HP: Transfigured Hearts #26: Waiting
Title: Waiting
Author: MrsTater
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Featured Characters: Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks; Severus Snape
Summary: His mission aborted after the disastrous March attack on the Montgomery child, Remus struggles to fit into the Order as he did before -- a task which proves as impossible as his underground mission when he and Tonks cannot seem to put aside their feelings and unresolved issues and operate as colleagues.
Author's Notes: This story follows Steal, Kill, Destroy in the Transfigured Hearts series and is set sometime in April of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. As always, special thanks to Godricgal for her excellent beta work, and to Gilpin25 for her invaluable feedback about the original version of this piece, written for the June/July 2006 rt_challenge. Concrit appreciated.
Waiting
Tonks was waiting.
All of them were. Headquarters was a station, these days, from which each member of the Order of the Phoenix filtered out to whatever platform would lead them to the next careening train they must leap aboard. Most walked slowly, with scuffing shoes and slumping shoulders, conserving energy for where it was needed most. The Aurors clipped along, despite having the most haggard faces of all. Stops at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, were few and far between these days; instead, they leapt from one train to the other.
Yet Tonks was waiting.
She lingered at the foot of the stairs, engaging nearly everyone who passed, but Remus knew she was waiting for him. Her eyes repeatedly drifted over Dedalus Diggle's bobbing violet top hat to settle on Remus, bent over the table as he coordinated Bill Weasley's new guard shifts with his Gringott's schedule. She had cast such furtive glances at him throughout the meeting - and during her report his had been the only face her troubled eyes had sought - so he was not surprised that she had not left the meeting straight away.
He wished she would do. She needed rest, a proper meal, bed. Work for the Ministry and work for the Order depleted her energy reserves. She had worried away her appetite and lost too much sleep over him. Boarding his train was the last thing in the world she needed.
And this one was sure to be as big a wreck as any, he realised suddenly, hit with a wave of nausea when Bill strode away and Remus overheard Snape address Tonks in tones as greasy as the black hair that fell forward into his sallow face as he leant over the banister: "Waiting for your test subject, Nymphadora?"
His sneering glance darted sidelong at Remus.
Dear Merlin. It was the start of the full moon week. The Potion. Tonks could brew Wolfsbane Potion now.
And the unflinching look on her face as she watched Snape confirmed that she had brewed it, somehow, in the midst of her relentless schedule.
"I advise you," Snape continued as Dedalus, looking alarmed and mortified, scuttled upstairs clinging to his precarious hat, "not to observe the test, as there have been no prior studies on Wolfsbane Potion's effect on…" In profile, his hard black eyes glittered, and the thin lips twisted with mixed disgust and triumph. "…feral werewolves."
Black robes billowed as he resumed his ascent, but Tonks, gaunt face looking eerily like Sirius', shot out an arm and caught Snape's thin, white wrist, effectively stopping him.
"I've played the part of the respectful and submissive Potions student," she ground out with a low control incongruous with her fierce expression, "but I assure you, Severus, that it was only an act till I'd got what I wanted from you. Now that I have, you'll do well to remember that I'm-"
"Have you got what you want, Nymphadora?" Snape's eyes flicked up to Tonks' mousy hair.
With a new appreciation for poor Neville Longbottom's fear of the demoralising Hogwarts Potionsmaster, Remus gripped the back of a chair for support as he watched Tonks' hand release Snape's wrist. The look on Tonks' ashen face as Snape swept upstairs resembled nothing so much as the expression she had worn with Remus left her three weeks ago in her shabby room at the Hogshead Inn, naked and rejected.
He had hurt her again, without having spoken one word.
He ought to have said something…But then it was him Snape had insulted…Though with the clear intention of hurting her…
And now Remus must speak to her, and risk more hurt, because she was waiting.
Always waiting.
Downcast dark eyes darted up the instant he stepped toward her. Remus fixed his gaze just below hers, on the greyish purple circles that seemed to be a permanent feature on her unchanging, pale face.
"Good evening, Tonks." Fighting the pull of her eyes, he forced his just over the top of her head.
The drab hair in his peripheral vision evoked as much guilt as her eyes would have.
"Wotcher."
The ensuing silence seemed loud in comparison to her flat greeting. Remus waited for her to light into him.
Silence persisted. And pressed down so heavily that he could no longer avoid her gaze.
Expectation.
The destination was up to him. Tonks was trusting him not to take her to a place of hurt.
As if he had ever proved himself trustworthy in that regard.
"How are you holding up?" Remus hoped he sounded like a concerned colleague. "It must have been quite upsetting to see what you did yesterday."
Tonks crossed her arms over her chest. "I saw a Muggle bus burn. Death Eaters thought it would be fun to put a timed Incendio on a traffic light. Of course it was upsetting."
Remus gaze dropped, and his fingers toyed with the longish hair at the base of his neck. "I thought you wanted me to say something."
Tonks let out a long sigh. "I hate that it's like this between us. It feels completely wrong."
"I know," Remus acknowledged.
"But this is how it's got to be."
"Yes."
Tonks snorted. "Your words, Remus."
He looked up sharply. "I know that, too."
Tonks' narrowed eyes and pursed lips gave Remus the impression that she was silently and wandlessly hexing him. It startled him that he felt no magical change come over him, and Tonks abruptly turned on her heel and, robes swishing against his legs, plodded around him to mount the stairs.
"Are you going to come quietly, then?" Her voice was a high staccato, off-tempo from both their footfalls. "Or am I going to have to have to forcibly move you to my flat and silence you so I don't have to listen to your whinging about how I shouldn't have bothered with your bloody potion?"
"It is a bother," Remus said, stupidly, though in an involuntary reaction to the disgusting image of Snape sneering at Tonks, "and you should not have."
Her thick-soled boot slipped off the riser. Remus hand shot out to steady her, but Tonks shrugged away from his touch and cast a dark look over her shoulder.
"Don’t be a sodding idiot. You'd take it from Snape if he'd still brew it."
For a moment she held him with that hard look, then she continued upstairs.
"Tonks, I'm sorry." Remus followed, slowly, hand on the banister. "I do appreciate all the trouble-"
"If you appreciated it, you'd know it's no trouble. Well-" Turning at the landing, Tonks' lips curved in a smirk. "Snape's a bastard and the potion's a bit finicky…But you're the trouble."
They were teasing words, but her tone was not in the slightest - and the sadness in the depths of her eyes extinguished the fire of her speech.
Wretchedly, Remus watched his fingers pick at the chipped varnish on the finial as he alit from the staircase. "That's worse. You kept on doing something for me, even as I put you through hell."
"Yeah." Tonks resumed her defensive crossed-arms stance. "You have put me through hell. And if I'm to be stuck with this crap hair, the very least you can do is let me do something that makes me happy."
"How can-?"
"-it make me happy when you're so much trouble?" Shaking her head, she span and strode down the corridor.
"God, Remus…" She faltered and leant heavily against the wall, raking a hand through her hair, tugging hard at the roots. "…that's so tired."
"Of course it is," Remus said in clipped syllables. "My reasons for not being with you have not changed, nor will they." Noting her posture, he added, "Aren't you tired?"
Her head bowed, and she looked old and bent under the weight of all she carried, all alone - but only for an instant. She threw her shoulders back. "We've got to soldier on, haven't we?" She marched toward the door. "You coming?"
Though it seemed he had no choice but to obey, Remus took just one step. "Are you still at the Hogshead?"
He swallowed a painful lump in his throat as he was barraged with images of frantically kissing her yielding mouth, of her nude body beneath his on the narrow bed in the dodgy inn.
"Nope."
The troll-foot umbrella stand clunked as Tonks failed to avoid it, and in the process of plucking her cloak from the hall tree, she made Remus overcoat fall off its branch. Summoning it, she said, "I'm in town this week."
Remus flicked his wand to put out the lights. He wasn't sure if Tonks' flat was a better alternative than the Hogshead.
As Tonks proffered his coat, her expression softened. "You haven't already picked up a dose at the apothecary, have you? Is that what this reluctance is about?"
"You know why I'm reluctant," said Remus, feeling her fingers through the threadbare fabric they both clutched. "And no."
Tonks studied him with her keen Auror's gaze. "Were you planning on going to the apothecary?"
Remus mouth went dry.
It had never even occurred…Not once had he thought…
"Remus?" Tonks' voice shook as her hand fell away from his coat.
Looking just beyond her shoulder, Remus swallowed hard. "I've got used to-"
"Being in pain?" Her voice cracked. "Not being in control of your own mind?"
Red-faced, Tonks stepped toward him.
Remus stepped back.
"Dammit, Remus, if you weren't going to take your potion, where in the bloody hell were you planning to Transform? The damned Shrieking Shack?"
She had backed him, quite literally, into a wall. The chin of one of the House-elf heads scraped his scalp.
"What were you thinking? What, in Merlin's name-"
"MUTANTS! MUD-BLOOD FILTH! HALF-BRED SHAPE-SHIFTING FREAKS! ABOM-"
Remus dropped his overcoat and, tripping over it and one another, they scrambled to the portrait they had woken and yanked the drapes over Mrs. Black's shrieking visage.
"Well," said Tonks breathlessly, slumping against the wall, sliding to the floor when he did. "I reckon Auntie hasn't heard about my morphing."
Gradually, the muffled epithets ceased, and the only sound in the grimy corridor was Remus and Tonks gasping to catch their breath.
"I…" Remus swallowed painfully, hand rubbing across his jumper as if to still his pounding heart. "I was thinking as if I were still…"
Tonks' clammy hand closed over his, and her rounded eyes, reflecting light from the high window over the door, were huge in her white face. "As if you were still with the pack. Merlin, Remus, I'm sorry."
Remus hung his head. Though part of him was relieved that she understood without his saying, because she needed to get it into her head how damaged he was and get on with her life, the wizard in love was still loath for her to see him as he was.
"I'm so sorry," she repeated in a hushed tone.
Her fingers brushed his fringe back from his forehead. Remus flinched, eyes darting up in a warning look. He could not let her comfort him again. He was too weak to resist the arms she would open to him.
He stood, stiffly, the waxing moon already working on muscles and joints, and said in a voice that suited, "You have nothing to be sorry for."
Her hand fell to her lap. "You're not undercover anymore, Remus," she said quietly. "You're home."
She reached out her hand to him. Remus caught it, pulled her to her feet, then instantly released her. Tonks' forehead creased, and her lips pinched tightly, almost disappearing. She balled her hand into a white-knuckled fist at her side.
"With the Wolfsbane Potion," she said, "you can Transform in your own room, and sleep it off. You don't have to be afraid anymore. You're safe."
"I am not safe."
Remus sidestepped her and trudged to the door. Wolfsbane Potion or not, after the last moon, he dreaded the transformation more than he ever had. Would the wolf remember how it had been to watch the Montgomery child torn limb from limb?
He plucked his overcoat from where it lay crumpled on the floor where he'd dropped it and shoved his arms into the patched sleeves. "And I am not the same."
Tonks blundered after him outside. "You've given up trying to be." The door banged shut behind her.
"It is not that simple," said Remus as he set the wards on the Disillusioned house.
He waited for Tonks' argument.
None came.
Descending the porch steps ahead of her, Remus started toward the Apparation point. But when, after a few paces, he did not hear the counterpoint of her shorter, quicker strides, he turned back. She was rooted to the porch. "See you at yours?"
Tonks shook her head, more as if she were shaking off a reverie than in disagreement with him. As she gracelessly stepped down and caught up to him, she said, "I'd rather walk, if you don't mind."
Remus arched an eyebrow at her. "If you wish."
"It'll be good for you," Tonks said as they fell into step on the pavement. "When was the last time you strolled through the city with a…whatever I am to you?"
"A beautiful woman," said Remus impulsively.
Tonks froze. "What?"
Remus, too, stopped in his tracks. Whatever I am to you had cut him deeply, and recalled her earlier self-deprecating remark about her hair.
Though he knew he shouldn't, knew he would confuse her, he moved to stand just behind her, so close that when she drew breath, her body just brushed his.
"It's not horrible," Remus said hoarsely. He let his hands settle on her narrow shoulders. "You know you're always beautiful to me."
She tensed, and the pads of his fingers pressed gently into her, kneading the knotted muscles at the base of her neck.
"I don't know," Tonks half-whispered. "I'd forgotten."
Remus hands drifted up to the softest part of her neck, stroking the curve of her ear. His fingers skimmed her cheeks, trailed through her hair.
"You're so beautiful," he murmured, noting how his breath raised goose bumps on her skin. God, he wanted to close the gap with a kiss.
She turned to him, glittering eyes reflecting dozens of amber street lamps. "It's been a long time since you reminded me."
Heat flooded Remus cheeks with the ready thought that it was just a month ago that he'd done things with her reserved for lovers, and thought her the loveliest creature he'd ever imagined. Just as quickly, his face drained, a feeling like a Freezing Charm hardening his stomach, with the sudden realisation that not once during that encounter had he complimented her with words.
And then he'd not gone through with it.
He'd left her, naked and confused - and feeling unwanted.
It was his fault she could not Metamorphose. His fault she felt unattractive.
His hands dropped to his sides. He stepped back. Hung his head.
Bastard. Beast. He was completely undeserving of her.
"I tried brown for you once," she said, eyes dull and disbelieving once more. "You told me pink suited better."
"I miss the pink." He hoped she understood he meant she should move on and be happy again.
"Bloody do something about it, then." She turned on her heel and stalked away.
As Remus long strides quickly caught him up to her, Tonks cast a furtive glance up at him. "Sorry."
"Don't be."
"Why? Because you deserve to be treated rudely?"
Fighting irrational annoyance and the urge to walk away from her, Remus said, "I wish I could do something about your powers, but I can't make you happy."
"You used to," Tonks said. "You used to always be at the end of my days. I could get through knowing I'd you to hold me and say Remus things."
"You might have noticed I hardly say Remus things anymore."
"All I'm asking is for you to try."
"No." Remus shook his head. "I will only fail, and you will be stuck with hair you hate and more time wasted."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tonks open her mouth in retort, but she thought the better of speech and pressed her lips together.
They walked in suffocating silence for some time, Remus so desperate to extract himself from this increasingly messy situation that he was contemplating asking if they could Apparate and be done with this business. He'd just made up his mind to do it as they stopped at a traffic light - but at the sight of a red Muggle bus rumbling through the junction, Tonks inhaled sharply and drew close to him.
Though he was not certain what to do with the knowledge that she'd dropped her guard for him even though they were quarrelling, Remus caved to instinct and rested his hand in the small of her back. It felt undeniably good there, not just because longing for her had gnawed at him for the better part of this year, but because she relaxed at his touch.
He could still comfort - even if only superficially. Maybe the damage he had done was not irreparable…
The light changed, and as they crossed the street, Remus kept his arm lightly around her.
"They hadn't broken the curse when I got there," Tonks said as they stepped up onto the opposite curb, "so the traffic light was still casting Incendios every time it changed to green. No one could keep the fire out - and they couldn't get to the bus, and the people…" She drew a deep breath and exhaled with a shudder. "I could hear them. I was sick when I got home."
Sickeningly sweet, the tang of blood pricks his nostrils, wafts through his throat, chokes him.
He whines, lies on his belly and paws at his ears as the human child's cries ring.
He is naked in the woods in winter, retching on the forest floor. No blood passed through his lips, he did not partake of the child's flesh, but he tastes it in his vomit.
The screams will burst his eardrums.
"Sickness is a completely natural response," Remus said, his voice hollow, "when you see something horrific and cannot do anything to stop it."
Tonks smiled sadly and sidled closer against him, shoulder fitting neatly into the crook of his arm.
"I got sick because I thought about the first time I rode one of those buses," she said. "On my fifth birthday. Mum and Dad took me for a big day in London with my Gran."
Remus suddenly felt nothing beneath his foot, and he only narrowly avoided stepping off the curb. Her parents. She'd seldom spoken of them, even last year, when they were together and happy. On one hand it was only natural for him to be thrown off-balance by a mention of them.
If only it was that.
At Christmas Tonks had confessed that she'd not visited her parents because she didn't want them to know about her Metamorphosing. Did that mean they didn't know about the break? Or was there more to it than simply hiding her impaired magic? Were they pleased that she was no longer dating a werewolf, and she was avoiding their lack of sympathy? Did they hate him? Were they vocal? He could hardly blame them…
All were questions he should have asked at Christmas, but other discussion topics had taken priority.
It was the same now. Right now, Tonks came first. She needed to tell this childhood story.
"You'd hardly met your Gran before then," said Remus, recalling from one of their few conversations on the subject that Tonks had not spent much time with her Muggle relatives as a small girl, in part because of her inability to control her powers.
"It's the first memory I've got of her. We went to the toy shop, and the cinema…"
Her face was adorably aglow as she rattled off practically every place in London a five-year-old witch could want to go. Remus was glad to see her light up, remembering something happy for once, though he himself experienced a pang in his chest and felt a flush creep up his neck.
Tonks was used to expensive treats at birthdays and holidays. That was the life she - and her children - deserved. True, she had never made him doubt that his own creative surprises delighted her as much as anything he could have bought, had he had a vault full of gold…But how long would that be enough? His well eventually would run dry. It already had done; if they had been together this year, he would not have been up to the elaborate birthday surprise he'd schemed last year.
At the bloody Shrieking Shack.
His face burned. How could he have?
"Anyway," said Tonks, Mum was right frazzled taking me to all those Muggle places. She kept telling me not to get too excited. She thought my hair or nose would change and give Gran a heart attack. And you can probably guess where this story's going."
"Small overexcited Metamorphmagus spies a red double-decker?" In spite of feeling right frazzled himself with the thought of what Andromeda, with her concern about appearances, would think of Tonks' current state, Remus couldn't help but smile. "Yes, I can guess. I'd like to hear it anyway."
"Of course Mum said no. Gran took my side, though, and there was no winning against her."
"So I'm fighting both Black and Tonks stubborn streaks?"
Tonks rolled her eyes, but said, "Dad's side's the worst. Mum gave in when Gran accused her of never letting me have fun. I suppose she saw a little truth in it."
For some reason unbeknownst to him, Remus found himself questioning Tonks' judicious explanation of Andromeda's reasoning. Sirius had never managed to shed quite all of his ingrained Black elitism; it was likely Andromeda had not thought Muggle transport a treat worthy of her child.
Of all the Muggle born wizards Andromeda could have eloped with, Ted Tonks certainly was one of the furthest removed from her former social sphere. Perhaps that was what had attracted her to him.
But had she ever regretted what she'd given up to marry him? If what Tonks said about her mother's over-protectiveness and preoccupation with not drawing attention to herself or her family was accurate, then it seemed unlikely that Andromeda had rebelled with the same total reckless abandon, never-look-back mentality Sirius had clung to.
"To make a long story short," Tonks said as they stopped for another light, "my permanent record includes an incident of frightening a bus full of Muggles - Gran fainted - when I saw a traffic light and my hair changed with it."
Remus could not help but laugh at the image of five-year-old Tonks, eyes aglow with wonder as she beheld the Muggle device which must have seemed quite as magical, her joy reflected in red, green, and amber hair.
"See?" she said. "Morphing's always had an emotional basis for me."
Realising his arm was still around her - his hand now settled comfortably on her hip - Remus quickly withdrew it, cramming his fists into the pockets of his overcoat.
"I daresay," he said stiffly, "you would rather morph at random than not morph at all."
Tonks clutched at his sleeve. "I didn't mean anything by that, Remus."
"Didn't you?"
Her silence, and her hands sliding away were an affirmative. "I wasn't trying to make a great point of it."
They did not resume their conversation until they stopped at another traffic light, and Remus, knowing from Tonks' perturbed expression that she had another point, and was waiting for him to initiate it, asked, "How did your Muggle family react to the incident?"
"We didn't see Dad's family much after that," said Tonks, tucking her hands into the pockets of her cloak and hunching as a chilly breeze blustered, raking through their hair. "With the war getting worse, and the Death Eaters killing Muggles, Mum and Dad kept their distance."
Her gaze drifted after another double-decker a few streets away as she continued in a lower tone, "A lot of Dad's family were killed anyway. And that's what I thought of when I saw that bus yesterday. My relatives did that."
The light changed, but neither moved to cross the junction. Remus was at a loss to take a step or utter a word as he found himself swept back to the first war.
"Sirius struggled with that, too," he said. "He was fighting against cousins he'd played with as a child. And his baby brother."
Immediately he wished he hadn't spoken. It couldn't help her. Sirius was dead. She couldn't talk to him about how he'd coped. And he hadn't, really; he'd never got past…
But Andromeda…Maybe the thought of relatives and shared experiences would steer Tonks back to her family.
"They hurt Dad's folks because of Mum," Tonks went on, "and now they might… They know I'm on the other side. And well…" She looked up, and he was surprised not to see eyes imploring him for answers, but a resigned expression. "There'll be more of these catastrophes, won't there?" she said frankly. "And they won't all have random victims."
"I'm sorry." Remus voice sounded distant as he was caught up in a swirl of questions.
Had Andromeda felt guilty for how her choice affected the man she loved? Had the trouble she'd brought changed their relationship? Had Ted and Andromeda regretted their marriage?
He didn't see how doubt and regret could not enter in.
"You understand, then," he said, "that this is one of the reasons I cannot be with you?"
Tonks' forehead creased with a baffled expression.
"I abandoned the pack," Remus clarified, hating to drag her into his world. "It is exactly as if I were the only non-Death Eater in the family."
"Not exactly. Sirius wouldn't have let that stop him from living."
Tonks had blurted verbal Stunners before, but usually her face paled and crumpled in contrite embarrassment immediately, as if she'd done something clumsy and inadvertently hurt another.
This time, Tonks' defiance did not waver.
Trying not to feel the sting, Remus turned and shuffled several feet from her, out of the halo of the streetlamp. "I should not be out here with you like this."
"We can Apparate to mine if it'll make you feel better."
"Yes. It would."
But a moment later, standing in Tonks' flat, Remus felt even more ill at ease.
As she took off her cloak and hung it on a hook on the door, placing her shoes tidily underneath, Remus noted how the space looked exactly as it had the last time he'd been here. He'd cleaned the flat that day, while Tonks was working at the Ministry. Though Tonks had not lived here much this year, her flat did seem lived-in - there was no dust, no dirty dishes. She had obviously taken plains to improve her domestic spellwork.
He wished for her clutter. The place felt as though she'd preserved that last happy day together. She needed to move on, to find someone with whom she felt comfortable enough to revert to her sloppy tendencies.
"Can I take your coat?" her voice broke into his musings. She held out her hand.
Remus shook his head. "I should not stay long."
Tonks flounced to the tiny adjoining kitchen. "I'm sure you're itching to get back to Grimmauld." She dipped a ladle into the cauldron bubbling on the cooker and said over her shoulder, "God, Remus, at least take a seat. You're making me nervous."
Obediently, Remus perched at the edge of the settee. Somehow he doubted his ramrod posture did anything to calm Tonks' nerves.
He should not be here…
It was too quiet. Always before they had filled Tonks' small flat with laughter, and talk…The last time, they shared passionate kisses on the sofa whilst Celestina Warbeck warbled her ridiculously soppy love songs over the wireless.
How often he'd dreamed of that night…
He ought to say something. Tonks had just bared her soul about her reaction to the latest Death Eater terror act, and all he'd said was that he could not be with her. No wonder she was tense. She thought he didn't care.
But hadn't he told her he wasn't the same? He did not say Remus things any more because he'd forgotten how.
"I wish I knew what to say," Remus began, "about your concerns for your family. These are dangerous times. Especially for Order members."
He heard the trickle of liquid being ladled from one receptacle to another, and a moment later Tonks slipped around the sofa, holding a mug.
"I don't expect you to have answers," Tonks said gently - graciously - as she set the potion on the coffee table, then curled up at the opposite end of the settee, hugging her knees. How did her anger pass so quickly? "It's enough to ramble about things to you. I'm really glad you're back."
"You've done a lot of rambling to Molly, haven't you?" Remus asked, unwilling to let her entertain the notion that he could be her confidant again. "You've become quite close to her this year?"
"Molly's been lovely. But it might blow your mind to know tea and sympathy with a person like a mother isn't the same as talking with you. And you did great out there, by the way, with my whole bus thing."
"Especially when I made you mad."
She watched him for a moment with a level expression, but when he did not say anything further, her features tightened. Pointedly, she asked, "Who are you close to, Remus?"
"I…"
Something within him compelled him to say her. But it was not so. It could not be. They were close once - no more. It wasn't safe.
He was as isolated now as he had been during the mission, and it was not for lack of people trying to reach him. The Weasleys had urged him to stay at the Burrow. He'd chosen to return to Grimmauld Place.
Just as he'd chosen to drift further and further from Tonks.
No - circumstances had given him no choice about that.
"Isn't that the pot calling the cauldron black?" he rejoined, "if you will excuse the pun." The wry moment was fleeting, and he asked, "When was the last time you saw your parents?"
Tonks' eyes bent guiltily, then, darted up again, flashing. "That's beside the-"
"It is precisely the point." Remus rose and paced the few feet to the small fireplace. "Don't lecture me for withdrawing from people when you have intentionally avoided your parents since last summer."
"I'm busy. Mum and Dad got used to it when I was in Auror training."
"When you were in Auror training, you were not fighting a war."
Remus fingered the chipped varnish of the mantel and resisted the urge to turn over a framed photograph someone had snapped at the Order's last New Year's party, of him and Tonks kissing at midnight. Naturally, he could not keep his gaze off it, or stop his insides from reacting to the captured moment of his hands cupping her face, fingers twining in green curls as she wound her arms around his neck and opened to him.
"Or dating a Dark Creature," he continued, with deliberation, "last they knew. If your parents have not seen you since you were in hospital…Merlin, Tonks, with all the news - they must be worried sick about you."
"They'd be more worried about me if they saw me like this."
The raw pitch of her voice pleaded for him to turn. He did. His heart constricted to see her hugging her knees tightly, chin propped on her knees, eyes vacant.
"They're your parents," Remus said. "They love you, and they could help you-"
Tonks' head shot up. "Aren't I fighting enough people?"
She stared at him for a long moment, during which Remus cast about for a response that would put this to rest once and for all, and not simply annoy her. He found nothing.
"I'm tired, Remus." Her head dropped against the back of the settee as she sank into the corner. "I can't deal with one more of the people I love most in the world thinking they know better than I do what I need, and giving me what I don't."
Was that how she felt? He'd never intended…
But hadn't he? Didn't all of it come down to the fact that Tonks, no matter how much he respected and admired her, just didn't understand that he was no good for her?
After what happened in March, it ought to be impossible for her not to see.
Either she was being wilfully blind, or she was too young.
Remus returned to the settee, standing just in front of her. She did not look up. He sank to his knees and took one of her hands. His other hand touched her chin, lifting it so that she met his gaze.
"The last time I saw you," he said, choked by the emotion in her dark eyes, wishing he weren't looking at her, "I nearly took you to bed because I thought you needed intimacy."
It was almost a relief when her gaze dropped, but her fingers curled under his as she said, "I did. I do."
"Nymphadora…Look me in the eye, and tell me honestly that was how you wanted it to be for us."
She blinked, hard, but did not look at him. She caught her lower lip between her teeth.
"If there were a future for us," he continued, moving his hand from her face and raking it through his hair, then hastily added, "and there is not…Is that really how you want to remember our first time?"
Her brows twitched together in a puzzled expression.
Sighing, as though to physically force back his mounting embarrassment (how could he have done this to her?) Remus explained, "That it happened because you wanted comfort after a bad fright and I needed to feel human? You cannot tell me you would not have looked back and felt used. You cannot tell me you would have seen it as anything more than desperation."
"Oh," she said with a sarcastic sound, and wrenched her hand from his grasp. "I reckon I should thank you for sparing my poor heart."
Too warm in his coat, Remus straightened, stiffly, but did not remove the outdoor garment. The heat in his face had nothing to do with clothing.
"I would think you would appreciate that," he said, "after what I've already put you through."
"Come on, Remus," she said with exasperation, "no one thinks their first time was the best time."
"Because it's a little awkward, sweetheart, not because they wake up the next morning and wish they hadn't been driven to it by despair."
"No." Shaking her head, Tonks awkwardly uncurled her limbs and rather wobbly got to her feet. "Don't condescend to me, Remus Lupin. I refuse to let you make me out to be a starry-eyed schoolgirl who thinks love's a fairytale."
He opened his mouth in retort, but she went on, volume rising, "And don't you dare tell me I deserve a fairytale to make yourself feel noble. It's you that wants a fairytale, not me."
"My life is a chapter out of a Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook."
"I fight the Dark Arts for a living, in case you've forgot."
"I have not. And I will be damned if you must fight them at home, too."
The fury in her expression went much further than skin deep. Remus could not decide if that wrenched him more than the ever-present sadness. He had angered and saddened her. He did this. She was miserable because of him. She felt unattractive.
Instinctively, he reached for her. To touch her face, or her shoulders. But she stepped back, and his hands hung useless at his sides.
"You don't have to, Tonks you're a remarkable, beautiful-"
Before he could go on, or gauge her reaction, Tonks turned her back to him. "What in bloody hell do I have to do to get it through that thick skull of yours that wizards aren't lining up to date me? They never have."
"You're young, Tonks, you've time-"
"What time, Remus?" she shouted, and span to face him again, arms flailing for balance and emphasis. "What bloody time? I'm an Auror, and in the Order, and tomorrow I could die."
Tonks' rapid, ragged breathing was the only sound in the room. It accentuated the searing feeling in Remus lungs, as if she had Summoned all the oxygen from his lungs.
He dropped onto the settee.
"That didn't come out right." Tonks sank onto the cushions. "I'm not…I've never…"
She blinked hard, drew a deep breath and reached for him. He held himself away.
"I didn't choose you because there was no one else," she croaked. "There hasn't been anyone else because there isn't anyone for me but you."
"I appreciate that," said Remus in the dry tone he had, over the years, perfected. "That completely quells my fear that you might have just settled for me."
Tonks' head bowed. "I'm sorry." She ran both hands through her hair and tugged, helplessly.
Remus turned, so that he could not see her out the corner of his eye. "So am I. You've got to face the facts, Tonks. Think about what you said to me earlier. I'm still thinking like I’m with the pack."
Thirsty, he swallowed, moistened his lips. It didn't help. His eyes moved to the coffee table, settling on the mug. Wolfsbane Potion.
"We're not what we were," he said, resuming his seat on the settee. "I am a world away. And you know it."
Tonks moved, sitting up on her knees, leaning toward him. Her small, callused fingers closed firmly around his chin and turned him to face her.
"Stop being a stubborn git and let me help you find your way back."
Their eyes held for breathless moments. The pulse in her thumb fluttered against his skin, syncopated against his slowly thudding heart. She was waiting for him to speak.
Waiting for yet another thing that would not happen.
Her hand went cold. And fell away.
"Drink up." Tonks jerked her head toward the Potion, then resumed her curled up posture. "Merlin, I hope it's right. Snape said it was, but we know he's as big a Remus Lupin fan as Dolores Umbridge."
"I heard."
"Oh God, Remus…He was just being cruel. He was just being Snape. No one believes you…"
It did not escape Remus notice that Tonks was not unable to carry that thought to its completion. A stiffening in her posture indicated she was perfectly aware of this shortcoming.
"Perhaps not. But the truth is, the feral urge was there."
"You didn't give in to it." Her eyes were hopeful. Always hopeful.
"I came far too close. This is too close. I should go."
Remus drank. And choked.
Tonks clutched her knees together. "Is it foul?"
"Fouler than I remembered," Remus grimaced.
"Good." Tonks' dark eyes were expressionless.
Struggling not to gag on the last gulp, Remus rose. It looked as though he'd no further use for Tonks now he had drunk the potion, and he hated it. But he couldn't stay here and argue with her.
"I do appreciate your…" He caught himself at the brink of uttering the word trouble. "I do appreciate this." He cast a Scourgify on the mug and levitated it back to its proper cupboard.
"You'll pop over tomorrow for your second dose?" Tonks walked with him to the door.
Remus made the slightest sound in the back of his throat at the prospect of going through this every night this week.
"Look Tonks," he said heavily, "we obviously cannot avoid one another, but we will never arrive at any sort of proper professional relationship if we keep having the same conversation about something that can never be."
"I'm not going to surrender my own personal war, Remus, any more than I'm going to give up on the real one."
War. Fleur Delacour had called it a battle of the heart - dramatically, Remus had thought at the time, as he'd promptly buried it deep in a corner of his mind, where it was quickly forgotten. She had not been far off.
"I can't give up," Tonks said, "knowing your heart's married to me."
Remus cursed himself for being too weak to fully let her go, too powerless to protect her from that knowledge.
"Bloody awful husband, my heart."
The corner of Tonks' mouth twitched faintly. "There's room for improvement, yeah."
Remus opened the door and stepped into the corridor, but turned back. "Don't let me be another catastrophe in your war, Nymphadora."
A peculiar smile crossed Tonks' face. Before she could say anything else, Remus left.
As he waited at the light to cross the street to the Apparation point, he realised that in Tonks' world, his words held a very different meaning than they did in his.
He had failed to put a stop to her wait.
The End
A/N: Well, they're fighting, but at least they're communicating, right? And building tension will be a good thing once they finally work through their issues, won't it? In any case, you don't have much longer to wait till The Post-Hospital Scene Fic. Two more fics, I believe.
As always, I really appreciate my readers, and especially all the feedback you've left. This time, reviewers get their choice of guilty, vulnerable Remus who's so eager to make amends that he'll give a neck rub and dish out lots of compliments; or Remus who's rapidly losing control over his pent-up emotions and will argue and get all hot and bothered.
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Author: MrsTater
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Featured Characters: Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks; Severus Snape
Summary: His mission aborted after the disastrous March attack on the Montgomery child, Remus struggles to fit into the Order as he did before -- a task which proves as impossible as his underground mission when he and Tonks cannot seem to put aside their feelings and unresolved issues and operate as colleagues.
Author's Notes: This story follows Steal, Kill, Destroy in the Transfigured Hearts series and is set sometime in April of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. As always, special thanks to Godricgal for her excellent beta work, and to Gilpin25 for her invaluable feedback about the original version of this piece, written for the June/July 2006 rt_challenge. Concrit appreciated.
Waiting
Tonks was waiting.
All of them were. Headquarters was a station, these days, from which each member of the Order of the Phoenix filtered out to whatever platform would lead them to the next careening train they must leap aboard. Most walked slowly, with scuffing shoes and slumping shoulders, conserving energy for where it was needed most. The Aurors clipped along, despite having the most haggard faces of all. Stops at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, were few and far between these days; instead, they leapt from one train to the other.
Yet Tonks was waiting.
She lingered at the foot of the stairs, engaging nearly everyone who passed, but Remus knew she was waiting for him. Her eyes repeatedly drifted over Dedalus Diggle's bobbing violet top hat to settle on Remus, bent over the table as he coordinated Bill Weasley's new guard shifts with his Gringott's schedule. She had cast such furtive glances at him throughout the meeting - and during her report his had been the only face her troubled eyes had sought - so he was not surprised that she had not left the meeting straight away.
He wished she would do. She needed rest, a proper meal, bed. Work for the Ministry and work for the Order depleted her energy reserves. She had worried away her appetite and lost too much sleep over him. Boarding his train was the last thing in the world she needed.
And this one was sure to be as big a wreck as any, he realised suddenly, hit with a wave of nausea when Bill strode away and Remus overheard Snape address Tonks in tones as greasy as the black hair that fell forward into his sallow face as he leant over the banister: "Waiting for your test subject, Nymphadora?"
His sneering glance darted sidelong at Remus.
Dear Merlin. It was the start of the full moon week. The Potion. Tonks could brew Wolfsbane Potion now.
And the unflinching look on her face as she watched Snape confirmed that she had brewed it, somehow, in the midst of her relentless schedule.
"I advise you," Snape continued as Dedalus, looking alarmed and mortified, scuttled upstairs clinging to his precarious hat, "not to observe the test, as there have been no prior studies on Wolfsbane Potion's effect on…" In profile, his hard black eyes glittered, and the thin lips twisted with mixed disgust and triumph. "…feral werewolves."
Black robes billowed as he resumed his ascent, but Tonks, gaunt face looking eerily like Sirius', shot out an arm and caught Snape's thin, white wrist, effectively stopping him.
"I've played the part of the respectful and submissive Potions student," she ground out with a low control incongruous with her fierce expression, "but I assure you, Severus, that it was only an act till I'd got what I wanted from you. Now that I have, you'll do well to remember that I'm-"
"Have you got what you want, Nymphadora?" Snape's eyes flicked up to Tonks' mousy hair.
With a new appreciation for poor Neville Longbottom's fear of the demoralising Hogwarts Potionsmaster, Remus gripped the back of a chair for support as he watched Tonks' hand release Snape's wrist. The look on Tonks' ashen face as Snape swept upstairs resembled nothing so much as the expression she had worn with Remus left her three weeks ago in her shabby room at the Hogshead Inn, naked and rejected.
He had hurt her again, without having spoken one word.
He ought to have said something…But then it was him Snape had insulted…Though with the clear intention of hurting her…
And now Remus must speak to her, and risk more hurt, because she was waiting.
Always waiting.
Downcast dark eyes darted up the instant he stepped toward her. Remus fixed his gaze just below hers, on the greyish purple circles that seemed to be a permanent feature on her unchanging, pale face.
"Good evening, Tonks." Fighting the pull of her eyes, he forced his just over the top of her head.
The drab hair in his peripheral vision evoked as much guilt as her eyes would have.
"Wotcher."
The ensuing silence seemed loud in comparison to her flat greeting. Remus waited for her to light into him.
Silence persisted. And pressed down so heavily that he could no longer avoid her gaze.
Expectation.
The destination was up to him. Tonks was trusting him not to take her to a place of hurt.
As if he had ever proved himself trustworthy in that regard.
"How are you holding up?" Remus hoped he sounded like a concerned colleague. "It must have been quite upsetting to see what you did yesterday."
Tonks crossed her arms over her chest. "I saw a Muggle bus burn. Death Eaters thought it would be fun to put a timed Incendio on a traffic light. Of course it was upsetting."
Remus gaze dropped, and his fingers toyed with the longish hair at the base of his neck. "I thought you wanted me to say something."
Tonks let out a long sigh. "I hate that it's like this between us. It feels completely wrong."
"I know," Remus acknowledged.
"But this is how it's got to be."
"Yes."
Tonks snorted. "Your words, Remus."
He looked up sharply. "I know that, too."
Tonks' narrowed eyes and pursed lips gave Remus the impression that she was silently and wandlessly hexing him. It startled him that he felt no magical change come over him, and Tonks abruptly turned on her heel and, robes swishing against his legs, plodded around him to mount the stairs.
"Are you going to come quietly, then?" Her voice was a high staccato, off-tempo from both their footfalls. "Or am I going to have to have to forcibly move you to my flat and silence you so I don't have to listen to your whinging about how I shouldn't have bothered with your bloody potion?"
"It is a bother," Remus said, stupidly, though in an involuntary reaction to the disgusting image of Snape sneering at Tonks, "and you should not have."
Her thick-soled boot slipped off the riser. Remus hand shot out to steady her, but Tonks shrugged away from his touch and cast a dark look over her shoulder.
"Don’t be a sodding idiot. You'd take it from Snape if he'd still brew it."
For a moment she held him with that hard look, then she continued upstairs.
"Tonks, I'm sorry." Remus followed, slowly, hand on the banister. "I do appreciate all the trouble-"
"If you appreciated it, you'd know it's no trouble. Well-" Turning at the landing, Tonks' lips curved in a smirk. "Snape's a bastard and the potion's a bit finicky…But you're the trouble."
They were teasing words, but her tone was not in the slightest - and the sadness in the depths of her eyes extinguished the fire of her speech.
Wretchedly, Remus watched his fingers pick at the chipped varnish on the finial as he alit from the staircase. "That's worse. You kept on doing something for me, even as I put you through hell."
"Yeah." Tonks resumed her defensive crossed-arms stance. "You have put me through hell. And if I'm to be stuck with this crap hair, the very least you can do is let me do something that makes me happy."
"How can-?"
"-it make me happy when you're so much trouble?" Shaking her head, she span and strode down the corridor.
"God, Remus…" She faltered and leant heavily against the wall, raking a hand through her hair, tugging hard at the roots. "…that's so tired."
"Of course it is," Remus said in clipped syllables. "My reasons for not being with you have not changed, nor will they." Noting her posture, he added, "Aren't you tired?"
Her head bowed, and she looked old and bent under the weight of all she carried, all alone - but only for an instant. She threw her shoulders back. "We've got to soldier on, haven't we?" She marched toward the door. "You coming?"
Though it seemed he had no choice but to obey, Remus took just one step. "Are you still at the Hogshead?"
He swallowed a painful lump in his throat as he was barraged with images of frantically kissing her yielding mouth, of her nude body beneath his on the narrow bed in the dodgy inn.
"Nope."
The troll-foot umbrella stand clunked as Tonks failed to avoid it, and in the process of plucking her cloak from the hall tree, she made Remus overcoat fall off its branch. Summoning it, she said, "I'm in town this week."
Remus flicked his wand to put out the lights. He wasn't sure if Tonks' flat was a better alternative than the Hogshead.
As Tonks proffered his coat, her expression softened. "You haven't already picked up a dose at the apothecary, have you? Is that what this reluctance is about?"
"You know why I'm reluctant," said Remus, feeling her fingers through the threadbare fabric they both clutched. "And no."
Tonks studied him with her keen Auror's gaze. "Were you planning on going to the apothecary?"
Remus mouth went dry.
It had never even occurred…Not once had he thought…
"Remus?" Tonks' voice shook as her hand fell away from his coat.
Looking just beyond her shoulder, Remus swallowed hard. "I've got used to-"
"Being in pain?" Her voice cracked. "Not being in control of your own mind?"
Red-faced, Tonks stepped toward him.
Remus stepped back.
"Dammit, Remus, if you weren't going to take your potion, where in the bloody hell were you planning to Transform? The damned Shrieking Shack?"
She had backed him, quite literally, into a wall. The chin of one of the House-elf heads scraped his scalp.
"What were you thinking? What, in Merlin's name-"
"MUTANTS! MUD-BLOOD FILTH! HALF-BRED SHAPE-SHIFTING FREAKS! ABOM-"
Remus dropped his overcoat and, tripping over it and one another, they scrambled to the portrait they had woken and yanked the drapes over Mrs. Black's shrieking visage.
"Well," said Tonks breathlessly, slumping against the wall, sliding to the floor when he did. "I reckon Auntie hasn't heard about my morphing."
Gradually, the muffled epithets ceased, and the only sound in the grimy corridor was Remus and Tonks gasping to catch their breath.
"I…" Remus swallowed painfully, hand rubbing across his jumper as if to still his pounding heart. "I was thinking as if I were still…"
Tonks' clammy hand closed over his, and her rounded eyes, reflecting light from the high window over the door, were huge in her white face. "As if you were still with the pack. Merlin, Remus, I'm sorry."
Remus hung his head. Though part of him was relieved that she understood without his saying, because she needed to get it into her head how damaged he was and get on with her life, the wizard in love was still loath for her to see him as he was.
"I'm so sorry," she repeated in a hushed tone.
Her fingers brushed his fringe back from his forehead. Remus flinched, eyes darting up in a warning look. He could not let her comfort him again. He was too weak to resist the arms she would open to him.
He stood, stiffly, the waxing moon already working on muscles and joints, and said in a voice that suited, "You have nothing to be sorry for."
Her hand fell to her lap. "You're not undercover anymore, Remus," she said quietly. "You're home."
She reached out her hand to him. Remus caught it, pulled her to her feet, then instantly released her. Tonks' forehead creased, and her lips pinched tightly, almost disappearing. She balled her hand into a white-knuckled fist at her side.
"With the Wolfsbane Potion," she said, "you can Transform in your own room, and sleep it off. You don't have to be afraid anymore. You're safe."
"I am not safe."
Remus sidestepped her and trudged to the door. Wolfsbane Potion or not, after the last moon, he dreaded the transformation more than he ever had. Would the wolf remember how it had been to watch the Montgomery child torn limb from limb?
He plucked his overcoat from where it lay crumpled on the floor where he'd dropped it and shoved his arms into the patched sleeves. "And I am not the same."
Tonks blundered after him outside. "You've given up trying to be." The door banged shut behind her.
"It is not that simple," said Remus as he set the wards on the Disillusioned house.
He waited for Tonks' argument.
None came.
Descending the porch steps ahead of her, Remus started toward the Apparation point. But when, after a few paces, he did not hear the counterpoint of her shorter, quicker strides, he turned back. She was rooted to the porch. "See you at yours?"
Tonks shook her head, more as if she were shaking off a reverie than in disagreement with him. As she gracelessly stepped down and caught up to him, she said, "I'd rather walk, if you don't mind."
Remus arched an eyebrow at her. "If you wish."
"It'll be good for you," Tonks said as they fell into step on the pavement. "When was the last time you strolled through the city with a…whatever I am to you?"
"A beautiful woman," said Remus impulsively.
Tonks froze. "What?"
Remus, too, stopped in his tracks. Whatever I am to you had cut him deeply, and recalled her earlier self-deprecating remark about her hair.
Though he knew he shouldn't, knew he would confuse her, he moved to stand just behind her, so close that when she drew breath, her body just brushed his.
"It's not horrible," Remus said hoarsely. He let his hands settle on her narrow shoulders. "You know you're always beautiful to me."
She tensed, and the pads of his fingers pressed gently into her, kneading the knotted muscles at the base of her neck.
"I don't know," Tonks half-whispered. "I'd forgotten."
Remus hands drifted up to the softest part of her neck, stroking the curve of her ear. His fingers skimmed her cheeks, trailed through her hair.
"You're so beautiful," he murmured, noting how his breath raised goose bumps on her skin. God, he wanted to close the gap with a kiss.
She turned to him, glittering eyes reflecting dozens of amber street lamps. "It's been a long time since you reminded me."
Heat flooded Remus cheeks with the ready thought that it was just a month ago that he'd done things with her reserved for lovers, and thought her the loveliest creature he'd ever imagined. Just as quickly, his face drained, a feeling like a Freezing Charm hardening his stomach, with the sudden realisation that not once during that encounter had he complimented her with words.
And then he'd not gone through with it.
He'd left her, naked and confused - and feeling unwanted.
It was his fault she could not Metamorphose. His fault she felt unattractive.
His hands dropped to his sides. He stepped back. Hung his head.
Bastard. Beast. He was completely undeserving of her.
"I tried brown for you once," she said, eyes dull and disbelieving once more. "You told me pink suited better."
"I miss the pink." He hoped she understood he meant she should move on and be happy again.
"Bloody do something about it, then." She turned on her heel and stalked away.
As Remus long strides quickly caught him up to her, Tonks cast a furtive glance up at him. "Sorry."
"Don't be."
"Why? Because you deserve to be treated rudely?"
Fighting irrational annoyance and the urge to walk away from her, Remus said, "I wish I could do something about your powers, but I can't make you happy."
"You used to," Tonks said. "You used to always be at the end of my days. I could get through knowing I'd you to hold me and say Remus things."
"You might have noticed I hardly say Remus things anymore."
"All I'm asking is for you to try."
"No." Remus shook his head. "I will only fail, and you will be stuck with hair you hate and more time wasted."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tonks open her mouth in retort, but she thought the better of speech and pressed her lips together.
They walked in suffocating silence for some time, Remus so desperate to extract himself from this increasingly messy situation that he was contemplating asking if they could Apparate and be done with this business. He'd just made up his mind to do it as they stopped at a traffic light - but at the sight of a red Muggle bus rumbling through the junction, Tonks inhaled sharply and drew close to him.
Though he was not certain what to do with the knowledge that she'd dropped her guard for him even though they were quarrelling, Remus caved to instinct and rested his hand in the small of her back. It felt undeniably good there, not just because longing for her had gnawed at him for the better part of this year, but because she relaxed at his touch.
He could still comfort - even if only superficially. Maybe the damage he had done was not irreparable…
The light changed, and as they crossed the street, Remus kept his arm lightly around her.
"They hadn't broken the curse when I got there," Tonks said as they stepped up onto the opposite curb, "so the traffic light was still casting Incendios every time it changed to green. No one could keep the fire out - and they couldn't get to the bus, and the people…" She drew a deep breath and exhaled with a shudder. "I could hear them. I was sick when I got home."
Sickeningly sweet, the tang of blood pricks his nostrils, wafts through his throat, chokes him.
He whines, lies on his belly and paws at his ears as the human child's cries ring.
He is naked in the woods in winter, retching on the forest floor. No blood passed through his lips, he did not partake of the child's flesh, but he tastes it in his vomit.
The screams will burst his eardrums.
"Sickness is a completely natural response," Remus said, his voice hollow, "when you see something horrific and cannot do anything to stop it."
Tonks smiled sadly and sidled closer against him, shoulder fitting neatly into the crook of his arm.
"I got sick because I thought about the first time I rode one of those buses," she said. "On my fifth birthday. Mum and Dad took me for a big day in London with my Gran."
Remus suddenly felt nothing beneath his foot, and he only narrowly avoided stepping off the curb. Her parents. She'd seldom spoken of them, even last year, when they were together and happy. On one hand it was only natural for him to be thrown off-balance by a mention of them.
If only it was that.
At Christmas Tonks had confessed that she'd not visited her parents because she didn't want them to know about her Metamorphosing. Did that mean they didn't know about the break? Or was there more to it than simply hiding her impaired magic? Were they pleased that she was no longer dating a werewolf, and she was avoiding their lack of sympathy? Did they hate him? Were they vocal? He could hardly blame them…
All were questions he should have asked at Christmas, but other discussion topics had taken priority.
It was the same now. Right now, Tonks came first. She needed to tell this childhood story.
"You'd hardly met your Gran before then," said Remus, recalling from one of their few conversations on the subject that Tonks had not spent much time with her Muggle relatives as a small girl, in part because of her inability to control her powers.
"It's the first memory I've got of her. We went to the toy shop, and the cinema…"
Her face was adorably aglow as she rattled off practically every place in London a five-year-old witch could want to go. Remus was glad to see her light up, remembering something happy for once, though he himself experienced a pang in his chest and felt a flush creep up his neck.
Tonks was used to expensive treats at birthdays and holidays. That was the life she - and her children - deserved. True, she had never made him doubt that his own creative surprises delighted her as much as anything he could have bought, had he had a vault full of gold…But how long would that be enough? His well eventually would run dry. It already had done; if they had been together this year, he would not have been up to the elaborate birthday surprise he'd schemed last year.
At the bloody Shrieking Shack.
His face burned. How could he have?
"Anyway," said Tonks, Mum was right frazzled taking me to all those Muggle places. She kept telling me not to get too excited. She thought my hair or nose would change and give Gran a heart attack. And you can probably guess where this story's going."
"Small overexcited Metamorphmagus spies a red double-decker?" In spite of feeling right frazzled himself with the thought of what Andromeda, with her concern about appearances, would think of Tonks' current state, Remus couldn't help but smile. "Yes, I can guess. I'd like to hear it anyway."
"Of course Mum said no. Gran took my side, though, and there was no winning against her."
"So I'm fighting both Black and Tonks stubborn streaks?"
Tonks rolled her eyes, but said, "Dad's side's the worst. Mum gave in when Gran accused her of never letting me have fun. I suppose she saw a little truth in it."
For some reason unbeknownst to him, Remus found himself questioning Tonks' judicious explanation of Andromeda's reasoning. Sirius had never managed to shed quite all of his ingrained Black elitism; it was likely Andromeda had not thought Muggle transport a treat worthy of her child.
Of all the Muggle born wizards Andromeda could have eloped with, Ted Tonks certainly was one of the furthest removed from her former social sphere. Perhaps that was what had attracted her to him.
But had she ever regretted what she'd given up to marry him? If what Tonks said about her mother's over-protectiveness and preoccupation with not drawing attention to herself or her family was accurate, then it seemed unlikely that Andromeda had rebelled with the same total reckless abandon, never-look-back mentality Sirius had clung to.
"To make a long story short," Tonks said as they stopped for another light, "my permanent record includes an incident of frightening a bus full of Muggles - Gran fainted - when I saw a traffic light and my hair changed with it."
Remus could not help but laugh at the image of five-year-old Tonks, eyes aglow with wonder as she beheld the Muggle device which must have seemed quite as magical, her joy reflected in red, green, and amber hair.
"See?" she said. "Morphing's always had an emotional basis for me."
Realising his arm was still around her - his hand now settled comfortably on her hip - Remus quickly withdrew it, cramming his fists into the pockets of his overcoat.
"I daresay," he said stiffly, "you would rather morph at random than not morph at all."
Tonks clutched at his sleeve. "I didn't mean anything by that, Remus."
"Didn't you?"
Her silence, and her hands sliding away were an affirmative. "I wasn't trying to make a great point of it."
They did not resume their conversation until they stopped at another traffic light, and Remus, knowing from Tonks' perturbed expression that she had another point, and was waiting for him to initiate it, asked, "How did your Muggle family react to the incident?"
"We didn't see Dad's family much after that," said Tonks, tucking her hands into the pockets of her cloak and hunching as a chilly breeze blustered, raking through their hair. "With the war getting worse, and the Death Eaters killing Muggles, Mum and Dad kept their distance."
Her gaze drifted after another double-decker a few streets away as she continued in a lower tone, "A lot of Dad's family were killed anyway. And that's what I thought of when I saw that bus yesterday. My relatives did that."
The light changed, but neither moved to cross the junction. Remus was at a loss to take a step or utter a word as he found himself swept back to the first war.
"Sirius struggled with that, too," he said. "He was fighting against cousins he'd played with as a child. And his baby brother."
Immediately he wished he hadn't spoken. It couldn't help her. Sirius was dead. She couldn't talk to him about how he'd coped. And he hadn't, really; he'd never got past…
But Andromeda…Maybe the thought of relatives and shared experiences would steer Tonks back to her family.
"They hurt Dad's folks because of Mum," Tonks went on, "and now they might… They know I'm on the other side. And well…" She looked up, and he was surprised not to see eyes imploring him for answers, but a resigned expression. "There'll be more of these catastrophes, won't there?" she said frankly. "And they won't all have random victims."
"I'm sorry." Remus voice sounded distant as he was caught up in a swirl of questions.
Had Andromeda felt guilty for how her choice affected the man she loved? Had the trouble she'd brought changed their relationship? Had Ted and Andromeda regretted their marriage?
He didn't see how doubt and regret could not enter in.
"You understand, then," he said, "that this is one of the reasons I cannot be with you?"
Tonks' forehead creased with a baffled expression.
"I abandoned the pack," Remus clarified, hating to drag her into his world. "It is exactly as if I were the only non-Death Eater in the family."
"Not exactly. Sirius wouldn't have let that stop him from living."
Tonks had blurted verbal Stunners before, but usually her face paled and crumpled in contrite embarrassment immediately, as if she'd done something clumsy and inadvertently hurt another.
This time, Tonks' defiance did not waver.
Trying not to feel the sting, Remus turned and shuffled several feet from her, out of the halo of the streetlamp. "I should not be out here with you like this."
"We can Apparate to mine if it'll make you feel better."
"Yes. It would."
But a moment later, standing in Tonks' flat, Remus felt even more ill at ease.
As she took off her cloak and hung it on a hook on the door, placing her shoes tidily underneath, Remus noted how the space looked exactly as it had the last time he'd been here. He'd cleaned the flat that day, while Tonks was working at the Ministry. Though Tonks had not lived here much this year, her flat did seem lived-in - there was no dust, no dirty dishes. She had obviously taken plains to improve her domestic spellwork.
He wished for her clutter. The place felt as though she'd preserved that last happy day together. She needed to move on, to find someone with whom she felt comfortable enough to revert to her sloppy tendencies.
"Can I take your coat?" her voice broke into his musings. She held out her hand.
Remus shook his head. "I should not stay long."
Tonks flounced to the tiny adjoining kitchen. "I'm sure you're itching to get back to Grimmauld." She dipped a ladle into the cauldron bubbling on the cooker and said over her shoulder, "God, Remus, at least take a seat. You're making me nervous."
Obediently, Remus perched at the edge of the settee. Somehow he doubted his ramrod posture did anything to calm Tonks' nerves.
He should not be here…
It was too quiet. Always before they had filled Tonks' small flat with laughter, and talk…The last time, they shared passionate kisses on the sofa whilst Celestina Warbeck warbled her ridiculously soppy love songs over the wireless.
How often he'd dreamed of that night…
He ought to say something. Tonks had just bared her soul about her reaction to the latest Death Eater terror act, and all he'd said was that he could not be with her. No wonder she was tense. She thought he didn't care.
But hadn't he told her he wasn't the same? He did not say Remus things any more because he'd forgotten how.
"I wish I knew what to say," Remus began, "about your concerns for your family. These are dangerous times. Especially for Order members."
He heard the trickle of liquid being ladled from one receptacle to another, and a moment later Tonks slipped around the sofa, holding a mug.
"I don't expect you to have answers," Tonks said gently - graciously - as she set the potion on the coffee table, then curled up at the opposite end of the settee, hugging her knees. How did her anger pass so quickly? "It's enough to ramble about things to you. I'm really glad you're back."
"You've done a lot of rambling to Molly, haven't you?" Remus asked, unwilling to let her entertain the notion that he could be her confidant again. "You've become quite close to her this year?"
"Molly's been lovely. But it might blow your mind to know tea and sympathy with a person like a mother isn't the same as talking with you. And you did great out there, by the way, with my whole bus thing."
"Especially when I made you mad."
She watched him for a moment with a level expression, but when he did not say anything further, her features tightened. Pointedly, she asked, "Who are you close to, Remus?"
"I…"
Something within him compelled him to say her. But it was not so. It could not be. They were close once - no more. It wasn't safe.
He was as isolated now as he had been during the mission, and it was not for lack of people trying to reach him. The Weasleys had urged him to stay at the Burrow. He'd chosen to return to Grimmauld Place.
Just as he'd chosen to drift further and further from Tonks.
No - circumstances had given him no choice about that.
"Isn't that the pot calling the cauldron black?" he rejoined, "if you will excuse the pun." The wry moment was fleeting, and he asked, "When was the last time you saw your parents?"
Tonks' eyes bent guiltily, then, darted up again, flashing. "That's beside the-"
"It is precisely the point." Remus rose and paced the few feet to the small fireplace. "Don't lecture me for withdrawing from people when you have intentionally avoided your parents since last summer."
"I'm busy. Mum and Dad got used to it when I was in Auror training."
"When you were in Auror training, you were not fighting a war."
Remus fingered the chipped varnish of the mantel and resisted the urge to turn over a framed photograph someone had snapped at the Order's last New Year's party, of him and Tonks kissing at midnight. Naturally, he could not keep his gaze off it, or stop his insides from reacting to the captured moment of his hands cupping her face, fingers twining in green curls as she wound her arms around his neck and opened to him.
"Or dating a Dark Creature," he continued, with deliberation, "last they knew. If your parents have not seen you since you were in hospital…Merlin, Tonks, with all the news - they must be worried sick about you."
"They'd be more worried about me if they saw me like this."
The raw pitch of her voice pleaded for him to turn. He did. His heart constricted to see her hugging her knees tightly, chin propped on her knees, eyes vacant.
"They're your parents," Remus said. "They love you, and they could help you-"
Tonks' head shot up. "Aren't I fighting enough people?"
She stared at him for a long moment, during which Remus cast about for a response that would put this to rest once and for all, and not simply annoy her. He found nothing.
"I'm tired, Remus." Her head dropped against the back of the settee as she sank into the corner. "I can't deal with one more of the people I love most in the world thinking they know better than I do what I need, and giving me what I don't."
Was that how she felt? He'd never intended…
But hadn't he? Didn't all of it come down to the fact that Tonks, no matter how much he respected and admired her, just didn't understand that he was no good for her?
After what happened in March, it ought to be impossible for her not to see.
Either she was being wilfully blind, or she was too young.
Remus returned to the settee, standing just in front of her. She did not look up. He sank to his knees and took one of her hands. His other hand touched her chin, lifting it so that she met his gaze.
"The last time I saw you," he said, choked by the emotion in her dark eyes, wishing he weren't looking at her, "I nearly took you to bed because I thought you needed intimacy."
It was almost a relief when her gaze dropped, but her fingers curled under his as she said, "I did. I do."
"Nymphadora…Look me in the eye, and tell me honestly that was how you wanted it to be for us."
She blinked, hard, but did not look at him. She caught her lower lip between her teeth.
"If there were a future for us," he continued, moving his hand from her face and raking it through his hair, then hastily added, "and there is not…Is that really how you want to remember our first time?"
Her brows twitched together in a puzzled expression.
Sighing, as though to physically force back his mounting embarrassment (how could he have done this to her?) Remus explained, "That it happened because you wanted comfort after a bad fright and I needed to feel human? You cannot tell me you would not have looked back and felt used. You cannot tell me you would have seen it as anything more than desperation."
"Oh," she said with a sarcastic sound, and wrenched her hand from his grasp. "I reckon I should thank you for sparing my poor heart."
Too warm in his coat, Remus straightened, stiffly, but did not remove the outdoor garment. The heat in his face had nothing to do with clothing.
"I would think you would appreciate that," he said, "after what I've already put you through."
"Come on, Remus," she said with exasperation, "no one thinks their first time was the best time."
"Because it's a little awkward, sweetheart, not because they wake up the next morning and wish they hadn't been driven to it by despair."
"No." Shaking her head, Tonks awkwardly uncurled her limbs and rather wobbly got to her feet. "Don't condescend to me, Remus Lupin. I refuse to let you make me out to be a starry-eyed schoolgirl who thinks love's a fairytale."
He opened his mouth in retort, but she went on, volume rising, "And don't you dare tell me I deserve a fairytale to make yourself feel noble. It's you that wants a fairytale, not me."
"My life is a chapter out of a Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook."
"I fight the Dark Arts for a living, in case you've forgot."
"I have not. And I will be damned if you must fight them at home, too."
The fury in her expression went much further than skin deep. Remus could not decide if that wrenched him more than the ever-present sadness. He had angered and saddened her. He did this. She was miserable because of him. She felt unattractive.
Instinctively, he reached for her. To touch her face, or her shoulders. But she stepped back, and his hands hung useless at his sides.
"You don't have to, Tonks you're a remarkable, beautiful-"
Before he could go on, or gauge her reaction, Tonks turned her back to him. "What in bloody hell do I have to do to get it through that thick skull of yours that wizards aren't lining up to date me? They never have."
"You're young, Tonks, you've time-"
"What time, Remus?" she shouted, and span to face him again, arms flailing for balance and emphasis. "What bloody time? I'm an Auror, and in the Order, and tomorrow I could die."
Tonks' rapid, ragged breathing was the only sound in the room. It accentuated the searing feeling in Remus lungs, as if she had Summoned all the oxygen from his lungs.
He dropped onto the settee.
"That didn't come out right." Tonks sank onto the cushions. "I'm not…I've never…"
She blinked hard, drew a deep breath and reached for him. He held himself away.
"I didn't choose you because there was no one else," she croaked. "There hasn't been anyone else because there isn't anyone for me but you."
"I appreciate that," said Remus in the dry tone he had, over the years, perfected. "That completely quells my fear that you might have just settled for me."
Tonks' head bowed. "I'm sorry." She ran both hands through her hair and tugged, helplessly.
Remus turned, so that he could not see her out the corner of his eye. "So am I. You've got to face the facts, Tonks. Think about what you said to me earlier. I'm still thinking like I’m with the pack."
Thirsty, he swallowed, moistened his lips. It didn't help. His eyes moved to the coffee table, settling on the mug. Wolfsbane Potion.
"We're not what we were," he said, resuming his seat on the settee. "I am a world away. And you know it."
Tonks moved, sitting up on her knees, leaning toward him. Her small, callused fingers closed firmly around his chin and turned him to face her.
"Stop being a stubborn git and let me help you find your way back."
Their eyes held for breathless moments. The pulse in her thumb fluttered against his skin, syncopated against his slowly thudding heart. She was waiting for him to speak.
Waiting for yet another thing that would not happen.
Her hand went cold. And fell away.
"Drink up." Tonks jerked her head toward the Potion, then resumed her curled up posture. "Merlin, I hope it's right. Snape said it was, but we know he's as big a Remus Lupin fan as Dolores Umbridge."
"I heard."
"Oh God, Remus…He was just being cruel. He was just being Snape. No one believes you…"
It did not escape Remus notice that Tonks was not unable to carry that thought to its completion. A stiffening in her posture indicated she was perfectly aware of this shortcoming.
"Perhaps not. But the truth is, the feral urge was there."
"You didn't give in to it." Her eyes were hopeful. Always hopeful.
"I came far too close. This is too close. I should go."
Remus drank. And choked.
Tonks clutched her knees together. "Is it foul?"
"Fouler than I remembered," Remus grimaced.
"Good." Tonks' dark eyes were expressionless.
Struggling not to gag on the last gulp, Remus rose. It looked as though he'd no further use for Tonks now he had drunk the potion, and he hated it. But he couldn't stay here and argue with her.
"I do appreciate your…" He caught himself at the brink of uttering the word trouble. "I do appreciate this." He cast a Scourgify on the mug and levitated it back to its proper cupboard.
"You'll pop over tomorrow for your second dose?" Tonks walked with him to the door.
Remus made the slightest sound in the back of his throat at the prospect of going through this every night this week.
"Look Tonks," he said heavily, "we obviously cannot avoid one another, but we will never arrive at any sort of proper professional relationship if we keep having the same conversation about something that can never be."
"I'm not going to surrender my own personal war, Remus, any more than I'm going to give up on the real one."
War. Fleur Delacour had called it a battle of the heart - dramatically, Remus had thought at the time, as he'd promptly buried it deep in a corner of his mind, where it was quickly forgotten. She had not been far off.
"I can't give up," Tonks said, "knowing your heart's married to me."
Remus cursed himself for being too weak to fully let her go, too powerless to protect her from that knowledge.
"Bloody awful husband, my heart."
The corner of Tonks' mouth twitched faintly. "There's room for improvement, yeah."
Remus opened the door and stepped into the corridor, but turned back. "Don't let me be another catastrophe in your war, Nymphadora."
A peculiar smile crossed Tonks' face. Before she could say anything else, Remus left.
As he waited at the light to cross the street to the Apparation point, he realised that in Tonks' world, his words held a very different meaning than they did in his.
He had failed to put a stop to her wait.
The End
A/N: Well, they're fighting, but at least they're communicating, right? And building tension will be a good thing once they finally work through their issues, won't it? In any case, you don't have much longer to wait till The Post-Hospital Scene Fic. Two more fics, I believe.
As always, I really appreciate my readers, and especially all the feedback you've left. This time, reviewers get their choice of guilty, vulnerable Remus who's so eager to make amends that he'll give a neck rub and dish out lots of compliments; or Remus who's rapidly losing control over his pent-up emotions and will argue and get all hot and bothered.
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