Transfigured Hearts #10: In Sickness

[mrstater]

Title: In Sickness
Author: MrsTater
Rating & Warnings: PG-13 for innuendo
Format & Word Count: one-shot, 7880 words
Summary: Tenth in the Transfigured Hearts series: Remus at last gives in to Tonks' request to help him after the full moon, but when she sees him at his lowest, it's more than Remus bargained for. Will he push her away for the last time, or does their relationship still have a chance?
Author's Notes: Yet another revision, which has been a very long time in coming! This story follows Recurring Problem and was one of the main ones that always bugged me a bit, probably because I wrote the whole series out of order; Remus' behavior always seemed to come rather out of the blue in this one, so I wrote an opening scene to hopefully give it some context. (The original is here for any parties interested in comparing versions.) Many thanks to the lovely Godricgal for enthusiastically betaing and helping me sort out the sticky issue of making a narrative shift from Tonks to Dora. (And encouraging me to get this project finished, lol.)



In Sickness

"So..." Sirius hooked his fingers together behind his head and, resting his splayed elbows on the back of a worn green velvet chair, leant back, stretching out his long, thin legs. His feet, clad in grey woollen socks that exposed his heels and big toes and made Remus wonder what exactly was the point in wearing them, were propped on the coffee table.

Remus, reading the Evening Prophet on the sofa across from Sirius, didn't look up from the article he was reading about a rash of werewolf attacks in the villages near the Forest of Dean over the past several months.

"So, what?"

"This is it, hmm?"

Another trip away loomed in Remus' immediate future, he thought as he read on, making note of the names given. Poor, wretched souls, called out indelibly in ink for the entire Wizarding world to see and ostracize. The Ministry might as well make them wear scarlet Ws on their chests. Although the newspaper was, for once, it making Remus' job a bit easier, as Sturgis Podmore, Remus' former source for names, was in Azkaban and the Order's access to Werewolf Registry files cut off. Tonks could morph as one of the members of the Department For the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and go in, but Remus would rather not place her at risk unless absolutely necessary.

"It?" he asked absently.

"Yes, it. A pronoun--"

"I can identify the part of speech, Padfoot."

"--which frequently functions as a euphemism for the end."

Still without meeting Sirius' eyes, Remus turned to the back page of the Prophet, where the article concluded. Typical. The important part of the article, not who had been bitten, but who had done the biting, was relegated to the back page, after people had already been sufficiently terrified to not want to read further. The victims became the monsters, while the real monster -- Fenrir Greyback -- lurked in shadows, preparing for his next attack.

"The end of what?"

"End of the line, end of the rope, end of an era..." Sirius' sing-song tone trailed away into an exaggerated sigh. "You're making me redundant. Of course," he went on, with a husky chuckle, "I'd probably make me redundant, too, if I had a pretty girl to replace me with."

Finished with the article, Remus carefully folded the newspaper, fingers sliding along the edge to crease it crisply, like new, and laid it on the side table.

"Is this about Tonks coming over in the morning?" He rubbed his eyes, which felt suddenly tired.

Now it was Sirius' eyes that flicked away as he removed his hands from behind his head to grip the serpent head arm rests with white-knuckled fingers. "I don't blame you, you know. It's completely natural for a heterosexual lycanthrope to prefer his girlfriend to see him naked than his best mate."

"Sexuality," said Remus, "hetero or otherwise, has nothing to do with it."

"Well then, it bloody well should have! You're already naked, and lying down. Damn convenient for a nice round of morning sex."

Remus wanted to get up and pace the drawing room, or go and look out the window at the street to watch for Tonks, who was due at any moment with a takeaway, but the mere thought of putting weight on his feet, forcing the muscles in his legs to hoist him upright, much less carry him across the room, was exhausting. He wanted to ask who'd have sex with a man too weak to look after himself, even to drag himself into bed, but refrained.

"If I haven't the strength to dress myself, do you really think I'd be up for sex?"

"Ah, but that's the glory of it. It's not you who has to be up. Just your little soldier--"

Remus did have the energy reserves to raise an eyebrow.

Sirius' expression became slightly repentant. "Sorry, I didn't mean little. I know you're hung like a Hippogriff--"

There was a world record to be set in the height of an eyebrow arch, surely.

A barking laugh rang out, making Remus' ears buzz. Sirius said, "I'm only pointing out that, as you know, certain bits of the male anatomy get up with very little encouragement and even less energy expended. All you've got to do is lie there passively while the fair Nymphadora has her wicked way with you."

"She'll have a very wicked way with you if you use that name again."

Tonks' head appeared in the partly open doorway, her dark eyes narrowed on Sirius. But as they cut sideways at Remus, he caught the telltale sparkle. Flushing hotly, he looked away and examined the cracks between the sofa cushions. He wished he could crawl between them, mouldy as they were and Merlin knew what Dark Magic skulked down there, and hide. What had Tonks heard?

But Remus managed to get to his feet -- with a great protestation of joints that he cringed to hear -- and shamble across the drawing room to get the door for her.

"I was just saying how wicked it was of your mum to saddle you with that pretentious name," said Sirius as Tonks gave Remus a grateful look and shouldered her way into the drawing room, her arms loaded with enough pizza to feed the Order, and probably the Death Eaters, too, should they decide to have a social. Sirius leapt to his feet and bounded toward her; his tongue flopped out, making him look every inch the begging dog.

"You wouldn't deprive your favourite cousin of pizza, would you? Can you believe I survived twelve years without the taste of pepperoni? By the way, nice entrance. No thump, no swearing at a certain Troll-foot umbrella stand that's the bane of your existence, no Mum swearing at the shape-shifting half-blood freakish Auror who's the bane of hers."

"I thought that was you?" Tonks arched up on her toes to peck Remus on the lips as he took the pizzas from her. "Ta, love."

"Nope, I'm just the shame of her flesh. Now who are you, and what have you done with the real Nymphadora Tonks?"

"Hexed the clumsy wench to Oblivion, which is where I'll also hex you for using that name."

"Slip of the tongue!" Sirius threw up his hands in innocents, but then lowered and rubbed them together as Remus opened the pizzas on the coffee table."

"Please don't salivate on them, Padfoot."
"Yes, please," Tonks echoed, her hand coming to rest in the small of Remus' back. "I was so careful coming in with them. Couldn't let anything happen to them after Sirius told me how crucial red meat is to your transformations."

The blood drained from Remus' face. She'd said it lightly enough, and her upturned eyes weren't looking at him with pity. Or were they? There were creases at the corners, which shouldn't be etched on the face of someone so young. She was looking deeply into his face, searching...for what? For signs of the wolf? For whatever it was she thought she'd seen in him? He knew what she saw right now: a gaunt, ill-looking man who required only one good hex to finish him off. He was ashamed enough of that without people talking about red meat as a necessity. It sounded so...carnivorous.

And it was true, he did need, or at least craved, red meat before transformations. Not that the he was often in the financial position to afford it. Back at school, in the days before Wolfsbane Potion, he'd glutted himself on beef; the House-elves had been especially obliging about doing him rare stakes. The others had teased him about it being a particularly manly dietary habit. But when it came down to it, it made him feel like an animal.

Tonks' hands wrapped around his arm. "I'm sure it's an iron thing," she said insistently, almost argumentatively, as if she'd read his thoughts. "You're exceptionally fatigued. It makes sense your body would want extra iron and protein."

Gratitude rushed up in Remus, and he found himself stepping closer to her, needing her touch far more than he needed the Meat Lover's Pizza.

"Huh." Sirius was scratching his stubbly chin. "We never thought about it like that. Teenage boys naturally assume blood-thirsty monster, not iron deficiency."

Tonks laughed, but though Remus heard a raspy chuckle that could only be his own, he didn't feel anything like mirth bubbling up inside him. Not at the word monster. For that was what he was, wasn't it? A registered Dark Creature. Beasts Division. Tonks knew it in her head, but soon she would see it with her eyes. Not the monster itself, but what the monster made of the man. She would see the ruined wreck that he was and realize that the time of successful young Aurors was too precious to spend playing nurse to poor, lonely werewolves.

The pessimistic train of thought, however, didn't stop him from disengaging his arm from her hands and wrapping it around her waist when she said, "Good job teenage boys grow up and get girlfriends who give them a dose of common sense." She briefly stretched her arm across Remus and squeezed his midsection in a tight hug before releasing him and reaching into her cloak. "Also girlfriends who come bearing Butterbeer for those of you who've still got a touch of teenage boy in you."

"Tha' be Moo-y," said Sirius around the entire slice of pizza he'd crammed into his mouth. Apparently swallowing it whole, said, "I'm all man -- escaped convict man at that -- so I'll just nip down for Firewhisky."

"You don't have to go," said Remus, realising Sirius' intent as he picked up one of the boxes of pizza.

"I need to get your room ready," said Sirius, grabbing Remus' abandoned Evening Prophet. "And I know you'd like privacy for you ménage à trois with your Meat Lover's and your lover."

He shoved another slice of pizza into his mouth, grinned, then, tucking the pizza box under his arm, strode out the French doors. The glass panes rattled as he kicked them shut behind him. Despite Sirius' role in dragging Remus' insecurities to the surface, part of him wished his friend would stay. Not that Remus didn't want to be alone with Tonks; she always calmed him before a transformation, gave him something human to hang onto as the moon overtook him. But knowing she was going to be waiting for him on the other side was new; he longed for the familiarity of Padfoot, or the safety of solitude.

"Well, then." Shucking her cloak off onto the chair in which Sirius had been sitting, Tonks darted a sideways grin at Remus, but didn't quite meet his eyes through her pink fringe. "Reckon we've got our answer to whether Molly told him what she caught us doing in my flat."

Nervous as he was, Remus couldn't stop a smile or rising warmth at the inevitable image of Tonks beneath him on her squashy red sofa, her silk dressing gown falling off one shoulder, her small round breasts cupped perfectly in his palms, his lips just brushing the valley between them...He glanced at the watered silk sofa beside them and imagined sinking down onto it with Tonks and taking off her Auror robes...Though she was already making quick work of them herself, flinging them onto the chair with her cloak and looking comfortable in a tight white t-shirt bearing the slogan Aurors Do It Undercover and her favourite patched jeans. Must have been casual dress day in the Auror Division.

"I don't know whether I should be glad they have something to agree about at last," said Remus, "or subject myself to the torture of Sirius haranguing me about my sex life for the sake of defending your honour."

"Now how is my honour compromised by people thinking I'm sleeping with you? I think the Order have pretty modern views on sex. Except possibly Emmeline, but I'm sure shawls can be very deceiving."

The mixture of Puckish mischief and sincerity on Tonks' delicate pixie features prompted Remus to dip his head and kiss her.

"Thank you for coming," he murmured, drawing back, but immediately returning to press his lips to hers again. "And for bringing this." He released her shoulder to gesture at the pizza and Butterbeer-laden coffee table. "Whatever Sirius told you, I'm sure was an exaggeration," he lied, "but pizza will hit the spot."

"Pizza's good," Tonks agreed, her fingers stroking his hair, "but dinner with you's all I want. We haven't had nearly enough time together lately. I still feel awfully that I couldn't get out of that all-night shift last month."

Coward that he was, Remus had been secretly relieved to be able to put off worrying over what she'd think of him -- and the break-up that would most probably follow -- for another month. He kissed her again, then took her hand and seated her on the sofa in front of one of the pizzas. As she helped herself to a slice, Remus took a seat beside her.

"It couldn't be helped," he said. "You had more important duties, and I knew you wanted to be with me. That's what matters."

"It's the thought that counts." Tonks' voice held no conviction. She swallowed, then said, "I disagree with you on the more important bit."

"Let's see..." Remus savoured a bite of sausage and pepperoni, then continued, "serving as one of two Dark Wizard Chasers who believes the darkest wizard of them all is alive and evil, or bringing hot chocolate to a tired old werewolf having a lie-in. No contest."

"You're right. There's not." Tonks licked her fingers, then, scuffing the coffee table as she propped her clunky red Wiz Martens on the corner, took a swig of Butterbeer. "It's the people I'm fighting for that keep me from giving up this line of work, Remus, not the people I'm fighting against. Throwing baddies in jail isn’t all it's cracked up to be. I much prefer helping the good guys. She touched his face with a greasy hand. "One of whom is a tired wizard who likes to lie in with a cup of chocolate after a rough night as a wolf. And who definitely isn't old." She leant forward and set her Butterbeer bottle down, hard, on the tabletop. "Though he could say 'I'm glad to see you, Dora,' which he hasn't really yet." She blinked. "Unless that's because he's not."

Duly chastised, Remus set his half-eaten slice of pizza back in the box and took Dora in his arms -- for she was Dora to him, his Dora, she'd granted him permission, him and him alone, to call her that name -- pressing her head to his shoulder, hoping as he stroked her pink hair that he was soothing away the vulnerability he'd glimpsed on that heart-shaped face which, despite her ability to look like anyone she wanted to in the wide world, was incapable of masking her feelings. Merlin, he was an insensitive brute. Why was he always doing this to her? Why did she put up with it?

"He is, Dora, of course he is." He kissed the top of her head, then, cupping her face in his hands, kissed her forehead, each brow, her cheekbones, then the tip of her nose. "In fact, he's significantly more than glad. He's delighted. Thrilled." A lingering kiss on her lips, and then he pulled back and took her hands, drawing them into his lap. "Can we start over again and pretend I'm not in a strop?"

Dora smiled, and Remus was relieved to see the insecurity vanish from her face, though concerned that the worry had not been wiped from her forehead.

"We can," she said, and Remus felt her full and free forgiveness like a feather-light kiss and a pair of hands lifting a heavy burden from his shoulder. "Although I'm not sure I'd call that a strop. I know I'd be in a much worse state if I had to do what you do tonight."

"Let's not think about that, shall we?" Remus retrieved his pizza. "Let's think about pleasant things. Like you. And pizza."

Snorting, Dora helped herself to a second slice. "Glad I rank so high."

"No, you see, it's not that you rank. You're the scale by which pizza is measured. I like pizza almost as much as I like you. Which is quite a lot."

"I see." For just an instant, something ghosted across Dora's face, but whatever it was, it was banished by her ear-to-ear grin. "You Nymph-adore pizza, then?"

"Precisely."

As their conversation continued in this lighter vein, turning now and again to stories from Dora's past few days at work, Remus sipped Butterbeer and felt himself truly relaxing for the first time all week. His shoulders, he'd thought, had been permanently cinched together by an elastic band, which made his neck ache and a dull headache throb at the base of his head. Now, even as he felt a pull in his joints and tendons, the nervous tension released its hold as he leant back against the musty sofa cushions, eating and drinking with one hand as he kept the other draped over Dora's shoulders. He was a normal man, having a normal night in with his girlfriend. Maybe in spite of the anything-but-normal events that were to come in between, it could be a normal morning, as well. It didn't have to be what Sirius hinted at, nakedness and helplessness. Remus had taken care of himself for years, and it really was so much better now he had the Wolfsbane Potion. True, his current brew wasn't up to Severus' standard, but it was still a hell of a lot better than nothing.
"Remus?" Though Dora addressed him directly, she wasn't looking at him, as she had been throughout their conversation up till now. She was wiping her hand on the leg of her jeans.

"You do know that's what the sofa's for, don't you?" Remus teased, reaching across and picking up her hand. Her light blue jeans were polka-dotted with pizza grease fingerprints.

Dora smiled wanly and turned eyes up to him that seemed huge in her pale face, peering at him from beneath knitted brown eyebrows. "What did Sirius mean by getting your room ready? Is there anything I can to do help?"

The knot of tension re-formed between Remus' shoulder blades, which he was sure Tonks must feel as she sat tucked under his arm; there was no question of her highly trained Auror's ears detecting the tautness of his voice.

"It's nothing. Just a little werewolf-proofing."

"Werewolf-proofing. But I thought you just curl up and go to sleep?"

Remus squirmed and let his gaze wander to the half-consumed box of pizza, open and growing cold on the coffee table. If Dora hadn't guessed already what the finer points of transformation meant for him, he doubted she wanted to hear that very often he became hungry in his wolf form, but with his fingers temporarily fused into useless paws, foods like pizza rather literally exceeded his grasp. And, Remus thought, going red in the face, if Dora hadn't connected Sirius' taking the newspaper up with canine habits, he definitely wasn't going to be the one to enlighten her.

"It's a bit of a joke with Sirius to scrounge up Regulus' old things to serve as, erm, chews."

Tonks tucked one leg underneath herself. "Do you chew things when you're a wolf?"

A glance down at her upturned face revealed, instead of concern, interest and even amusement. Remus wasn't entirely sure that was preferable.

"Put it this way: if Regulus ever turns up having been missing all these years instead of dead, let's hope to Merlin he's decently shod, as a wolf's had a little too much fun with his shoe collection. Although a great black dog helps with that at other times."

Out the corner of his eye, he saw Dora cover her mouth with her hand. He let go of the hand he was holding and tugged at his too-long hair that spilt over his collar. "It's just what every young witch dreams of, isn't it? A boyfriend with a shoe fetish."

Dora chuckled. "I think it's kind of cute. Only if you ever transform at mine, I'll keep you well away from my shoes."

"Wise," replied Remus. "Especially those fuchsia Jenny Choo boots, which I could never afford to replace."

As silence ensued, Remus wished he'd held his tongue. He shouldn't have responded that way. Not when she'd said what she had about him transforming at hers. Not that she could possibly mean it. What could possibly induce anyone to extend a sincere invitation to a werewolf to transform at her house? Apart from a desire to see it chewed and scratched to bits, as was the case with Sirius. Dora knew very well how reluctant he was to let her see him the morning after. She couldn't think he'd let her be present for -- or anywhere near -- an actual transformation. She couldn't want to be. No, she was just being warm and open and accepting, and so kind. She was trying to make him laugh, to help him look at the bright side and relax...and all he could do was give her the brush-off.

"Dora," he said, squeezing her shoulder and taking her hand again, "I--"

But before he could say anything further, the drawing room doors burst open to reveal Sirius stood there, a bottle in one hand and the other clapped over his eyes. "Everybody decent?"

"Don't you reckon we'd be more careful after the way Molly caught us?" asked Dora.

Grinning, Sirius lowered his hand, but his smile fell as his gaze settled on Remus. "About that time, isn't it? I brought your potion."

"Thank you, Padfoot." He caught the small brown bottle Sirius tossed to him. "Now if you wouldn't mind covering up again, I'll just kiss Tonks goodnight now, unless she's got a burning desire to know what Wolfsbane Potion tastes like."

She made a face, as did Sirius, for entirely different reasons. "You've got about fifteen minutes, by Lunascope reckoning." He turned around and added, "Should be more than enough time for a quickie."

"Not a bad idea," said Dora, when Sirius had left them again. "Get you nice and relaxed."

"Yes, the first time for both of us, to be carried out in fewer than fifteen minutes lest you get eaten. Just my idea of a relaxing evening."

"Well, when you put it like that..." Dora turned to him and touched his cheek with the rough tips of her fingers. "Remus...I know you're nervous about this, but...it's going to be okay. I'm going to be okay with it."

How could she be so sure? How, when she'd no idea just what she was getting herself into. Was it just her dogged Hufflepuff loyalty?

He covered her hand on his cheek. "Dora," he murmured, his other hand sliding up from her shoulder to her neck, drawing her in as he kissed her.

It was meant to be a gentle, chaste kiss; given what was to come for him, for them, it hardly seemed right to demand more. But when their mouths met, Dora's lips were so yielding against his, parting and inviting him in, that he couldn't stop his tongue seeking the warmth of her mouth, gliding alongside hers, tracing the supple inside of her lips. He was committing the intricacies of kissing Dora to heart, should tomorrow prove disastrous and this be his last time to do so. Was she aware that he was kissing her as if he feared he'd never have the chance again? Afraid she might be, he pressed his lips to hers one final time, then drew back.

"I know Sirius is giving us fifteen minutes," he said, standing, "but I ought to give the Potion a bit longer to take effect before...Well I'd best go up and prepare." Lock himself into Regulus' old bedroom with every containment charm he knew, strip down, and to wait for the moon to turn him into a monster.

Dora nodded. Her face had grown very white, paler than usual, her hair shockingly vibrant above it. Though the pink somehow was not as bright as her eyes as they held him.

"I thought I'd stay here with Sirius tonight. Keep him company. And..." She took a deep breath. "...be here for you as soon as the moon sets."

"No." Remus choked on his potion at her look of surprise at his sharpness. "I'd rather you not. I'm wary of the Wolfsbane Potion, I've told you before."

She stared at him for a long time, looking a little wounded, a little shrewd, then she began to close up the pizza box. "One of these days I'm going to get an explanation out of you about that out of you about that, cos something's off. But I'll let you off the hook tonight."

Remus walked her to the front door and opened it for her. She kissed him gently, lingeringly, on the cheek.

"Night, Remus. Sleep well and have sweet wolfy dreams."

"I'd rather not dream of eating people, thanks."

"Shoes then. I'll see you...on the other side."

As Remus climbed the stairs to his room, he realised that for the first time in his life he was more afraid of the full moon's setting than of its rising.

The screech of metal against metal jarred Remus from heavy sleep. He tried to open his eyes, but the lids were leaden. He was glad he couldn't open them; the light was painful enough with them shut. Why had someone opened the draperies, anyway? Didn't they realise he was trying to sleep? He ducked his head so that the fold of his blanket covered his face. Funny, it didn't feel quite like the duvet.

His brain took a sluggish step backward to a question that probably should have struck him as more important than why: Who had opened the draperies?

Whoever had done it, they were now crossing the room.

Or maybe it wasn't a who, he thought, but a what. It certainly sounded more like the kind of thumping beat of a troll's foot than a human's. Maybe the troll-foot umbrella stand from the front hall had come to life and was now going to torment him instead of Tonks. Each thud made the floorboards creak and vibrate beneath him; his temples throbbed.

Another mental step backward: Why in hell was he sleeping on the floor?

"Ew!" The feminine squeal was followed by a stage-whispered, "Scourgify!"

Not a troll, then. The creatures weren't known for their spellwork, least of all cleaning spells. Must be Molly. Although Padfoot might contest whether they weren't one and the same. Honestly, did she have to tidy up now?

"Ow! Bloody bedpost!"

That didn't sound like Molly's language. Come to think of it, now that the fog in his brain was lifting, Molly hadn't lived at twelve Grimmauld since September. It was late November now.

But if not Molly, then who--?

"Remus."

The female spoke close to his ear, her gentle breath making the hairs at the back of his neck rise as goosebumps prickled up all over his shoulders and spread down his back. A burning sensation in his shoulder told him his arm was being lifted and slid into a fold of his blanket -- no, into a sleeve. A loose, flannel sleeve. Groaning, he commanded his eyelids to open. The morning crust painfully gave way, and, above the familiar blue and green plaid of his tatty old dressing gown, he saw a pair of dark eyes gazing at him from a pale, heart-shaped blur, above which was shock of pink.

"Wotcher."

Remus blinked. His vision sharpened into focus.

Tonks...Dora.

His heart stopped beating. His blood turned to ice. Everything fell into place now. Last night was the full moon. Dora was here to look after him. Which, apparently, included getting him into his dressing gown because he'd fallen asleep on the bedroom floor after he transformed back into a man...A naked man.

"Oh God," Remus croaked, recoiling from her. "Tonks, don't look."

"Don't worry," she chirped, obediently letting go of his arm and turning her back to him. "I realised you were starkers before I actually saw anything worth seeing. Not that any of you isn't. I levitated your dressing gown to cover you. After I checked out said pasty English arse. Which is even cuter than your trousers led me to believe."

Her flirty tone made Remus glance up, and he saw her head turned slightly, glancing over her shoulder. Ordinarily the saucy curve of her lips would have made him return the flirtation in earnest, but today it rubbed him entirely the wrong way.

"Stay turned," he ordered hoarsely. In his prone position he'd managed to get both arms into the sleeves of his dressing gown, but he couldn't fully cover himself lying face down on the floor. Which meant he'd have to push himself up on his hands and knees.

It was the effort required to perform such a simple act that he was loath for Tonks to witness, even more than his scantily-clad state.

"I won't peek again, I promise," she said, laughing a little. But when he couldn't get himself upright without groaning, all lightness and cheer fled her voice, leaving only alarm. "Remus, are you okay?" Remarkably, she didn't turn to him. "Can I help--?"

With a grunt, Remus sat upon on his knees; the wooden floorboards, badly in need of refinishing, dug into his skin. After the exertion of pushing himself off the floor, his arms trembled.

"Here." Dora pressed against his back. "Let me." Her arms snaked around his waist to tie the sash.

"I said I didn't need--"

"You grunted," she interrupted, deftly tying a knot. "Could've meant 'no, but I took it to mean 'yes.' You've got to work on being a clear communicator." She hugged him and kissed the back of his head.

Last night her affection had been comforting and relaxing, but this morning her touch seemed to have the opposite effect. Remus felt even his vocal chords were taut, and ignored the voice at the back of his mind that said they always felt that way after a transformation; it was nothing to do with Dora.

"Considering a few hours ago I was howling at the moon, grunting is a very clear form of human expression."

"For a Neanderthal," Dora quipped -- but she promptly released him.

A twinge of chagrin gripped Remus. Dora was being so kind, and he was being a complete and utter ingrate. He started to apologise, but stopped when she moved to kneel in front of him. He found it impossible to meet her gaze.

"Worse than you expected?" he asked.

"Yes and no. Is it always like this?"

Remus shook his head, and a few strands of hair fell into his eyes. He was fairly certain his fringe had not been that grey when he'd last looked at himself in the mirror before his transformation.

"Is it ever worse?"

"Only without Wolfsbane."

Except for a small sound in the back of her throat, like a strangled cry, Dora was silent for some time. What was she thinking? Was it at last sinking it that her boyfriend was a very sick man? Was she realizing that he wasn't worth her time and effort, that she could do a hell of a lot better than him?

Just as Remus thought he would suffocate if any more tension built, she asked, "Speaking of your potion…Does it ever make you sick? Or is it the shoes that don't agree with you?"

Remus' head snapped up, apparently with a questioning look; Dora's eyes flicked to the corner of the room, by the wardrobe, where sheets of yesterday's Evening Prophet were spread.

"There was a little vomit." Her face was red, and she chewed her lower lip, as if physically biting back the thoughts she was leaving unsaid.

Head hanging, Remus thought he might be sick again. Merlin...She'd had to clean up after him. She hadn't seen the wolf, but there could be no clearer way to show her the animal he became. It would have been far, far less humiliating to have told her the gory details and spared her, him, them this...this...

"Hey." Dora caught his chin between her callused fingers and drew him to look at her. He didn't want to. He couldn't bear to see her disgust. Or, if she somehow wasn't disgusted by him, her pity. But her steady gaze pulled him, and to his surprise, he found her smiling, her face open, showing nothing like disgust or pity.

"I did the best Scourgify of my life," she said with a slight toss of her head. "One to do my mum proud. I wish you'd seen."

"I wish you hadn't seen."

Dora pressed her lips tightly together. She gave the faintest of eye rolls before saying, "Let's get you into bed, then, shall we?"

She stood swiftly -- Remus envied her young, strong muscles and healthy joints that did not pop -- and held out her hands to him. Reluctantly, he gripped them and, not able to stomach the thought of her supporting him completely, exerted what little strength he possessed. His legs shook so that he lurched forward and clung to her waist to keep from collapsing.

As Dora slipped under the crook of his arm, balancing his weight, she asked, "Do you always sleep on the floor? For some reason I had this mental image of a shaggy great wolf curled up in the middle of the bed, with your tufted tail -- see, I paid attention in DADA -- curled around you. Cat-like."

"Usually I do. Only I think the tufted tail flicks. Wolf-like."

Remus took a lurching step toward the bed, but his knees buckled. Dora pressed her hand firmly against his chest to keep him upright.

"You didn't fall out of bed, did you?"

"I never went to bed." He'd fully intended to crawl into bed after the transformation, in the hope of avoiding this and concealing the toll this moon had taken. Obviously that hadn't worked out.

"Why not?" Her voice was strained with the effort of holding him, and Remus silently cursed his legs for not being able to carry him more efficiently across the room. God, he was a bloody invalid, and Dora knew it.

"I wasn't tired." He must have instantly dropped off to sleep as soon as he'd changed back into his human form. "I paced."

At last they reached the bed. Dora started to ease Remus onto it, but he resisted her assistance and jerked the duvet back and flopped into it. Unfortunately this left his legs dangling off the edge of the high, old-fashioned four-poster. Ridiculously, as Dora helped him swing them onto mattress and under the covers, he was most self-conscious that his legs were bare.

"Because you were worried about this morning?" Dora asked.

She knew him too well, and it compounded Remus' shame. He turned his head away from her, his gaze drifting out the grimy window to take in the drizzly November morning and the shabby row of houses across the street.

"Well," Dora said, cheerfully. Too cheerfully. As if she was feeling something entirely different to cheer, but felt she oughtn't reveal her true emotions because he was too feeble to handle them. "You can rest easily now. I'll draw the curtains again. Sorry I woke you with all that light."

Against his will, Remus' eyes followed her. She stepped around a dish on the floor, which last night had held water, he said bitterly, "Mind the doggie bowl."

"Shut up!" Dora whipped around and stood, livid at the foot of his bed. "Remus Lupin, if I hear you talk about yourself that way ever again, I swear I'll hex you to bloody oblivion!"

It wasn't Dora playing at being authoritative; she was truly furious. The whites of her eyes had gone red, and she blinked several times.

She was so angry that she was fighting tears.

"It's not the bloody bowl that reflects poorly on you." Her voice rose to an impassioned pitch as she stooped to retrieve the offending item. "It's the way you insult me!" Her voice cracked.

Remus swallowed hard, his entire throat having become a tight knot. "I never--"

"So you had fur last night! So you walked about on all fours! So you lapped water out of a bowl! Who the bloody hell cares? I've seen Sirius do all those things, and he chooses it. You don't choose. None of it. And certainly none of it makes me think less of you."

She was visibly shaking, and her hair seemed to be the only colourful thing about her; even it seemed somehow dull.

"I'm insulted," she went on, "and offended -- and hurt. After all this time, you think any of that matters to me! I don't care! How much plainer do I have to say it?" She stamped her red Wiz Marten-shod foot. "I don't. bloody. care!"

"I--

"Do you want me or not, Remus?" She clutched the bowl so tightly her knuckles had turned white. "If you don't--"

"Of course I want you," Remus interrupted. His head dropped back on the pillows, and he stared at the cracked and water-stained ceiling plaster. Merlin, he'd really bollocksed this up if she thought he didn't want her--

"You've a funny way of showing it. The way you run yourself down, it's as if you're trying to push me away. So if you don't want me, bloody own up to it. Stop using lycanthropy as an excuse and be a man!"

For a moment there was silence as Remus pondered her accusation. Was he pushing her away? But that didn't make sense. Witches like Dora came along once in a lifetime for young and whole men -- never for the likes of him. But somehow he'd had the extraordinarily good fortune of striking her fancy. Why in the name of all that was magical would he purposely sabotage their relationship?

Still, he couldn't deny she might have a point. Maybe he was pushing her away -- but not consciously. Maybe he just knew, deep down, that there was no way in a million years that someone like Dora would stay involved with him once the full magnitude of his curse and all she would have to sacrifice to be with him was made plain to her, and was sparing himself -- no, that was selfish -- sparing her, as well, of course, a lot of heartache. Wasn't that what he'd wanted from the beginning? Wasn't that what he'd told her, when she'd confronted the feelings he'd never intended to act upon, much less acknowledge? He only wanted to protect her, to leave her whole, as his kind weren't known for doing.

Raising his head, Remus at last met Dora's level gaze. "I wasn't a man last night. That's the point, Nymphadora."

"DON'T CALL ME NYMPHADORA!"

The bowl shattered on the floor.

Her rapid, heavy breathing and his pounding heart were the loudest sounds Remus had ever heard -- until she whimpered, "I'm sorry."

"Dora, you have nothing to apologise for--"

Her face crumpled in on itself, and she dropped to her knees, out of sight beyond the tall, bed.

"Reparo," she muttered. "What kind of girlfriend am I, yelling at you the morning after a full moon? Of course you're out of sorts."

She sniffled and stood, but remained turned so Remus couldn't see her face. He did see her swipe at her eyes with the back of her hand. He wished he could Disapparate. He winced when she said, "Let me make you some hot chocolate. I brought the leftover pizza, too, she said, nodding at the bureau, on which a box sat. I love cold pizza for breakfast, don't you?"

Catching her toe on the footboard, she stumbled around to the bedside table. As she ripped open the paper packet of hot chocolate mix, Remus noticed her hands were shaking. About half of the powder ended up on the table as she tried to fill the mug.

"So bloody clumsy," she muttered, holding the mug at the edge of the table and sweeping the spilt powder into it. Her nose was red, and she sniffled and blinked frequently.

"You still want to be with me?"

The instant the words left his mouth, Remus wished he could take them back. He'd hurt her. He'd made her cry. He'd no right to ask, no right to want.

Dora tapped his battered old kettle with her wand, and as it whistled, she gave a shaky laugh of exasperation. "I've told you a million times, you stupid git--"

"No," Remus said, "I mean after the way I treated you just now."

"Yeah. I do." Dora filled the mug with boiling water, again sloshing it as she poured. "Well -- not if you keep treating me like this."

Finally, she'd admitted there was something he could do that would make her leave him. In all the times Remus told himself his lycanthropy would be their undoing and hurt her, hurt them both, he'd never considered that it might affect the way he treated her. He could have died with shame to know he had insulted her -- he, who had nothing but the utmost admiration and esteem for Dora.

He was a beast.

Worse than that -- a monster.

Yet Dora was offering him a second chance. Or was this his third chance? Or fourth? All the times he'd proved otherwise, she still believed he could get this right. Eventually. He wanted, more than anything, to believe that, too.

Against his rational mind screaming that he was selfish to accept that unmerited opportunity, Remus found himself reaching out his hand to her. "Never again. I'm so sorry."

For a moment her face was a study, and Remus' heart stood still in the fear that she might be reconsidering, after all -- and she would be perfectly right to do so -- but then she pressed his hand. "Forgiven."

She moved aside to stir the hot chocolate, picked up the mug, and started to hand it to Remus, only to set it down again. "I almost forgot."

From her pocket she drew a foil-wrapped chocolate, peeled off the paper, and dropped the chocolate into the hot drink -- just as Remus had done that night, months ago, at her flat, not finding the Muggle hot chocolate precisely to his taste.

It was that considerate attention to detail that silenced the voices telling Remus to let Dora go, least the wolf hurt her more deeply than it already had. A witch like her wouldn't come into his life again, and he certainly didn't want her to leave without his ever having tried to make this arrangement work. And he couldn't deny he'd made no effort today, but had, as Dora accused him, done everything possible to push her away.

But there was one thing he had to know.

"Why?" he rasped. "Why do you want to do this?"

"Because I..."

Red blossomed in Dora's cheeks again, like fireworks, and she pressed her lips very tightly together. Her face was the picture of incredulity as she considered her words; somehow, her wide-eyed innocence made Remus feel the younger of the two.

"You need someone to take care of you, don't you?"

He could lie. He could tell her he'd got by on his own for years, but she would know and that wasn't the truth, and it would destroy everything. And the truth was, he didn't want to lie, and he didn't want to look after himself anymore. Like the wolf, he was a social creature. Nothing made him so unhappy as being alone. But he'd got into a habit of loneliness.

Transformations were worse when he was alone, he'd learned that as a boy; after those few sweet years of transforming with Padfoot, Prongs...and Wormtail, their sudden absence from full moons almost made transformation more horrific and terrifying than his first one after he'd been bitten. Wolfsbane Potion made the pain that much more bearable, but keeping his own sanity only enabled him to think about how cut off from humanity he was. He didn't know why he wasn't allowing Padfoot to transform with him, like old times. They should do. It would probably be as good for Padfoot as it undoubtedly would be for him.

He hadn't answered Dora's question.

"Yes." He held out his hands to her, and she gripped them firmly. "I need you."

Dora held him with her dark, shining eyes. She was so young, so full of hope. She hadn't been hurt by life -- only by him -- and so much life yet lay before her. Yes, she was exactly what Remus needed -- but could a run-down, wreck of a wizard like him be what she needed?

"You've got an illness, Remus. If it was a cold, you'd let me bring you chicken soup and Pepper-up Potion, wouldn’t you?"

"Only if you weren't the one to make the soup," Remus teased without meaning to -- but Dora smiled faintly. However, this was no joking matter. "A cold doesn't dictate what I am--"

"Neither does lycanthropy. Unless you allow it. Like you've done today."

"You should run for public office," said Remus. "You're quite the debater."

Dora reached for the hot chocolate. "I think my daft hair and propensity for tripping over things might have rather adverse effects on my arguments. I fell upstairs at my Auror qualification ceremony. Can you imagine me trying to get up a debate platform?"

"You might be okay provided there's no bunting draped about."

Remus submitted to her holding the mug while he drank. Perhaps he could pretend she was just pampering him, and not doing this because he was physically incapable of doing for himself...The thick, warm liquid coursing through him distracted slightly from the uncomfortable feeling of dependency. "Mm."

"Best post-transformation hot chocolate ever?"

Remus nodded, and Dora shifted the mug to her other hand so she could slip an arm around his shoulders. Neither spoke for some time, and she traced gentle patterns on his arm with her fingertips while he drank drowsily.

"Chocolate makes dogs sick," said Dora. "Wolves, too, I assume. If your chocolate addiction's not proof of how completely human you are, I don't know what is."

She laughed a little, but Remus hadn't missed the melancholy pitch of her voice, or, when he glanced up at her, the glitter of lingering tears in her eyes.

Grovelling was in order.

"My male ego, my pig-headed stubborn streak, and my propensity to be an utter prat?"

"Yes," said Dora, leaning her head against his. "Those, too."

The End

A/N: Those kind enough to review will get their choice of a pizza dinner or breakfast in bed with Remus. And he solemnly swears he won't be in a strop. ;)