Fic: So you quote love unquote me - PART A
Title: So you quote love unquote me
Author: mithborien
Format & Word Count: Fic + 14882 words
Rating: PG-16
Prompt: 4. War is a series of catastrophes that result in a victory. - Georges Clemenceau
Warning: Er, long? Hence was split into two posts.
Summary: The fact that he was here, holding her hand convinced her more than any words he could utter.
Author's Note: This fic was actually started in the last round of prompts for the song “I don’t believe you” by The Magnetic Fields. However, I ran out of time to post it then and only just managed to finish it in time for this round. As you might guess, the word count has a lot to do with that. Concrit and the pointing out of typos is welcome.
* * *
It was just past noon when she slammed open the door and stumbled into the kitchen. Remus was sitting silently at the kitchen table sipping a cup of what smelt like tea and jumped slightly at her entrance. He looked up a little wildly but his face softened when he recognised her and he started to pour another cup of tea before she could ask.
The house sounded silent which meant he had most likely been sitting here by himself longer than was probably good for him. The new Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, whilst temporary, was a bright, airy house that in all respects should be infinitely better than Grimmauld Place but no one could get comfortable in it and no one ever stayed long. Dumbledore never explained where he appropriated the house from and Remus had only been given the thankless job of being in charge because for the moment he had nowhere to go.
“How was the consultation?” he asked in a level voice as he handed her the warm cup of tea, waiting until she was properly seated before letting go of the cup.
She nodded in thanks then winced as her chair made an awful scraping sound against the tiled floor. “Fine,” she answered and took a sip.
Her Aunt’s vast arsenal of spells and curses had kept her trapped in St. Mungos for longer than she would have liked and she would’ve still been there had she not pulled Auror rank and checked herself out. Her side still ached when she twisted too sharply or bent in just the wrong way but all that the hospital had reminded her of was death and she had seen far too much of that lately. She also knew that Remus was aware of the fact that she wasn’t fully recovered but thankfully he kept his mouth shut.
“Where are the others?” she asked in an effort to change the subject.
Remus shrugged. “Either work or missions. As per normal.”
She nodded and took another sip of tea. There hadn’t been many conversations since that night at the Ministry. No one wanted to talk about it except in harsh, hurried whispers to explain what happened and what was going to happen next.
They put on a brave face for Harry when they saw him back to his Aunt and Uncle’s but back at Headquarters there was no one to put up a façade for and regardless of her own magic, Tonks didn’t think she could keep one up for much longer anyway. She could remember the completely hollow expression on Harry’s face and wondered how much of it was reflected on her own.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that shade of brown as your hair before,” Remus remarked when she failed to say anything more.
She blinked and let a strand of the aforementioned hair fall across her eyes before blowing it angrily out of the way. “It’s my natural colour,” she said roughly. “Disgusting, isn’t it?”
Remus looked perplexed. “Why don’t you change it?”
Tonks smiled slightly to herself and leant her head forward on her arms, flat against the table. “I can’t,” she said. Yet another thing that’s wrong in the world, she thought.
“Is something wrong with your magic?” Remus asked and she almost resented the concern in his voice.
“Another reason I had to go back for a check up at St. Mungos,” she said reluctantly. “My Metamorph magic is playing up.”
“Playing up how? Is it from your injury?”
She sighed and wondered why she had even bothered to drop into Headquarters. She should have gone straight home to her flat and that way she wouldn’t have had to endure this interrogation. Of course, her flat was even emptier than what this house felt like. “Not really,” she finally said. “It’s just that a Metamorph’s magic is such an integral part of themselves that it can play up sometimes if they’re not feeling… well,” she finished lamely.
“Oh,” Remus said softly and the house was silent again. “I didn’t realise.”
She glanced up and saw that Remus was staring into his tea cup, avoiding her eyes. “People generally forget that all magic has its price,” she said quietly.
“You had pink hair at the train station,” he pointed out while still staring down at his drink.
She shrugged and winced slightly when her side jarred. “Maybe I just wanted to put on a good face for Harry. Have you seen him lately?” she added quickly.
Remus shook his head. “No, Dumbledore thought it best he was left alone for the moment. Is there anything that can be done about your magic?” he asked, ignoring the subject change.
Tonks shrugged again, carefully this time and shut her eyes. “Not really. The Healers weren’t very helpful. They said to get plenty of bed rest and try talking about things or something along those lines. I may have stopped listening.” Her eyes were still closed but she could detect the barest increase in the speed of Remus’ breathing. By the time she had gotten herself out of St. Mungos everyone had mostly gotten over the shock of her cousin’s death and passed into the next stage of grieving. But with the hassle and danger of the Headquarters at Grimmauld being possibly compromised and the frenzied transfer to this new house, Tonks had not seen Remus until everything had settled down and the only thing that had been different was that he looked sadder than usual. The hug he had given her had been warm and comforting but his face didn’t change from that calm, accepting expression. Tonks, who had known Sirius for less than a year and from a few half remembered visits when she was younger, had equal amounts of guilt and pain constricting around her heart and she had no idea how to deal with it.
“How do you do it?” she whispered, lifting her head but Remus didn’t look up. “How do you do it?” she repeated herself a bit louder.
“Do what?” he asked, looking confused.
“He was your best friend,” she said softly. “How can you just be all right?”
She watched his fingers whiten around the handle of his mug and the way his jaw seemed stiff when he spoke. “I’m not all right but I really don’t think I am the right person to talk about this.” He got to his feet quickly and walked over to the sink to throw the rest of his tea out.
“Why not?” Tonks persisted and pushed herself to her feet. She was only a junior Auror, two years on the job and she had never seen someone die from it. Her grandparents had died when she was young and uncomprehending and when Sirius had been sent to jail all those years ago, it was just another incident of a family that her mother had told her was no good. But she couldn’t even begin to think of the number of deaths that Remus had seen. “You seem to be holding yourself together just fine,” she pointed out. “So help me out here. The Healers did say I should talk about things.”
Remus glared at her. “I’m pretty sure the Healers also told you to stay in St. Mungos for another week but you didn’t listen to them then.”
“Well, I’m listening to them now,” she shot back. She reached out and grabbed his arm before he could leave the room, ignoring the slight flare of pain in her side. “He was your best friend,” she nearly shouted, his indifference suddenly an affront to her grief. “How can you not care that he died?”
She saw his eyes widen with what might have been pain or maybe it was anger but either way Tonks knew that she had gone too far. He ripped his arm out of her grasp and turned to face her properly.
“Of course, I care that he died,” he said coldly. “Just because I don’t show it doesn’t mean I don’t and considering the jobs we have to do you might want to look into-”
“Hiding my feelings?” she interrupted, suddenly too angry and upset herself to care that she had gone too far. “Bullshit! No one will mind if you shed a few tears for the poor man.”
“I have!” he exclaimed and she flinched at the pain in his voice. He must have seen her do it because he repeated more quietly, “I have.”
He looked away from her then and he didn’t see the mortified expression creep over her face.
“I shed them nearly fifteen years ago,” he continued in a dull voice, “when I thought he was the cause of James and Lily and Peter’s death and even though I thought him a murderer I still cried for him because the friend I knew had died for me.” He looked at her hopelessly. “And then he came back and everything was a mess and he’s innocent… he was innocent and all those years where he could have lived were a complete waste.” He sighed. “Is that what you want to know? It’s easy to get past a person’s death when you have already grieved for them. You just have nothing left to give.”
She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”
“No, trust me,” Remus interrupted and laughed slightly. “You meant exactly what you did. Got your answer didn’t you. I told you I wasn’t the best person to talk about these things with.”
She frowned. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt you to talk about this yourself. It might help.”
Remus looked up and his face was set. “He died, Nymphadora. There’s nothing more to it than that and talking about it isn’t going to change anything. For all you know I could die tomorrow. Do you want to talk about that? Give you a head start.”
She didn’t know what possessed her. Maybe it was the thought of him speaking about his own death so calmly, or maybe it was the news of Amelia Bones and Emmeline Vance’s deaths the previous week that no one seemed to be able to do anything about. Or maybe it was simply the fact that she realised that neither of them were dealing with Sirius’ death in any way that was going to help them. Either way, her fist lashed out before she realised and punched him across the face.
It was a good punch too, solid and at just the right angle to send him stumbling back into one of the kitchen cupboards. She wasn’t an Auror for nothing but she was just a tad slow on her second punch and Remus caught her fist before it could connect with anything. He pulled her close to stop her fighting any more, wrapping his other arm around her shoulders. He didn’t have anything to worry about though, with the pain in her side convincing her that keeping still would be a very good idea. Her tongue didn’t have that same restriction.
“It’s not my fault you can’t deal with his death but don’t ever bloody talk like that to me,” she growled up at him.
He looked stricken at her a moment, skin red from where she punched him, before the anger and pain faded from his eyes and he closed them. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry.”
She didn’t know whether he was talking to her or maybe about Sirius or the world in general but she told him to shut up anyway and leant her forehead against his chest.
“I told you I wasn’t the best person to talk to,” he repeated and his voice was the gentle and somewhat infuriatingly logical one she remembered. “I always stuff things like this up.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed you,” she told him, the closest thing to an apology that she could manage. “It’s just loosing my ability to transform is really screwing me around and I just thought… I just thought you could help.”
He was silent for a while before saying, “Years ago when all that happened, I left London pretty quickly. I didn’t want to stick around to hear people tell me that everything would be okay so I left.”
“Where did you go?” she mumbled into his chest.
“Nowhere,” Remus said a little wistfully. “There weren’t very many people there to talk to in nowhere so I just had to get through things by myself.
“Did you?”
She saw Remus smile out the corner of her eye. “No, I guess I didn’t.”
He shifted his arm that was lying across her shoulders. They stood there for a couple of minutes, the heat of his arm warming up her neck, before he spoke again.
“I miss him. I really do.”
She sighed and pressed herself closer without thinking. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, barely loud enough for her to hear.
“Yes, it was. In part.”
Just like the punch, she didn’t know what possessed her again but he was sad and she was guilty and it seemed like the easiest thing to just push herself up and brush her lips against his. He didn’t react as she opened her mouth against his and she didn’t want to open her eyes to read the expression on his face. She just wanted something and even if it was just the feel of someone else’s lips and the warmth of someone else’s body soothing the cramps in her side then that was enough.
But then his hand moved, sliding down her back to press her against him harder. She could feel his ribs through the layers of their clothing but then he opened his mouth and all she could think about was that.
He gave a small groan then jerked his head back and pushed her away before she could react. The look he gave her was confused and sad before he walked quickly from the room.
She just stood there, slightly unbalanced and wondering what the hell had just happened. The warmth of his body was slowly being leeched from her own and her side started to ache again. She touched her lips with her fingers and glanced in the direction where Remus had disappeared.
She sighed and left the house without trying to find him to apologise. It appeared she had a talent for making a fool of herself in more ways than one, she thought as she angrily realised she was still touching her lips.
* * *
Grimmauld Place was just as ugly as ever.
“You would think,” Mundungus said with a groan, “that a super secret top notch bloody society would have a better method for transporting their valuables around.”
“What?” Remus said distractedly from where he was sorting scrolls.
“Or maybe not, considering the quality of some of its members.”
Remus glared at him. “Don’t you have better things to be doing then standing around insulting me?”
Dung shrugged. “Maybe not. Don’t you have better things to be doing then sitting around listening to me? You’ve been sorting those scrolls for the past hour.”
Remus looked down helplessly. He had forgotten even what the scrolls contained anymore.
“Thinking ‘bout Sirius again?” Dung asked, surprisingly compassionately.
He tried not to think about Sirius actually. He had meant what he had said to Tonks (another person that he tried not to think about unless he wanted to die of embarrassment); he had truly grieved for Sirius a decade and a half ago when he had been sent to Azkaban. It wasn’t Sirius’ death that pained him, it was his life before that, how Azkaban changed him that made Remus clench his fists and scream inside his head.
He had gotten used to people dying over the years. He just hadn’t gotten used to them dying so uselessly and he hated himself for thinking like that.
He blinked when he realised Dung was staring at him and hastened to reply, “No, I mean, yeah but it’s not-”
“Then what is your bloody problem then?” Dung asked and threw some unidentified object at his head.
Remus glared as he ducked. “Talking to you obviously.”
Dung made a face. “Well then. I know when I’m not wanted. Molly wanted that box moved upstairs.” He gestured to a dusty cardboard box in the corner.
Remus waited but when Dung didn’t appear to be moving he asked, “Aren’t you going to take it up?”
“Oh, so I’m supposed to do everything-”
“All right!” Remus cut him off. “Bloody hell, I’ll do it.” He grabbed the box. “Why don’t you go back to whatever hole you crawled out from.”
“Harsh,” Dung muttered as Remus left the room. “Didn’t even finish sorting those scrolls.”
Remus kicked the door shut behind him, cutting off anything else Dung was complaining about before starting to walk up the stairs.
Dumbledore had dropped by a couple of days ago and told them that the issue of the house’s ownership had been cleared up as Sirius’ will had been recovered. The good news was that Harry got ownership; the bad news was that they all had to move back into the blasted house again.
“Dung being a pain in the arse?” a quiet voice asked and Remus looked up to see Tonks’ pale, heart shaped face coming down the stairs.
Remus smiled before he could help it, before he remembered what had happened the last time they came into contact and he coughed to cover himself. Having not seen each other since, he wasn’t sure where they stood or whether he should go find a rock to hide under.
“Yeah,” he said. “Same as always.”
The conversation stalled then and they just stared at each other. She had been absent from the dinner that Molly always tried to throw on the weekends for the Order. She always used to attend and he wondered whether she abstained because of him.
Tonks seemed to shake her head and then nodded past Remus towards the door Dung was behind. “First thing he did when I got here was make a crack about my hair.”
Now that she mentioned it, Remus saw that her hair was still the same shade of brown as before, bit mousy actually and tied back from her face with a pink bandanna.
“I think it looks lovely,” he tried. “It suits you.”
She made a face at him. “Don’t even try. I hate it. Listen,” she said as she continued to down the steps until she was standing on the step above his. “I want to apologise about before.”
Remus swallowed. Before could only refer to one thing but he had assumed that he would be the one doing the apologising.
“I wasn’t thinking. I was angry and upset and I just…”
“It’s okay,” Remus hurriedly cut in. “We both weren’t thinking. Can’t imagine it would be much fun kissing a werewolf,” he added before he could help himself.
She smiled. “Actually, I was referring to what I said. I shouldn’t have pushed you like that. But I’ll apologise for the kiss as well, if you want.” She paused and a strange look came over her face. “You think that I care that I kissed a werewolf?”
Remus blinked, momentarily stuck for words. As far as his experience went, women were most put out to learn they were with a werewolf but then this was Tonks and he wondered whether he had insulted her somehow. “No, I just, you know. I probably had bad breath. Plus, old, poor and dangerous, you know. Great catch there.”
Tonks stared at him a moment then smiled again. “And I’m a clumsy Metamorph who can’t change. Match made in heaven.”
Remus made himself laugh in relief. “Perfect,” he managed to say. “Listen, I’m sorry as well.”
Tonks waved her hand. “Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.”
He nodded and then the silence grew awkward. “If you ever need to talk,” he tried.
“See you as a last resort?” Tonks quipped.
He grinned. “Yeah.”
“See me if you ever need a punch to the head then.”
“I will,” he promised then paused. If she wasn’t angry at him or ashamed about what had happened then he wondered where she had been the past week. Before that kiss she had turned up at Headquarters nearly every day. “I haven’t seen you around lately,” he ventured.
She smiled and nodded. “Yeah. I’ve been transferred down to Hogsmeade by the Aurors. A group of us are going to be patrolling down there in case there are any attacks. They keep us on a tight schedule.”
Remus nodded. “I guess you won’t be going to Harry’s birthday then?”
She smiled wistfully. “No, I won’t have time and I doubt the Boy-Who-Lived has enough influence to get me a day off. Say hi for me though.”
“Of course.”
“Is he doing okay?” she asked, looking a little sad.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I still haven’t seen him yet. I wouldn’t know how to act around him if I did. The best friend of your dead parents and dead godfather doesn’t exactly have the right ring.”
She smiled again. “He likes you. You should talk to him more.”
“Yeah, I suppose. It’s just awkward, you know.”
She stared at him for a moment then nodded. “Yeah, I know,” she said then leaned down and hugged him around the box he still carried.
“See you round… hopefully,” she told him and slipped past him into the room that was still occupied by Dung. Remus just stood there frozen on the stairs, listening to them start to argue behind him. For a minute there he had almost thought that she was going to kiss him and he felt strangely disappointed.
* * *
No one bothered to hang up Christmas decorations this year, Tonks noticed gloomily as she shook the snow off her shoulders. She gave the troll leg umbrella stand an evil look as she hung up her coat and walked through the entrance hall of Grimmauld Place. Sirius was the main instigator of decorations last year and no one was ever here often enough to hang anything up this year. She wrapped her arms around herself tightly; it was just as freezing inside than outside. She caught a reflection of herself in the hall mirror and noticed how pale her face was, how limp her hair seemed and sighed. The shift rotations down at Hogsmeade were taking their toll, but with only four of them they had no choice. The fact that she was slowly losing weight and not getting enough sleep were just not important as opposed to keeping Hogsmeade safe.
“Come in, Nymphadora,” Dumbledore said with a warm smile, interrupting her thoughts and gesturing from the next room. “The meeting is just about to start.”
She gave the Headmaster a quick nod as she walked past and sat down quietly within the circle of chairs. A general assortment of the Order members were present: Professor McGonagall, Moody, Kingsley and Arthur Weasley who all smiled at her. Remus looked up once, stared at her for a moment then went back to staring at the floor. His face looked just as drawn and pale as hers and was covered in at least a week’s worth of a scraggly beard.
The meeting was a standard one, just a general report and checking up on people’s positions and any worries they might have. Who had died and who was missing since the last meeting were also stated but no one wanted to talk much about that. There was nothing they could do until You-Know-Who or his Death Eaters made a direct attack or they got detailed information on his forces.
She made a brief account on what was happening in Hogsmeade which was nothing other than people being afraid and making stupid claims because they were afraid. So far any Dementor attacks were away from any concentrated settlements.
Then Dumbledore stood up and said that while the Ministry had admitted that Sirius Black had been innocent, there was to be no formal announcement to the public about his innocence. They felt that such information could mistakenly lead to people distrusting the Ministry and at such a time could prove fatal in the upcoming war.
Everyone seemed to pause in a shocked silence but no one said anything. They were well aware of what Sirius had gone through after he had escaped and the sad fact was that they all had more important things to be doing then trying to liberate a dead man. Tonks was just thankful that Snape was not here to make some sort of insulting, sarcastic comment. She was still angry with what he said when she had brought Harry up to Hogwarts on the first day of school. She had more imperative things to be doing then worrying about what form her Patronus took, she told herself.
“They just don’t want to bloody admit they were wrong,” she heard Moody mutter as the meeting broke up. “They never did.”
Most people left with a few hurried words of goodbye, no one wanting to stay after Dumbledore’s announcement and soon enough Tonks was left with only the Headmaster and her former Professor. Remus had disappeared somewhere within the house.
“Are you coming, Nymphadora?” Dumbledore asked as McGonagall was wrapping a Gryffindor scarf around her neck.
Tonks spared a glance towards the kitchen where faint sounds of someone moving around could be heard. “No, I think I stay for a couple of minutes just to make sure Remus is all right.”
Dumbledore nodded. “Be careful coming back to Hogsmeade then.”
Tonks nodded. “Of course.”
McGonagall sniffed. “That poor boy, I don’t know how he does it sometimes.”
“He’s strong, Minerva,” Dumbledore said and opened the front door for here. “Stronger than we think.”
Tonks stared at the closed door for a moment, the short gust of cold air prickling the back of her neck before making her way into the kitchen. Remus already had a glass out and was struggling to open a bottle of Firewhiskey.
“Give me a moment,” he said, without looking up.
Tonks watched in silence as he filled the glass up with a shot’s worth of alcohol, maybe a double shot and downed the whole lot in a couple of gulps. He coughed slightly.
“Why bother with the glass?” Tonks asked but Remus didn’t appear to even hear her.
“I told you,” he mumbled. “A waste. An entire waste. They bloody admit he’s innocent and that they screwed up but they aren’t going to do a damn thing about it. Too late anyway.”
“I’m sorry, Remus,” she said quietly.
He glanced up sharply at her, seemed to realise who it was that he was talking to. “I’m sorry,” he said as he sighed. “I don’t mean to get all like this but I just…”
“You just need to get some things out.”
He nodded. “Yeah, and I already spilled my guts out to you before. Who else is here?”
“No one. Just us. I guess no one else wanted to stick around.”
“Can’t blame them,” he said then paused. “So just us then?”
“Yeah, just us,” she echoed, snagging the Firewhiskey bottle out of his hand and taking a sip. She wasn’t about to get drunk but the night was cold and she didn’t fancy the trip back to Hogsmeade with nothing to brace her.
“Are you going to leave soon?” he asked suddenly.
She shrugged. “I guess. I have an early shift patrolling Hogsmeade tomorrow. You don’t get sleep-ins as Aurors. You should come round and visit me sometime.”
“I don’t think I would be welcome,” Remus said, taking back the bottle and looking down into the neck. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. It would be too suspicious for me to be seen visiting an Auror, let alone suspicious for you to have a werewolf visiting you.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” she said simply.
He looked at her sadly. “No, I don’t think you would.”
She looked away, trying to muster a smile to lighten the mood. “I need to get my beauty sleep anyway. Don’t have magic to help me out anymore, do I?”
She saw Remus staring at her out of the corner of her eye. “You don’t need it,” he said quietly then went back to pouring another drink.
Tonks swallowed hard. She couldn’t remember when someone had last complimented her on her natural looks. She reached out a hand and pulled the bottle and the glass out of his hands.
“You don’t need this either,” she said.
He made a half hearted grab for the bottle before giving up and sighing. “Are you going to see your parents for Christmas this year?”
She frowned. “I don’t know. They don’t live in Britain and I’m not sure whether they want to come back given everything that’s happening.” She sighed. “I probably won’t even have the time to visit them either.”
Remus nodded and tapped his fingers against the table. “I have to go back to the werewolves, you know,” he said bluntly. “Might have to stay there for Christmas. I shouldn’t tell you but that’s where I’ve been lately.”
She had guessed this all ready. As the Order’s only werewolf it made sense that he would be the one given the mission concerning them. He had never really talked about werewolves before or at least not to her and she wondered how much he must be dreading going back if he was willing to talk like this. She knew the full moon had been only a couple of days ago which meant he would have spent it with the pack. His hands were shaking slightly and she wondered how bad it had been.
He didn’t resist when she reached up and pulled him into her arms. He seemed to melt against far too easily, as if he was craving the comfort more than he was willing to admit.
“It’ll be okay,” Tonks whispered to him.
She felt him snort into her hair. “It’s Greyback’s pack that I have to go back to. Greyback was the werewolf that bit me.” His voice broke slightly. “My father pissed him off so he bit me as revenge.”
She felt him stiffen in her arms and she tried to pull back to look at him but his arms were locked too tightly around her back. Her own breath felt like it was trapped in her lungs. Whatever crap she was going through trying to do her own job through her grief was nothing compared to what Remus must be going through, she realised.
“You don’t have to go back,” she began but Remus cut in.
“Yes I do, because no one else can and we’ll lose this war if we don’t get all the information that we can.”
She felt him groan slightly and shiver and when she tried to pull back again he let his arms fall to the side.
“God, I’m sorry,” he said and pressed the palms of his hand against his eyes. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m all right really. It’s just with Sirius not getting properly vindicated and having to go back I just-”
“Needed someone to talk to,” Tonks interrupted with a smile. “I mean, considering what excellent conversationalists we are and our astounding history of it, who else are you going to talk to?”
Remus stared at her for a moment then burst out laughing. The sight of him looking something other than sad or indifferent was enough to entice her into joining in with his mirth. Remus looked up and their eyes met and they burst into another round of laughter. He reached out and drew her towards him again, giving her a squeeze.
“Thankyou,” he whispered.
She smiled. “Don’t mention it.” She reached up and pulled his head down to give him a kiss on the cheek. She intended to say goodbye and get what sleep she could before her early shift patrolling Hogsmeade tomorrow but when she pulled back, Remus quickly slid his hand up to hold her head still.
He looked at her for a moment then leant forward and kissed her. His other hand joined the one holding her head against his, his lips were slow but insistent against hers and Tonks remembered the last time this had happened and started to count down until the moment he pulled away.
She didn’t have to wait long.
“I’m sorry,” he said breathlessly, turning his head to the side but not moving his hands. His face was full of remorse but her eyes kept getting drawn back to how red his lips were.
“I shouldn’t have,” he continued but she was ready this time and before he could say anything more she pushed his head back to face her, wrapped her other arm tightly around his neck and kissed him again. She knew this was a bad idea but guilt trips of Sirius were still making her cry at night and with him going back to the werewolves, going straight back into the heart of danger, she just wanted to give him something. Even if this turned out to be one night of comfort then just like that kiss it would be enough and she realised she needed it just as much as he did.
He tensed slightly in her arms but when she kissed him harder he relaxed until he slid his hands down her back and gripped her hips, forcing her back slightly.
“This isn’t,” he managed to get out before she had a chance to speak. “This isn’t because I’m going back and I need some kind of human contact or something like that.”
She stared at him a moment, refusing to acknowledge in her head the idea that maybe it was because she needed the human contact, as well. She just said, “Good,” rather impatiently.
That was apparently all he needed and he seemed to shiver before sliding his hands further down and around the backs of her thighs to pull him up against her. He started to kiss her properly then, alternating between her lips and jaw and neck.
He started to laugh between kisses but she was too breathless to question him about it.
“I am far too old for you, you know,” he said as he pulled her collar down to reveal more skin. “Too poor, too dangerous. You should be running away screaming.”
She laughed as well. “Well, I rarely go for the conventional. You should be flattered.”
He looked at her and smiled and it was discomforting for her to realise how pleased it made her feel.
It was later that night, or rather early the next morning when Tonks woke among tangled sheets and warm limbs that she realised that pleased feeling was still there. Even when she had to get up to make sure she was on time for her shift down at Hogsmeade and Remus mumbled protests in his sleep when his hands slipped from her skin, she couldn’t stop the smile on her face. Even worse, when she looked at how grey his hair was, how much his collar bones stood out and the way the scars on his back were paler than his skin, she realised that she didn’t even regret what happened that night.
She swore silently to herself as she finished dressing, beginning to suspect what this new sensation was that she was feeling. She wasn’t thinking when she left the house, still pondering this new revelation and consequently she forgot to leave Remus a note.
* * *
The nights were cold. Magic was not welcomed amongst the werewolf packs so Remus had to make do with a warm body on either side. It wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. They weren’t as feral or as uncivilised as the public tended to believe. They just operated by their own value system, one that Remus was getting more and more used to.
It had not been easy to convince the werewolves that after losing his job at Hogwarts, he had given up on society at large. But no one knew that he knew that it was Greyback who had bitten him and in time it was far too easy to blend in as a hopeless monster coming back to his kin. He shouted threats and abuses at the Ministry with the best of them. He didn’t join in when they shouted gratitude at Voldemort.
“Here,” a soft voice said offered and a steaming mug was thrust into his vision.
He blinked the crustiness out of his eyes and stretched his limbs as he sat up. The two werewolves beside him shifted to fill the gap he left.
“Thanks,” he said and took the mug.
The werewolf who had handed it to him smiled. “Kev’s already started cooking breakfast,” she said.
Her name was Danielle. She was eighteen years old and had been bitten by a werewolf two years ago. She said she didn’t remember which wolf but her parents, both muggles, handed her over to the Ministry because they didn’t know what to do with her. She ran away before the Ministry came round to pick her up and nearly died after her first transformation was spent alone. She was then found and picked up by Greyback’s pack the day after. She had been delirious from infected wounds and the shock of the change but she had survived into a relatively normal person under Greyback’s influence.
Kev was nearer to Remus’ own age. He had been a wizard and knew exactly what would happen when he got bitten ten years ago. He said he didn’t remember who did it either. His wife left him after a year of lycanthropy, claiming that it was too dangerous for their two year old son. Kev hasn’t seen them since.
“Cold morning, ain’t it?” Kev asked as Remus approached.
Remus just nodded. Kev and Danielle were the two werewolves that he had gotten friendliest with. He had soon realised that it wasn’t so much that they supported Voldemort but they simply hadn’t had another option. They listened to him when he spoke out against Voldemort as did a few other werewolves but no one ever listened long. It was too dangerous and besides, joining Greyback’s pack meant they had food, shelter and no one shouting ‘Monster!’ at them. Something that could not be guaranteed in the society Remus was saying they should go back to.
“What’s cooking?” Remus asked when the welcoming smells grew too much.
Kev smiled, he was missing a tooth. “My special breakfast soup. Be ready in a minute.”
Kev was one of the few who did the cooking in the camp. The werewolves weren’t entirely savages; fresh meat was only easiest to acquire under the full moon and they were on the hunt. For the rest of days of the month, creature comforts like cooked food were still craved by the majority of the pack.
The werewolves occupied a ruined farmhouse in the middle of some uninhabited countryside. The main building was in complete disrepair but the barn house was in relatively good shape. It was reserved entirely for Greyback and his highest ‘advisors’ though. The rest of the pack had to make do with the great outdoors.
Only a few werewolves were stirring. Out here in the fresh air they generally slept late. When the pack had been underground or hiding in abandoned warehouses in London, everyone had been alert, afraid of being discovered. Even Greyback’s promise of Voldemort’s support had not been enough to quench that instinctive fear of something bigger hunting you. But out here the fear was less and people relaxed.
Danielle wandered over to join them by the fire. Her clothes were dirty and ragged, far too thin for the weather they were having lately.
“Hey darling,” Kev greeted her. “Sleep well?”
She shrugged. “Well enough.”
Ages weren’t so important here. No one cared if you were a child or an old man, only that you were a werewolf.
“Something on your mind?” Kev asked when Danielle continued to look distracted.
She smiled slightly. “Nothing. Just thinking about things. Hey, Remus?”
“Mmm,” Remus murmured in reply.
“You ever been in love?” she asked very seriously.
“Excuse me?” he choked around his drink.
Kev laughed. “Hell of a thing to drop on a man first thing in the morning. Let me tell you a secret,” he said as he leaned close. “You’re too good for him,” he whispered theatrically.
“Hey,” Remus protested.
Danielle groaned. “No, I don’t mean that. I was just wondering. I mean, we know about Kev’s wife and I’ve told you all about… well, you’re the only one we don’t know about.”
Danielle had a boyfriend before getting bitten. She didn’t anymore and by the way she acted it sometimes seemed that losing him had been more traumatic than the bite.
“No,” Remus said quietly. “I’ve never been in love.”
Danielle looked deflated. “Not even once?” she probed.
Remus shook his head. “Not even…” he trailed off, long years of memories coming plague to him. “I might’ve been,” he corrected himself. “Once. Long ago but it didn’t end well.”
“Did they find out you were a werewolf?” Danielle asked sympathetically.
Remus paused. “No,” he said thickly. “They all ready knew that. There were… other reasons why it didn’t work.”
Kev sighed wistfully and turned back to his cooking. Danielle was staring at him with wide eyes.
“Wow,” she said. “If I found someone who didn’t care I was a werewolf then I would never let them go. So there hasn’t been anyone else since?”
Remus didn’t answer. He had been trying very hard not to think of Tonks in the long weeks he had to spend in Greyback’s pack but she kept creeping into his thoughts. He tried not to think how disappointed he had been when he had woken up alone and how pitifully relieved he had been when she had told him she had just forgotten to leave a note and no, she didn’t regret what happened and when could she him again? He couldn’t remember the last time he had been with someone who knew he was a werewolf and more importantly just didn’t care.
He couldn’t forget how soft her skin had been but then he remembered Harry telling him at Christmas that her Patronus had changed shape and shook his head angrily. Whatever that might imply, he could not afford to think about it at the moment.
“No,” he told Danielle. “Love makes things complicated.”
She shook her head. “Only if you let it,” she whispered so quietly that Remus thought she hadn’t meant for him to hear.
He was saved from having to decide whether to respond by a massive growl that rang out through the camp. Shivers rolled up Remus’ back. It was the same growl he had heard when he was six years old and nothing would ever make him used to it. His hands convulsed around the mug he still held and he put in down before he dropped it.
“Greyback,” Danielle whispered fearfully. “He sounds angry.”
“He always sounds angry,” Kev muttered and moved the pot containing breakfast away from the fire.
The three of them got to their feet and cautiously approached the barn where Greyback could be seen emerging with a snarl on his face. His cronies were waking up the rest of the werewolves, kicking and growling and scratching when the response wasn’t quick enough.
“I have bad news,” Greyback shouted when the camp had gathered. “Or rather, bad news for one of you.” His eyes gleamed and all of a sudden his stance was predatory. Remus felt his skin go tight with fear.
“One of you is a spy for the other side,” Greyback snarled suddenly and Remus froze. His hand twitched but his wand was back at Grimmauld Place and he knew he couldn’t outrun an entire werewolf pack. He wouldn’t even be able to outrun Greyback and he waited with his throat twisting itself around his lungs for the monster’s eyes to settle on him.
But instead a struggle erupted on the other side of the crowd as Greyback called out, “And we know who it is.”
A man was dragged forward amid growls and insults while the other half of the werewolf pack remained quiet. The man, Remus didn’t know his name, was pushed to his knees in front of Greyback.
“You betrayed me,” Greyback told him simply and then very deliberately bent down and tore the man’s throat out with his teeth. The man gurgled once then slumped to the ground, his ripped neck spraying Greyback and the ground in blood.
The crowd howled and with a gesture from Greyback, his men dragged the body away.
“All I ask from you is loyalty,” Greyback shouted out. “All I ask is loyalty when we go to war and when we win you will all be rewarded beyond your dreams. Betray me and I will eat you alive.” He turned and walked back into the barn leaving only the sound of cheers and the smell of blood.
Remus was able to breath again as relief cooled the sweat dripping down his neck. He took careful note of the faces who looked repulsed though. They didn’t say anything, no one ever did but you could see the horror in their eyes. Once you got into Greyback’s pack you stayed there and Greyback made sure no one ever left who wasn’t dead and in pieces.
Danielle was staring terrified at the pool of blood soaking the ground until Kev turned her and started walking her back to the campfire.
“It’s okay,” Remus heard Kev say. “Everything will be okay. We’re safest here. We don’t have a choice.”
Sadly, Remus knew that for most of them that was true. This was the only place that treated them as anything other than monsters. This was the only place where they were safe from the outside world.
The memory of being wrapped up in Tonks arms flashed through his mind. Of feeling warm and something akin to love and he realised that he had felt safe in the bed that they had shared. He felt safe when he was lying beside her and looking into her pale brown eyes and worrying about nothing more than the woman next to him.
He growled slightly to himself as he turned away. Stan Shunpike and who knows who else had already been falsely arrested. One man had just been revealed as a spy and had been killed for it and Remus shuddered to think whether they had mistaken the man for him and how close he had come to being that body that had been thrown away like garbage.
They were in a war, he told himself, and it could have easily been Tonks or even Harry’s blood that was drying in the sunlight before him. Nowhere was safe. He learnt that during the last war and he wasn’t going to learn that again, especially not the hard way.
* * *
It was nearly midday when Tonks finished her shift. She, Dawlish, Proudfoot and Savage guarded Hogsmeade under a rotation of 12 hour shifts, two Aurors to a shift. When they weren’t on guard they were expected to go through any information gathered and receive complaints or reports submitted by the general populace. Rest was their lowest priority.
So far there had been no attacks on Hogsmeade but she knew it was only a matter of time before a Dementor was set loose or a Death Eater got bored. While Tonks may have been too young to have fought in the first war, Moody had been all too eager to regale them with his own horror stories. Between the attacks and deaths that had already occurred, it was far too easy for her to imagine the worst. The constant paranoia and constant vigilance was making her loose sleep at night and forget to eat.
“Wotcher, Savage,” she said wearily as her fellow Auror approached.
“Tonks,” he said in greeting and handed her a bread roll filled with something. “Thought you might be hungry.”
“Thanks,” she said and forced herself to take a bite. Contrary to his name Savage had an almost boyish cast to his features, something that Tonks took every opportunity to tease him about. It was only fair given he teased her about her clumsiness just as much. However, there hadn’t been much time for jokes lately, regardless of the care package that the Weasley twins had sent her from their joke shop.
“Anything to report?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Just people nervous and scared in their own houses. Just like me.”
“Just like us all,” Savage said as he nodded.
“Something wrong?” she asked in response to his somewhat distracted expression.
“Oh no, maybe nothing. I just got an owl from one of my mates back at the office. Apparently there was some sort of disturbance in the werewolf pack You-Know-Who keeps. Wondered if anything happened in response here.”
Tonks’ nearly choked on a mouthful of bread. “What kind of disturbance?” she forced herself to ask calmly.
Savage didn’t notice her agitation and shrugged. “Something about routing out a spy, except no one knows whose spy it was. There were a couple of rumours about the werewolves moving their camp but we haven’t heard anything more yet.”
“Oh,” Tonks said, all manner of horrendous situations flashing through her mind.
“See you next shift,” Savage said cheerfully. “Dawlish is relieving Proudfoot.” He took off down the street leaving Tonks standing still in indecision.
She knew she should go and get some rest but the thought that Remus was in danger or hell, could even be dead, was too much. She hadn’t seen him since a hurried conversation back at Grimmauld that only lasted minutes. She didn’t think he believed her when she said she had intended to leave a note after that night and that she had in fact enjoyed herself.
There was something growing between them that was definitely more than just a one night stand. Her thoughts automatically turned to him when her mind became unfocused and an inappropriate number of her dreams were devoted to him. But whatever it was that was between them, she wasn’t going to get a chance to find out what it could lead to if he was dead.
She knew the Order might have some more information about what happened but she didn’t particularly want to explain why she was so concerned to whoever was at Headquarters. Rosmerta at the Three Broomsticks might be able to tell her something but she had been acting slightly weird lately. She had told Dawlish about her suspicions but the older Auror had dismissed them and told her to go back to hunting down Dementors.
The only person who she could talk to who might know what was going on would be Dumbledore. She glanced up at the tall spires of Hogwarts, just visible in the distance and made up her mind. She threw the rest of her bread roll away, wrapped her cloak tighter around her body and began the trek up to the castle.
She had to find out what happened. She couldn’t just let Remus die like she had let Sirius… She shook her head and forced her brain to stop thinking as she made her way up to Hogwarts.
Dumbledore however was not in his office and Tonks nearly kicked the wall in frustration. She spun around and stalked through the rest of the school. She would have a quick look around to see if she could find him or maybe even go talk to McGonagall. Dawlish was suspicious enough of her as it was, suspecting but not being able to prove her association with the Order and she didn’t want to attract his attention anymore than necessary. The Auror ranks were in enough divisions as is.
She was just about to give up and go worry alone in the house the Aurors had appropriated when a voice called out in pain from around the corner. Hogwarts was one of the safest places in Britain and she assumed it was only some students scuffling but she nevertheless assumed an authoritative expression and clenched her hand around her wand in her pocket before walking round the corner.
“Harry?” she called out in surprise when she saw him hopping around on one foot, alone in the corner before falling over.
He looked just as surprised to see her. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see Dumbledore,” she said, wondering what on earth he was doing. She remembered how he had gotten his nose broken on the first day of school and how she had seen him shouting at Mundungus in Hogsmeade. Except Dung was now in Azkaban she thought with a pang. The man may have been a criminal but he was still part of the Order, part of the team.
“His office isn’t here,” Harry offered. “It’s round the other side of the castle, behind the gargoyle-”
“I know,” she interrupted, walking around the castle for an hour had made her a little irritated. “He’s not there. Apparently he’s gone away again.”
“Has he? Hey - you don’t know where he goes, I suppose?” Harry looked far too curious and Tonks figured she had better stem off any misfortune before it started.
“No,” she said simply.
“What did you want to see him about?” Harry continued to ask.
She shrugged and started to pick the hem of her sleeve. The last thing she wanted to do was let Harry know that Remus could be in danger. She didn’t know what kind of relationship they had but she wasn’t going to worry him for nothing. “Nothing in particular. I just thought he might know what’s going on… I’ve heard rumours… people getting hurt…”
“Yeah. I know,” Harry said. “It’s all been in the papers. That little kid trying to kill his-”
“The Prophet’s often behind the times,” she answered vaguely. Proudfoot had told her about how the kid had been brought in. How he had started to scream when he was arrested and how he didn’t stop. The Prophet didn’t talk about that though. It didn’t mention how the Dementor attacks were becoming more frequent or about the muggle kidnappings. They only reported what Scrimgeour told them to and Tonks had no fond memories of the man when he had been Head of the Auror Office. “You haven’t had any letters from anyone in the Order recently?” she asked suddenly. Maybe Remus had sent something to Harry.
“No one from the Order writes to me anymore, not since Sirius-”
She only heard the first part of Harry’s answer. No, of course, Remus wouldn’t be sending any letters. It was too dangerous. Greyback would kill anyone who he thought was betraying him. In fact, going on what Savage told her, he might have all ready.
“I’m sorry. I mean… I miss him, as well…”
“What?” Tonks said blankly, realising she hadn’t heard a word Harry had said before blinking away the tears before they fell “Well… I’ll see you around, Harry…” she said when Harry just looked at her worriedly.
It was only after she had turned abruptly and walked off, not wanting Harry to see her break apart that she realised that he had been talking about Sirius. The poor boy had not only lost the man but brought the subject up himself in order to try and comfort her and she had said absolutely nothing.
She was likewise stuck for words when one week later at another Order meeting in Grimmauld Place when Remus had walked through the front door, in ripped clothes, covered in dirt but still thankfully alive. He had looked completely surprised when she ran up and threw her arms around his neck. He hugged her back tightly for a moment but when he firmly pushed her away his face was hard.
* * *
LINK TO PART B
Author: mithborien
Format & Word Count: Fic + 14882 words
Rating: PG-16
Prompt: 4. War is a series of catastrophes that result in a victory. - Georges Clemenceau
Warning: Er, long? Hence was split into two posts.
Summary: The fact that he was here, holding her hand convinced her more than any words he could utter.
Author's Note: This fic was actually started in the last round of prompts for the song “I don’t believe you” by The Magnetic Fields. However, I ran out of time to post it then and only just managed to finish it in time for this round. As you might guess, the word count has a lot to do with that. Concrit and the pointing out of typos is welcome.
* * *
It was just past noon when she slammed open the door and stumbled into the kitchen. Remus was sitting silently at the kitchen table sipping a cup of what smelt like tea and jumped slightly at her entrance. He looked up a little wildly but his face softened when he recognised her and he started to pour another cup of tea before she could ask.
The house sounded silent which meant he had most likely been sitting here by himself longer than was probably good for him. The new Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, whilst temporary, was a bright, airy house that in all respects should be infinitely better than Grimmauld Place but no one could get comfortable in it and no one ever stayed long. Dumbledore never explained where he appropriated the house from and Remus had only been given the thankless job of being in charge because for the moment he had nowhere to go.
“How was the consultation?” he asked in a level voice as he handed her the warm cup of tea, waiting until she was properly seated before letting go of the cup.
She nodded in thanks then winced as her chair made an awful scraping sound against the tiled floor. “Fine,” she answered and took a sip.
Her Aunt’s vast arsenal of spells and curses had kept her trapped in St. Mungos for longer than she would have liked and she would’ve still been there had she not pulled Auror rank and checked herself out. Her side still ached when she twisted too sharply or bent in just the wrong way but all that the hospital had reminded her of was death and she had seen far too much of that lately. She also knew that Remus was aware of the fact that she wasn’t fully recovered but thankfully he kept his mouth shut.
“Where are the others?” she asked in an effort to change the subject.
Remus shrugged. “Either work or missions. As per normal.”
She nodded and took another sip of tea. There hadn’t been many conversations since that night at the Ministry. No one wanted to talk about it except in harsh, hurried whispers to explain what happened and what was going to happen next.
They put on a brave face for Harry when they saw him back to his Aunt and Uncle’s but back at Headquarters there was no one to put up a façade for and regardless of her own magic, Tonks didn’t think she could keep one up for much longer anyway. She could remember the completely hollow expression on Harry’s face and wondered how much of it was reflected on her own.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that shade of brown as your hair before,” Remus remarked when she failed to say anything more.
She blinked and let a strand of the aforementioned hair fall across her eyes before blowing it angrily out of the way. “It’s my natural colour,” she said roughly. “Disgusting, isn’t it?”
Remus looked perplexed. “Why don’t you change it?”
Tonks smiled slightly to herself and leant her head forward on her arms, flat against the table. “I can’t,” she said. Yet another thing that’s wrong in the world, she thought.
“Is something wrong with your magic?” Remus asked and she almost resented the concern in his voice.
“Another reason I had to go back for a check up at St. Mungos,” she said reluctantly. “My Metamorph magic is playing up.”
“Playing up how? Is it from your injury?”
She sighed and wondered why she had even bothered to drop into Headquarters. She should have gone straight home to her flat and that way she wouldn’t have had to endure this interrogation. Of course, her flat was even emptier than what this house felt like. “Not really,” she finally said. “It’s just that a Metamorph’s magic is such an integral part of themselves that it can play up sometimes if they’re not feeling… well,” she finished lamely.
“Oh,” Remus said softly and the house was silent again. “I didn’t realise.”
She glanced up and saw that Remus was staring into his tea cup, avoiding her eyes. “People generally forget that all magic has its price,” she said quietly.
“You had pink hair at the train station,” he pointed out while still staring down at his drink.
She shrugged and winced slightly when her side jarred. “Maybe I just wanted to put on a good face for Harry. Have you seen him lately?” she added quickly.
Remus shook his head. “No, Dumbledore thought it best he was left alone for the moment. Is there anything that can be done about your magic?” he asked, ignoring the subject change.
Tonks shrugged again, carefully this time and shut her eyes. “Not really. The Healers weren’t very helpful. They said to get plenty of bed rest and try talking about things or something along those lines. I may have stopped listening.” Her eyes were still closed but she could detect the barest increase in the speed of Remus’ breathing. By the time she had gotten herself out of St. Mungos everyone had mostly gotten over the shock of her cousin’s death and passed into the next stage of grieving. But with the hassle and danger of the Headquarters at Grimmauld being possibly compromised and the frenzied transfer to this new house, Tonks had not seen Remus until everything had settled down and the only thing that had been different was that he looked sadder than usual. The hug he had given her had been warm and comforting but his face didn’t change from that calm, accepting expression. Tonks, who had known Sirius for less than a year and from a few half remembered visits when she was younger, had equal amounts of guilt and pain constricting around her heart and she had no idea how to deal with it.
“How do you do it?” she whispered, lifting her head but Remus didn’t look up. “How do you do it?” she repeated herself a bit louder.
“Do what?” he asked, looking confused.
“He was your best friend,” she said softly. “How can you just be all right?”
She watched his fingers whiten around the handle of his mug and the way his jaw seemed stiff when he spoke. “I’m not all right but I really don’t think I am the right person to talk about this.” He got to his feet quickly and walked over to the sink to throw the rest of his tea out.
“Why not?” Tonks persisted and pushed herself to her feet. She was only a junior Auror, two years on the job and she had never seen someone die from it. Her grandparents had died when she was young and uncomprehending and when Sirius had been sent to jail all those years ago, it was just another incident of a family that her mother had told her was no good. But she couldn’t even begin to think of the number of deaths that Remus had seen. “You seem to be holding yourself together just fine,” she pointed out. “So help me out here. The Healers did say I should talk about things.”
Remus glared at her. “I’m pretty sure the Healers also told you to stay in St. Mungos for another week but you didn’t listen to them then.”
“Well, I’m listening to them now,” she shot back. She reached out and grabbed his arm before he could leave the room, ignoring the slight flare of pain in her side. “He was your best friend,” she nearly shouted, his indifference suddenly an affront to her grief. “How can you not care that he died?”
She saw his eyes widen with what might have been pain or maybe it was anger but either way Tonks knew that she had gone too far. He ripped his arm out of her grasp and turned to face her properly.
“Of course, I care that he died,” he said coldly. “Just because I don’t show it doesn’t mean I don’t and considering the jobs we have to do you might want to look into-”
“Hiding my feelings?” she interrupted, suddenly too angry and upset herself to care that she had gone too far. “Bullshit! No one will mind if you shed a few tears for the poor man.”
“I have!” he exclaimed and she flinched at the pain in his voice. He must have seen her do it because he repeated more quietly, “I have.”
He looked away from her then and he didn’t see the mortified expression creep over her face.
“I shed them nearly fifteen years ago,” he continued in a dull voice, “when I thought he was the cause of James and Lily and Peter’s death and even though I thought him a murderer I still cried for him because the friend I knew had died for me.” He looked at her hopelessly. “And then he came back and everything was a mess and he’s innocent… he was innocent and all those years where he could have lived were a complete waste.” He sighed. “Is that what you want to know? It’s easy to get past a person’s death when you have already grieved for them. You just have nothing left to give.”
She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”
“No, trust me,” Remus interrupted and laughed slightly. “You meant exactly what you did. Got your answer didn’t you. I told you I wasn’t the best person to talk about these things with.”
She frowned. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt you to talk about this yourself. It might help.”
Remus looked up and his face was set. “He died, Nymphadora. There’s nothing more to it than that and talking about it isn’t going to change anything. For all you know I could die tomorrow. Do you want to talk about that? Give you a head start.”
She didn’t know what possessed her. Maybe it was the thought of him speaking about his own death so calmly, or maybe it was the news of Amelia Bones and Emmeline Vance’s deaths the previous week that no one seemed to be able to do anything about. Or maybe it was simply the fact that she realised that neither of them were dealing with Sirius’ death in any way that was going to help them. Either way, her fist lashed out before she realised and punched him across the face.
It was a good punch too, solid and at just the right angle to send him stumbling back into one of the kitchen cupboards. She wasn’t an Auror for nothing but she was just a tad slow on her second punch and Remus caught her fist before it could connect with anything. He pulled her close to stop her fighting any more, wrapping his other arm around her shoulders. He didn’t have anything to worry about though, with the pain in her side convincing her that keeping still would be a very good idea. Her tongue didn’t have that same restriction.
“It’s not my fault you can’t deal with his death but don’t ever bloody talk like that to me,” she growled up at him.
He looked stricken at her a moment, skin red from where she punched him, before the anger and pain faded from his eyes and he closed them. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry.”
She didn’t know whether he was talking to her or maybe about Sirius or the world in general but she told him to shut up anyway and leant her forehead against his chest.
“I told you I wasn’t the best person to talk to,” he repeated and his voice was the gentle and somewhat infuriatingly logical one she remembered. “I always stuff things like this up.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed you,” she told him, the closest thing to an apology that she could manage. “It’s just loosing my ability to transform is really screwing me around and I just thought… I just thought you could help.”
He was silent for a while before saying, “Years ago when all that happened, I left London pretty quickly. I didn’t want to stick around to hear people tell me that everything would be okay so I left.”
“Where did you go?” she mumbled into his chest.
“Nowhere,” Remus said a little wistfully. “There weren’t very many people there to talk to in nowhere so I just had to get through things by myself.
“Did you?”
She saw Remus smile out the corner of her eye. “No, I guess I didn’t.”
He shifted his arm that was lying across her shoulders. They stood there for a couple of minutes, the heat of his arm warming up her neck, before he spoke again.
“I miss him. I really do.”
She sighed and pressed herself closer without thinking. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, barely loud enough for her to hear.
“Yes, it was. In part.”
Just like the punch, she didn’t know what possessed her again but he was sad and she was guilty and it seemed like the easiest thing to just push herself up and brush her lips against his. He didn’t react as she opened her mouth against his and she didn’t want to open her eyes to read the expression on his face. She just wanted something and even if it was just the feel of someone else’s lips and the warmth of someone else’s body soothing the cramps in her side then that was enough.
But then his hand moved, sliding down her back to press her against him harder. She could feel his ribs through the layers of their clothing but then he opened his mouth and all she could think about was that.
He gave a small groan then jerked his head back and pushed her away before she could react. The look he gave her was confused and sad before he walked quickly from the room.
She just stood there, slightly unbalanced and wondering what the hell had just happened. The warmth of his body was slowly being leeched from her own and her side started to ache again. She touched her lips with her fingers and glanced in the direction where Remus had disappeared.
She sighed and left the house without trying to find him to apologise. It appeared she had a talent for making a fool of herself in more ways than one, she thought as she angrily realised she was still touching her lips.
* * *
Grimmauld Place was just as ugly as ever.
“You would think,” Mundungus said with a groan, “that a super secret top notch bloody society would have a better method for transporting their valuables around.”
“What?” Remus said distractedly from where he was sorting scrolls.
“Or maybe not, considering the quality of some of its members.”
Remus glared at him. “Don’t you have better things to be doing then standing around insulting me?”
Dung shrugged. “Maybe not. Don’t you have better things to be doing then sitting around listening to me? You’ve been sorting those scrolls for the past hour.”
Remus looked down helplessly. He had forgotten even what the scrolls contained anymore.
“Thinking ‘bout Sirius again?” Dung asked, surprisingly compassionately.
He tried not to think about Sirius actually. He had meant what he had said to Tonks (another person that he tried not to think about unless he wanted to die of embarrassment); he had truly grieved for Sirius a decade and a half ago when he had been sent to Azkaban. It wasn’t Sirius’ death that pained him, it was his life before that, how Azkaban changed him that made Remus clench his fists and scream inside his head.
He had gotten used to people dying over the years. He just hadn’t gotten used to them dying so uselessly and he hated himself for thinking like that.
He blinked when he realised Dung was staring at him and hastened to reply, “No, I mean, yeah but it’s not-”
“Then what is your bloody problem then?” Dung asked and threw some unidentified object at his head.
Remus glared as he ducked. “Talking to you obviously.”
Dung made a face. “Well then. I know when I’m not wanted. Molly wanted that box moved upstairs.” He gestured to a dusty cardboard box in the corner.
Remus waited but when Dung didn’t appear to be moving he asked, “Aren’t you going to take it up?”
“Oh, so I’m supposed to do everything-”
“All right!” Remus cut him off. “Bloody hell, I’ll do it.” He grabbed the box. “Why don’t you go back to whatever hole you crawled out from.”
“Harsh,” Dung muttered as Remus left the room. “Didn’t even finish sorting those scrolls.”
Remus kicked the door shut behind him, cutting off anything else Dung was complaining about before starting to walk up the stairs.
Dumbledore had dropped by a couple of days ago and told them that the issue of the house’s ownership had been cleared up as Sirius’ will had been recovered. The good news was that Harry got ownership; the bad news was that they all had to move back into the blasted house again.
“Dung being a pain in the arse?” a quiet voice asked and Remus looked up to see Tonks’ pale, heart shaped face coming down the stairs.
Remus smiled before he could help it, before he remembered what had happened the last time they came into contact and he coughed to cover himself. Having not seen each other since, he wasn’t sure where they stood or whether he should go find a rock to hide under.
“Yeah,” he said. “Same as always.”
The conversation stalled then and they just stared at each other. She had been absent from the dinner that Molly always tried to throw on the weekends for the Order. She always used to attend and he wondered whether she abstained because of him.
Tonks seemed to shake her head and then nodded past Remus towards the door Dung was behind. “First thing he did when I got here was make a crack about my hair.”
Now that she mentioned it, Remus saw that her hair was still the same shade of brown as before, bit mousy actually and tied back from her face with a pink bandanna.
“I think it looks lovely,” he tried. “It suits you.”
She made a face at him. “Don’t even try. I hate it. Listen,” she said as she continued to down the steps until she was standing on the step above his. “I want to apologise about before.”
Remus swallowed. Before could only refer to one thing but he had assumed that he would be the one doing the apologising.
“I wasn’t thinking. I was angry and upset and I just…”
“It’s okay,” Remus hurriedly cut in. “We both weren’t thinking. Can’t imagine it would be much fun kissing a werewolf,” he added before he could help himself.
She smiled. “Actually, I was referring to what I said. I shouldn’t have pushed you like that. But I’ll apologise for the kiss as well, if you want.” She paused and a strange look came over her face. “You think that I care that I kissed a werewolf?”
Remus blinked, momentarily stuck for words. As far as his experience went, women were most put out to learn they were with a werewolf but then this was Tonks and he wondered whether he had insulted her somehow. “No, I just, you know. I probably had bad breath. Plus, old, poor and dangerous, you know. Great catch there.”
Tonks stared at him a moment then smiled again. “And I’m a clumsy Metamorph who can’t change. Match made in heaven.”
Remus made himself laugh in relief. “Perfect,” he managed to say. “Listen, I’m sorry as well.”
Tonks waved her hand. “Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.”
He nodded and then the silence grew awkward. “If you ever need to talk,” he tried.
“See you as a last resort?” Tonks quipped.
He grinned. “Yeah.”
“See me if you ever need a punch to the head then.”
“I will,” he promised then paused. If she wasn’t angry at him or ashamed about what had happened then he wondered where she had been the past week. Before that kiss she had turned up at Headquarters nearly every day. “I haven’t seen you around lately,” he ventured.
She smiled and nodded. “Yeah. I’ve been transferred down to Hogsmeade by the Aurors. A group of us are going to be patrolling down there in case there are any attacks. They keep us on a tight schedule.”
Remus nodded. “I guess you won’t be going to Harry’s birthday then?”
She smiled wistfully. “No, I won’t have time and I doubt the Boy-Who-Lived has enough influence to get me a day off. Say hi for me though.”
“Of course.”
“Is he doing okay?” she asked, looking a little sad.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I still haven’t seen him yet. I wouldn’t know how to act around him if I did. The best friend of your dead parents and dead godfather doesn’t exactly have the right ring.”
She smiled again. “He likes you. You should talk to him more.”
“Yeah, I suppose. It’s just awkward, you know.”
She stared at him for a moment then nodded. “Yeah, I know,” she said then leaned down and hugged him around the box he still carried.
“See you round… hopefully,” she told him and slipped past him into the room that was still occupied by Dung. Remus just stood there frozen on the stairs, listening to them start to argue behind him. For a minute there he had almost thought that she was going to kiss him and he felt strangely disappointed.
* * *
No one bothered to hang up Christmas decorations this year, Tonks noticed gloomily as she shook the snow off her shoulders. She gave the troll leg umbrella stand an evil look as she hung up her coat and walked through the entrance hall of Grimmauld Place. Sirius was the main instigator of decorations last year and no one was ever here often enough to hang anything up this year. She wrapped her arms around herself tightly; it was just as freezing inside than outside. She caught a reflection of herself in the hall mirror and noticed how pale her face was, how limp her hair seemed and sighed. The shift rotations down at Hogsmeade were taking their toll, but with only four of them they had no choice. The fact that she was slowly losing weight and not getting enough sleep were just not important as opposed to keeping Hogsmeade safe.
“Come in, Nymphadora,” Dumbledore said with a warm smile, interrupting her thoughts and gesturing from the next room. “The meeting is just about to start.”
She gave the Headmaster a quick nod as she walked past and sat down quietly within the circle of chairs. A general assortment of the Order members were present: Professor McGonagall, Moody, Kingsley and Arthur Weasley who all smiled at her. Remus looked up once, stared at her for a moment then went back to staring at the floor. His face looked just as drawn and pale as hers and was covered in at least a week’s worth of a scraggly beard.
The meeting was a standard one, just a general report and checking up on people’s positions and any worries they might have. Who had died and who was missing since the last meeting were also stated but no one wanted to talk much about that. There was nothing they could do until You-Know-Who or his Death Eaters made a direct attack or they got detailed information on his forces.
She made a brief account on what was happening in Hogsmeade which was nothing other than people being afraid and making stupid claims because they were afraid. So far any Dementor attacks were away from any concentrated settlements.
Then Dumbledore stood up and said that while the Ministry had admitted that Sirius Black had been innocent, there was to be no formal announcement to the public about his innocence. They felt that such information could mistakenly lead to people distrusting the Ministry and at such a time could prove fatal in the upcoming war.
Everyone seemed to pause in a shocked silence but no one said anything. They were well aware of what Sirius had gone through after he had escaped and the sad fact was that they all had more important things to be doing then trying to liberate a dead man. Tonks was just thankful that Snape was not here to make some sort of insulting, sarcastic comment. She was still angry with what he said when she had brought Harry up to Hogwarts on the first day of school. She had more imperative things to be doing then worrying about what form her Patronus took, she told herself.
“They just don’t want to bloody admit they were wrong,” she heard Moody mutter as the meeting broke up. “They never did.”
Most people left with a few hurried words of goodbye, no one wanting to stay after Dumbledore’s announcement and soon enough Tonks was left with only the Headmaster and her former Professor. Remus had disappeared somewhere within the house.
“Are you coming, Nymphadora?” Dumbledore asked as McGonagall was wrapping a Gryffindor scarf around her neck.
Tonks spared a glance towards the kitchen where faint sounds of someone moving around could be heard. “No, I think I stay for a couple of minutes just to make sure Remus is all right.”
Dumbledore nodded. “Be careful coming back to Hogsmeade then.”
Tonks nodded. “Of course.”
McGonagall sniffed. “That poor boy, I don’t know how he does it sometimes.”
“He’s strong, Minerva,” Dumbledore said and opened the front door for here. “Stronger than we think.”
Tonks stared at the closed door for a moment, the short gust of cold air prickling the back of her neck before making her way into the kitchen. Remus already had a glass out and was struggling to open a bottle of Firewhiskey.
“Give me a moment,” he said, without looking up.
Tonks watched in silence as he filled the glass up with a shot’s worth of alcohol, maybe a double shot and downed the whole lot in a couple of gulps. He coughed slightly.
“Why bother with the glass?” Tonks asked but Remus didn’t appear to even hear her.
“I told you,” he mumbled. “A waste. An entire waste. They bloody admit he’s innocent and that they screwed up but they aren’t going to do a damn thing about it. Too late anyway.”
“I’m sorry, Remus,” she said quietly.
He glanced up sharply at her, seemed to realise who it was that he was talking to. “I’m sorry,” he said as he sighed. “I don’t mean to get all like this but I just…”
“You just need to get some things out.”
He nodded. “Yeah, and I already spilled my guts out to you before. Who else is here?”
“No one. Just us. I guess no one else wanted to stick around.”
“Can’t blame them,” he said then paused. “So just us then?”
“Yeah, just us,” she echoed, snagging the Firewhiskey bottle out of his hand and taking a sip. She wasn’t about to get drunk but the night was cold and she didn’t fancy the trip back to Hogsmeade with nothing to brace her.
“Are you going to leave soon?” he asked suddenly.
She shrugged. “I guess. I have an early shift patrolling Hogsmeade tomorrow. You don’t get sleep-ins as Aurors. You should come round and visit me sometime.”
“I don’t think I would be welcome,” Remus said, taking back the bottle and looking down into the neck. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. It would be too suspicious for me to be seen visiting an Auror, let alone suspicious for you to have a werewolf visiting you.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” she said simply.
He looked at her sadly. “No, I don’t think you would.”
She looked away, trying to muster a smile to lighten the mood. “I need to get my beauty sleep anyway. Don’t have magic to help me out anymore, do I?”
She saw Remus staring at her out of the corner of her eye. “You don’t need it,” he said quietly then went back to pouring another drink.
Tonks swallowed hard. She couldn’t remember when someone had last complimented her on her natural looks. She reached out a hand and pulled the bottle and the glass out of his hands.
“You don’t need this either,” she said.
He made a half hearted grab for the bottle before giving up and sighing. “Are you going to see your parents for Christmas this year?”
She frowned. “I don’t know. They don’t live in Britain and I’m not sure whether they want to come back given everything that’s happening.” She sighed. “I probably won’t even have the time to visit them either.”
Remus nodded and tapped his fingers against the table. “I have to go back to the werewolves, you know,” he said bluntly. “Might have to stay there for Christmas. I shouldn’t tell you but that’s where I’ve been lately.”
She had guessed this all ready. As the Order’s only werewolf it made sense that he would be the one given the mission concerning them. He had never really talked about werewolves before or at least not to her and she wondered how much he must be dreading going back if he was willing to talk like this. She knew the full moon had been only a couple of days ago which meant he would have spent it with the pack. His hands were shaking slightly and she wondered how bad it had been.
He didn’t resist when she reached up and pulled him into her arms. He seemed to melt against far too easily, as if he was craving the comfort more than he was willing to admit.
“It’ll be okay,” Tonks whispered to him.
She felt him snort into her hair. “It’s Greyback’s pack that I have to go back to. Greyback was the werewolf that bit me.” His voice broke slightly. “My father pissed him off so he bit me as revenge.”
She felt him stiffen in her arms and she tried to pull back to look at him but his arms were locked too tightly around her back. Her own breath felt like it was trapped in her lungs. Whatever crap she was going through trying to do her own job through her grief was nothing compared to what Remus must be going through, she realised.
“You don’t have to go back,” she began but Remus cut in.
“Yes I do, because no one else can and we’ll lose this war if we don’t get all the information that we can.”
She felt him groan slightly and shiver and when she tried to pull back again he let his arms fall to the side.
“God, I’m sorry,” he said and pressed the palms of his hand against his eyes. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m all right really. It’s just with Sirius not getting properly vindicated and having to go back I just-”
“Needed someone to talk to,” Tonks interrupted with a smile. “I mean, considering what excellent conversationalists we are and our astounding history of it, who else are you going to talk to?”
Remus stared at her for a moment then burst out laughing. The sight of him looking something other than sad or indifferent was enough to entice her into joining in with his mirth. Remus looked up and their eyes met and they burst into another round of laughter. He reached out and drew her towards him again, giving her a squeeze.
“Thankyou,” he whispered.
She smiled. “Don’t mention it.” She reached up and pulled his head down to give him a kiss on the cheek. She intended to say goodbye and get what sleep she could before her early shift patrolling Hogsmeade tomorrow but when she pulled back, Remus quickly slid his hand up to hold her head still.
He looked at her for a moment then leant forward and kissed her. His other hand joined the one holding her head against his, his lips were slow but insistent against hers and Tonks remembered the last time this had happened and started to count down until the moment he pulled away.
She didn’t have to wait long.
“I’m sorry,” he said breathlessly, turning his head to the side but not moving his hands. His face was full of remorse but her eyes kept getting drawn back to how red his lips were.
“I shouldn’t have,” he continued but she was ready this time and before he could say anything more she pushed his head back to face her, wrapped her other arm tightly around his neck and kissed him again. She knew this was a bad idea but guilt trips of Sirius were still making her cry at night and with him going back to the werewolves, going straight back into the heart of danger, she just wanted to give him something. Even if this turned out to be one night of comfort then just like that kiss it would be enough and she realised she needed it just as much as he did.
He tensed slightly in her arms but when she kissed him harder he relaxed until he slid his hands down her back and gripped her hips, forcing her back slightly.
“This isn’t,” he managed to get out before she had a chance to speak. “This isn’t because I’m going back and I need some kind of human contact or something like that.”
She stared at him a moment, refusing to acknowledge in her head the idea that maybe it was because she needed the human contact, as well. She just said, “Good,” rather impatiently.
That was apparently all he needed and he seemed to shiver before sliding his hands further down and around the backs of her thighs to pull him up against her. He started to kiss her properly then, alternating between her lips and jaw and neck.
He started to laugh between kisses but she was too breathless to question him about it.
“I am far too old for you, you know,” he said as he pulled her collar down to reveal more skin. “Too poor, too dangerous. You should be running away screaming.”
She laughed as well. “Well, I rarely go for the conventional. You should be flattered.”
He looked at her and smiled and it was discomforting for her to realise how pleased it made her feel.
It was later that night, or rather early the next morning when Tonks woke among tangled sheets and warm limbs that she realised that pleased feeling was still there. Even when she had to get up to make sure she was on time for her shift down at Hogsmeade and Remus mumbled protests in his sleep when his hands slipped from her skin, she couldn’t stop the smile on her face. Even worse, when she looked at how grey his hair was, how much his collar bones stood out and the way the scars on his back were paler than his skin, she realised that she didn’t even regret what happened that night.
She swore silently to herself as she finished dressing, beginning to suspect what this new sensation was that she was feeling. She wasn’t thinking when she left the house, still pondering this new revelation and consequently she forgot to leave Remus a note.
* * *
The nights were cold. Magic was not welcomed amongst the werewolf packs so Remus had to make do with a warm body on either side. It wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. They weren’t as feral or as uncivilised as the public tended to believe. They just operated by their own value system, one that Remus was getting more and more used to.
It had not been easy to convince the werewolves that after losing his job at Hogwarts, he had given up on society at large. But no one knew that he knew that it was Greyback who had bitten him and in time it was far too easy to blend in as a hopeless monster coming back to his kin. He shouted threats and abuses at the Ministry with the best of them. He didn’t join in when they shouted gratitude at Voldemort.
“Here,” a soft voice said offered and a steaming mug was thrust into his vision.
He blinked the crustiness out of his eyes and stretched his limbs as he sat up. The two werewolves beside him shifted to fill the gap he left.
“Thanks,” he said and took the mug.
The werewolf who had handed it to him smiled. “Kev’s already started cooking breakfast,” she said.
Her name was Danielle. She was eighteen years old and had been bitten by a werewolf two years ago. She said she didn’t remember which wolf but her parents, both muggles, handed her over to the Ministry because they didn’t know what to do with her. She ran away before the Ministry came round to pick her up and nearly died after her first transformation was spent alone. She was then found and picked up by Greyback’s pack the day after. She had been delirious from infected wounds and the shock of the change but she had survived into a relatively normal person under Greyback’s influence.
Kev was nearer to Remus’ own age. He had been a wizard and knew exactly what would happen when he got bitten ten years ago. He said he didn’t remember who did it either. His wife left him after a year of lycanthropy, claiming that it was too dangerous for their two year old son. Kev hasn’t seen them since.
“Cold morning, ain’t it?” Kev asked as Remus approached.
Remus just nodded. Kev and Danielle were the two werewolves that he had gotten friendliest with. He had soon realised that it wasn’t so much that they supported Voldemort but they simply hadn’t had another option. They listened to him when he spoke out against Voldemort as did a few other werewolves but no one ever listened long. It was too dangerous and besides, joining Greyback’s pack meant they had food, shelter and no one shouting ‘Monster!’ at them. Something that could not be guaranteed in the society Remus was saying they should go back to.
“What’s cooking?” Remus asked when the welcoming smells grew too much.
Kev smiled, he was missing a tooth. “My special breakfast soup. Be ready in a minute.”
Kev was one of the few who did the cooking in the camp. The werewolves weren’t entirely savages; fresh meat was only easiest to acquire under the full moon and they were on the hunt. For the rest of days of the month, creature comforts like cooked food were still craved by the majority of the pack.
The werewolves occupied a ruined farmhouse in the middle of some uninhabited countryside. The main building was in complete disrepair but the barn house was in relatively good shape. It was reserved entirely for Greyback and his highest ‘advisors’ though. The rest of the pack had to make do with the great outdoors.
Only a few werewolves were stirring. Out here in the fresh air they generally slept late. When the pack had been underground or hiding in abandoned warehouses in London, everyone had been alert, afraid of being discovered. Even Greyback’s promise of Voldemort’s support had not been enough to quench that instinctive fear of something bigger hunting you. But out here the fear was less and people relaxed.
Danielle wandered over to join them by the fire. Her clothes were dirty and ragged, far too thin for the weather they were having lately.
“Hey darling,” Kev greeted her. “Sleep well?”
She shrugged. “Well enough.”
Ages weren’t so important here. No one cared if you were a child or an old man, only that you were a werewolf.
“Something on your mind?” Kev asked when Danielle continued to look distracted.
She smiled slightly. “Nothing. Just thinking about things. Hey, Remus?”
“Mmm,” Remus murmured in reply.
“You ever been in love?” she asked very seriously.
“Excuse me?” he choked around his drink.
Kev laughed. “Hell of a thing to drop on a man first thing in the morning. Let me tell you a secret,” he said as he leaned close. “You’re too good for him,” he whispered theatrically.
“Hey,” Remus protested.
Danielle groaned. “No, I don’t mean that. I was just wondering. I mean, we know about Kev’s wife and I’ve told you all about… well, you’re the only one we don’t know about.”
Danielle had a boyfriend before getting bitten. She didn’t anymore and by the way she acted it sometimes seemed that losing him had been more traumatic than the bite.
“No,” Remus said quietly. “I’ve never been in love.”
Danielle looked deflated. “Not even once?” she probed.
Remus shook his head. “Not even…” he trailed off, long years of memories coming plague to him. “I might’ve been,” he corrected himself. “Once. Long ago but it didn’t end well.”
“Did they find out you were a werewolf?” Danielle asked sympathetically.
Remus paused. “No,” he said thickly. “They all ready knew that. There were… other reasons why it didn’t work.”
Kev sighed wistfully and turned back to his cooking. Danielle was staring at him with wide eyes.
“Wow,” she said. “If I found someone who didn’t care I was a werewolf then I would never let them go. So there hasn’t been anyone else since?”
Remus didn’t answer. He had been trying very hard not to think of Tonks in the long weeks he had to spend in Greyback’s pack but she kept creeping into his thoughts. He tried not to think how disappointed he had been when he had woken up alone and how pitifully relieved he had been when she had told him she had just forgotten to leave a note and no, she didn’t regret what happened and when could she him again? He couldn’t remember the last time he had been with someone who knew he was a werewolf and more importantly just didn’t care.
He couldn’t forget how soft her skin had been but then he remembered Harry telling him at Christmas that her Patronus had changed shape and shook his head angrily. Whatever that might imply, he could not afford to think about it at the moment.
“No,” he told Danielle. “Love makes things complicated.”
She shook her head. “Only if you let it,” she whispered so quietly that Remus thought she hadn’t meant for him to hear.
He was saved from having to decide whether to respond by a massive growl that rang out through the camp. Shivers rolled up Remus’ back. It was the same growl he had heard when he was six years old and nothing would ever make him used to it. His hands convulsed around the mug he still held and he put in down before he dropped it.
“Greyback,” Danielle whispered fearfully. “He sounds angry.”
“He always sounds angry,” Kev muttered and moved the pot containing breakfast away from the fire.
The three of them got to their feet and cautiously approached the barn where Greyback could be seen emerging with a snarl on his face. His cronies were waking up the rest of the werewolves, kicking and growling and scratching when the response wasn’t quick enough.
“I have bad news,” Greyback shouted when the camp had gathered. “Or rather, bad news for one of you.” His eyes gleamed and all of a sudden his stance was predatory. Remus felt his skin go tight with fear.
“One of you is a spy for the other side,” Greyback snarled suddenly and Remus froze. His hand twitched but his wand was back at Grimmauld Place and he knew he couldn’t outrun an entire werewolf pack. He wouldn’t even be able to outrun Greyback and he waited with his throat twisting itself around his lungs for the monster’s eyes to settle on him.
But instead a struggle erupted on the other side of the crowd as Greyback called out, “And we know who it is.”
A man was dragged forward amid growls and insults while the other half of the werewolf pack remained quiet. The man, Remus didn’t know his name, was pushed to his knees in front of Greyback.
“You betrayed me,” Greyback told him simply and then very deliberately bent down and tore the man’s throat out with his teeth. The man gurgled once then slumped to the ground, his ripped neck spraying Greyback and the ground in blood.
The crowd howled and with a gesture from Greyback, his men dragged the body away.
“All I ask from you is loyalty,” Greyback shouted out. “All I ask is loyalty when we go to war and when we win you will all be rewarded beyond your dreams. Betray me and I will eat you alive.” He turned and walked back into the barn leaving only the sound of cheers and the smell of blood.
Remus was able to breath again as relief cooled the sweat dripping down his neck. He took careful note of the faces who looked repulsed though. They didn’t say anything, no one ever did but you could see the horror in their eyes. Once you got into Greyback’s pack you stayed there and Greyback made sure no one ever left who wasn’t dead and in pieces.
Danielle was staring terrified at the pool of blood soaking the ground until Kev turned her and started walking her back to the campfire.
“It’s okay,” Remus heard Kev say. “Everything will be okay. We’re safest here. We don’t have a choice.”
Sadly, Remus knew that for most of them that was true. This was the only place that treated them as anything other than monsters. This was the only place where they were safe from the outside world.
The memory of being wrapped up in Tonks arms flashed through his mind. Of feeling warm and something akin to love and he realised that he had felt safe in the bed that they had shared. He felt safe when he was lying beside her and looking into her pale brown eyes and worrying about nothing more than the woman next to him.
He growled slightly to himself as he turned away. Stan Shunpike and who knows who else had already been falsely arrested. One man had just been revealed as a spy and had been killed for it and Remus shuddered to think whether they had mistaken the man for him and how close he had come to being that body that had been thrown away like garbage.
They were in a war, he told himself, and it could have easily been Tonks or even Harry’s blood that was drying in the sunlight before him. Nowhere was safe. He learnt that during the last war and he wasn’t going to learn that again, especially not the hard way.
* * *
It was nearly midday when Tonks finished her shift. She, Dawlish, Proudfoot and Savage guarded Hogsmeade under a rotation of 12 hour shifts, two Aurors to a shift. When they weren’t on guard they were expected to go through any information gathered and receive complaints or reports submitted by the general populace. Rest was their lowest priority.
So far there had been no attacks on Hogsmeade but she knew it was only a matter of time before a Dementor was set loose or a Death Eater got bored. While Tonks may have been too young to have fought in the first war, Moody had been all too eager to regale them with his own horror stories. Between the attacks and deaths that had already occurred, it was far too easy for her to imagine the worst. The constant paranoia and constant vigilance was making her loose sleep at night and forget to eat.
“Wotcher, Savage,” she said wearily as her fellow Auror approached.
“Tonks,” he said in greeting and handed her a bread roll filled with something. “Thought you might be hungry.”
“Thanks,” she said and forced herself to take a bite. Contrary to his name Savage had an almost boyish cast to his features, something that Tonks took every opportunity to tease him about. It was only fair given he teased her about her clumsiness just as much. However, there hadn’t been much time for jokes lately, regardless of the care package that the Weasley twins had sent her from their joke shop.
“Anything to report?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Just people nervous and scared in their own houses. Just like me.”
“Just like us all,” Savage said as he nodded.
“Something wrong?” she asked in response to his somewhat distracted expression.
“Oh no, maybe nothing. I just got an owl from one of my mates back at the office. Apparently there was some sort of disturbance in the werewolf pack You-Know-Who keeps. Wondered if anything happened in response here.”
Tonks’ nearly choked on a mouthful of bread. “What kind of disturbance?” she forced herself to ask calmly.
Savage didn’t notice her agitation and shrugged. “Something about routing out a spy, except no one knows whose spy it was. There were a couple of rumours about the werewolves moving their camp but we haven’t heard anything more yet.”
“Oh,” Tonks said, all manner of horrendous situations flashing through her mind.
“See you next shift,” Savage said cheerfully. “Dawlish is relieving Proudfoot.” He took off down the street leaving Tonks standing still in indecision.
She knew she should go and get some rest but the thought that Remus was in danger or hell, could even be dead, was too much. She hadn’t seen him since a hurried conversation back at Grimmauld that only lasted minutes. She didn’t think he believed her when she said she had intended to leave a note after that night and that she had in fact enjoyed herself.
There was something growing between them that was definitely more than just a one night stand. Her thoughts automatically turned to him when her mind became unfocused and an inappropriate number of her dreams were devoted to him. But whatever it was that was between them, she wasn’t going to get a chance to find out what it could lead to if he was dead.
She knew the Order might have some more information about what happened but she didn’t particularly want to explain why she was so concerned to whoever was at Headquarters. Rosmerta at the Three Broomsticks might be able to tell her something but she had been acting slightly weird lately. She had told Dawlish about her suspicions but the older Auror had dismissed them and told her to go back to hunting down Dementors.
The only person who she could talk to who might know what was going on would be Dumbledore. She glanced up at the tall spires of Hogwarts, just visible in the distance and made up her mind. She threw the rest of her bread roll away, wrapped her cloak tighter around her body and began the trek up to the castle.
She had to find out what happened. She couldn’t just let Remus die like she had let Sirius… She shook her head and forced her brain to stop thinking as she made her way up to Hogwarts.
Dumbledore however was not in his office and Tonks nearly kicked the wall in frustration. She spun around and stalked through the rest of the school. She would have a quick look around to see if she could find him or maybe even go talk to McGonagall. Dawlish was suspicious enough of her as it was, suspecting but not being able to prove her association with the Order and she didn’t want to attract his attention anymore than necessary. The Auror ranks were in enough divisions as is.
She was just about to give up and go worry alone in the house the Aurors had appropriated when a voice called out in pain from around the corner. Hogwarts was one of the safest places in Britain and she assumed it was only some students scuffling but she nevertheless assumed an authoritative expression and clenched her hand around her wand in her pocket before walking round the corner.
“Harry?” she called out in surprise when she saw him hopping around on one foot, alone in the corner before falling over.
He looked just as surprised to see her. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see Dumbledore,” she said, wondering what on earth he was doing. She remembered how he had gotten his nose broken on the first day of school and how she had seen him shouting at Mundungus in Hogsmeade. Except Dung was now in Azkaban she thought with a pang. The man may have been a criminal but he was still part of the Order, part of the team.
“His office isn’t here,” Harry offered. “It’s round the other side of the castle, behind the gargoyle-”
“I know,” she interrupted, walking around the castle for an hour had made her a little irritated. “He’s not there. Apparently he’s gone away again.”
“Has he? Hey - you don’t know where he goes, I suppose?” Harry looked far too curious and Tonks figured she had better stem off any misfortune before it started.
“No,” she said simply.
“What did you want to see him about?” Harry continued to ask.
She shrugged and started to pick the hem of her sleeve. The last thing she wanted to do was let Harry know that Remus could be in danger. She didn’t know what kind of relationship they had but she wasn’t going to worry him for nothing. “Nothing in particular. I just thought he might know what’s going on… I’ve heard rumours… people getting hurt…”
“Yeah. I know,” Harry said. “It’s all been in the papers. That little kid trying to kill his-”
“The Prophet’s often behind the times,” she answered vaguely. Proudfoot had told her about how the kid had been brought in. How he had started to scream when he was arrested and how he didn’t stop. The Prophet didn’t talk about that though. It didn’t mention how the Dementor attacks were becoming more frequent or about the muggle kidnappings. They only reported what Scrimgeour told them to and Tonks had no fond memories of the man when he had been Head of the Auror Office. “You haven’t had any letters from anyone in the Order recently?” she asked suddenly. Maybe Remus had sent something to Harry.
“No one from the Order writes to me anymore, not since Sirius-”
She only heard the first part of Harry’s answer. No, of course, Remus wouldn’t be sending any letters. It was too dangerous. Greyback would kill anyone who he thought was betraying him. In fact, going on what Savage told her, he might have all ready.
“I’m sorry. I mean… I miss him, as well…”
“What?” Tonks said blankly, realising she hadn’t heard a word Harry had said before blinking away the tears before they fell “Well… I’ll see you around, Harry…” she said when Harry just looked at her worriedly.
It was only after she had turned abruptly and walked off, not wanting Harry to see her break apart that she realised that he had been talking about Sirius. The poor boy had not only lost the man but brought the subject up himself in order to try and comfort her and she had said absolutely nothing.
She was likewise stuck for words when one week later at another Order meeting in Grimmauld Place when Remus had walked through the front door, in ripped clothes, covered in dirt but still thankfully alive. He had looked completely surprised when she ran up and threw her arms around his neck. He hugged her back tightly for a moment but when he firmly pushed her away his face was hard.
* * *
LINK TO PART B