Every Second of My Life

A/N: So this is pretty long.

It took me forever, because I had to frequently consult Half-Blood Prince. I wrote it one way, then read the book and found out it had happened another way, which was better anyway, so I had to go back and rewrite. Ugh.

I really tried to make this more about Remus and Tonks, and what was going on in his mind, and I'm sorry if it's terrible.

Anyway, I'll have another up soon. Fall semester starts next Monday, so I'll be trying to get as much out as possible before then.

Thanks again for all the fantastic reviews!

~~


I spent the next few months avoiding almost everyone.

I’d thought life had been bad living in an anarchist werewolf community, but it was nothing compared to the hell I was putting myself through.

All I could think of was her kiss. Her kiss, and then her scream as my werewolf tore her apart.

At night, I imagined her body beneath mine, how she would feel under my fingertips. And I imagined the life that I could not give us, how I had always lived on the edge of poverty.

The weather grew more and more heated, and I withdrew more and more into myself.

One night in June, however…

How simple those words are to say! I could hardly have known, that warm summer evening, that in twenty-four hours my life would be vastly different.

Dumbledore had asked us all to patrol the corridors, as he was going to be off on his own business. There was nothing unusual in this request; he’d done so on occasion the entire year long.

I solidly attempted to avoid everyone, as I usually did, and patrolled the corridors alone, heartily wishing I had the Marauder’s Map so that I could tell when one of my fellows would be coming. Earlier that day, I’d rebuffed Bill Weasley’s kind urging to give in to Tonks. I brushed him off as I’d done everyone, but I did rather appreciate his absence of transfiguratory threats.

The castle was quite silent. I passed the kitchens, and lingered, wondering if the elves might be persuaded to make me some tea, when suddenly, three panting figures rushed out from underneath a tapestry, skidding to a stop upon seeing me.

“Thank God it’s you!” It was Ron, accompanied by Ginny and Neville.

“What…what are you doing out of…” I began, but Ginny interrupted me.

“There’s something going on, Draco Malfoy’s bringing Death Eaters into the castle, up through the seventh floor!”

“What!” I all but yelled, as Ron grabbed my arm and pulled me back towards the tapestry.

“Death Eaters! We met Tonks and Bill on the way down, they told us to come find you!”

I was already running, as fast as I could possibly sprint, blessing James and Sirius for dragging me around the hidden passageways for seven years. I could hear the three running behind me.

Reaching the seventh floor, I had to crawl through a hole in the wall behind a suit of armor. I looked cautiously through the hole and around the armor’s legs, trying to slow my heart and breathing. The corridor seemed deserted, but as I went to move through the hole, black robes rushed past.

“Stay here!” I whispered to the three behind me.

Then I heard yelling.

”’Ey! Ey, Fuck!” yelled an unfamiliar voice, “There’s one over ‘ere!”

I somehow timed it perfectly. The moment I heard the running of feet again, I aimed and fired a Stupefy, hitting the Death Eater.

I crawled awkwardly out of the hole, shoving the armor aside, which saved my life.

A curse hit the armor where I’d been only moments before, and I dodged and fired indiscriminately in the direction it had come from.

Looking, finally, I could see the Death Eater at the end of the corridor, fighting someone who was out of sight around the bend. As I aimed, something unpleasant and burning hit me in the small of my back, and I was thrown forward.

I pulled myself up, and jumped away from another, more dangerous-looking curse. I aimed my wand again, but was startled when the Death Eater ran off in the opposite direction, disappearing around the next bend.

I took off after him. He inadvertently led me to an intense battleground, close to where I took astronomy as a kid. The entrance to the tower, however, seemed to be warded. I was struck by the oddity of it, and barely had time to cast a shield charm to protect myself as a curse flew through the air at me.

A blond boy who I vaguely recognized ran through the fight past me, and into the tower door. I tried to follow, but it was as though I’d run head on into a trampoline, I was thrown violently backwards, and tried to recover fast enough to save my life.

The Order members who were on patrol that night were all there, and we were shortly joined by the three I’d told to stay behind. I wondered about them for a moment, before my attention was diverted by Bill, lying facedown in blood.

It seemed like hours, as we fought, but it must have only been a matter of minutes before Severus arrived, heading straight for the tower door and through the barrier. The very small part of my mind that was not fighting for my life gave this hardly a thought, although a few moment after, when he came down dragging a terrified blond boy by the arm, followed by three Death Eaters, something about it struck me as strange.

This feeling was confirmed as I saw Harry fly through the door, not noticing when he was tackled by a misshapen Death Eater. It was somewhat sudden, when I recognized Fenrir Greyback, and I desperately fought my way through the throng.

No…Not Harry…!

But the boy, it seemed, was more skillful than he is often given credit for, and after a terrifying moment, he heaved Greyback off of him, frozen, then got up and ran again, down the corridor towards the stairway.

I finally made my way to Bill’s side, and set a Shield charm at my back as I turned him over and felt desperately for a pulse.

It was difficult, with my own heart hammering madly, and the noises of the battle, but at last I found it, weak under my fingertips.

Someone all but collapsed at my side. I looked over into Tonk’s brown eyes, and I was struck by the desire to pull her into my arms, but instead I told her, “He’s badly hurt! He needs help!”

“Remus…Remus, it was Greyback who attacked him!” she nearly cried at me, before she turned back around to fire another hex at those who were still fighting.

Suddenly, the remaining Death Eaters turned tail and ran, Shield Charms at their backs, and I cursed the amount of corners at the school as they disappeared around one, several Order members behind them.

I rounded up most of the children, although Ginny Weasley slithered off.

We took Bill carefully to the hospital wing, as well as Neville, who had sustained a broken leg and some minor spell damage. I expected to be filled with the injured, but was empty.

I turned to Tonks, “What happened?”

She swallowed hard, “Bill and I were just coming up the side stairs to the seventh floor by the astronomy tower when we ran into Ginny, Ron, and Neville. We told them to go find you and then get to safety, and we ran upstairs. We heard some of them talking. They were wondering what they should do, if they should…should attack the kids…they were wondering how long something would take…”

She was looking at Madam Pomfrey fuss over Bill, trying to get his bleeding to completely stop, as she continued, “
The door opened, and we all abruptly stopped talking. Harry had entered, looking like a man twice his age. Ginny was holding his hand, and looked to be leading him, an odd look of soft fierceness on her face.

An immense surge of relief flooded through me at seeing him unhurt, alive.

“Are you alright?” I asked, moving forward somewhat.

“I’m fine,” he said, not sounding fine at all, as he looked down at Bill’s bloody face, “How’s Bill?”

We spoke, for a moment, about werewolves, and I shakily explained that since it was not the full moon, Greyback would probably not have been able to pass on the lycanthropy. I was unsure of this. From what I knew of Greyback, he was slowly losing himself over to the wolf, something that had never been done before, to my knowledge.

Ron voiced what I was thinking, that Dumbledore might know something about the nature of werewolf bites that were delivered beyond the scope of the full moon, and then, whatever relief and comfort I had been gathering from the fact that the night could have been much worse, Ginny ripped away from me with two words.

“Ron, Dumbledore’s dead,”

I had watched my best friend literally fall into the afterlife. It had numbed me, for a time. I learned the news of Lily and James’ deaths from a stranger, the arrest of Sirius and the supposed death of Pettigrew through a newspaper. I had been at my mother’s deathbed. The night I became a werewolf, Greyback killed my father in front of me.

I had seen too much death in my life, and yet…

And yet… it all seemed to fall apart at that moment.

I collapsed into a chair, covering my face as I heard Tonks ask how it happened, but in my mind I was hearing my mother tell me excitedly, “Remus, you’re allowed to go to school! Professor Dumbledore has made it possible for you to transform safely every month!”

“Snape killed him,” Harry said in a deadpan voice.

I looked up, shocked again. Surely not…Severus was always an unpleasant man, but Dumbledore…had always trusted him…always…

Harry went on with his explanation, and then stopped as what I recognized to be Fawkes, began to sing out on the grounds.


The phoenix song ended, drawing me back to the present, to the weight of Dumbledore’s murder on my heart.

I had never really hated Severus, as unpleasant and rude as he always was. But now every insult, every thinly disguised abuse layered upon Sirius, myself, Harry, the other children…it compounded into a thick, bitter anger towards the man…he’d murdered the first person, other than my mother, to trust me, to help me. I owed any happiness in my life to Dumbledore, and Severus…had taken that man…

McGonagall entered, looking incredibly frazzled and battle-worn.

She demanded an explanation, and Harry gave her one, his flat voice betraying none of the emotion that I knew was beneath the surface as he said again, “Snape killed Dumbledore.”

Minerva was always so good at controlling herself, but for a moment she looked as though she would faint. She all but sputtered what the Order members where numbly thinking, that Dumbledore always trusted Snape…

I was quite angry when I spoke about his skills at Occlumency, and the reason Harry gave that Snape had been so trusted was that Snape had been sorry to hear of James’ death.

This was impossible to hear, the stink of this ridiculous rationale was almost suffocating.

I hollowly participated in the conversation that followed, before the door to the infirmary opened again, and Molly, Arthur, and Fleur rushed through.

I moved numbly away to give them space, and answered numbly the same questions about Bill’s health that I did not really know the answer to. I half listened to the tense conversation between Molly and Fleur, until I was shaken out of my funk by Tonks’ voice.

“You see!” she said, and I could tell that she was fighting tears, “She still wants to marry him, even though he’s been bitten! She doesn’t care!

Oh, Tonks, if only it were that easy.

“It’s different,” I said, miserable with every fiber of my being. It would have been so easy to draw a parallel between the two situations, but I could not allow it, “Bill will not be a full werewolf. The cases are completely…”

And then she all but jumped on me, grabbing the front of my shabby robes and shaking me. I was shocked by her behavior, she was usually straightforward, but not by this degree. “But I don’t care either! I don’t care!”

I felt extremely self conscious, with everyone staring at us, making it very difficult for me to rebuff her once more.

I was so very close to mental, physical, and emotional collapse, and I looked out the dark window, “I’ve told you a million times…I am too old for you, too poor…too…dangerous…”

Molly chose that moment to pipe in, calling me ridiculous, of all things.

“I am not being ridiculous,” I sounded to myself like a petulant child, but my voice was even, “Tonks deserves somebody young and whole…”

Arthur actually smiled at me, galling my sensibilities, “But she wants you, and after all, Remus, young and whole men do not necessarily remain so.”

He gestured at Bill, who lay unconscious, his future uncertain, but who had a beautiful woman at his side.

I must admit that I cast around for something to take the focus away from me. I felt I could not look into their eyes, or I would see the accusations there, “This is not the moment to discuss it…Dumbledore is dead…”

Minerva seemed to be the last to shoot a gaping hole in my weak arguments, her sharp voice ringing out, “Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world…”