(no subject)
Title:The Unbreakable Vow
Author:freakinwinky
Raiting: PG13- light R
Genere: Romance/humor
Warnings:Adult discussion and situations, slight language
Summary: Learning about a specific event in Remus' past leads Tonks to make a very important decision. Ootp era
Prompt: Oh, I am fortune's fool- Romeo, Romeo and Juliete
Word Count:2,224
Author's Note: It took me a long time to come up with a plot bunny which actually worked with the quote. But I found this one and I think it does work to some extent. I was going to go full smut with it but...I found I didn't have the courage. I will write a PWP one of these days I sware! And you can hold me to that. ;) Until then, enjoy...
He had not meant for it to happen, God knew he had not meant for it to happen. Not again, and especially not like this. Never the less, the fact was the he, Remus Lupin was now lying naked in bed while a beautiful twenty three year old woman slept soundly, curled against his chest.
It had all started innocently enough with a, by now routine, after dinner drink the three of them shared by Grimmauld Place’s parlor fire. One drink became several (this had also become routine), and somehow the topic of conversation had come around to sex; a subject on which Sirius was particularly keen.
“Last time for me was a little more than fourteen years ago,” he told them. Sirius was seated in a large and rather orate arm chair in the middle of the parlor, his feet propped casually on the foot rest.
“There was this Muggle girl named Annie who sang at a jazz club near Nottinghill Gate. You remember don’t you Moony? We used to go there Friday Nights after meetings,”
“Every week at your insistence if I recall correctly,”
Remus smiled vaguely at Sirius and sipped his fire whiskey.
“Yeah, she was something else,” he said, a small sad smile on his face.
“A muggle?” Tonks asked curiously from her spot on the floor just beside the firegrate, “How’d that work out?”
“She was very open minded,” Sirius answered with a grin and a wink, “And oddly enough, the best shag I ever had.”
Remus had assumed that Sirius would speak about his girlfriend before Azkaban the same way he spoke about James; idealized memories filled with light nostalgia; but he had never heard him do so before that night. He hopped that this was a good sign.
“Well my last,” Tonks spoke up suddenly, “was nearly two years ago. Another bloke from my training class called Arnold. He was a good four years older than me; good looking as they come but not much to brag about in the bed department. He could barely get it up when he wanted to.”
“And what happened there?” Remus asked, noticing too late that there was a bitter tone to his voice which he had not quite intended. He did not know why he had lately taken such an active or protective interest in Tonks’ love life, she was after all, a grown woman.
Tonks turned to Remus and grinned in that winning way she always seemed to have; the grin that never failed to make him realize how very pretty she was.
“Dumped him,” she said not sounding in the least bit sorry, “ He couldn’t handle the fact that I qualified for Auror before he did.”
“So it wasn’t just the sex thing,” Sirius said casually taking another sip of his firewhiskey, “good to know.”
“What about you, then?” Tonks asked turning to Remus.
“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” Remus answered cryptically hoping that they could simply leave it at that.
“Oh come on,” she said with a slight pout “We told you ours. Now what about you? When was your last?”
“If I’m right, and I think I am,” Sirius said slowly that familiar taunting smile playing at his lips.
“Moony gave up on the bedroom department at the age of seventeen,”
If there were any moment in the five months he had lived with Sirius Black during which he had actively contemplated committing homicide or suicide, Remus decided that this was the one.
“Well,” Tonks said, looking a bit surprised, “this sounds like a story begging to be told.”
He fixed Sirius with a glare which did indeed threaten homicide; Sirius merely grinned in response.
“Her name was Margret Bullstrode. She and Remus here had been going out for about a week when she surprised him on one of his prefect guard duties, dragged him into a nearby broom cupboard and proceeded to…well, you get the idea,” Sirius gave her a rougish wink, Tonks turned to Remus with a rather amused smile and questioning glance and Remus himself discovered a very distinct urge to sink into the floor and disappear forever.
“Then of course-“
“-Sirius, please don’t”
“What? Tonks’ right Moony, we’ve laid our past love lives on the line tonight. It’s only fair.”
This being said, Sirius sank triumphantly back into his arm chair as though daring Remus to respond.
“What happened?”
Her head was cocked to the side and she wore a very interested expression.
“Well,” Sirius continued, determining that there would be no more protests, “Moony, being the gentleman that he is couldn’t find it in himself to shag without making some sort of commitment. So he told Margret that he loved her.”
“And what’s so bad about that?” Tonks asked her eyes darting back and forth between Sirius and Remus.
“That wasn’t the part that got me into trouble,” Remus said with a sigh. He supposed it was better that he take the story up from there. He would rather Tonks heard the truth from him than the skewed version Sirius would, no doubt, provide.
“You see, after I confessed my love, I saw fit to confess my lycathropy as well. In hindsight, that was not the brightest of ideas.”
“What did she do when she found that out?”
“She screamed about having been infected by a filthy animal, tossed me (half dressed mind you) out of the cupboard, and told me never to speak to her again.”
Sirius let out a gufa of barely concealed laughter and he waited for Tonks to join him. When he looked at her, however, he was surprised to find something hard and fascinating, something akin to sympathy in her expression.
“That’s…that’s…” she seemed to be at a loss for words, “That’s really terrible, Remus.”
He attempted to give her a reassuring smile but did not seem to have managed it.
“It didn’t turn out too badly in the end,” Sirius concluded. “James and I managed to put a forgetfulness charm which made her quite dim for a good while, (served the little bitch right mind you), so she never did any real damage.”
“Well,” Remus said bracingly, “I did appreciate having one last thing to worry about anyway.”
“So…you haven’t…” Tonks bit her lip looking suddenly and oddly shy, “I mean there hasn’t…been anyone… since then?”
“I vowed that I would never put myself in that position again.”
Tonks’ lips moved to form what looked like an “oh,” but for some reason the sound behind the statement was absent. She stared at Remus intently for several more seconds, as though he were a riddle she were trying to solve and Remus found that he did not have the strength to move his eyes away from her gaze.
“I’ve got to hand it to you Moony,” Sirius said suddenly breaking their connection.
“That takes some serioius will power.” He drained his firewhiskey and promptly pouring himself another round.
“Believe me, I wouldn’t have been celibate all these years if I hadn’t been forced into it,”
The rest of the evening was spent very much like the ones’ previous to it. They discussed the Order, Harry, stories from the past. The subject of love lives (past or present) had not been brought up again until the end of the evening after Tonks had helped Remus carry Sirius up the stairs to bed in order to sleep off what promised to be a very nasty hangover.
Remus, as per usual, saw Tonks to the front parlor.
“Will he be all right?” she asked him even though she already knew the answer.
“Of course he will,” Remus replied “I’ll look after him.”
“Right,” She said with an assured nod. He waited for her to bid him goodnight as she always did, but several seconds passed between them without a word.
Tonks was standing at the doorway, biting her bottom lip and looking as though she were trying to settle on a very difficult decision.
“Well, goodnight,” He said, thinking it best if he made the decision for her.
Her expression did not change, however, and she made no move to leave.
“Remus?” she asked him suddenly in a quite but none the less bracing tone.
“Yes, Tonks?”
“You know that story Sirius told me tonight? The one about…the one that happened when you were seventeen?”
“Yes,” Remus was not quite certain where this was going, but he felt his stomach perform an odd flip.
“…Well, I was thinking about it and…” she took a deep breath, as though bracing herself, “…what if you gave it another try?”
“How do you, mean?” Though Remus thought that he had a very good idea of what she meant.
“I mean…I mean…oh bloody hell Remus! Do you want to have sex with me?”
“Do I?...” warmth flooded Remus’ face and he felt as though he should move back several paces, though his feet seemed incapable.
“It would be different with me I think,” Tonks said hurriedly when Remus did not reply.
“I already know about the Werewolf thing after all, and I…I wouldn’t expect you to fall in love with me or anything. We could still be friends afterward…I just..well, what do you think?”
She was biting her lip again and her eyes held that adorable expression she got sometimes when she wasn’t quite sure of herself.
What did he think?
He thought it should have been the easiest question in the world to answer; he thought that, as he’d been fantasizing about this for months, he should at least do her the courtesy of taking her up on the offer. And, after all, it had been a very long time.
Then he thought about his vow.
Memories flooded him not only from the Margaret Bullstrode incident but also from various bosses refusing to interview him, landlords telling him that it would be best if he looked else where, people getting up to leave when he entered a restaurant, people passing him in the street and moving quickly to the other side.
He could not possibly bring Tonks into that kind of life, and he knew that anything he did with her would not be casual in nature despite her assurances. The risk was far too great.
He tried to open his mouth to tell her this, but before he could say one word she exclaimed:
“For Merlin sake Remus! This isn’t a bloody N.E.W.T.S question, just…oh sod it!”
And before he could make so much of a sound to protest, she was kissing him.
Her lips were hard and frantic and so amazingly warm as they met his. Before Remus knew what exactly had come over him, he had grasped her waist and shoved her against the wall; his lips and tongue insistently exploring hers in turn.
It seemed as though hours passed before they broke apart, both breathing rather heavily.
“Tonks,” he said hoarsely, absently moving a hand to stroke her hair.
“Remus,” she answered grinning at him like a cat who had gotten into the cream.
“This is…this is not a good idea.”
“You say that,” Tonks said, still smiling broadly, “and yet you still appear to have me pinned against a wall.”
“That is true,” He allowed himself a small smile. No point in denying the obvious.
“And I’ve always been told...” she said, running one of her hands down his chest in a very suggestive manner. She leaned forward so that her lips were all but pressed against his ear.
“…that it’s best to finish what you start,” she whispered before allowing her lips to trace the outside. He gasped and she laughed.
“See?” she said quickly before moving to kiss along his jaw, “Sometimes even vows are made to be broken,” the hand caressing his chest moved lower to press against the contours of his very present erection.
In that moment, all his protests were silenced.
Now, as he lay in his bed, Tonks squirming only slightly against his side as she slept on, he cursed himself silently. He knew that no good could come of this, he knew that the entire situation would only lead to humiliation for her or heart break for him; perhaps both in the end.
And yet, knowing all this, he had allowed it to happen. He had allowed himself to be trapped once more.
A line he remembered from an old muggle play about being fortune's fool flitted absently through his mind as Tonks began to stir more fretfully.
It was not long before her dark eyes opened and began to smile up at him.
“Wotcher,” she said sleepily.
“Good morning.”
“What time is it?” she rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand and he could not help but think how adorable she looked like this.
“It’s early yet,” he answered. “You can go back to sleep if you like.”
She nodded.
“I should try I suppose,”
“Yes, you should.”
He fully expected those to be the last words he heard from her for several more hours. She surprised him by saying only a few moments later:
“Remus,”
“Yes?”
“I love you,” Remus’ heart constricted and he was not certain whether or not he was holding his breath. Those sweet eyes were looking at him again with that uncertain expression and he found that there was only one thing left to say:
“I love you too.”
Fortune's fool indeed.
Author:freakinwinky
Raiting: PG13- light R
Genere: Romance/humor
Warnings:Adult discussion and situations, slight language
Summary: Learning about a specific event in Remus' past leads Tonks to make a very important decision. Ootp era
Prompt: Oh, I am fortune's fool- Romeo, Romeo and Juliete
Word Count:2,224
Author's Note: It took me a long time to come up with a plot bunny which actually worked with the quote. But I found this one and I think it does work to some extent. I was going to go full smut with it but...I found I didn't have the courage. I will write a PWP one of these days I sware! And you can hold me to that. ;) Until then, enjoy...
He had not meant for it to happen, God knew he had not meant for it to happen. Not again, and especially not like this. Never the less, the fact was the he, Remus Lupin was now lying naked in bed while a beautiful twenty three year old woman slept soundly, curled against his chest.
It had all started innocently enough with a, by now routine, after dinner drink the three of them shared by Grimmauld Place’s parlor fire. One drink became several (this had also become routine), and somehow the topic of conversation had come around to sex; a subject on which Sirius was particularly keen.
“Last time for me was a little more than fourteen years ago,” he told them. Sirius was seated in a large and rather orate arm chair in the middle of the parlor, his feet propped casually on the foot rest.
“There was this Muggle girl named Annie who sang at a jazz club near Nottinghill Gate. You remember don’t you Moony? We used to go there Friday Nights after meetings,”
“Every week at your insistence if I recall correctly,”
Remus smiled vaguely at Sirius and sipped his fire whiskey.
“Yeah, she was something else,” he said, a small sad smile on his face.
“A muggle?” Tonks asked curiously from her spot on the floor just beside the firegrate, “How’d that work out?”
“She was very open minded,” Sirius answered with a grin and a wink, “And oddly enough, the best shag I ever had.”
Remus had assumed that Sirius would speak about his girlfriend before Azkaban the same way he spoke about James; idealized memories filled with light nostalgia; but he had never heard him do so before that night. He hopped that this was a good sign.
“Well my last,” Tonks spoke up suddenly, “was nearly two years ago. Another bloke from my training class called Arnold. He was a good four years older than me; good looking as they come but not much to brag about in the bed department. He could barely get it up when he wanted to.”
“And what happened there?” Remus asked, noticing too late that there was a bitter tone to his voice which he had not quite intended. He did not know why he had lately taken such an active or protective interest in Tonks’ love life, she was after all, a grown woman.
Tonks turned to Remus and grinned in that winning way she always seemed to have; the grin that never failed to make him realize how very pretty she was.
“Dumped him,” she said not sounding in the least bit sorry, “ He couldn’t handle the fact that I qualified for Auror before he did.”
“So it wasn’t just the sex thing,” Sirius said casually taking another sip of his firewhiskey, “good to know.”
“What about you, then?” Tonks asked turning to Remus.
“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” Remus answered cryptically hoping that they could simply leave it at that.
“Oh come on,” she said with a slight pout “We told you ours. Now what about you? When was your last?”
“If I’m right, and I think I am,” Sirius said slowly that familiar taunting smile playing at his lips.
“Moony gave up on the bedroom department at the age of seventeen,”
If there were any moment in the five months he had lived with Sirius Black during which he had actively contemplated committing homicide or suicide, Remus decided that this was the one.
“Well,” Tonks said, looking a bit surprised, “this sounds like a story begging to be told.”
He fixed Sirius with a glare which did indeed threaten homicide; Sirius merely grinned in response.
“Her name was Margret Bullstrode. She and Remus here had been going out for about a week when she surprised him on one of his prefect guard duties, dragged him into a nearby broom cupboard and proceeded to…well, you get the idea,” Sirius gave her a rougish wink, Tonks turned to Remus with a rather amused smile and questioning glance and Remus himself discovered a very distinct urge to sink into the floor and disappear forever.
“Then of course-“
“-Sirius, please don’t”
“What? Tonks’ right Moony, we’ve laid our past love lives on the line tonight. It’s only fair.”
This being said, Sirius sank triumphantly back into his arm chair as though daring Remus to respond.
“What happened?”
Her head was cocked to the side and she wore a very interested expression.
“Well,” Sirius continued, determining that there would be no more protests, “Moony, being the gentleman that he is couldn’t find it in himself to shag without making some sort of commitment. So he told Margret that he loved her.”
“And what’s so bad about that?” Tonks asked her eyes darting back and forth between Sirius and Remus.
“That wasn’t the part that got me into trouble,” Remus said with a sigh. He supposed it was better that he take the story up from there. He would rather Tonks heard the truth from him than the skewed version Sirius would, no doubt, provide.
“You see, after I confessed my love, I saw fit to confess my lycathropy as well. In hindsight, that was not the brightest of ideas.”
“What did she do when she found that out?”
“She screamed about having been infected by a filthy animal, tossed me (half dressed mind you) out of the cupboard, and told me never to speak to her again.”
Sirius let out a gufa of barely concealed laughter and he waited for Tonks to join him. When he looked at her, however, he was surprised to find something hard and fascinating, something akin to sympathy in her expression.
“That’s…that’s…” she seemed to be at a loss for words, “That’s really terrible, Remus.”
He attempted to give her a reassuring smile but did not seem to have managed it.
“It didn’t turn out too badly in the end,” Sirius concluded. “James and I managed to put a forgetfulness charm which made her quite dim for a good while, (served the little bitch right mind you), so she never did any real damage.”
“Well,” Remus said bracingly, “I did appreciate having one last thing to worry about anyway.”
“So…you haven’t…” Tonks bit her lip looking suddenly and oddly shy, “I mean there hasn’t…been anyone… since then?”
“I vowed that I would never put myself in that position again.”
Tonks’ lips moved to form what looked like an “oh,” but for some reason the sound behind the statement was absent. She stared at Remus intently for several more seconds, as though he were a riddle she were trying to solve and Remus found that he did not have the strength to move his eyes away from her gaze.
“I’ve got to hand it to you Moony,” Sirius said suddenly breaking their connection.
“That takes some serioius will power.” He drained his firewhiskey and promptly pouring himself another round.
“Believe me, I wouldn’t have been celibate all these years if I hadn’t been forced into it,”
The rest of the evening was spent very much like the ones’ previous to it. They discussed the Order, Harry, stories from the past. The subject of love lives (past or present) had not been brought up again until the end of the evening after Tonks had helped Remus carry Sirius up the stairs to bed in order to sleep off what promised to be a very nasty hangover.
Remus, as per usual, saw Tonks to the front parlor.
“Will he be all right?” she asked him even though she already knew the answer.
“Of course he will,” Remus replied “I’ll look after him.”
“Right,” She said with an assured nod. He waited for her to bid him goodnight as she always did, but several seconds passed between them without a word.
Tonks was standing at the doorway, biting her bottom lip and looking as though she were trying to settle on a very difficult decision.
“Well, goodnight,” He said, thinking it best if he made the decision for her.
Her expression did not change, however, and she made no move to leave.
“Remus?” she asked him suddenly in a quite but none the less bracing tone.
“Yes, Tonks?”
“You know that story Sirius told me tonight? The one about…the one that happened when you were seventeen?”
“Yes,” Remus was not quite certain where this was going, but he felt his stomach perform an odd flip.
“…Well, I was thinking about it and…” she took a deep breath, as though bracing herself, “…what if you gave it another try?”
“How do you, mean?” Though Remus thought that he had a very good idea of what she meant.
“I mean…I mean…oh bloody hell Remus! Do you want to have sex with me?”
“Do I?...” warmth flooded Remus’ face and he felt as though he should move back several paces, though his feet seemed incapable.
“It would be different with me I think,” Tonks said hurriedly when Remus did not reply.
“I already know about the Werewolf thing after all, and I…I wouldn’t expect you to fall in love with me or anything. We could still be friends afterward…I just..well, what do you think?”
She was biting her lip again and her eyes held that adorable expression she got sometimes when she wasn’t quite sure of herself.
What did he think?
He thought it should have been the easiest question in the world to answer; he thought that, as he’d been fantasizing about this for months, he should at least do her the courtesy of taking her up on the offer. And, after all, it had been a very long time.
Then he thought about his vow.
Memories flooded him not only from the Margaret Bullstrode incident but also from various bosses refusing to interview him, landlords telling him that it would be best if he looked else where, people getting up to leave when he entered a restaurant, people passing him in the street and moving quickly to the other side.
He could not possibly bring Tonks into that kind of life, and he knew that anything he did with her would not be casual in nature despite her assurances. The risk was far too great.
He tried to open his mouth to tell her this, but before he could say one word she exclaimed:
“For Merlin sake Remus! This isn’t a bloody N.E.W.T.S question, just…oh sod it!”
And before he could make so much of a sound to protest, she was kissing him.
Her lips were hard and frantic and so amazingly warm as they met his. Before Remus knew what exactly had come over him, he had grasped her waist and shoved her against the wall; his lips and tongue insistently exploring hers in turn.
It seemed as though hours passed before they broke apart, both breathing rather heavily.
“Tonks,” he said hoarsely, absently moving a hand to stroke her hair.
“Remus,” she answered grinning at him like a cat who had gotten into the cream.
“This is…this is not a good idea.”
“You say that,” Tonks said, still smiling broadly, “and yet you still appear to have me pinned against a wall.”
“That is true,” He allowed himself a small smile. No point in denying the obvious.
“And I’ve always been told...” she said, running one of her hands down his chest in a very suggestive manner. She leaned forward so that her lips were all but pressed against his ear.
“…that it’s best to finish what you start,” she whispered before allowing her lips to trace the outside. He gasped and she laughed.
“See?” she said quickly before moving to kiss along his jaw, “Sometimes even vows are made to be broken,” the hand caressing his chest moved lower to press against the contours of his very present erection.
In that moment, all his protests were silenced.
Now, as he lay in his bed, Tonks squirming only slightly against his side as she slept on, he cursed himself silently. He knew that no good could come of this, he knew that the entire situation would only lead to humiliation for her or heart break for him; perhaps both in the end.
And yet, knowing all this, he had allowed it to happen. He had allowed himself to be trapped once more.
A line he remembered from an old muggle play about being fortune's fool flitted absently through his mind as Tonks began to stir more fretfully.
It was not long before her dark eyes opened and began to smile up at him.
“Wotcher,” she said sleepily.
“Good morning.”
“What time is it?” she rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand and he could not help but think how adorable she looked like this.
“It’s early yet,” he answered. “You can go back to sleep if you like.”
She nodded.
“I should try I suppose,”
“Yes, you should.”
He fully expected those to be the last words he heard from her for several more hours. She surprised him by saying only a few moments later:
“Remus,”
“Yes?”
“I love you,” Remus’ heart constricted and he was not certain whether or not he was holding his breath. Those sweet eyes were looking at him again with that uncertain expression and he found that there was only one thing left to say:
“I love you too.”
Fortune's fool indeed.