Is It Over Now?

Loud cracks filled the field long before the screams did and yet the latter would be what haunted Remus forever.

The Deatheaters didn't bother with masks, not today when the rest of the world wasn't so close as to warrant the need to hide from those that they already knew the identity of. There was no need to do so after all if one didn't plan on leaving anyone alive to tell the tale.

Green curses sprouted from the wands of people that Remus had known from nights spent in the Slytherin common room back when they were in school and the only thing he had to worry about were the secrets that he had sought to keep from the others. They were the people that Regulus had lived with, Barty had pranked, Evan had learned from, and Dora had been fawned over by. 

The five dodged the green curses dividing into varying directions, and cast spells that Dora had made since the start of the war, new things that stopped the heart slowly, leading the affected person to pass out long before they died.

It was a mercy, one that they could hardly afford.

The Black brothers turned the other way as they saw their crazed cousin slinging angry red curses about the field, the torture curse even at a time like this. They each remembered how the curse felt on themselves, the way that their body would twitch with phantom pains even hours after, sometimes longer. They turned and moved to another part of the battle field, keeping close as only brothers could as Remus stuck to Dora's side, doing the same.

Sirius didn't see Regulus turn and conjure a serpent as they ran, sending it to their cousin's ankle. The bite would have her dead by dawn.

James dodged spells and curses as he cast his own, using what little grace he had to avoid all that he could, casting quick shields for those that he couldn't. He ignored the faces around him, focusing instead on the style of robes. He had a wife to get back to and a child that had yet to be born, he couldn't afford to be distracted by a familiar face on the opposite side.

Harry, he wasn't even born yet and James already loved him more than life itself. He didn't want his son to grow up the way that Remus had - alone and cold, or orphaned by choice. He knew that if he were to die and something were to happen to Lily as well that his leaving would be a product of his choice to fight. He didn't ever want Harry to grow cold to the world, to feel abandoned even if he was being raised by those that cared for him.

He didn't see the man with angry eyes that had cast a spell of his omen making, one intended for the former lion. He only felt the pain.

Remus moved through the battlefield like a child that had been made for war - he wasn't naive enough to believe that Dumbledore would have wanted him for anything else. 

He was the only one on the field without a wand and yet he was the most dangerous one there as vines sprung to life with each of his steps and grabbed onto the dark robbed individuals, dragging them to the others as the ground opened beneath the Death Eaters. Magic coiled at the wolf's fingers as flames sprung to life and burned wands right in enemy hands, and the winds picked up the owners high into the night sky before letting them fall with a sickening crunch.

No one would ever tell the man of the savage smile that he had worn. Remus knew it still.

(If Regulus was a snake with the heart of a lion, then Remus was the lion with the heart of a snake.)

Through the whole battle, a bat stayed at the wolf's side, though sometimes the woman would shift, a potion of her own design already in hand. Some Death Eaters found themselves wishing for the vines or the sky to take them instead as the potions hit their skin, reacting with the magic there. A slow death or a sudden painful one would have hurt less than the explosions that tore at their bodies, ripping them apart.

The pair were vicious and many doubted their house placements that day. They were siblings of destruction, each always looking out for the other.

When Remus shifted into the fox, the scent of blood was stronger than it had been only a moment before, his wolf senses combining with that of the fox's. It was easier to find the others in such a state, something that Dora knew as well as she flew above him, the pair weaving through the thick crowd as only animals could. It was too easy to find one of their own.

Remus shifted back quickly at the edge of the battlefield, blood on his hands and clothes from where it had stuck to the fox's fur. Dora shifted next to him, drawing a potion from one of the pockets of her muggle cargo pants as she knelt to pour it down the bleeding man's throat. It wasn't working as the wounds would seem to heal just before they tore open once more, like forever wounds.

The wolf held James's hand, the other man's grip weak as the pair looked at one another, but neither's eyes any less desperate. Magic poured around them, siphoned from those that they fought against and the push and pull of the world itself. He knit the wounds together slowly - almost too slowly - as he ignored the signature that he recognized and focused on stripping away the magic that had cursed the other instead.

He sighed in relief when his magic took, overpowering the weaker spell. He knew that James wouldn't have lasted much longer if it hadn't.

"There'll be scars," Dora said as she poured blood replenishing potions down the bespectacled man's throat, James having fallen asleep as soon as the magic took. 

Remus's eyes fell to the scars on his own arms, the silver ones created by magic and would never fully fade. They didn't look so different from the angry red ones lining the other man's body now, especially not when Remus knew that those too would become silver soon.

"He'll live though," the wolf says firmly. Some scars were a small price to pay just then. 

Dora nodded as she grabbed the former lion's hand and the shard of sea glass that hung around her throat, a portkey whisking them away in seconds to the home that the five Slytherins shared. 

Scars were a small price to pay.

Remus rejoined the fight.

—-

Voldermort wasn't one to fight his own battles, not when he had so many willing to do so for him, and yet when none of his men had returned from the calling, he found himself following after them, uncaring of what dangers he might find. When one was immortal, they didn't need to worry about the same trivial things as those that were still bounded by the rules of life and death.

(It was hubris of him to think so.)

—-

Remus tore through the crowd, paws silently hitting the field's soft ground as he weaved through the tall bodies, following the scent of one. He shifted back once he and found him, and for the first time Remus regretted not having killed the other man when they were younger and the moon was full.

It would have made his life easier now.

Snape dropped his wand on instinct as it began to burn with a silver light that he hadn't created, the heat burning his hands even as the flames had never touched the man's skin. 

The man looked around wildly for the source of such flames, but was met with a sight that he had never wanted to see again:

Remus Lupin running at him, his face painted in rage.

Only this time the wolf wasn't limited by the rules of their school, and it was going to be far worse than a punch.

—-

When Voldermort found his way to the battlefield, he was met with far fewer of his followers than he thought that he would be, but the same number of corpses that he had expected.

(He hadn't thought that they would belong to his men instead of the enemies)

He certainly hadn't expected to see a member of the Order wielding magic that he hadn't possessed, wrapping one of his Death Eater's in vines with sharp thorns that dug into the half - blood's body, tearing into his as Snape screamed. 

The potioneer wouldn't die for hours.

Voldermort wondered then if in another life the Order member would have been one of his.

It was a shame that he would never be.

—-

Silent spells were traded when Remus turned to the other Half - blood, a flurry of them that the pair moved through as if in a dance rather than a duel.

There was far too much green for it to be anything as nice as a dance though.

A spell struck Remus's shoulder, and the wolf bit back a scream as he forced himself not to be distracted by the pain that was there. 

Remus growled as he let his magic fall to the stones that hid within the earth, sharpening them into blades as they tore through it and then the older wizard himself.

Remus smirked as the great wizard fell in a way that would have been entirely muggle had it not been for the magic involved. His smirk only grew wider as fear set into the other man's dark eyes.

It was the fear that came when someone knew that they were going to Diderot too soon.

—-

They brought the bodies to the Ministry, revealing the Dark Lord's first to the Minister of Magic. Spells had been cast to prove that the body was truly that of Tom Riddle's. It was and they made sure to bury the monster under that name.

The war was over.