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starfishstarRAISE YOUR LANTERN HIGH
Summary: In which Remus and Tonks fight battles, arrest criminals, befriend werewolves, overcome inner demons and, despite it all, find themselves a happy ending. A love story, and a story of the Order years. (My Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making! This is the second half of the story, set in the Half-Blood Prince year.)
Note: This is the final chapter of a story that has occupied much of my heart and my brain for nearly six years, and I can't quite believe this day has come! Like the great J. K. Rowling herself, I feel compelled to thank you, the reader, who have stuck with these characters until the very end.
Chapter 22: Raise Your Lantern High
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow
Things should start to get interesting right about now
–Bob Dylan, Mississippi
Tonks surveyed the chaos of trunks and packing crates that her Hogsmeade flat had become. Dumbledore’s funeral would be held the next day, and she was expected to report for duty in London immediately afterwards. Once again, she’d been given a preposterously short timeframe in which to upend her entire life.
This time, though, it was under far more agreeable circumstances.
Tonks glanced across the room at Remus, where he was carefully fitting the last of her dishes into a wooden crate by applying an impressive Shrinking Charm to each of them in turn. It was evening, and Tonks was done with her work duties for the day and had moved on to the work of packing up her flat. Remus was taking the task of helping her move house – helping them both move house, to London where they would live together, it still seemed too good to believe – very seriously.
Remus, too, glanced up from the crate he was packing, saw Tonks looking at him, and smiled.
“Dora,” he said, and Tonks felt herself breaking into a grin yet again. She never got tired of hearing Remus say her name.
“Just think, this time tomorrow, we’ll be in London,” she told him, just to watch how Remus lit up at her words.
He unbent himself from the full crate of dishes, stood to stretch his back, and gave a small, wry chuckle. “We’re doing it all rather backwards, aren’t we?” he mused, his eyes roving over the half-controlled chaos that covered the floor between them. “Moving into a flat together, when we haven’t even talked about the future.” His eyes met hers across the room, earnest now. “Dora, when shall we have all those practical conversations that sensible people ought to have before joining their lives together?”
Joining their lives together. Tonks decided she liked the sound of that very much. And Remus was right, of course: It had all happened so fast, they hadn’t got any further in discussing their future together than ‘find a flat in London and figure it out from there.’
Tonks snorted in amusement, as she picked up the next of the T-shirts she was folding and laying in the travelling trunk that sat open in front of her. “We’ll have those conversations while we’re packing trunks and moving house, I guess. You and I never are going to do anything in the proper order, are we?”
Remus laughed, a sound that made Tonks’ heart dance in her chest. “It is starting to seem unlikely,” he agreed.
“No reason we can’t start those conversations right now, though, as we’re packing,” Tonks pointed out, vaguely waving the T-shirt in her hand so that it fluttered like a bright flag. “Anything in particular you wanted to talk about?”
Remus sobered instantly. “Finances, for one,” he said.
Tonks blinked at him across the room. That wasn’t the first thing she’d have thought of to talk about, but it made sense that it would be for Remus. His perpetual state of poverty was one of his supposed “flaws” that worried Remus the most, when it came to offering himself as a potential partner. Well, after the whole werewolf thing.
“Joining lives generally means joining finances,” Remus went on, “but the unfortunate fact is that I have no savings and few possessions; I have spent much of my life simply surviving from day to day, with the result that I have nothing to offer in that regard. I don’t want to become a burden on you. Perhaps we can find an arrangement where we share living space, but without that meaning you have to share the responsibility for my burdens.”
“I don’t mind being responsible for your burdens,” Tonks said, her hands moving automatically to shove the T-shirt she was holding into the trunk and then going still. “I want to share your burdens. That’s what being a couple means. It’s part of the deal, right?”
“But what happens as I age?” Remus asked very seriously. “What if I grow truly ill and can’t work at all?”
Tonks gripped the wooden edge of the trunk under her hands and stared at Remus fiercely, because she needed him to understand this. “If we’re going to be partners,” she said, “then we’re partners in all things. Good and bad. I earn a good salary and I put some of it away in Gringott’s every month, so I’ve got savings. Also, I dunno how you feel about living off the Black family fortune, but my sneaky Slytherin mother managed to smuggle out her share of the family gold before she told the rest of them to piss off forever, so there’s a reasonably full Gringott’s vault that we all spend most of our time pretending doesn’t exist, so that it will still be there if we ever need it. But even without any of that, even if I didn’t have a job or savings or parents who are frankly way too eager to help me out even when I’d rather they didn’t… I’d still want to shoulder our burdens together. If something happens to you – if something happens to me – we deal with it together. And in the meantime, both of us can contribute as much as we’re able, and however much that is, it’s fine.”
She fixed Remus with another serious stare, already preparing counterarguments to whatever protestations he would come up with next. But to her surprise, Remus instead gave a short, surprised-sounding laugh.
“Do you know,” he said, glancing down contemplatively at the crate of dishes in front of him, then back up at Tonks, “I think I’m more able to accept that idea than I would have been a year ago. The werewolf pack live like that – sharing their resources amongst everyone regardless of who is able to contribute how much, with no sense of resentment on any side. I wouldn’t have thought that could work, but it clearly did. So I think I’m able to accept the idea in principle. But only if I’m also allowed to contribute as much as I can to this partnership, as often I’m able to.”
“Of course,” Tonks said. “That’s the whole idea.”
Remus nodded thoughtfully, and his deft hands began to move again, starting work on the next crate, lifting cups and glasses and settling them down into the soft packing material he had Conjured. Watching him work – so flawlessly careful and neat – Tonks realised that she, too, had a caveat she needed to add to this conversation about their future.
“Speaking of work,” she said, and Remus paused and looked over at her. “My job as Auror will always be dangerous. That’s another one of those facts that can’t be avoided. And I like my job, most days. I know it worries you when work or the Order puts me into danger. But I care about the work I do. I wouldn’t ever want to give it up.”
“I know,” Remus said gravely. “And I have always admired your dedication to it. Of course I wish it didn’t come attached to such danger, but I would never ask you to give up the work you care about so deeply. I’ll worry sometimes, certainly, but I hope you know that I trust your abilities and your very sensible mind. I know you work hard to keep yourself and everyone around you safe.”
Tonks felt herself grow warm at Remus’ words. She knew he admired and respected her, of course, but to hear him say it out loud was thrilling. She grinned across the room at him in appreciation.
They each went on with their tasks, sorting things and shrinking things and packing them into boxes until the flat was stripped bare, as the summer sun sank slowly down beyond the streets of Hogsmeade and the late evening sky outside the windows turned from bright to dusky to rich, deep blue.
A few times, as they each worked away on their respective tasks in different parts of the small flat, Tonks glanced over at Remus and thought he looked like he had something on his mind, but he said nothing and she didn’t press him. She trusted him to come out with whatever was weighing on him in his own time.
It was late in the evening, as Tonks was peering into the far back reaches of the kitchen cupboards to make sure she hadn’t overlooked any last, stray items, that she heard Remus’ steps behind her, as he entered the little kitchen nook that formed one corner of the flat. Tonks turned and saw him standing there at the border where the tiles of the kitchen met the wooden floorboards of the small main room, holding himself carefully still.
“Dora,” he said, and there was a catch in his voice. “There’s another thing we ought to discuss, if we’re speaking of the future.”
Tonks tilted her head to show she was listening. Then, seeing how serious Remus looked, she closed the cupboard door and crossed the few steps to where he stood.
“Dora,” he said again, his voice hoarse, and then he didn’t seem to know how to continue. “If we – that is to say, if we are to be together – if we’re talking seriously about a shared future, then it would be wrong of me not to tell you now that there…there can be no children, for us.” Now his words tumbled out, once the first blockage was breached. “At least, I can’t, not in good conscience, not when there’s the risk of passing on my illness. No one seems to know for certain how great the risk is, not even Healers who study the disease, but it’s a chance I would never want to take. And that means that by being with me, you would be giving up that prospect as well, and that’s a terrible thing to ask.”
“Remus, I –”
“I would understand,” he rushed on, with pain in his eyes but determination in the set of his jaw. “If having children is important to you, and if this changes how you feel, I would more than understand.”
“Remus,” Tonks said. She grabbed both his hands in her own, mostly to stop him from pacing nervously round the tiny kitchen, as he looked on the verge of doing. “This is what I choose. You think I don’t already know how you feel about children, and lycanthropy, and all of that? You think I haven’t already made my choice? This is what’s important to me. Being with you. Seriously, truly, this is what I choose.”
Remus’ voice was ragged. “In a few years, you might feel differently –”
Tonks raised up one hand to catch around the back of Remus’ neck to pull him closer to her, until they stood nearly nose to nose. She stared straight up into his eyes.
“No,” she said. “What I want is to be with you. If I die in battle tomorrow, or if I live to be a hundred and twenty and never have any kids in all that time, what I want most is to spend however many days I have with you.”
“You –” Remus blinked, then stopped, then stared at her. “You really mean that.”
“I really, really do.”
The expression spreading slowly across Remus’ face took Tonks a moment to put a name to, because it wasn’t anything so simple as a smile. It was a deep joy that seemed to glow from somewhere inside him, even as Remus’ eyes remained earnest and fixed on her.
“I feel the same,” Remus said slowly, his voice low and full of wonder. “I want to spend all my days with you.” One of Tonks’ hands was still holding his, and Remus grasped it more tightly in his own, his eyes never leaving hers. “Nymphadora Tonks, will you spend all your days with me?”
Tonks’ voice did something halfway between a gasp and a laugh, and she said, “Remus, was that a proposal?”
He blinked at her, like he was working his way back through what he’d said to arrive at the meaning he himself had put into it. He looked so full of joyous amazement, Tonks thought she might never get her fill of looking at him.
Remus said, “I…I’m not quite sure. If it were, is it the sort of thing you might be amenable to?”
Tonks laughed, her happiness bursting out full-throated, and she spun where she stood, pulling Remus with her, until they were both twirling there in the middle of the tiny kitchen floor, their elbows held in tight against their sides to avoid the cupboards, with Tonks laughing, and Remus laughing too.
“You know what I think?” Tonks gasped, when she finally spun to a stop, dizzy, still holding tight to Remus. “I think we should keep having this conversation, in the next days and weeks and however long it takes. We should keep talking about all these things, all this stuff that sensible people have to figure out, and then after that, yeah, I think we should do that thing you said. That spending all our days together thing.”
Remus was grinning at her – serious, sensible Remus Lupin was veritably grinning – so it seemed only reasonable that Tonks should lean in and kiss him quite thoroughly.
When they emerged to breathe again, standing there with their arms locked around each other, Tonks said, “And you know what, about children –”
She felt Remus tense in her arms, almost imperceptibly. Like all his reactions, it was tightly controlled, but it was there.
She hurriedly continued, “There are so many possibilities when it comes to kids. There’s adoption. Or just being involved in the lives of friends’ kids, being there for them like an aunt or an uncle, if you want that role. There’s being a teacher, like you’ve done. There are so many ways to be involved in raising children, without the risk of passing on an illness. And I think any of those would be brilliant, with you. But it’s a choice we can make together, okay?”
Remus dropped his forehead to rest against Tonks’, and she felt the tension in him ease again. Like its arrival, its departure too was subtle, but Tonks could tell the difference.
“All right,” Remus said softly. “You’re right, of course. Questions like these don’t have to be only a yes or no answer.”
They weren’t done with this particular subject, Tonks knew that. Like so many things in his unfairly complicated life, Remus would go on wrestling with this question of how much of a danger he posed to those he cared about, how close he dared to get, and whether the benefits of his presence outweighed the threat. Even with the children he had taught and mentored at Hogwarts, Tonks knew he had struggled with doubts about whether his presence did them more good than harm.
Tonks, for one, considered the answer to that question obvious, but these were Remus’ questions to grapple with, not hers to answer for him. Much though she might wish to. But she could keep reminding him, every time the old fears rose again, that for her part, at least, she’d made a choice when it came to him, and she’d made it joyfully.
With her arms still wrapped tightly around Remus, Tonks twisted so she could peer around him at the rest of the flat. “Hey,” she said. “Look at that. We did it.” She thrust her chin out in the direction of the packed boxes and crates stacked in the centre of the room, with nothing but bare floor and walls all around them. “All emptied out and packed up and ready for whatever the next adventure may be.”
“Which points us to yet another factor to be discussed,” Remus said soberly. “Adventures, yes, but for certain parts of each month my activities are considerably limited. If we’re to live in London, I’ll need to find somewhere there where I can safely transform each month. Somewhere where I won’t be a danger to anyone.”
Tonks slid her hand up Remus’ chest until it rested over his heart. She felt his heartbeat, steady and strong under her hand, and she spread her fingers protectively, trying to cover as much of him as possible under the span of her hand. She knew his past year hadn’t been easy, living outdoors at the mercy of cold and hunger, but in certain ways it must have been a relief. Living with fellow werewolves, he had been able to transform each month without the constant fear that he might hurt someone. Tonks didn’t want him to have to give that up in order to be with her.
Maybe he could visit back to the pack at the full moons, even if he was no longer living with them? Or surely they could find a safe place in London, some utterly secure room, and maybe in time Tonks could find someone who would be able to teach her how to make Wolfsbane Potion, so Remus could keep his human mind during the full moons when he had no choice but to transform in proximity to non-werewolves.
“We’ll find a way,” she said firmly. “I promise you that, Remus.”
Remus nodded, but Tonks could see how it weighed on him. Spending every full moon of his life having to worry and plan and take precautions, it must leave him so weary. And yet, being Remus, he soldiered on.
Wanting to draw away the sadness from his eyes, Tonks pressed her hand against the warmth of his chest and murmured, “In London, we’re going to make up for lost time, okay? We’re going to do all the things we’ve missed out on, this past year.”
“Such as?” Remus’ hand, in turn, slid effortlessly down to the small of Tonks’ back. It was a comfortable sensation, his strong hand against her back, and downright sexy, too. Remus Lupin engaging in such confident, unambiguous touch.
Tonks let her eyes flicker closed and tipped her head back, all her attention flooding to that point of contact, the warmth of Remus’ hand through the fabric of her shirt. When she opened her eyes again, Remus was smiling.
Remembering belatedly that he’d asked a question, back before he started distracting her, Tonks said, “Such as, remember walking along the canal in Camden, on our first date? Let’s go back there. Walk along under the willows there again.”
“All right.” Remus’ voice was so warm, Tonks wanted to wrap herself up in the sound of it.
“You kissed me for the first time that night,” she reminded him.
“How could I possibly forget?” His fingers were describing small, precise circles at the small of Tonks’ back now. She shivered at the sensation.
“And remember the night, weeks before that, when we had to sit out in that field in Sussex in the cold for hours, in the middle of the night, waiting for Bill’s mates to fly in from abroad with a crate of potions ingredients for the Order? Merlin but I wanted to kiss you that night! You wanted to too, didn’t you? Admit it, Remus, you did!”
“I did want that, very much,” Remus admitted, his hand tightening against her back. “But at the time, I thought the impulse highly inappropriate.”
Tonks snorted. “Oi, Lupin, you and your ideas of what’s appropriate. We’re going to work on that, all right?”
Remus’ voice was amused. “Yes, all right.”
Tonks laughed and pressed a kiss into his shoulder, it being so conveniently near and all.
Remus turned his head until his nose was buried in Tonks’ hair, and breathed in deeply. They stood in silence like that for a few moments, simply enjoying one another’s presence. Then Remus said, very softly, “I wish Sirius were here, to see us now. All those times he told me I was being an idiot about this, about you and me, and now all I can think is that I wish he were here to tell me ‘I told you so’.”
Tonks reached up one hand to cradle the back of his neck, her throat tight. “I wish that, too,” she said. “I wish – a lot of things. I wish I’d been able to stop Bellatrix. I wish we’d found Harry before he had a chance to get to the Ministry in the first place. I wish all of that. I think about it all the time.”
“I wish I could have made Sirius stay back at the house that night,” Remus said. His voice broke over the last word, the pain of it raw even after all this time.
Tonks pressed her cheek against his, wishing there were more she could offer in comfort.
“But Sirius would never have stood for that,” Remus said, his voice firmer now. “Not when Harry was in danger. There was never going to be any way to keep Sirius safe, because if there was a battle, then in the middle of it was where Sirius wanted to be.” Quietly he added, “Sirius died protecting Harry and I know he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”
Tonks nodded against his cheek. “I remember him that night, laughing, dashing into battle,” she said softly. “He was so happy to finally be fighting. He looked so alive, more than he did the whole year before it. That’s how I try to remember him, alive and fighting and so completely himself. It helps, a little.”
The warmth was returning to Remus’ voice, as he said, “I swear I hear his voice in my head sometimes. Laughing at me, mostly, and telling me when I’m being a fool. Just like he did in life.” Remus chuckled gently, fondly, his breath warm against Tonks’ ear. “It’s good, you know, to have someone there to tell me when I’m being ridiculous.”
Tonks smiled. “Hmm,” she said, lifting her lips teasingly close to Remus’ ear. “If Sirius has got the ‘ridiculous’ angle covered already, then I suppose I’ll have to think of other things to call you. Like, let’s see, how about ‘caring’ and ‘brilliant’ and ‘kind’ for a start?”
“Oh, Dora –” Remus protested.
“And ‘sexy’ and ‘gorgeous’…”
“Seriously, now –”
“And I could tell you, too, lots of things about what our life together is going to be like. Things like ‘wonderful’ and ‘all-around really totally fantastic’.”
“Oh, well – yes, I agree with you, that part is true.”
Tonks laughed, and was met by Remus’ answering chuckle.
“Yes,” Remus repeated, his eyes meeting hers and the smile lines around his eyes deepening with gladness. “I do believe it’s going to be quite wonderful.”
– – – – –
The day of Dumbledore’s funeral dawned beautifully sunny. It was strange, Remus thought, that such a solemn occasion could be met with such natural beauty. Today, they would bury the man who’d been a beloved mentor to generations of British and Irish wizards.
Thinking quietly of Dumbledore, the man to whom he owed so much of his life as he knew it, Remus went slowly about his morning. He set out his best robes, which was to say his only robes. He’d had one other set that he’d left at Headquarters when he first went north to join the pack, but going back to the Grimmauld Place house now would be too risky. It wasn’t worth it merely to reclaim a few possessions.
Dumbledore of all people, Remus felt sure, wouldn’t have minded what any of them wore.
Tonks had gone ahead to Hogwarts, as one of the Aurors keeping a watchful eye on the school and the crowds that were surely already converging there. So Remus dressed alone in the quiet of her empty flat, his only companions the crates and trunks full of the belongings they would take with them into their new life together.
A life with someone – a life with Tonks – was a thing Remus had never allowed himself to hope for. Even now, he hardly dared to think about it too closely, for fear the dream would dissolve. When he pictured Tonks’ smile and her laughing eyes, and thought of her saying, What I want is to be with you, terror and wonder mixed in him until he could barely breathe.
But to his own astonishment, it seemed the wonder finally outweighed the fear. Or perhaps he’d simply learned to embrace wonder despite fear, and maybe that was the more important lesson anyway.
Remus settled his much-patched robes around his shoulders, then cast a mirroring charm to check his reflection, since Tonks had already packed away the mirror that had hung on the wall of the flat. It gave him a thrill to be able to perform these small, incidental spells again. He had missed his wand, and his magic.
Remus studied his reflection, in the watery image the charm produced. What he saw was a worn-looking man, his hair going too rapidly grey and his face gaunt from months of living at the edge of hunger. His simple black robes were respectable enough, but it was plain to see that they were nowhere near new.
But even in the pale approximation of his image rendered by the mirroring charm, Remus could see the change wrought in himself, some indefinable alteration in his features effected by the simple presence of happiness.
No wonder Anna and Serena had known from the moment they saw him that something had changed.
Remus vanished the reflection and tucked his wand carefully away in his robes. He hoped not to need it today, not for battle at least, but after this many years with the Order of the Phoenix, he knew better than to go into any crowd situation unprepared.
He left the flat, navigated the streets of Hogsmeade in the bright sunlight, and joined the flood of witches and wizards setting out along the road that led from the village to the school. Hogsmeade was full to bursting with mourners who had come from far and wide to pay their respects, staying at the inns and renting private rooms and even camping in the fields at the edge of the village. Now it felt as though the whole world were walking the road to Hogwarts, shoulder to shoulder in their sombre robes, united in this pilgrimage.
The school gates stood flung wide, and at either side of them two Aurors Remus didn’t recognise watched over the mass of funeral-goers streaming through. Remus allowed himself to be borne along with the crowd, up around the side of the school and down the sloping lawn to the lake. A sea of white chairs stood in neat rows, reflecting the sunlight blindingly back at the sky. The chairs faced the lake, which was equally brilliant today and utterly becalmed.
A contingent from the Ministry were present, which meant Tonks was relieved from duty now that the ceremony was about to start. Remus’ eyes roved the crowd and found her amongst the rapidly filling rows of chairs. She had one hand raised to shield her eyes from the sun as she, too, looked around for him. Her hair was a vibrant pink again today, and Remus’ heart ached with gladness at the sight of it.
“Wotcher!” Tonks called, when she spotted Remus threading his way through the chairs to her.
She was still shading her eyes with her hand when he reached her. The sunshine around them was so bright, it made everything it touched feel like a small, separate world set apart from the normal progression of time, a moment caught forever inside the flare of a camera’s flash.
“Remus,” Tonks said. “You all right?”
Dumbledore was gone, impossible though that seemed. They were locked in a terrible war against Voldemort, with no clear path forward. And yet –
“Yes,” Remus said, reaching out to grasp Tonks’ hand.
She smiled at him, and Remus knew he had spoken the truth.
They took their seats, and Remus looked around and saw many of the Order nearby. Kingsley and Moody were there, and of course the Weasleys – there were Molly and Arthur, and Fleur laughing softly at something Bill had said as she supported him on her arm, and Fred and George looking every inch the flashy young businessmen they now were. There was Arabella Figg, who had watched over Harry in patient anonymity through the years of his early childhood, now dabbing gently at the corners of her eyes with a lacy handkerchief. And of course any moment now the students would emerge from the school together with the Hogwarts staff, many of whom were members of the Order of the Phoenix, or as good as such. They had lost from amongst their ranks, but they were still strong.
The students filed out from the castle in a sombre parade of dark dress robes, and came and filled in the remaining rows of white chairs. The Ministry officials took their seats, as did the Hogwarts staff.
And then the air filled with the eerie strains of a Mermish lament. Remus felt grief rising in his chest, a hot mass filling his throat, because the Mermish song seemed to express so exactly what Remus felt – his great love and respect for Dumbledore, his shocked disbelief that such a powerful man could be gone, so suddenly and completely.
Heads turned as Hagrid strode down the aisle between the seats, his head lifted stoically even as tears coursed silently down his cheeks. He bore Dumbledore’s body before him, swathed in star-spangled purple velvet and so fragile-looking in Hagrid’s arms.
Hagrid laid his delicate burden on the marble table at the front, then turned and returned the way he’d come, blowing his nose at a volume that appeared to dismay many of the wizards and witches he passed. Next to Remus, Tonks give a little choking laugh, even as tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. Remus squeezed her hand in his, and she squeezed back.
A Ministry officiant took his place at the front of the crowd. He was a small, white-haired man Remus had seen many times over the years, conducting weddings and funerals. Far too many funerals, and far too many of them for people Remus loved.
Remus let the man’s words float over him. All these funerals. All these loved ones lost, all these lives cut cruelly short. Remus knew that McGonagall was right: Dumbledore more than anyone would be glad to know there was a little more love in the world.
Tonks’ hand stayed firmly in Remus’ as the officiant returned to his seat amongst the mourners, as white flames sprang up around Dumbledore’s body and became a marble tomb, as the centaurs fired a volley of arrows into the air in tribute then galloped away into the Forbidden Forest, as the merpeople slipped away beneath the green waters of the lake and the witches and wizards began to disperse, wiping their eyes and leaning close against their loved ones.
Remus saw Harry slip from the crowd, setting out alone along the shore of the lake. It was Harry who would need their support now, everything they had to give.
Remus turned to look at Tonks and saw that, she, too, was gazing after Harry. “We’ll fight for him,” she said, with determination in her voice.
Remus nodded. There had never been any doubt of that.
Tonks looked down at their clasped hands, then up at Remus, her gaze fierce and strong. “We won’t leave him alone,” she said. “We’re not going to leave him to fight alone in the dark. Even if Harry’s the one who’s got to face Voldemort in the end, we can be there for him along the way. Maybe that’s always been the point of the Order, all along – we’re here to help to light the way.”
– – – – –
THE END
Story end notes:
This story will not continue into book 7, because I'm not interested in taking things all the way up to the book's bitter end... But I’ve written a bunch of individual stories and scenes set during that year! Many of them are happy, bright moments to counterbalance the overall darkness of the Deathly Hallows year:
“Seasons Change But We Remain” (glimpses set throughout the DH year)
“Can’t Return, We Can Only Look” (just after the wedding)
“Lionheart" (a happy little R/T moment, set soon after they're together)
“Sleeping” (a sweet and reflective moment, also soon after they're together)
“Counting Time in the Lunar Tide” (a full moon, early in the year)
“Already There” (Remus returns to Tonks, and has a conversation with Andromeda)
“Go On, Try” (Remus has returned to Tonks, and has a conversation with Ted)
“Yahrzeit” (Tonks helps Remus through Halloween and the difficult memories it brings; in a sense a continuation of the Halloween chapters of this story: chapter 5 of Be the Light in My Lantern and chapter 10 of Raise Your Lantern High)
“Unexpected” (I don't consider it quite “canon,” but there's a bit of R/T in it)
“Lupercalia” (a sweet R/T moment, after the full moon)
“Easter Sun” (Tonks and Ginny friendship, and a bit of reflection about their respective frustratingly noble, lovable men)
“Like a Cat in the Sun” (another happy R/T moment, with cameos by several of my favorite female characters)
“Precisely What I Mean” (Tonks, Remus and baby Teddy)
And that's not all! Here are some stories that catch up with Teddy, a few years on:
“Ginny, Harry, Teddy, Family” (just as it says, Ginny, Harry and Teddy starting to become a family to each other)
[then a still-to-be-written short story featuring some of the werewolves whose lives Remus touched, as well as Teddy and Andromeda – tentatively titled either “If You've Got a Lantern, Hold It High” or “La Ronde du Petit Loup-Garou” or possibly both] This is now written! It's here: "If You've Got a Lantern Hold It High"
“Saying Yes” (Andromeda and Teddy's continuing lives, post-war)
“That Great Unseen Good Man” (Teddy hears more about Remus from Harry)
“Waiting for the Snow” (Teddy hears stories about his parents, while waiting for Victoire to come back from France)
STAY TUNED for a small “coda” of sorts to the “Be the Light in My Lantern” series – it will be a short story that catches up a few years later with Serena, Joy, Teddy and Andromeda. (Mentioned above as “If You've Got a Lantern, Hold It High”/“La Ronde du Petit Loup-Garou”.) UPDATE: Now written! "If You've Got a Lantern Hold It High"
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Summary: In which Remus and Tonks fight battles, arrest criminals, befriend werewolves, overcome inner demons and, despite it all, find themselves a happy ending. A love story, and a story of the Order years. (My Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making! This is the second half of the story, set in the Half-Blood Prince year.)
Note: This is the final chapter of a story that has occupied much of my heart and my brain for nearly six years, and I can't quite believe this day has come! Like the great J. K. Rowling herself, I feel compelled to thank you, the reader, who have stuck with these characters until the very end.
Chapter 22: Raise Your Lantern High
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow
Things should start to get interesting right about now
–Bob Dylan, Mississippi
Tonks surveyed the chaos of trunks and packing crates that her Hogsmeade flat had become. Dumbledore’s funeral would be held the next day, and she was expected to report for duty in London immediately afterwards. Once again, she’d been given a preposterously short timeframe in which to upend her entire life.
This time, though, it was under far more agreeable circumstances.
Tonks glanced across the room at Remus, where he was carefully fitting the last of her dishes into a wooden crate by applying an impressive Shrinking Charm to each of them in turn. It was evening, and Tonks was done with her work duties for the day and had moved on to the work of packing up her flat. Remus was taking the task of helping her move house – helping them both move house, to London where they would live together, it still seemed too good to believe – very seriously.
Remus, too, glanced up from the crate he was packing, saw Tonks looking at him, and smiled.
“Dora,” he said, and Tonks felt herself breaking into a grin yet again. She never got tired of hearing Remus say her name.
“Just think, this time tomorrow, we’ll be in London,” she told him, just to watch how Remus lit up at her words.
He unbent himself from the full crate of dishes, stood to stretch his back, and gave a small, wry chuckle. “We’re doing it all rather backwards, aren’t we?” he mused, his eyes roving over the half-controlled chaos that covered the floor between them. “Moving into a flat together, when we haven’t even talked about the future.” His eyes met hers across the room, earnest now. “Dora, when shall we have all those practical conversations that sensible people ought to have before joining their lives together?”
Joining their lives together. Tonks decided she liked the sound of that very much. And Remus was right, of course: It had all happened so fast, they hadn’t got any further in discussing their future together than ‘find a flat in London and figure it out from there.’
Tonks snorted in amusement, as she picked up the next of the T-shirts she was folding and laying in the travelling trunk that sat open in front of her. “We’ll have those conversations while we’re packing trunks and moving house, I guess. You and I never are going to do anything in the proper order, are we?”
Remus laughed, a sound that made Tonks’ heart dance in her chest. “It is starting to seem unlikely,” he agreed.
“No reason we can’t start those conversations right now, though, as we’re packing,” Tonks pointed out, vaguely waving the T-shirt in her hand so that it fluttered like a bright flag. “Anything in particular you wanted to talk about?”
Remus sobered instantly. “Finances, for one,” he said.
Tonks blinked at him across the room. That wasn’t the first thing she’d have thought of to talk about, but it made sense that it would be for Remus. His perpetual state of poverty was one of his supposed “flaws” that worried Remus the most, when it came to offering himself as a potential partner. Well, after the whole werewolf thing.
“Joining lives generally means joining finances,” Remus went on, “but the unfortunate fact is that I have no savings and few possessions; I have spent much of my life simply surviving from day to day, with the result that I have nothing to offer in that regard. I don’t want to become a burden on you. Perhaps we can find an arrangement where we share living space, but without that meaning you have to share the responsibility for my burdens.”
“I don’t mind being responsible for your burdens,” Tonks said, her hands moving automatically to shove the T-shirt she was holding into the trunk and then going still. “I want to share your burdens. That’s what being a couple means. It’s part of the deal, right?”
“But what happens as I age?” Remus asked very seriously. “What if I grow truly ill and can’t work at all?”
Tonks gripped the wooden edge of the trunk under her hands and stared at Remus fiercely, because she needed him to understand this. “If we’re going to be partners,” she said, “then we’re partners in all things. Good and bad. I earn a good salary and I put some of it away in Gringott’s every month, so I’ve got savings. Also, I dunno how you feel about living off the Black family fortune, but my sneaky Slytherin mother managed to smuggle out her share of the family gold before she told the rest of them to piss off forever, so there’s a reasonably full Gringott’s vault that we all spend most of our time pretending doesn’t exist, so that it will still be there if we ever need it. But even without any of that, even if I didn’t have a job or savings or parents who are frankly way too eager to help me out even when I’d rather they didn’t… I’d still want to shoulder our burdens together. If something happens to you – if something happens to me – we deal with it together. And in the meantime, both of us can contribute as much as we’re able, and however much that is, it’s fine.”
She fixed Remus with another serious stare, already preparing counterarguments to whatever protestations he would come up with next. But to her surprise, Remus instead gave a short, surprised-sounding laugh.
“Do you know,” he said, glancing down contemplatively at the crate of dishes in front of him, then back up at Tonks, “I think I’m more able to accept that idea than I would have been a year ago. The werewolf pack live like that – sharing their resources amongst everyone regardless of who is able to contribute how much, with no sense of resentment on any side. I wouldn’t have thought that could work, but it clearly did. So I think I’m able to accept the idea in principle. But only if I’m also allowed to contribute as much as I can to this partnership, as often I’m able to.”
“Of course,” Tonks said. “That’s the whole idea.”
Remus nodded thoughtfully, and his deft hands began to move again, starting work on the next crate, lifting cups and glasses and settling them down into the soft packing material he had Conjured. Watching him work – so flawlessly careful and neat – Tonks realised that she, too, had a caveat she needed to add to this conversation about their future.
“Speaking of work,” she said, and Remus paused and looked over at her. “My job as Auror will always be dangerous. That’s another one of those facts that can’t be avoided. And I like my job, most days. I know it worries you when work or the Order puts me into danger. But I care about the work I do. I wouldn’t ever want to give it up.”
“I know,” Remus said gravely. “And I have always admired your dedication to it. Of course I wish it didn’t come attached to such danger, but I would never ask you to give up the work you care about so deeply. I’ll worry sometimes, certainly, but I hope you know that I trust your abilities and your very sensible mind. I know you work hard to keep yourself and everyone around you safe.”
Tonks felt herself grow warm at Remus’ words. She knew he admired and respected her, of course, but to hear him say it out loud was thrilling. She grinned across the room at him in appreciation.
They each went on with their tasks, sorting things and shrinking things and packing them into boxes until the flat was stripped bare, as the summer sun sank slowly down beyond the streets of Hogsmeade and the late evening sky outside the windows turned from bright to dusky to rich, deep blue.
A few times, as they each worked away on their respective tasks in different parts of the small flat, Tonks glanced over at Remus and thought he looked like he had something on his mind, but he said nothing and she didn’t press him. She trusted him to come out with whatever was weighing on him in his own time.
It was late in the evening, as Tonks was peering into the far back reaches of the kitchen cupboards to make sure she hadn’t overlooked any last, stray items, that she heard Remus’ steps behind her, as he entered the little kitchen nook that formed one corner of the flat. Tonks turned and saw him standing there at the border where the tiles of the kitchen met the wooden floorboards of the small main room, holding himself carefully still.
“Dora,” he said, and there was a catch in his voice. “There’s another thing we ought to discuss, if we’re speaking of the future.”
Tonks tilted her head to show she was listening. Then, seeing how serious Remus looked, she closed the cupboard door and crossed the few steps to where he stood.
“Dora,” he said again, his voice hoarse, and then he didn’t seem to know how to continue. “If we – that is to say, if we are to be together – if we’re talking seriously about a shared future, then it would be wrong of me not to tell you now that there…there can be no children, for us.” Now his words tumbled out, once the first blockage was breached. “At least, I can’t, not in good conscience, not when there’s the risk of passing on my illness. No one seems to know for certain how great the risk is, not even Healers who study the disease, but it’s a chance I would never want to take. And that means that by being with me, you would be giving up that prospect as well, and that’s a terrible thing to ask.”
“Remus, I –”
“I would understand,” he rushed on, with pain in his eyes but determination in the set of his jaw. “If having children is important to you, and if this changes how you feel, I would more than understand.”
“Remus,” Tonks said. She grabbed both his hands in her own, mostly to stop him from pacing nervously round the tiny kitchen, as he looked on the verge of doing. “This is what I choose. You think I don’t already know how you feel about children, and lycanthropy, and all of that? You think I haven’t already made my choice? This is what’s important to me. Being with you. Seriously, truly, this is what I choose.”
Remus’ voice was ragged. “In a few years, you might feel differently –”
Tonks raised up one hand to catch around the back of Remus’ neck to pull him closer to her, until they stood nearly nose to nose. She stared straight up into his eyes.
“No,” she said. “What I want is to be with you. If I die in battle tomorrow, or if I live to be a hundred and twenty and never have any kids in all that time, what I want most is to spend however many days I have with you.”
“You –” Remus blinked, then stopped, then stared at her. “You really mean that.”
“I really, really do.”
The expression spreading slowly across Remus’ face took Tonks a moment to put a name to, because it wasn’t anything so simple as a smile. It was a deep joy that seemed to glow from somewhere inside him, even as Remus’ eyes remained earnest and fixed on her.
“I feel the same,” Remus said slowly, his voice low and full of wonder. “I want to spend all my days with you.” One of Tonks’ hands was still holding his, and Remus grasped it more tightly in his own, his eyes never leaving hers. “Nymphadora Tonks, will you spend all your days with me?”
Tonks’ voice did something halfway between a gasp and a laugh, and she said, “Remus, was that a proposal?”
He blinked at her, like he was working his way back through what he’d said to arrive at the meaning he himself had put into it. He looked so full of joyous amazement, Tonks thought she might never get her fill of looking at him.
Remus said, “I…I’m not quite sure. If it were, is it the sort of thing you might be amenable to?”
Tonks laughed, her happiness bursting out full-throated, and she spun where she stood, pulling Remus with her, until they were both twirling there in the middle of the tiny kitchen floor, their elbows held in tight against their sides to avoid the cupboards, with Tonks laughing, and Remus laughing too.
“You know what I think?” Tonks gasped, when she finally spun to a stop, dizzy, still holding tight to Remus. “I think we should keep having this conversation, in the next days and weeks and however long it takes. We should keep talking about all these things, all this stuff that sensible people have to figure out, and then after that, yeah, I think we should do that thing you said. That spending all our days together thing.”
Remus was grinning at her – serious, sensible Remus Lupin was veritably grinning – so it seemed only reasonable that Tonks should lean in and kiss him quite thoroughly.
When they emerged to breathe again, standing there with their arms locked around each other, Tonks said, “And you know what, about children –”
She felt Remus tense in her arms, almost imperceptibly. Like all his reactions, it was tightly controlled, but it was there.
She hurriedly continued, “There are so many possibilities when it comes to kids. There’s adoption. Or just being involved in the lives of friends’ kids, being there for them like an aunt or an uncle, if you want that role. There’s being a teacher, like you’ve done. There are so many ways to be involved in raising children, without the risk of passing on an illness. And I think any of those would be brilliant, with you. But it’s a choice we can make together, okay?”
Remus dropped his forehead to rest against Tonks’, and she felt the tension in him ease again. Like its arrival, its departure too was subtle, but Tonks could tell the difference.
“All right,” Remus said softly. “You’re right, of course. Questions like these don’t have to be only a yes or no answer.”
They weren’t done with this particular subject, Tonks knew that. Like so many things in his unfairly complicated life, Remus would go on wrestling with this question of how much of a danger he posed to those he cared about, how close he dared to get, and whether the benefits of his presence outweighed the threat. Even with the children he had taught and mentored at Hogwarts, Tonks knew he had struggled with doubts about whether his presence did them more good than harm.
Tonks, for one, considered the answer to that question obvious, but these were Remus’ questions to grapple with, not hers to answer for him. Much though she might wish to. But she could keep reminding him, every time the old fears rose again, that for her part, at least, she’d made a choice when it came to him, and she’d made it joyfully.
With her arms still wrapped tightly around Remus, Tonks twisted so she could peer around him at the rest of the flat. “Hey,” she said. “Look at that. We did it.” She thrust her chin out in the direction of the packed boxes and crates stacked in the centre of the room, with nothing but bare floor and walls all around them. “All emptied out and packed up and ready for whatever the next adventure may be.”
“Which points us to yet another factor to be discussed,” Remus said soberly. “Adventures, yes, but for certain parts of each month my activities are considerably limited. If we’re to live in London, I’ll need to find somewhere there where I can safely transform each month. Somewhere where I won’t be a danger to anyone.”
Tonks slid her hand up Remus’ chest until it rested over his heart. She felt his heartbeat, steady and strong under her hand, and she spread her fingers protectively, trying to cover as much of him as possible under the span of her hand. She knew his past year hadn’t been easy, living outdoors at the mercy of cold and hunger, but in certain ways it must have been a relief. Living with fellow werewolves, he had been able to transform each month without the constant fear that he might hurt someone. Tonks didn’t want him to have to give that up in order to be with her.
Maybe he could visit back to the pack at the full moons, even if he was no longer living with them? Or surely they could find a safe place in London, some utterly secure room, and maybe in time Tonks could find someone who would be able to teach her how to make Wolfsbane Potion, so Remus could keep his human mind during the full moons when he had no choice but to transform in proximity to non-werewolves.
“We’ll find a way,” she said firmly. “I promise you that, Remus.”
Remus nodded, but Tonks could see how it weighed on him. Spending every full moon of his life having to worry and plan and take precautions, it must leave him so weary. And yet, being Remus, he soldiered on.
Wanting to draw away the sadness from his eyes, Tonks pressed her hand against the warmth of his chest and murmured, “In London, we’re going to make up for lost time, okay? We’re going to do all the things we’ve missed out on, this past year.”
“Such as?” Remus’ hand, in turn, slid effortlessly down to the small of Tonks’ back. It was a comfortable sensation, his strong hand against her back, and downright sexy, too. Remus Lupin engaging in such confident, unambiguous touch.
Tonks let her eyes flicker closed and tipped her head back, all her attention flooding to that point of contact, the warmth of Remus’ hand through the fabric of her shirt. When she opened her eyes again, Remus was smiling.
Remembering belatedly that he’d asked a question, back before he started distracting her, Tonks said, “Such as, remember walking along the canal in Camden, on our first date? Let’s go back there. Walk along under the willows there again.”
“All right.” Remus’ voice was so warm, Tonks wanted to wrap herself up in the sound of it.
“You kissed me for the first time that night,” she reminded him.
“How could I possibly forget?” His fingers were describing small, precise circles at the small of Tonks’ back now. She shivered at the sensation.
“And remember the night, weeks before that, when we had to sit out in that field in Sussex in the cold for hours, in the middle of the night, waiting for Bill’s mates to fly in from abroad with a crate of potions ingredients for the Order? Merlin but I wanted to kiss you that night! You wanted to too, didn’t you? Admit it, Remus, you did!”
“I did want that, very much,” Remus admitted, his hand tightening against her back. “But at the time, I thought the impulse highly inappropriate.”
Tonks snorted. “Oi, Lupin, you and your ideas of what’s appropriate. We’re going to work on that, all right?”
Remus’ voice was amused. “Yes, all right.”
Tonks laughed and pressed a kiss into his shoulder, it being so conveniently near and all.
Remus turned his head until his nose was buried in Tonks’ hair, and breathed in deeply. They stood in silence like that for a few moments, simply enjoying one another’s presence. Then Remus said, very softly, “I wish Sirius were here, to see us now. All those times he told me I was being an idiot about this, about you and me, and now all I can think is that I wish he were here to tell me ‘I told you so’.”
Tonks reached up one hand to cradle the back of his neck, her throat tight. “I wish that, too,” she said. “I wish – a lot of things. I wish I’d been able to stop Bellatrix. I wish we’d found Harry before he had a chance to get to the Ministry in the first place. I wish all of that. I think about it all the time.”
“I wish I could have made Sirius stay back at the house that night,” Remus said. His voice broke over the last word, the pain of it raw even after all this time.
Tonks pressed her cheek against his, wishing there were more she could offer in comfort.
“But Sirius would never have stood for that,” Remus said, his voice firmer now. “Not when Harry was in danger. There was never going to be any way to keep Sirius safe, because if there was a battle, then in the middle of it was where Sirius wanted to be.” Quietly he added, “Sirius died protecting Harry and I know he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”
Tonks nodded against his cheek. “I remember him that night, laughing, dashing into battle,” she said softly. “He was so happy to finally be fighting. He looked so alive, more than he did the whole year before it. That’s how I try to remember him, alive and fighting and so completely himself. It helps, a little.”
The warmth was returning to Remus’ voice, as he said, “I swear I hear his voice in my head sometimes. Laughing at me, mostly, and telling me when I’m being a fool. Just like he did in life.” Remus chuckled gently, fondly, his breath warm against Tonks’ ear. “It’s good, you know, to have someone there to tell me when I’m being ridiculous.”
Tonks smiled. “Hmm,” she said, lifting her lips teasingly close to Remus’ ear. “If Sirius has got the ‘ridiculous’ angle covered already, then I suppose I’ll have to think of other things to call you. Like, let’s see, how about ‘caring’ and ‘brilliant’ and ‘kind’ for a start?”
“Oh, Dora –” Remus protested.
“And ‘sexy’ and ‘gorgeous’…”
“Seriously, now –”
“And I could tell you, too, lots of things about what our life together is going to be like. Things like ‘wonderful’ and ‘all-around really totally fantastic’.”
“Oh, well – yes, I agree with you, that part is true.”
Tonks laughed, and was met by Remus’ answering chuckle.
“Yes,” Remus repeated, his eyes meeting hers and the smile lines around his eyes deepening with gladness. “I do believe it’s going to be quite wonderful.”
– – – – –
The day of Dumbledore’s funeral dawned beautifully sunny. It was strange, Remus thought, that such a solemn occasion could be met with such natural beauty. Today, they would bury the man who’d been a beloved mentor to generations of British and Irish wizards.
Thinking quietly of Dumbledore, the man to whom he owed so much of his life as he knew it, Remus went slowly about his morning. He set out his best robes, which was to say his only robes. He’d had one other set that he’d left at Headquarters when he first went north to join the pack, but going back to the Grimmauld Place house now would be too risky. It wasn’t worth it merely to reclaim a few possessions.
Dumbledore of all people, Remus felt sure, wouldn’t have minded what any of them wore.
Tonks had gone ahead to Hogwarts, as one of the Aurors keeping a watchful eye on the school and the crowds that were surely already converging there. So Remus dressed alone in the quiet of her empty flat, his only companions the crates and trunks full of the belongings they would take with them into their new life together.
A life with someone – a life with Tonks – was a thing Remus had never allowed himself to hope for. Even now, he hardly dared to think about it too closely, for fear the dream would dissolve. When he pictured Tonks’ smile and her laughing eyes, and thought of her saying, What I want is to be with you, terror and wonder mixed in him until he could barely breathe.
But to his own astonishment, it seemed the wonder finally outweighed the fear. Or perhaps he’d simply learned to embrace wonder despite fear, and maybe that was the more important lesson anyway.
Remus settled his much-patched robes around his shoulders, then cast a mirroring charm to check his reflection, since Tonks had already packed away the mirror that had hung on the wall of the flat. It gave him a thrill to be able to perform these small, incidental spells again. He had missed his wand, and his magic.
Remus studied his reflection, in the watery image the charm produced. What he saw was a worn-looking man, his hair going too rapidly grey and his face gaunt from months of living at the edge of hunger. His simple black robes were respectable enough, but it was plain to see that they were nowhere near new.
But even in the pale approximation of his image rendered by the mirroring charm, Remus could see the change wrought in himself, some indefinable alteration in his features effected by the simple presence of happiness.
No wonder Anna and Serena had known from the moment they saw him that something had changed.
Remus vanished the reflection and tucked his wand carefully away in his robes. He hoped not to need it today, not for battle at least, but after this many years with the Order of the Phoenix, he knew better than to go into any crowd situation unprepared.
He left the flat, navigated the streets of Hogsmeade in the bright sunlight, and joined the flood of witches and wizards setting out along the road that led from the village to the school. Hogsmeade was full to bursting with mourners who had come from far and wide to pay their respects, staying at the inns and renting private rooms and even camping in the fields at the edge of the village. Now it felt as though the whole world were walking the road to Hogwarts, shoulder to shoulder in their sombre robes, united in this pilgrimage.
The school gates stood flung wide, and at either side of them two Aurors Remus didn’t recognise watched over the mass of funeral-goers streaming through. Remus allowed himself to be borne along with the crowd, up around the side of the school and down the sloping lawn to the lake. A sea of white chairs stood in neat rows, reflecting the sunlight blindingly back at the sky. The chairs faced the lake, which was equally brilliant today and utterly becalmed.
A contingent from the Ministry were present, which meant Tonks was relieved from duty now that the ceremony was about to start. Remus’ eyes roved the crowd and found her amongst the rapidly filling rows of chairs. She had one hand raised to shield her eyes from the sun as she, too, looked around for him. Her hair was a vibrant pink again today, and Remus’ heart ached with gladness at the sight of it.
“Wotcher!” Tonks called, when she spotted Remus threading his way through the chairs to her.
She was still shading her eyes with her hand when he reached her. The sunshine around them was so bright, it made everything it touched feel like a small, separate world set apart from the normal progression of time, a moment caught forever inside the flare of a camera’s flash.
“Remus,” Tonks said. “You all right?”
Dumbledore was gone, impossible though that seemed. They were locked in a terrible war against Voldemort, with no clear path forward. And yet –
“Yes,” Remus said, reaching out to grasp Tonks’ hand.
She smiled at him, and Remus knew he had spoken the truth.
They took their seats, and Remus looked around and saw many of the Order nearby. Kingsley and Moody were there, and of course the Weasleys – there were Molly and Arthur, and Fleur laughing softly at something Bill had said as she supported him on her arm, and Fred and George looking every inch the flashy young businessmen they now were. There was Arabella Figg, who had watched over Harry in patient anonymity through the years of his early childhood, now dabbing gently at the corners of her eyes with a lacy handkerchief. And of course any moment now the students would emerge from the school together with the Hogwarts staff, many of whom were members of the Order of the Phoenix, or as good as such. They had lost from amongst their ranks, but they were still strong.
The students filed out from the castle in a sombre parade of dark dress robes, and came and filled in the remaining rows of white chairs. The Ministry officials took their seats, as did the Hogwarts staff.
And then the air filled with the eerie strains of a Mermish lament. Remus felt grief rising in his chest, a hot mass filling his throat, because the Mermish song seemed to express so exactly what Remus felt – his great love and respect for Dumbledore, his shocked disbelief that such a powerful man could be gone, so suddenly and completely.
Heads turned as Hagrid strode down the aisle between the seats, his head lifted stoically even as tears coursed silently down his cheeks. He bore Dumbledore’s body before him, swathed in star-spangled purple velvet and so fragile-looking in Hagrid’s arms.
Hagrid laid his delicate burden on the marble table at the front, then turned and returned the way he’d come, blowing his nose at a volume that appeared to dismay many of the wizards and witches he passed. Next to Remus, Tonks give a little choking laugh, even as tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. Remus squeezed her hand in his, and she squeezed back.
A Ministry officiant took his place at the front of the crowd. He was a small, white-haired man Remus had seen many times over the years, conducting weddings and funerals. Far too many funerals, and far too many of them for people Remus loved.
Remus let the man’s words float over him. All these funerals. All these loved ones lost, all these lives cut cruelly short. Remus knew that McGonagall was right: Dumbledore more than anyone would be glad to know there was a little more love in the world.
Tonks’ hand stayed firmly in Remus’ as the officiant returned to his seat amongst the mourners, as white flames sprang up around Dumbledore’s body and became a marble tomb, as the centaurs fired a volley of arrows into the air in tribute then galloped away into the Forbidden Forest, as the merpeople slipped away beneath the green waters of the lake and the witches and wizards began to disperse, wiping their eyes and leaning close against their loved ones.
Remus saw Harry slip from the crowd, setting out alone along the shore of the lake. It was Harry who would need their support now, everything they had to give.
Remus turned to look at Tonks and saw that, she, too, was gazing after Harry. “We’ll fight for him,” she said, with determination in her voice.
Remus nodded. There had never been any doubt of that.
Tonks looked down at their clasped hands, then up at Remus, her gaze fierce and strong. “We won’t leave him alone,” she said. “We’re not going to leave him to fight alone in the dark. Even if Harry’s the one who’s got to face Voldemort in the end, we can be there for him along the way. Maybe that’s always been the point of the Order, all along – we’re here to help to light the way.”
– – – – –
THE END
Story end notes:
This story will not continue into book 7, because I'm not interested in taking things all the way up to the book's bitter end... But I’ve written a bunch of individual stories and scenes set during that year! Many of them are happy, bright moments to counterbalance the overall darkness of the Deathly Hallows year:
“Seasons Change But We Remain” (glimpses set throughout the DH year)
“Can’t Return, We Can Only Look” (just after the wedding)
“Lionheart" (a happy little R/T moment, set soon after they're together)
“Sleeping” (a sweet and reflective moment, also soon after they're together)
“Counting Time in the Lunar Tide” (a full moon, early in the year)
“Already There” (Remus returns to Tonks, and has a conversation with Andromeda)
“Go On, Try” (Remus has returned to Tonks, and has a conversation with Ted)
“Yahrzeit” (Tonks helps Remus through Halloween and the difficult memories it brings; in a sense a continuation of the Halloween chapters of this story: chapter 5 of Be the Light in My Lantern and chapter 10 of Raise Your Lantern High)
“Unexpected” (I don't consider it quite “canon,” but there's a bit of R/T in it)
“Lupercalia” (a sweet R/T moment, after the full moon)
“Easter Sun” (Tonks and Ginny friendship, and a bit of reflection about their respective frustratingly noble, lovable men)
“Like a Cat in the Sun” (another happy R/T moment, with cameos by several of my favorite female characters)
“Precisely What I Mean” (Tonks, Remus and baby Teddy)
And that's not all! Here are some stories that catch up with Teddy, a few years on:
“Ginny, Harry, Teddy, Family” (just as it says, Ginny, Harry and Teddy starting to become a family to each other)
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“Saying Yes” (Andromeda and Teddy's continuing lives, post-war)
“That Great Unseen Good Man” (Teddy hears more about Remus from Harry)
“Waiting for the Snow” (Teddy hears stories about his parents, while waiting for Victoire to come back from France)
STAY TUNED for a small “coda” of sorts to the “Be the Light in My Lantern” series – it will be a short story that catches up a few years later with Serena, Joy, Teddy and Andromeda. (Mentioned above as “If You've Got a Lantern, Hold It High”/“La Ronde du Petit Loup-Garou”.) UPDATE: Now written! "If You've Got a Lantern Hold It High"
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