Is It Over Now?

Chapter twenty-one

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.