I told you,\" Tonks said sharply.

\"Yes, you did,\" he said as he turned to look at her, \"but we all know just because we can\'t see something doesn\'t mean it\'s not there. Don\'t be deceived by what you can\'t see.\"

Tonks pursed her lips and then did a complicated spell that magnified the heat patterns in the area. Besides their own human forms, they could only see animal shapes. \"Satisfied?\"

\"No,\" Moody replied much to her surprise. \"That\'s good magic, Dora, but nothing in the heat signatures resembles Lupin.\"

\"That\'s why we have to look for him,\" Kingsley said, restating their purpose in the forest.

\"Let\'s split up,\" Tonks suggested in part because she wanted to get away from the men who were starting to get on her nerves. \"I\'ll take this section,\" she indicated with a wave of her wand, \"and you two divide the rest between you.\"

She walked away before they could question her. Moody watched her as she went with his jaw firmly set. He shook his head and then gave his attention to Kingsley.

\"I\'ll go that way. There seems to be a high concentration of magic there in the wards. I\'ll send up a flare with my wand if I find anything.\"

The taller Auror took his wand smoothly from his robe sleeve and went to work in the section that remained.

~*~

As the light of the morning continued to grow, the feeling of tension that had been inside Tonks wound tighter and tighter. She felt all alone in the forest because her two companions, even Moody with his wooden leg, were stealthy. She only heard the sounds she was making and nothing that could indicate Remus was around. She was hoping that he was somewhere asleep after being awake all night.

She called out his name and did a sweeping motion with her wand. She had charmed it to glow with a red light when she was pointing it in the right direction. She had done this for several minutes without obvious result, but she finally noticed that when she pointed her wand to her far right the tip began to pinken. Testing the magic again, she swept the wand away to the opposite direction, and the color was no longer there.

Being excited but cautious, Tonks moved her wand back to her right, and it still showed a pink color. Turning more, she found the place where it was definitely red. Smiling softly to herself, she walked straight ahead through the underbrush. When she had gone about ten yards, she saw the first true signs that Remus had been in the forest.

The first thing she noticed was that his wand was broken in two pieces and his already tatty clothing was shredded almost beyond recognition. Remus himself was not there. Then she saw that on the ground were several droplets of blood that seemed to lead away diagonally to her left. Tonks scooped up his things and continued her search, using the blood path and her lighted wand as a guide.

As she followed the blood trail, the Auror become aware of the fact that the forest was eerily quiet. While it had not been noisy when she entered, the sound level had dropped until the perception was almost deafening to the senses already on edge. Her breath started rasping in her throat, and then she stepped on a twig, causing her to jump back from it as if she\'d been attacked by a snake. Suddenly, Tonks let out an unchecked shriek of terror, and she fell to her knees sobbing.

The sound of Tonks\'s unmistakable cry was a warning more powerful than a shower of sparks from the tip of a wand. Both men went running in her direction. Kingsley reached her first with Alastor coming behind a few short minutes later.

Moody heard the woman babbling mostly incoherently, but as he arrived, one thing was strikingly distinct. \"No, Remus, no!\"

He had his wand drawn and rounded Shacklebolt\'s side. The other man had been standing still, not showing any outward displays of emotion at all. Then Moody noticed what both his companions were looking at. A dead and mangled werewolf was on the ground two feet in front of Dora.

The animal-he didn\'t dare call it a human in that form-had been completely gutted with most of his viscera removed. The pelt of the creature where there were no bloodstains was the same tawny color as Lupin\'s. As another indicator of his identity, there were scraps of clothing surrounding him that matched the fabric that Tonks held feebly in her hands.

Kingsley finally looked away and covered his mouth with his hand as if he were fighting back a wave of nausea.

\"We have to tell Dumbledore,\" Tonks said to them both as she looked at them with tears streaming quietly down her face. \"And Harry,\" she whispered somberly.

Moody looked at her and held out his hand, \"Give me those, Dora.\"

When she relinquished Lupin\'s broken wand and the rest of the remains of clothing, Moody used a transfiguring charm to make the cloth into a satchel big enough to hold the body of the werewolf. Catching his intention, Shacklebolt levitated the werewolf and deposited him inside. Tonks finished the teamwork by magically erasing the evidence that had been there.

With heavy hearts they Apparated to Hogsmeade so they could go to Hogwarts and tell Dumbledore the news.

~*~

The Gryffindor Quidditch team had a successful practice, and they did find a replacement player until Ginny came back to take her Chaser position. Things were starting to look up, and on a high note Harry sent the team to the showers. That sense of rightness was short lived because Professor McGonagall and Hermione Granger were waiting on the ground for Harry and Ron when they were touching down with their brooms.

\"Hermione,\" Ron greeted with a goofy grin that lighted his entire face, \"did you see that last save I did? I think we have a good Chaser until Ginny gets back. Sure gave me a workout!\"

\"It was great, Ronald,\" she said with no enthusiasm in her words.

\"Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, I need to see you both in the Headmaster\'s office,\" McGonagall said with no hint about what was going to happen.

\"I\'ve been practicing with the team, Professor,\" Harry answered in case she was concerned about the Quidditch performance.

\"I hope this isn\'t about the NEWTs,\" Ron complained. \"Maybe it\'s about Ginny, right Harry?\"

\"Not directly,\" McGonagall said in clipped tones. She walked ahead of them with her posture ramrod straight. Harry was staring at her back while Ron was trying to pump Hermione for information.

\"What\'s going on?\" he said as he looked at her worried face.

\"I don\'t know,\" he replied honestly, \"but one of the prefects saw Tonks, Shacklebolt and Moody enter the school grounds from Hogsmeade.\"

\"It\'s about Ginny,\" Harry said as a statement of the obvious.

\"But she said it wasn\'t,\" Ron said, vainly trying to hide the note of optimism in his voice. He wanted news of Ginny, but only if it was good news.

\"It must be important if she has to tell us in the Headmaster\'s office,\" Hermione said. She slid her small hand into Ron\'s larger one.

The three of them let the conversation cease while they followed their Head of House to Dumbledore\'s office. McGonagall gave the password, and the quartet went inside to meet four people already inside the room. Hermione had been right that the Aurors were at the school.

Immediately, Ron started coughing. \"What is that horrible smell?\"

\"Mr. Weasley, Potter, Miss Granger,\" Albus Dumbledore said with a nod of acknowledgement. \"I must apologize for the odor, but I have a purpose for allowing it. We have news of a very serious nature to tell you in the strictest of confidences.\"

His words were calm and formal. The man himself seemed very composed except for the fact that he was manipulating a small figurine in his fingertips. It looked like a pewter werewolf that would be placed on a strategy board when moving around theaters of battle. There were several other small figurines in front of him that represented other Order members.

\"It\'s Remus,\" Harry said in quiet realization.

No one confirmed or denied Potter\'s speculation. Meanwhile, Hermione was looking around the room noticing that all the portraits were paying attention. At the same time, Ron had followed the lead of his nose and noticed that Moody had a huge bag at his feet with something heavy inside.

\"This will not be pleasant, but we feel that this is important for you all to know,\" Dumbledore said with his voice sounding raspy. \"We can not keep you from growing up, and we can not hide this fact from you.\"

The seventh years were looking at the five order members in consternation. Besides the Headmaster\'s preamble, they didn\'t seem inclined to speak. Tonks, who was usually lively in any situation, was reserved. The usually bright colors she used to ornament herself were subdued, while Moody and even Shacklebolt seemed battle-fatigued. Finally, Tonks stepped forward with sadness showing on her heart-shaped face.

\"There is no kind way to tell you, but Remus is dead,\" she said softly. Though she had bravely looked into each of their eyes as she told them, her face turned down when she was done.

\"That\'s not funny,\" Harry hissed.

\"I\'m not… joking,\" she finished saying after a pause for her to swallow her tears.

\"How did this happen?\" the normally quick Hermione asked.

\"Was he on assignment for the Order?\" Ron asked at almost the same time as Hermione.

Harry remained quiet but stared at Tonks with such intensity as if to burn her with lasers from his eyes.

The woman stood alone away from the two men. She was reluctant to speak, but at this point, Kingsley took up the tale.

\"Moody and I returned from a successful mission to Wales to find that he had gone in search of Miss Weasley. We followed him to his last known location, and we found…\"

\"…A dead werewolf in Lupin\'s clothing,\" Moody said as he moved beside Tonks. He swung the bag to sit in front of them.

\"You mean that smell is Remus?\" Ron asked without censure.

Hermione elbowed him sharply in the ribs, and he blushed when he realized how crass his question sounded.

\"Yes,\" Tonks answered quietly. In support, Moody gently placed his fingers at her elbow, and she covered them softly with the fingers of her opposite hand.

\"I don\'t believe you,\" Harry finally spoke up. \"This has to be a mistake!\"

McGonagall and Dumbledore exchanged looks with each other. They had heard the news before the Aurors told the three young Gryffindors. Denial was one of the first reactions to loss.

\"What about you?\" Harry said specifically to Tonks. \"Were you with him when he died?\"

\"No, I…\" she began.

\"Exactly. You didn\'t see him die!\" Harry challenged. \"You don\'t know that it\'s Remus; you just think it is. You\'re guessing. There are other werewolves.\"

Tonks bristled against Harry\'s accusation and denial. \"Yes, there are, but not in that forest where we found him, no matter who much you don\'t want to believe us!\"

\"Perhaps, I can help,\" Dumbledore said in calm mediation. \"Minerva, do retrieve Severus and a flask of hemo-typing potion, please, so that we can test the remains.\"

\"Yes, sir,\" she said in compliance as she went to find the Potions Master.

Albus flicked his wand to direct the animal remains to a worktable beside his desk while the others waited with various amounts of tension and unbelief. Moments later, Snape came striding into the Headmaster\'s office with two potions flasks firmly clutched in his hands.

\"Hideous,\" was the man\'s mordant remark. He schooled his features to not show anything else.

\"Thank you, Severus,\" the Headmaster replied as he took the corked vials.

Acting as an assistant, Snape waited while Dumbledore opened one opaque bottle and let a few of the red drops from inside fall on a silver saucer to the side of the animal. The two men traded bottles, and the older man dropped a few drops on the werewolf carcass and then on the silver plate where the red drops had been.

After the initial preparation, Dumbledore waved his wand and spoke an elaborate incantation. A mist started to rise from both places and mingle in the neutral space in between. Within moments, ghostly transparent image of Remus Lupin formed itself clearly in the smoky mist.

Dumbledore put down his hands and looked at the gathered group over the rim of his half-moon glasses. \"The potion does not lie. As you all can see, this is an exact match with the sample we have of Lupin\'s blood.\"

He tiredly sat down at his desk and looked at people gathered in his office, all coming to terms in their own way with the definite loss of werewolf.

Tonks, who been weeping into Moody\'s shoulder, suggested, \"We need to make a memorial for him. It\'s the right thing to do.\"

\"What do you think, Harry?\" McGonagall asked him because the werewolf had been the last tie to his parents.

He glowered in response. \"Why should it matter what I think? Remus was his own man. Memorials don\'t bring the people we love back!\"

\"No, they don\'t,\" Dumbledore intoned as he stood back up and addressed everyone in the room. \"It helps us honor those who have left us, and Remus Lupin deserves great honor. I have known few men full of such humanity and humility.\"

He dismissed the people from his office with a promise for something in the near future to mark Lupin\'s passing. The two professors walked ahead of the students who were huddled together. Ron had his arm around Hermione\'s shoulder in comfort, though both he and Harry looked shell-shocked. The trio of Aurors followed the students with Tonks looking as close to pale and colorless as anyone had ever seen her. She was holding on to Moody\'s arm for dear life as if to never let him go, and Kingsley rested his hand on her shoulder as they walked out.

Albus Dumbledore stayed in his office alone with the portraits. Not one spoke to him as he reached his long fingers across his desk to where he had laid the pewter werewolf. He turned it over in his fingers for several minutes and then silently placed it in a cabinet with other figurines that represented casualties lost in the War.

\"Goodbye, my dear boy,\" he whispered as he closed his moistened eyes.

On his perch, Fawkes concluded the ritual with a few mournful notes for brave friends long passed.

~*~*~*~

The Neil Finn lyric in this chapter is from \"Mansion in the Slums\" performed by Crowded House on the album Temple of Low Men.