Serpents, Chapter Four

[mrstater]

Title: Serpents (4/?)
Author: MrsTater
Rating & Warnings: R for sexuality
Prompts: weakness; "In the light of Voldemort's return, we are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided."
Word Count: 9199 words
Summary: Two years into a relationship with Remus, and the correct way to deal with full moons continues to elude Tonks, dredging up her insecurities and memories of painful past failures. Voldemort's attack on a fellow Order member puts everything into perspective for her...But will Remus see the light?
Author’s Notes: A leap into the future in the Caring For Magical Creatures universe, which I think should stand alone even if you've not read that fic, though the background might make more sense as it's a POA-era R/T romance. I cannot thank Godricgal enough for being the bestest beta ever.

Prologue: Judgment Day | 1. Vicious Cycle | 2. Up From the Grave | 3. Between the Woman and the Serpent |

4. In the Waiting Room

"Right, then, Miss Scrubb..." Amos Diggory didn't look at Tonks as he spoke, but instead ran his hand over his scruffy brown beard as his eyes scanned the pocket-sized notebook he seemed never to have stopped scribbling in since he'd answered her call for help at the Ministry. "Let's just review this timeline once again, shall we?"

"'Course." Tonks did her best to retain the dazed, frazzled expression of she'd affected for her role of Squib janitor instead of rolling her eyes like an impatient Order member. The story she'd given Mr. Diggory hardly warranted the word timeline, much less a second telling. Not to mention the real sequence of events were hardly ones she wanted to revisit more than she had to.

Whilst Mr. Diggory studied his notes, Tonks darted her eyes over his shoulder, peering through the double glass doors of the waiting room to the Dangerous Bites ward of St. Mungo's hospital, where Remus was sat beside Hestia Jones. He was the person she really needed to speak to, to compare notes with. In the time it had taken her to find Arthur at the Ministry, get him out of his incriminating location, and get help, Remus likely had ascertained the entire other side of the story from Dumbledore.

As if sensing her gaze on him, Remus turned his head and smiled slightly at her, eyes roving over her from head to toe, looking very much like he'd been afraid she wouldn't turn up in one piece. Of all things at a time like this, she felt a rush of appreciation and affection for him that he could be relieved to see her even when he wasn't seeing her, that he could think of her as being in one piece even when it wasn't her own body that had returned from the battlefield. Noticing his gaze lingering considerably lower down than her face, she looked down to see the front of her transfigured grey-green robe stained crimson.

With blood.

She gave her head a very small shake, hoping he understood she meant, It's not my blood. His chest rose and fell heavily with what could only be a sigh of relief -- though a troubled look remained on his face, and Tonks guessed that, like herself, he felt the same churning in his stomach as she about whose blood it was.

"You were headed home for night--" Mr. Diggory began, but Tonks, snapping back to attention, and her role as Eugenia Scrubb, cut him off.

"'eaded to the Atrium, to mop." She gave the deferential head bob she'd observed in the janitory each the times they'd passed one another in the corridors of the Ministry. "Then 'eaded 'ome for the nigh'. Always finish me work, I do."

"Right..." Mr. Diggory's forehead, which always used to always be so ruddy, but was now ashy -- has been since his son died, Tonks told herself -- furrowed as he scratched something out in his notes and made an amendment. "You were going to take the lift, and that's where you found Mr. Weasley?"

"Yessir. All crumpled up, bleedin' like a..." Shuddering, Tonks closed her eyes, as if that could stop her mind's eye from seeing Arthur as she had found him outside the door of the Department of Mysteries.

"And, thinking his wound resembled a snake bite," said Mr. Diggory, "you thought to send an alarm to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures?"

"Tha's righ'," Tonks replied, opening her eyes and letting them drift once more to the waiting room doors, to Remus beyond the glass, who was offering a weepy Hestia his handkerchief. God, Tonks thought as her own eyes welled, it felt wrong to ramble on about Arthur like this, but she had to play the part of simple labourer, and she'd seen enough of Eugenia Scrubb to know she'd follow up with something along the lines on, "I reckoned maybe it coulda been a Vampire, but snake popped inter me 'ead firs' of all, sin' me old dad worked in the reptile 'ouse at the London Zoo, an 'e got bit by a snake once an' 'ad a fang scar jus' like tha' one the 'ole res' of 'is life."

"But you never actually saw a snake?" Mr. Diggory asked, looking up at her.

Tonks shook her head emphatically. "Nossir. Nor no other creature."

Which was, in her mind, what clenched for her that Arthur had been attacked by a serpent. It had been no random accident that he, of all the people who worked in the Ministry by night, had been wounded there.

And Voldemort had that bloody pet snake.

"Very good," said Mr. Diggory briskly, snapping his notebook closed, just as Tonks had begun to doubt he ever would. Tucking the notebook away into the inner pocket of his robes, he took out a small crème-coloured slip of cardstock, stamped with red ink and the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and Ministry of Magic seals. "Here's my Calling Card, should you recall anything else that might be of import to our investigation. And if the matter should come to court, you would stand as witness?"

"Yessir," she said, with another bob of her head. "Only I din' know anny-mals was tried for bitin' folk?"

"Of course they are," said Diggory. "Animals are sentient beings. There was a case with a Hippogriff at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry a few years back."

"Oh yeah! But dinne ex-cape?"

Mr. Diggory's eyebrows slanted sharply downward, the scowl making his aquiline nose look almost as hooked as Snape's. "The Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures is engaged in an ongoing search for the fugitive beast, but as McNair -- the head -- let it get away to begin with, I'm not holding my breath."

His frustration was palpable, and part of Tonks felt sorry she couldn't divulge that she knew exactly where the Hippogriff had got to.

"Nor," Mr. Diggory went on, "do I have high expectations of McNair being any more successful at finding the creature that attacked Mr. Weasley, much less its coming to trial."

It was all Tonks could do not to swear at the realisation that McNair -- a sodding Death Eater -- was, as they spoke, "investigating" the attack on Arthur. Damned right, nothing would come to light. Which, she reckoned, was actually probably a blessing in disguise for the Order's cover. Nonetheless, she roiled inside at the sheer injustice of it.

"Incompetent bastards, the lot of 'em," Mr. Diggory was, meanwhile, continuing to rant. "Whole Disposal Committe needs a reshuffle, if you ask me. Werewolf Capture Unit's dropped the ball, too." He gestured toward the Dangerous Bites ward. "Bloke in there bitten last full moon."

Tucking that last tidbit away to relay to Remus later, Tonks regarded Mr. Diggory with interest throughout his rant, then abruptly, his face fell, and his whole body slumped as a sigh seeped out of him.

"My apologies, Miss Scrub," he said, running a hand over his cheek and chin again. "I shouldn't have gone off like that. I suppose I'm a bit frustrated with the Ministry these days."

Though his head was bowed, from her lower vantage point, Tonks saw that his eyes had gone glassy with tears. She felt a prick in her own, and a surge of emotion in her chest that compelled her to reach out and give his shoulder a sympathetic squeeze.

"Diggory -- you're the bloke wif the boy wot You-Know-'O killed ain' you?"

Mr. Diggory's head snapped up, and he looked at her with round, red-rimmed eyes. "You believe Potter's story?"

"Why would'n' I believe the Boy 'O Lived?" asked Tonks, unable to resist the opportunity to say, in this guise, what she could not whilst wearing her own face, in any professional capacity. When Mr. Diggory continued to stare, very hard, at her, she squeezed his arm again before withdrawing her hand. "Anyway, I'm righ' sorry 'bout your boy--"

"Cedric."

"Righ'...I know this witch 'o was an 'Ufflepuff wif Cedric, an' she cried at the news. Fine, 'ansome young man 'e was, so she says."

Mr. Diggory's Adam's apple bobbed.

Tonks blushed, and looked down at her shuffling feet. "Sorry, I'm oversteppin' myself..."

"Not at all," said Mr. Diggory, voice choked. "Thank you for your sympathy. It's been...very hard."

"I'm sure." Suddenly needing very much to be with Remus, Tonks asked, "Are you through wif me, Mister Diggory?"

"What's that? Oh..." Mr. Diggory shook off the brooding that had come over him. "Sorry, yes, of course. Are you all right getting home, at this hour, or would you like an escort?"

"Ta," said Tonks, stepping around him, "but I reckoned I migh' wait it out, see if Mr. Weasley pulls through."

"I'm sure Mrs. Weasley will appreciate your support," said Mr. Diggory, "in addition to you likely having saved his life."

Tonks leaned against the waiting room door, pushing it open slightly. "Din' do nuffin'. Righ' place, righ' time."

Mr. Diggory smiled and caught the door. "Think I'll pop my head in, as well, and see if there's any word."

The instant Tonks set foot in the waiting room, Remus was on his feet and striding quickly toward her.

"Are you the one who found Arthur?" he asked, rather more loudly than his usual subdued tone, obviously for their charade.

"Mister Weasley? Yessir. In the nick of time, I 'ope?"

"No news since the Mediwizards brought him in," said Remus, gaze drifting over her head to Mr. Diggory, stood just behind her, "so we can only assume that's good news."

"Has anyone confirmed it was a snakebite?" asked Mr. Diggory.

"I've heard nothing." Remus flicked his eyes significantly, though briefly, down to Tonks, which told her he had heard something -- just not in any official capacity. If only Mr. Diggory would leave, so she and Remus could talk...

Isn't that lovely of you, Tonks? Amos Diggory's Arthur's and Molly's neighbour and friend. They need him here, supporting them. You'll just have to be patient about the case. And anyway, you're their friend, too; shouldn't you be more concerned about Arthur's well-being than about the technicalities of the case?

"You're Professor Lupin," Mr. Diggory's voice broke into her self-castigation. "Aren't you?"

Remus gave a very small, uncertain smile. "I was...Now, unfortunately, I am simply Mister Lupin."

Tonks held her breath, as he seemed to be doing, awaiting how he would be received by the parent of a former student.

"You were always Professor to Ced," said Mr. Diggory, and Tonks thought Remus looked almost surprised as, in her peripheral, Mr. Diggory extended his hand to him. "The letter you sent Margaret and me after he...was taken from us...It helped us more than any other, and we received a great many...Anyway, I'm glad to have a chance to thank you."

Before Remus could respond (and the way his mouth hung slightly agape made Tonks suspect he couldn't have done, even if Mr. Diggory had given him a chance), Mr. Diggory withdrew his hand and cleared his throat. "I've just got to nip to the office and file an incident report, and check in with McNair." Turning to go, he said over his shoulder, "If you're still here when Molly comes out, would you please pass along that Arthur's in Margaret's and my thoughts, and we'll be here later?"

"I will," said Remus. "Take care, Mister. Diggory."

"Amos. And thank you again, for all your help, Miss Scrubb.

As soon as the waiting room door had shut behind him, and Mr. Diggory's hunched form disappeared around the corner, Remus reached into the pocket of his overcoat and drew out his wand out just enough to give it a flick. "Muffliato."

Hestia was the only other person in the room -- and watching them intently, Tonks noted with a sideways glance -- but it was best to be cautious, as anyone could come out of the double doors to the ward at any moment.

Wasting no time getting down to business, Remus told Tonks quietly, "Not long after you left the Burrow, Fawkes brought word from Dumbledore that Harry had some sort of vision -- he saw Arthur bitten by a snake."

"Oh my God." Tonks' hands flew to her mouth. "What kind of vision? And it's definitely got to be that bloody snake of Voldemort's?"

"Dumbledore gave no details about the vision. He may yet be working that out himself." Remus' lined features were set grimly. "If the snake has truly disappeared, one can only assume."

She explained to him about McNair being on the scene. "He'll cover the snake's trail if it was still about, though I've a pretty good idea it wasn't. I looked all over around the corridor," said Tonks. "I didn't see anyone, or anything, just Arthur..."

She could no longer stop her mind's eye from producing the image of how she'd found him, crumpled on the floor, half-visible as Mad-Eye's Invisibility Cloak had slipped off his shoulders, presumably when he'd collapsed, blood everywhere...

Her breath hitched, and she felt her body instinctively sway toward Remus. His hand moved toward her upper arm, also reflexively, to support her. But Tonks snapped herself ramrod erect, threw her shoulders straight, and stepped back from him.

"I took him to the lifts and sent for the Mediwizards and Amos," she said, "because he's Arthur's friend and not very happy with the Ministry, and I thought he might keep a low profile--"

"The lifts," Remus repeated.

"They were closest, and seemed the most reasonable place for Arthur to be. Worked late, headed home, then..." She couldn't go on, but her mind readily supplied: thwarted by Voldemort's snake.

She screwed her eyes shut and shook her head, swallowing hard against rising bile at the unwanted images of Arthur nodding off on duty...The silent slithering thing gliding alongside him...Scales shimmering in the dim corridor lamps as Nagini positioned herself over Arthur's sleeping form...Great curved fangs sinking into the pale, freckled arm curled underneath his head as a substitute pillow...Venom, like fire, coursing through Arthur's veins as the blood poured out, staining the carpet...

"Very reasonable," Remus' voice broke in. "Good thinking." His eyes were locked on the front of her robes. She followed his gaze.

...staining her clothes...

"I cleaned his..."

Her voice hitched. A deep breath, but one which was too shallow to provide her lungs with quite enough air, then she tried again.

"I Scourgified the..."

She couldn't say blood, either. And she'd stepped toward Remus again, or he'd moved in to her...The hem of his overcoat brushed her robes.

"I cleaned the floor as best I could, but you know what rubbish I am at householdy charms. I wound up Conjuring a pot plant to hide the...the..."

That's Arthur's blood all over your clothes. Arthur's blood, staining you.

Instinctively, she reached for her wand, but her inner voice stopped her.

You're a Squib at the moment. Don't break character.

She argued with herself: But it's Arthur's. bloody. blood.

The slightly metallic tang pricked her nostrils; the sulphuric, rotten egg smell sickened her. She couldn't take in enough air...She was panting, dizzy...Blood on her clothes, blood on her hands, suffocating, choking her...Flowing out of Arthur...Draining him of colour...ebbing his life away on the floor in a lonely corridor of the Ministry...

Her hands flew up to her chest, fisting the coarse, sullied fabric, and she slumped forward.

"God, Remus..."

His hands on her shoulders held her upright; his stubble scratched against her hair as the top of her bowed head brushed his chin.

"God, I thought he was...dead."

"It must have been terrifying."

His low tone rumbled through her, soft breath ruffling her hair, and at last she managed to draw a breath that actually supplied her with oxygen.

"You kept your head, though," he rasped gently, "and likely saved Arthur's life. Not to mention his job, and the Order's cover."

His thumbs lightly stroked her arms, and her heartbeat slowed, levelled out from its erratic tempo.

"Good work, Elphine."

Though his hands were still firmly gripping her shoulders in a way that supported her without belying their relationship, his quiet voice, the one only for her, and the name only he called her, had the same effect that his hand would have, if it were touching her cheek: coaxingher to tilt her face up to his, to meet his eyes, gazing steadily at her. So blue...a calm ocean...

"As I knew you would do," he whispered, as a warm hand covered hers.

As if he'd performed a silent, wandless spell, her fingers relaxed, released her robes. Her hands fell to her sides.

Remus touched her chest. Tonks knew his hand, and without moving her gaze from his, she pictured the breadth of his long fingers spanning the stain.

"Purgo sceleratus."

The magic passed from his fingers, through the robe, and into Tonks as a wave of peace and stillness that settled deep into her bones and soul. When Remus moved his hand away a moment later, she realised that she had no longer been leaning into him for support, but standing up straight on her own, refreshed and reassured.

Arthur had not succumbed to Voldemort's attempt at his life.

What you told Molly before is still true: the Order of the Phoenix will see him through.

Tonks looked around the waiting room, and spied Hestia over Remus' shoulder. Cheeks pinker than usual, she flashed Tonks a mechanical smile before quickly turning away -- looking every inch like a person who didn't want the people she'd been staring at to know she'd been staring and, quite possibly, thinking things they wouldn't like.

"Let me guess," Tonks muttered, "it wasn't Sirius Hestia was trying to impress with her home coking."

"Of course not. It's me she wants to see starkers." Remus' placid smile quirked at the corner and, the way his fringe tumbled over his forehead, slightly more in one eye than the other, made him look absolutely cheeky.

Rolling her eyes, Tonks said, "I can live with that, so long as she didn't make you see what you're missing out on by being with Can't Cook Tonks."

"What's good is gourmet food when you haven't got an interesting conversationalist to eat it with?"

"Oh, so you're with me cos I've got a great personality?" Out the corner of her eye, Tonks saw Hestia watching again. Though the Muffliato Remus had cast (maybe this was really why he had?) kept Hestia from hearing the flirty tone Tonks had used, it didn't make her blind to their body language. Maintaining a platonic distance between herself and him, Tonks folded her arms across her chest and arched her eyebrow.

"Also because you're beautiful," he said.

"When I'm not disguised as a janitor?"

"I only see your eyes, remember?" he said, and somehow the fact that his face was completely neutral when he said it made Tonks' struggle to keep her cover all the more difficult. "There's another thing I hope you haven't forgotten."

"What's that?"

"That you've nothing to fear from me in regard to infidelity. You remember me saying that, don't you?"

How could she ever forget a word of that conversation?

"This is familiar," Tonks said after she and Remus had stared silently at one another from either side of the open Defence Against the Dark Arts office door for a full minute. "Well -- not the part where I see you with your shirt tail out and bare feet."

"You saw me with a tail out and bare feet last night."

"Wouldn't it be wolf feet?"

Remus didn't laugh at the joke -- not that anyone would have, even under the best of circumstances -- but Tonks was spared a moment of inner self-chastisement for being so stupidly insensitive about his condition when a twitch at the corner of his mouth which, by some miracle, seemed to say that he hadn't taken offence.

"I mean..." She shifted her weight, pressing her shoulder into the doorjamb. "The bit where I come to your office to apologise to you. That's what's familiar."

Guilt whelmed that in just one month of knowing him, this was the second time she'd violated his trust by jumping to ridiculous conclusions, the second time their relationship hinged on her being able to salvage it with the right damned words. Though her inner voice whispered that she'd done too much damage this time, that she was too clumsy and too inept to make this right, she didn't turn tail and run. She'd hurt him before, it was true; but now there was a look in Remus' eyes, extra bright and glassy with fatigue, that she could only call hope. Whether hope that she wouldn't reveal his secret, or hope that she wouldn't end it with him because of the truth, she'd no idea. But hope was hope, and his gave her hope.

At least, until he said, "If you've come to apologise for not being able to go out with me in light of what you learned about me last night, you needn't."

Feeling as if she'd taken a Stunner to the gut, Tonks stood stupidly with her mouth agape as Remus retreated into his office and, clasping his hands behind his back and pacing in a professorial manner, went on:

"In fact, it's I who ought to be apologising for avoiding you for the past few weeks--"

"--month," Tonks interjected without thinking, dizzied by what he was saying. Immediately -- literally -- she bit her tongue and cursed herself for casting stones whilst dwelling in a very glass house.

Remus, however, absolutely unruffled by her interruption or the blame she cast, almost as if he hadn't heard her, continued, "I ought to have come right out and told you that there was something you needed to know about me before I could, in good conscience, go out with you, but that I could not tell you."

It was a good job Tonks was leaning against the doorjamb, as Remus' words, though so softly uttered, fell on her with enough weight to knock her off her feet. The first bit, in particular, she couldn't quite get around. What had she done to make him decide she wouldn't want to go out with him just because he was a werewolf? Had the subject ever even come up? She was reeling too much to recall, too hurt to think clearly. Which was completely audacious, because if a cauldron had ever called a kettle black, it was her getting her feelings hurt that someone had made an assumption about her. And anyway, it was hardly something to take personally, was it?

Known werewolves weren't exactly at the top of Wizarding party guest lists. Probably he made that assumption about everybody. Hence keeping it a secret. Which was exactly what Dumbledore had said about it taking a special person for Remus to own up to it.

She wished, as Dumbledore had intimated, that she could be that special to Remus. She'd thought she was. Didn't he like her enough to want to give her a chance?

She didn't know about him, but if there was anything she was sure of right now, it was that she liked him.

A whole bloody lot.

Enough to forgive an assumption, enough to ask for forgiveness for hers.

So, pushing off the doorjamb, she held herself like the Auror-with-a-mission he always said she was -- shoulders back, head high. "That's not what I came to apologise for. May I come in? Only I mean to say a thing or two I reckon you'd prefer me not to say in the middle of a corridor."

"Yes," said Remus, standing still and looking a little surprised for a moment before he snapped into action. "Yes, of course. Can I offer you tea?"

Tonks, stricken with panic and sweaty palms at the realisation that she had no. bloody. idea what she was going to say to him, declined. When his eyes flickered, then bent, she scolded herself internally for not saying yes to a cuppa. Damn it! He probably thought she was refusing because he was a werewolf.

Even so, distracted by his polite gesture of clearing clutter off a chair which he offered to her, which recalled to mind Professor Dumbledore's joke about Remus retaining his manners whilst in his werewolf form, she also turned that down. To her further shame, she pictured the wolf that had illustrated one of her childhood storybooks, Willoughby the Wolf Who Wanted To Be a Wizard. Willoughby the Wolf had walked about on his hind legs and wore a Wizard's robes and hat. She envisioned Willoughby here now, in the DADA office, serving tea to her and Dumbledore, wagging his head emotively in response to their conversation, and Merlin -- she wanted to laugh, which was absolutely the most shameful thing of all.

Probably this was why Remus didn't want to go out with her. He knew how her mind worked, and thought he'd spare himself the indignities her imagination was likely to suffer him.

After all, she'd done him quite a few indignities without the aid of her overactive imagination, last night foremost among them. Though, the way he'd remarked dryly about last having been seen with a tail and paws, didn't seem to indicate a man who was ashamed.

On the other hand, if Maintaining a Mysterious Mask were part of the Hogwarts curriculum, Remus surely would have earned higher marks than any student in the history of the school, and been far more qualified to teach it than Defence Against the Dark Arts. And as her meandering circuit led her to the corner of Remus' desk, where the Grindylow tank was perched, her face burned at the memory of pointing out his shabby clothes as indicative of him of being so hard-up for cash that he'd turned to the underground Magical Creature trade.

But he'd forgiven her for that, if only because he thought her green and naïve.

In any case, in her moment of shame, she found her angle of apology.

"When I met you," she said, body turned slightly away from him so that she couldn't see the inevitable hurt that would flicker across his thin, lined face, "and you introduced yourself as the new DADA professor, I thought you looked like you could do with a few Defences. But you're one of the things in our world there aren't any Defences against." She looked over her shoulder at him, took a deep breath, and blurted, "Including me falling for you."

He wore the look of a man holding his breath. "Elphine--"

"I understand if you've fallen completely off me," Tonks talked over him, her pounding heart driving her to get through this, regardless of what would follow. "I just need you to know that knowing what I know now...It's not changed anything. Not a damned thing, Remus."

Though she hadn't expected the statement to wipe the careworn lines from his face, she nonetheless felt a pang of disappointment that while they did appear a little less deeply etched, he still wore a stolid mask.

Remus turned and strode to the window through which he'd peered at her last night with a wofl's golden irises and slits of pupils. As his long fingers skimmed over the polished oak ledge, she noticed that his narrow shoulders were held absolutely rigid. The muscles at the base of his neck, hidden by his greying hair, highlighted golden in the midday sun that streamed through the leaded glass pane, must be stretched taut.

"It should have done."

That made absolutely no sense coming from a man who'd expected to be dumped because of the truth.

"Why?" Tonks demanded. "Why should I stop liking you just because you turn into a wolf for a few hours every month?"

Remus shook his head. "Not a wolf, Elphine -- a werewolf. Didn't your Defence OWL call you to list the five distinguishing features?"

The corners of his mouth twitched. In...a smirk? Was he being condescending? Not that she didn't deserve it, but Tonks instinctively bristled, shoulders hunching as she folded her arms across her chest, fingernails digging into skin through the flowing sleeves of her robes. Remus had always expressed such firm belief in her Auror skills. He was such a kind man, a true teacher, through and through. She had to have cut him deeply for him to have stooped to--

"I haven't gone off you," his rasping tone broke in -- gently. His lips curved in a genuine smile, not a smirk, and there was nothing of patronisation in his eyes as they held her. Only teasing, and kindness, and...Oh Merlin, he still fancied her, he did...He was stepping toward her, the mask gone, his heart open to her. Tonks' arms uncrossed, and fell to her sides as he drew ever nearer, standing so close that the swish of her robes against his trouser legs seemed noisy in the utter stillness of the office.

"I probably should have," he went on, "but free spirits like you, people who know what they want and impulsively, recklessly, go after it, have always been deeply attractive to me. I’m shallow enough to take it as the highest of compliments that it's me you want enough to go after impulsively and recklessly." His warm fingers closed around hers. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you the truth."

"I know why you didn't. I mean, I did tell you I'd get a warrant to interrogate you about the Dark Creature trade." Though relief was washing over her, and Remus continued to smile, chuckled even, a rumble in his chest which she felt more than heard, she hung her head, spikes of hair rubbing against his jumper. "God, you must've thought I was a complete idiot."

"Ironic. Never idiotic."

He squeezed her hands, but she still didn't look up. "I came looking for you last night because I thought you were two-timing me."

Remus drew her arms around his waist, then let his hands slide up her arms, rubbing her shoulders comfortingly before he rubbed her back and settled them at the small. His prickly chin and cheek scratched against her temple as he kissed her hair, and Tonks released her indrawn breath, then inhaled again, his slightly musky smell of soap and a cedar wardrobe doing more for her than oxygen.

"That's one thing you never have to worry about if you go out with me," he said.

It was quite a promise, fidelity, certainly nothing she'd received from any of the blokes she'd gone out with before, and Tonks looked up at him in amazement. She was further surprised to see his eyes criss-crossed at the corners, and twinkling mischievously.

"Perhaps that's one positive thing about going out with a werewolf -- no competition queuing up."

A multitude of emotions barraged Tonks at that moment -- admiration that he could speak so frankly, and without bitterness, about the challenges he faced; a pang that a man who was everything a witch could want in a boyfriend, but for that one thing, was so accepting of the limitations placed upon him; underlying at all, a flutter of happiness and sheer joy that he still wanted her, and would commit himself to her like this.

And an urge to give him back as good as he gave.

Humour, it seemed, was the one constant they always found no matter what they were up against. It had been that way from the very first day they, as Molly put it, chose to be together. They had clung to it -- sometimes defiantly -- tooth and nail in the face of the obstacles and barriers life apparently was so hell-bent on throwing their way in the years since. Fun-loving as Tonks was, she doubted, from time to time, whether laughter was always the solution. She couldn't make up her mind, for instance, whether it was a sign of Remus' bravery that he'd set Wadiwassi as the password to his shelter a fortnight ago, or if he'd hid behind it. Maybe it wasn't either or; maybe it was both.

Whatever the case, what if something had happened then that was equal to what Molly and Arthur faced now? Would a joke have been enough to get them through? Hence her hesitation.

Don't be such a worry-wart, Tonks! You've got enough to fret about now without adding what-ifs to your load. Molly seemed sure enough that you and Remus have what it takes to stay together for at least as long as she's been with Arthur, and they'll make it thirty more years...maybe thirty more after that. So do what comes naturally to you!

Giving in to the inner urging, except for the impulse to break character by poking Remus in the chest, Tonks placed her hands on her hips and adopted her best tone of mock-scolding.

"'Course I remember, and I remember what I said, as well. Or have you forgotten?"

"Refresh my memory," said Remus, though the gleam in his eyes told her the conversation was as vivid in his mind as it was in hers.

"Does that mean you're finally going to set an actual date to take me out for a date? And should I accept when you've just said you're pretty much only going out with me because I'm the only witch who's queued up?"

"Ah," said Remus, wearing a lopsided grin, "but apparently another one's got in line behind you, and I'm not interested in the slightest in taking anyone out but you."

"What if it was someone less annoying and more interesting and more beautiful--"

Her words died, but not because she'd stopped talking. Remus had cast a Silencio over her, and he wore the tender look on his face that he always did in her moments of insecurity -- which had grown less frequent the longer they'd been together -- usually accompanied by his gentle finger pressed against her lips.

"Impossible," he said huskily, moving in closer to her. "Even if there were such a witch in existence, I could never believe in her, nor could I give you up for her. Everything I have -- which isn't much, I know, though I'd appreciate you taking it as a compliment nonetheless -- is invested in you."

Tonks hadn’t realised how much she'd wanted to hear those words from Remus' mouth. They'd been together for two years now, but time had not been kind to them. Even during the few months between her discovery that he was a werewolf and his resignation from Hogwarts and all the secrets that event brought to light could hardly be described as blissful; her training schedule had become more rigorous in the run up to her examinations, and Remus' tutoring sessions with Harry Potter frequently clashed with her few free hours.

Not all that different from now with paired Order assignments often being the only time you get together.

But also as in their days as Professor and Cadet, Tonks wondered from time to time whether snatched moments really were enough for Remus. So many times she sensed a brooding thought lurking behind his charming exterior. Back then it had been his internal conflict about hiding the truth about Sirius from Dumbledore. Knowing what a toll that secret had taken on him, and sensing his tension and turmoil about her -- especially when it came to defending her from the caustic remarks of Sirius, and up till now, Molly -- she feared he would tire of all the energy required to maintain their so often shaky relationship in the midst of everything else they faced daily. Which had all kicked up a notch tonight.

So it was good, very, very good, to hear him declare his steadfast commitment to her.

Though it sucks, very, very hard, not to be able to throw your arms around him and snog him senseless.

What is the point of all this secrecy, anyway? No one's around but Hestia, and it's not like the Order aren't proven secret keepers. What could it hurt for them to know? Molly does.

Just as Tonks was fully prepared to throw secrecy to the wind and show Remus how much she appreciated his words, a finger tapped her shoulder.

Then, from right behind her, Hestia chirped, "Isn't it a bit odd, you staying around when you're not supposed to know the Weasleys?"

For a moment Tonks stood gritting her teeth at the implication that she wasn't concerned about Arthur, then she slowly turned. Her intent was to stare down the woman who was normally a good six inches shorter than she, but she'd forgotten she wasn't in her own body. She compensated by putting as much authority into her voice as she could muster. (Thank God you don't have to play a ditzy cockney anymore.)

"If you found a stranger hexed on the street and took him to hospital, wouldn't you want to stick around and make sure he was okay?"

Hestia's simper faltered. Her beady eyes darted over Tonks' shoulder at Remus, then her lips twitched, stretching her pink cheeks in a too-wide smile. "Well of course I--"

"You're a Healer," Tonks cut in. "Why aren't you with him?"

Face red now, and her small, pointy teeth badger-like, Hestia said sweetly, "You know I'm in Spell Damage, Nymphadora."

Before Tonks could retort, Remus' intervened mildly, "I am sure Molly would appreciate having a medically knowledgeable friend with her at this time. You do have clearance to go beyond the waiting room?"

"Of course." Hestia reached around Tonks and squeezed Remus' arm. "What a good idea, Remus. I'll go to her now."

"Thank you, Hestia," he said, and she turned away, letting her hand slide lingeringly down Remus' arm as she cast one last glance at Tonks.

When Hestia had disappeared into the ward, Remus said, "I know she irritates you, but she is your colleague, Tonks. You cannot keep tweaking her."

Tonks snorted. "This from the man who promised to help me get a proper prank off on her."

"I said I'd consider helping you, depending on what you came up with. Have you come up with anything?"

"I've been a tad busy tonight coming up with how to keep other Order colleagues out of trouble."

Remus looked at her for a moment, and she realised she'd come across more snappishly than she'd intended.

She started to apologise, but he said, "Anyway, there's a difference between playing a prank on a colleague and picking at a colleague over a personal problem. And I do realise Hestia started it by being a bit touchy-feely with me..." He went on, louder, when she started to protest: "...but you're a bigger person than her."

Tonks blinked.

He thinks you're immature, said her inner voice.

"If we weren't so bloody worried about secrecy," she said through her teeth, "then she'd know you're with me, she wouldn't get touchy-feely, and I wouldn't have to have a personal problem with her."

Another moment of silent staring.

Way to prove your maturity, Tonks.

"Remus," she said, voice small and devoid of bravado, "I'm sorry, I'm just...tonight--"

She stopped, because her thoughts, which had been exploding here and there like the Weasley twins at Grimmauld when they'd first got their Apparition licenses, suddenly melded together and struck her full force.

Also, because Remus' fingers had closed around hers.

"I haven't looked after you properly," he said, eyes searching hers anxiously, all the emotion he'd bottled in front of Mr. Diggory and Hestia now etched plainly on his face. "You've not experienced this before, a colleague falling, and the waiting to find out whether he will live, or die...or be damaged. How are you?"

"I'm..."

Words failed her; no energy remained in her for speech.

Duty, and then the brief respite after,with Remus had, apparently, forestalled reality sinking in and taking its toll on her physically. There had, of course, been that moment of seeing Arthur and her brain registering that he must be dead, but only now, did her knees buckle as all the things Remus said flashed through her mind. Would Arthur die and leave his wife of thirty years and his seven children bereft? Would his body live, but the part of him that was Arthur, be gone -- like Frank and Alice Longbottom? Would he cheat death this time -- only to succumb the next?

For next time, there surely would be. The war had barely even begun. This was just the start of something that would get much, much worse.

She found herself leaning heavily against Remus as he let go of her hand and supported her round the waist, helping her into the chair Hestia had vacated. He knelt in front of her, and took her hands in his.

"Don't be afraid," he murmured.

She shook her head, hot tears stinging her eyes even as her hands went cold as ice and shook. Caution she knew, and danger, and risk -- but till now war had not been so very different from the little field work she'd done in her stint as Auror, or even from training, more thrill than threat. Now, though, was so much more even than a threat.

She wasn't afraid of it.

She was terrified.

"Don't be afraid," Remus said again. "This is why we're the Order of the Phoenix. We bear each other up. We are not alone. You are not alone. I am here for you."

Tonks nodded, but the thoughts kept coming.

What had happened to Arthur was not just a random accident, but it was a random attack from Voldemort. He hated the Order, one and all, indiscriminately. He wanted what they were guarding and would try to take it regardless of who might stand in the way. Why--

One night earlier, and it would have been Remus on guard duty at the Department of Mysteries.

Remus, bleeding in the corridor...

Remus, bleeding in your arms...

Remus, lying in the Dangerous Bites ward, you, sitting in the waiting room, while Remus hangs suspended between life and death...

It wasn't one night earlier, and it wasn't Remus, but it could have been...and might be, tomorrow night. Hell, it could be this night, a Death Eater trap when he steps out of hospital, and if anything does happen, Good God, Tonks! What in Merlin's name will you do then?

Remus was to her as Arthur was to Molly.

He'd been a part of her life for more than two years now -- almost her entire adult life. She'd grown up because of him, overcome some of her impulsiveness, shed a lot of her insecurity, come into her own as an Auror. If not for Remus, she wouldn't have known the truth about Sirius; she'd still be calling Voldemort You-Know-Who and be blindly denying his return right along with everyone else in the Auror office (and so would Kingsley, for that matter, who only joined in the end because you managed to convince him). Terrifying as being a member of the Order of the Phoenix had become tonight, she was more convinced than ever that it was right, and good, to be a part of it. And it was only because of Remus that she had this chance.

With him, she had learnt how to love, and how to be loved. She'd never felt for another person what she felt for him, never endured what she'd endured for anyone else. Being with him was pure joy, and she suspected it was so because of all the bad they'd been through. If she had a choice between a perfect life without Remus, and an even more difficult one with him, she would choose the latter, without question.

Because she would be lost without him.

He was so much more than her boyfriend, more even than her lover. He was both of those things, and more, and her best mate. And the only -- literally -- person for the past two years with whom she had been completely, one-hundred percent honest about herself and all that was changing in their world.

She couldn't even imagine who she would be if Remus had not entered her life when he had. On her own she might be a decent person, possibly an okay Auror; but he made her more than that. Even Kingsley had said that -- Kingsley, who was as in the dark as everyone else about their relationship status.

And that was another thing. We bear each other up, Remus had said of the Order. I am here for you.

He wouldn't be there for her -- not if he fell. If none of the Order knew what Remus was to her, how would they bear her up?

Molly knows, she remembered. Molly likes you -- at least for now. Mothers you, even. She knows what it is to go through this, to deal with the loss, and the waiting; she lost her brothers, last time around.

If anything were to happen to Remus, she'd see you through.

Except that Molly always turned to Remus herself. Tonks expected that when Molly came out of the ward, she'd be crying on Remus' shoulder herself, as she'd done that night at Grimmauld when she'd seen that boggart...He was everyone's pillar of strength: a member of the old crowd, experienced as Mad-Eye, wise as Dumbledore, yet more approachable.

Even Amos and Margaret Diggory, who only knew Remus through a letter, and word-of-mouth, had taken comfort from him.

Remus was the kind of wizard you only met once in a lifetime -- if you were lucky. She must have been born under some incredibly lucky star to have had something as wonderful happen to her as a wizard like him falling in love with her. Losing him would be a life doomed to loneliness, because no man would ever compare. Her experience with Remus had spoiled her to all other wizards...

Experience.

Her brain took a step backward, to the wisdom and experience that drew people to Remus. The first war had seen all his colleagues...friends...loved ones, all cut down much too young, like Cedric Diggory, in the Permanent Spell Damage ward, or dead, or rotting in Azkaban as a traitorous, murderous wretch. Who had borne Remus up then? Dumbledore? Somehow, she couldn't envision Dumbledore doing for Remus what Remus did for Molly.

Not that it was any easier to envision Remus crying on anyone's shoulder, either.

What if he had to go through it again? What if this had happened tomorrow night, when she was on guard duty? Who would he turn to? Would he forgo secrecy and heed his own words about turning to the Order?

What about one of his friends? What if something happened to Sirius? Or Dumbledore? He's close to Mad-Eye, if a person can really be close to Mad-Eye...He went to school with Kingsley, and they get on well; he speaks to Bill at every meeting, as much about Quidditch as goblins...

Hell -- how did he feel right now, about what had happened to be Arthur? They'd got to be quite good friends, passing many an evening last summer, or after Order meetings, engrossed in endless Wizard's Chess matches.

Will he turn to you? He did say we bear each other up, as if he needed bearing up, too.

Tonks scrutinised his face, searching for signs of vulnerability. An emotion deeply etched his features; but it was all compassion for her.

Is he just used to this? Or is he keeping his feelings inside because you're too green to lean on?

Within her, something reared its head, resisting the thought almost violently. She sat up straight, and tugged at Remus' hands.

"I'm okay," she said firmly, maybe too firmly, but she couldn't stand the thought of him not thinking he could turn to her if he had need. "Anyway, it's Molly who'll need bearing up, won't she?"

Remus looked at her for a moment with an unreadable expression, then nodded. She tugged at his hands, indicating for him to sit beside her. She drew a measure of reassurance from his fingers remaining locked with hers as they waited.

For how long they waited, she had no idea; time ceased to exist as her train of thought travelled on in an unbroken circuit.

At some point she dozed off, because the next thing she was fully aware of was Remus' hand releasing hers, and his shoulder shifting beneath her cheek, and her bleary eyes taking in the clock over the door reading 4:42 and Molly, emerging from the ward, supported by Hestia. At least, supported by Hestia until Remus stood and swiftly crossed the waiting room to her, and took over support duty. Tonks got to her feet as well, but clutched the arm rests of her chair in dreaded anticipation of what Molly, whose face was very pale, and her eyes rich, was going to say.

"Arthur's not going to...to..." Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes, streaking down her cheeks as she looked up at Remus. "He'll live."

"Thank God," said Remus hoarsely, embracing her. "Thank God."

Tonks started to sink into her chair again, but before she could sit completely, Molly had disentangled herself from Remus' arms and was hugging her.

"And thank you, dear." Molly's wet cheek pressed against Tonks' as she kissed her. "You saved his life."

Over Molly's shoulder, Tonks saw Remus watching her, his eyes burning into her from a suddenly haggard face. From that moment, with the exception of the split-second of Apparition to Grimmauld, his gaze never left her face as they (minus Hestia, who had morning shift at St. Mungo's) made arrangements for Tonks to escort Molly and the kids to visit Arthur later in the day, after everyone had slept. There was a note of rawness in his voice that wasn't there normally, nor had been at any point during their stressful night and pre-dawn vigil. Not that he wasn't in possession of his usual authority, but it was almost as if it was somehow necessary for him to look at her in order to do what was needed of him.

As if he needs strength, and finds it in you.

She recognised him then, in the wan glow from her wand, the only light in the damp alley, as the Remus she'd seen two weeks ago, in the wake of the Oak Moon.

Vulnerable.

Needy, if not precisely open to her.

This was the look that had filled his eyes as he'd leant on her shoulder for help standing up right. Though she hadn't been aware of it till now, he'd been leaning on her during every moment of the long night, since he asked her to go to the Ministry to find Arthur.

When Remus offered to let Molly into Headquarters, she insisted that it was unnecessary for them to see her inside, that they both desperately needed to go somewhere quiet, like Tonks' flat. "And sleep," she said, significantly, before turning to go -- though Tonks wasn't sure whether Molly was being significant about actual sleep, or--

"It could have been you," Remus' voice broke, almost harshly, into her mulling.

Tonks blinked. His thoughts had been in the same place hers had, after all?

He stepped toward her, the soles of his shoes crunching on gravel and broken bits of beer bottles, sloshing through a puddle in the alley. And then his arms were around her, enveloping her in his worn wool coat. His cheekbone pressed into her shoulder blade as he leaned on her.

"I couldn't go on without you."

As if he'd uttered a spell to knock her off her feet, Tonks fisted his lapels in her hands, clinging to him. He could not have said such a thing about her. She only believed he had because the words continued to whisper through her, touching her so, so gently at her very core.

"You could, though," she said, stroking his fine hair. "You always have."

He lifted his head, just slightly, and she made out his red-rimmed eyes through his fringe. "I wouldn't want to. There would be no colour in anything, compared to you. You are everything to me, do you know it? Everything."

His head had dropped against her shoulder again during the last, so that his words were barely more than a hot breath against the curve of her neck. They echoed so resonantly through her soul that she didn't doubt for a second that he'd actually spoken them. Celebration burst forth inside her, the jubilation she remembered, but had not understood, on the first of November, 1981. That she could be that much to this man...It was more than she'd ever dared to be, more than she'd ever imagined she could be...God, and the way his lips were moving over her skin...

...her skin, which was so very cold, in contrast with his lips, exposed to the December pre-dawn chill because she'd forgotten to Conjure a cloak or scarf when she'd disguised herself. Remembering that she was yet morphed as the cleaning witch from the Ministry, wanting to feel his lips kissing her own collarbone, she morphed back into her natural form her slightly curvier figure filling out the Conjured work robe. Her hair, she changed to the vividest shade of his favourite pink that she could imagine.

Remus made a low sound in his throat as he tangled his fingers in the strands and continued to blaze his trail of kisses along her collarbone. Her body responded in kind, her hips pressing into his as she threaded her fingers into his hair and dragged his mouth to hers.

They kissed hungrily, everything they had been forced to hold back all night surging into the dam of restraint, shattering it utterly. Their breath, snatched in ragged gasps, formed a cocoon of steam around them in the cold air.

"I need you, Elphine," Remus murmured, lips not leaving hers, between kisses. His hands slid down over her hips and thighs, cupping her bottom, lifting her up onto the very tips of her toes. "Do you need me?"

She felt his physical need, of course, as she had so many times over the years; but for the first time, though she'd never doubted the love and intimacy operating at these moments, she sensed the emotional level of his need. And it ran far deeper than she'd thought it could, cutting her, almost, with its poignancy.

Placing her hands on his shoulders, she wrapped her legs around his thighs as he hoisted her off the ground. She pulled her mouth from his, and leant back in his arms just enough to look into his eyes. "I always need you."

His fingers were already working the buttons of her robes as the crack of Disapparition split the quietude of the dawn.

A/N: Purgo Sceleratus: Purgo = to cleanse, to purify, to clear away, to wash off; to justify

Sceleratus = to pollute with guilt, blood, etc.

Cookies to whoever guesses where I'm going with that. Though I can't tell till after DH is released, as it's a nod to a theory of Shield_Wolf's... ;)

I continue to appreciate the wonderful feedback y'all have provided for this WIP. I know there's not a lot of time to read something this...long...and I am so grateful for the time, and the extra time to let me know y'all are enjoying it. It's really motivated me, against growing anxiety about the deadline. I'm bound and determined to get this puppy (of Norbert proportions) finished on time!

To encourage y'all to keep encouraging me, I offer a Remus to help you wait it out till the next chapter -- he'll hold your hand, let you sleep on his shoulder (though I hope the chapter hasn't made you want to snooze!) or maybe even take you out to the alley to break dams of restraint.

Part Five