Serpents - Prologue
Title: Serpents (Prologue/?)
Author: MrsTater
Rating & Warnings: R for sexuality
Prompts: weakness; "In the light of Voldemort's return, we are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided."
Word Count: 5241
Summary: Two years into a relationship with Remus, and the correct way to deal with full moons continues to elude Tonks, dredging up her insecurities and memories of painful past failures. Voldemort's attack on a fellow Order member puts everything into perspective for her...But will Remus see the light?
Author’s Notes: A leap into the future in the Caring For Magical Creatures universe (which expanded from "Snidgets", written for the last Fic Jumble here). I think this fic should stand alone even if you've not read that fic, though the background might make more sense as it's a POA-era R/T romance. :) I cannot thank godricgal enough for letting me bounce zillions of ideas off her, helping me keep my story and the POA timeline straight, for her beta work, and for all-around great encouragement.
Prologue: Judgment Day
June, 1994
If Tonks had been required, on pain of death, to pick the worst day in the whole history of Wizardkind to come up for Auror qualification, there couldn't possibly be a worse one than today.
Well -- the day your second cousin was convicted of murdering thirteen innocent Muggles and was sentenced to life in Azkaban would have been pretty crap timing, as well.
But the day after your escaped convict second cousin Confounded three students into thinking he was innocent so they could help him get past the Dementors and escape capture is, at the moment, equally crappy.
The creak of a door startled her from the Daily Prophet she'd been hunched over. She looked up to see her flatmate, Des, peeking warily out of her bedroom -- where, for once, thankfully, there was no monotonous thumping R&B bass line.
"Your mum still here?" Des whispered, the roundness of her eyes accentuated comically by her skin looking darker than usual in the shadows of the dimly lit bedroom.
Almost laughing, Tonks shook her head. "She set the table, called me Nymphadora at least nine hundred times, tried to talk me out of sitting my exams and getting a nice safe job, an Apothecary, maybe, since I'm good at Potions--"
"Not really a safe job when you're you," Des interrupted. "I mean, splash a little Essence of Belladonna on you, and your skin dries out and sloughs off, and then it won't be your daft hair your mum's having a fit about, will it?"
Glaring, Tonks went on, "She said not to bother with the washing up because she doesn't want her good breakfast dishes shattered into a million pieces, and left."
Des heaved a sigh of relief and emerged from her room wearing very short pyjama shorts and a tight tank top emblazoned with a rude slogan. She flicked her wand over her shoulder, and the wireless crackled to life with the crooning of Boyz II Wizardz.
"Didn't mean to be rude or anything not coming out," Des said, rubbing her eyes as she made a bee-line for the kitchen and the cooker. "Only I haven't had caffeine yet..." She tapped the kettle and said over the screech, "and your mum scares the shit out of me."
"She does that. 'Specially when your pyjamas say, Save a broom; ride a Quidditch player. You do realise that as the Tutshill Tornados' Mediwitch, you're supposed to saving the players, and not their broomsticks?"
Putting a tea bag in her mug to steep, Des grinned and shuffled to the table. "They play better when they're getting regular shags. You'll see next year when they win the cup. Ooh..." The spread on the table caught her eye. "Blimey, your mum cooked you a full breakfast?"
Tonks removed her feet from the chair across from her and kicked it out. "Tuck in, mate. I'm too nervous to stomach anything but toast, and I don't fancy Mum coming to do the washing up and lecturing me about eating properly if I really intend to go through with this mad notion about becoming an Auror." She sipped her tea, then added, "And don't worry. She was too preoccupied with me and the news about Black to remember I had a flatmate, much less a rude one."
"Hence the cooking, eh?"
"Yep."
As Tonks resumed reading the paper, Des looked up from heaping her plate. "Shouldn't you be cramming or something? I mean it is your Stealth practical, right?"
Tonks stared at her. "Operative word being practical, just what do you suggest I cram?"
Shrugging, Des took a mouthful of baked beans. "Dunno. Balance charms or something?"
"Only thing I'll be cramming is this toast down your throat if you start with me, too."
Des raised one hand in a gesture of innocence as she sprinkled pepper on a tomato with the other. "I know it's too early to have starched robes and a tie on--"
"Mum insisted on re-ironing them for me, even though I did it last night."
"--but there's no need to be bitchy. And I've seen your ironing charms."
Tonks slumped in her chair and ran a hand through her cropped blue hair. "Sorry. It's just that I'm just really stressed about my Stealth practical."
"What I said about my Quidditch boys applies to you, too, you know." Des took a bite of toast then, covering her mouth with her fingers, said, "Why aren't you with Remus, having a lovely, slow morning shag? Term's over, isn't it?"
Tonks' fingers tightened, crunching her toast. Yet another reason why today was crap timing for her first day of Auror qualification exams: last night had been a full moon.
Thanks to exam week at Hogwarts, his schedule's barely allowed the odd goodnight Floo, much less sex.
"He's got exams to mark."
"At seven bloody thirty in the morning? And the DADA exam's a practical, isn't it?"
"He's been ill, as well."
Des chewed deliberately, one thin pencilled eyebrow raised on her smooth brown forehead. Tonks' stomach knotted. She'd used the excuse a lot -- eight times, to be precise, since she and Remus started going out -- and Des didn't seem to like it. Was she suspicious? Noticing the pattern of Remus' "illnesses"?
No, you conspiracy theory-loving prat! Only Aurors...or Auror cadets...or people who were going to flunk their exams and get shunted into MLE...think like that.
"Ill a lot, isn't he?" Des speared a tomato with her fork. "You know when they say about older men being better in bed, they're not talking about sick beds, right?"
"Lay off, will you?"
"Sorry," Des muttered, "only he might've owled you or something, that's all. Honestly, sometimes it looks to me like he's making excuses because he's not that into you."
"Look!" Tonks set down her mug so hard that she sloshed tea onto the platter of tomatoes. "Stop judging things you haven't got a bloody clue about! Remus is--"
A sudden crackle across the flat cut Tonks off, and she whipped her head around just as green flames exploded in the fireplace grate.
"Here," Des finished her sentence when Remus' smiling face appeared in the Floo.
The sight of him had the approximate affect of a Banishing Charm on the anxiety that had settled on her shoulders like a weight last night, and kept her from sleeping and eating. Calling his name, she leapt from her chair--
--only to catch her hip on the back and toppling it as she flailed to keep upright.
"Damn it!" she hissed, slapping the chair after she'd righted it. "I'm so going to fail my Stealth practical!"
"Wotcher, Remus!" Des greeted. "Get your skinny arse in here! Tonks' Mum sent over proper brekkers."
Remus glanced at Tonks as though waiting for her invitation, and when she told him hell yes, of course he was welcome to join them, he got out of the Floo.
As if Summoned, Cato, the orphaned Kneazle Remus had found on the school grounds and talked Tonks into adopting, and which had nothing to do with her but hiss if she made eye contact with him, darted from underneath the sofa and, purring like a bloody car motor, which he never did, rubbed against Remus' legs.
"Hello, Desdemona." Remus dusted off his robes, which hung even more loosely than usual off his thin frame, before dropping into a crouch to fondle Cato's ears and neck and murmur to him about how he clearly hadn't been turning his nose up at Tonks' food, even if he hadn't taken to her.
"Just Des!" Tonks' flatmate protested. "Gawd! Think you'd be used to that, going out with Miss Don't-Call-Me-Nymphadora Tonks!"
Tonks rolled her eyes, but Remus smiled pleasantly up at her as he rose. Slowly, stiffly, with the slightest of furrows in his brow, Tonks noted.
"Yes, well," he said, "she doesn't say that to me often, since I've got a pet name for her."
Getting up to take her plate and teacup to the sink, Des smirked. "Are your ears burning? Only I was just asking Elphine why you hadn't come over to shag the nerves out of her."
"Sod off -- Desi."
This earned Tonks an obscene hand gesture, but Des did return to her room, allowing them their privacy.
Tonks wished she'd thought to say, Sod off, Desi, and turn off that crap you call music.
"Musicians who spell boys and wizards with a Z ought to be sent to Azkaban," she said.
Remus smirked. "Wizards is spelt with a Z."
"Why, you--"
Tonks raised a hand to sock him playfully in the shoulder, but his hands caught her wrists deftly, pulling her in for a kiss. It was the sort of slow, lovely kiss she knew from experience led to Des' prescribed morning sex.
Or it did when he didn't pull back after a second or two, that was.
She didn't mind the brevity of the kiss; his eyes, though shot through with red, spidery lines, and rimmed with grey fatigue, held her, caressing her as his careful fingertips traced her face.
"You, Elphine," he murmured, "shall be brilliant on your Stealth exam."
"Think I may, now I've had a proper good luck kiss."
He leant in and brushed his lips to hers again. Her arms slid beneath his, encircling his slender waist, and when she splayed her hands across his back, pulling him into her, he kissed her a little more intently, his warm tongue opening her lips and gliding with hers. Slow heat coursed all through her, and it was as if fear had held her in a frozen shell, but now his care and affection melted that, releasing her into her own skin again, with no more troubling thoughts than that she really hated R&B in the morning, and that the stupid Kneazle really needed to get the idea that two were company, but a third rubbing against her boyfriend and swiping vengefully at her uniform, was definitely a crowd.
Well -- there was one thing that was slightly more troubling.
Or maybe not troubling so much as...earth-shattering.
It wasn't the first time a certain word that started with L and rhymed with shove had whispered to her, sending shivers down her neck and butterflies into flight in her stomach that were as real as the ones produced by Remus' lips and the wordless messages they spoke against her mouth. Nor was it the first time she'd brushed aside the L-word before it could drift up from her heart and form fully in her mind.
Cos, Tonks, if you're totally honest with yourself, you know you lashed out at Des asking whether Remus is all that into you because you're scared shitless she's right.
Not that he didn't participate as enthusiastically in their relationship; the way he was kissing her now proved that.
But enthusiasm isn't love, Tonks. It's not even partnership. You won't settle for less. It's not in you. No matter what anybody says, Hufflepuffs don't have to settle.
There was so much he'd always held back from her, right from the beginning, and at times, horrible as she felt for thinking it, Tonks had wondered if his being a werewolf wasn't a convenient excuse not to give himself as fully to her as she, deep down, wanted to give in to him. She couldn't give that without his reciprocation, and not just because her boggart was her blurting out, I love you! She'd worked too hard to get where she was, to be who she was, to commit herself to an emotion she knew would be all-consuming, requited or not. She refused to let go if it meant losing herself.
Except...he was cupping her face in his hands, suckling her lower lip, lightly scraping his teeth over it with a raw insistence she'd never felt before in his kisses. If she didn't know better, Remus was seeking solace, too.
And then something in her heart pinched.
Of course Remus had come over to kiss her good luck, but last night had been a bad night for him. He always seemed more needy for her after a transformation, but this time it was more than that. Surely knowing that while he was trapped for a night in his office in the form of a wolf, Black had been on the school grounds, and only by a miracle had not hurt more of the people Remus cared about, troubled him deeply.
Tonks' blood surged. Was he distressed? Had he needed to see her so she could soothe him?
Don't be bloody ridiculous. Black's the one part of himself Remus' has held back the most. You don't really think he'd open up to you now, without your prompting?
She pulled her mouth from his, wanting to look at him, but trailed light kisses over the gaunt hollows of his stubble-roughened cheeks, hoping to be surreptitious about reading him. But Remus kept his eyes closed. Tonks tried not to frown and let him feel her frustration as she pressed her lips to his skin. His eyes were far more likely shut because he was affected by her, not because he was hiding from her.
You're right to be wary, Tonks, but this time you're overestimating the power of the male brain, even if it is Remus. It's other bits that think at times like this.
With one last kiss on his lips, she relaxed her arms around him. Taking a step back, she slid her hands from his back, but kept a light hold on his waist, because she was definitely affected by him, and for all her deep thinking, felt light-headed and as if the floor weren't quite solid beneath her feet. Remus' chin scratched her as he kissed her forehead, then rested his against hers, his hands drifting downward from her face, skimming the thin sliver of her neck above the collar of her dress shirt, over her shoulders, finally settling, hooked, in the small of her back. It was then, with a deep sigh, that his blue eyes opened -- barely. He was dead on his feet, Tonks could tell.
"It was really sweet of you to come." She reached up to push a stray strand of hair out of his face, tucking it behind his ear. "I know you'd rather be lying-in after a mad week."
"Sleep when I could be kissing you?"
Tonks went rigid in his arms.
A line.
There's something on his mind -- you know there is -- and you've given him the chance to get it out, even if it was just a little to start with...And he gave you a bloody line.
Hands falling away from him as she felt a tightening, as of a physical bond, around her heart, she turned sharply in his arms, and he released her.
"I ought to at least try to eat something besides toast," she said, heading back to the table. "Help yourself. I wasn't kidding about there being enough to feed all of Hogwarts."
"Thank you...I'm not particularly hungry."
Resuming her seat, Tonks glanced up at him and saw that he was looking distractedly, one hand working through his hair as the fingers of the other balled into a fist, then flexed again, at his side. Merlin, his entire demeanour had changed whilst her back was turned for all of a second. He wasn't pacing, but he looked as though he might start at any moment. Like he was caged...
"Have a seat anyway," she said, kicking out the chair beside her. "And some tea. You're making me nervous."
"I'm sorry," he said, sitting, and then looked almost startled as Cato jumped into his lap. But the Kneazle rubbing its head against Remus' robes, kneading its paws on his lap, calmed him slightly, and Tonks watched his shoulders relax as his fingers occupied themselves stroking the wiry calico fur.
Also noticing that his eyes had drifted to the Daily Prophet lying between their placemats, she decided to throw him another line. "Talking of Hogwarts, that was pretty mad what happened last night, yeah? Did you hear any of the racket with the Dementors?"
"No." Remus shook his head. "I mean yes. I mean..."
Cato stopped purring -- which was a first for the Kneazle, at least when Remus' lap was in the picture -- and looked quizzically up at him, ears pricked, alert.
"Remus? What's wrong?"
She'd never seen anything like it, a face other than her own going through such a drastic transformation in the blink of an eye. She glanced at Des' bedroom door, not wanting to think about what sort of observations her flatmate would have about the older man in her life in this moment. She'd never thought -- not since her initial snap assessment of him -- that the lines around his eyes and mouth made him look old; just as if he'd lived, and with great humour. Now, for the first time, the only word that came to mind was careworn.
Remus did that living a long time before you came into this world. The things that shaped him into the man he is today, which haunt him, happened when you still wore pigtails and were driving your mum mad trying to figure out how to morph more teeth to lose so the Tooth Fairy would have to visit more often.
No wonder he holds back from you.
"There's something," he croaked, staring blankly at his teacup as his fingers picked at the handle, "a great many somethings, actually, that I must tell you."
Tonks sat up straight in her chair.
Speak too soon?
"I hate to burden you on the day of your exam," he went on, looking up and meeting her eye.
"No!" Tonks' hand shot out to touch his. Cato hissed, but she gripped Remus' fingers anyway. "No, it's okay. If something's bothering you, I want to know. Anytime. Merlin knows I dump stuff on you at really crap times."
The faintest of smiles appeared, and a few of the lines seemed to vanish.
You helped him.
"You'll hear anyway as soon as you set foot in the Ministry, and I'd rather you hear it from..." His gaze flickered away from her again, and his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. "...from me."
Nodding, Tonks said, "I understand."
His lips curved upward a little more, but not because his smile was widening. The creases at the corners of his eyes deepened, and his eyes looked darker. A bitter quality had crept into the smile.
"No," he said. "I'm not sure this is something that can be understood."
Tonks opened her mouth to ask what the hell he meant, but found she had no words.
"This morning," he said, "before I Flooed, I...I gave Professor Dumbledore my notice."
A bit of toast Tonks hadn't even realised she'd picked up plonked into her mug of stone cold tea. "You...?"
"Resigned," said Remus. "I will be leaving Hogwarts today."
Resigned? Leaving today? Tonks' brain struggled to comprehend the words, and keep up with the new ideas.
"The Headmaster has graciously arranged for a carriage to escort me to the Hogsmeade Station, so I can catch the train to Brockenhurst, even though I hardly deserve consideration after what I've done."
"What have you done?" Tonks asked. "Why would you quit? Is it the curse on the DADA job?"
"I'm cursed," said Remus with a short, bitter laugh.
Still struggling to process what she was hearing, Tonks could hardly believe her ears as Remus rattled off more words about himself than he'd ever spoken at one time.
Who are you kidding? More words than he's ever spoken in all the bloody time you've known him.
He began with something she didn't quite follow about a magic map, except that he drew a folded parchment from his pocket, spread it on top of the newspaper, asked her to touch her wand to it and try to make the invisible ink reveal itself, at which point a simple Revelo caused words to appear:
Mr. Moony presents his compliments to the lovely Miss Tonks, but registers no little amount of surprise that an Auror-to-Be didn't think of a more creative spell than Revelo.
Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony, and would like to congratulate him not only on securing the affections of a damn good-looking bird, but on mastering the art of being sarky, as girls really love that.
Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that either of you ever got laid, and Merlin's Balls! "The lovely Miss Tonks" is my little cousin?
Mr. Wormtail just wants to know whether Mr. Moony has told the lovely Miss Tonks about his furry little problem.
Tonks laughed, though she was really confused as to why Remus would show her a joke shop item when he'd just told her he'd resigned from Hogwarts. Maybe it was all just one great prank? Not terribly funny, or connected, but maybe he was just a bit mad from lack of sleep.
But no -- then he was telling her that Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs were him and his three schoolmates, nicknames earned because they'd secretly learnt to become Animagi to help Remus through his transformations...And somehow that was behind Black being innocent of the Muggle murders, and Peter Pettigrew, who was alive, was the real murderer, and worse, had betrayed James and Lily Potter to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (only Remus said the V-word without flinching)...All of which Remus had discovered last night because the Marauder's Map showed Pettigrew skulking about the school grounds, which had resulted in Remus losing his head, forgetting the final and most important dose of Wolfsbane Potion, transforming on school grounds, where he might have killed Harry, some other students, Black, Snape...
As he finished, his normally steady hands shook, rattling his teacup on its saucer as he set it down. He fisted Cato's fur.
Tonks was shaking, too.
"I don't believe it," she said.
"I confess, I cannot quite myself," said Remus, increasingly more pulled together as he stroked Cato's back. "I don't remember the actual...the part where I was transformed." The corners of his mouth hitched. "Hagrid found me in the Forbidden Forest after moonset and woke me asking if I'd eaten the Hippogriff."
"Could you eat a Hippogriff when you're a...?"
Remus raised an eyebrow, a sparkle coming into his eyes. Surprisingly, seeing him look like that, like the familiar smug git who drove her mad in every way, so calm and collected and cool after he'd just told her everything he had, as if that were all there was to it, infuriated her.
The band of emotion constricting her heart snapped.
"Did Black escape because you helped him?"
That band-like thing that felt tied around her heart coiled into a tight knot, found satisfaction at seeing his jaw muscle twitch.
"I wish I could have helped him," Remus said, "rather than spoiling all his chances at being exonerated, whilst Peter goes free. But that's the nature of Dark Creatures -- to ruin everything."
The self-loathing in his voice startled the anger right out of Tonks, though it did nothing to relieve her confusion. "If you didn't help him, then why the hell are you resigning? The timing's crap -- Fudge will suspect you were helping Black...Sirius...all along--"
"Snape outed me," said Remus, dully, sitting back in his chair.
"Why that greasy--!" Tonks whacked her knees on the table as she tried to stand, but Remus caught her arm.
"I've only myself to blame," he said, releasing her. "If it were merely an issue of my condition being made public, if my tenure had been untarnished by incident, then Dumbledore might have convinced even the most sceptical of parents that there was no danger in my being part of the staff."
"He could still--"
"Unfortunately for werewolves," he said, "we're lucky to be allowed even one strike against us. I've no doubt Dumbledore would fight for me, but I will not subject the school to the scandal that would arise as a result. Not when it's all due to me betraying his trust when he went to such lengths so that I could attend school, not when I kept the truth from him all year."
Tonks heard it all as if she were sat in a theatre, watching a scene played out by two actors on a stage. She waited, breathlessly, for the response of the girl with the blue hair and heart-shaped face, which came a long moment later.
"What about my trust?"
She realised it was actually her who'd spoken, because the words were thick and sharp and stuck in her raw throat. And she was standing now -- this time Remus hadn't stopped her. He was sopping up the tea she'd upset, which had sloshed onto Cato, who was yowling and leaping from Remus' lap to go and sulk, casting hateful looks over his shoulder at Tonks.
"I--" Remus began, but then fell silent. His gaze bent, head dropped, and he stared at tea-stained napkin in his hand.
"I found out what you are and stayed with you!" she cried. "I knew you were an unregistered werewolf, and I kept it secret! I let you take me home...to bed!" He was your first. You trusted him so... "And you didn't even have the decency to tell me..."
She shook her head, blinking back tears. She would not cry. Gritting her teeth, she pounded her open palms on the table, crinkling the Marauder's Map.
"You assumed I wanted success as an Auror so badly that I'd spill the beans about things that were your responsibility to bring to light!"
"I was wrong," said Remus, desperation in his voice, "completely wrong, Elphine, and I'm sorry--"
"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" she bellowed. Barely registering in her peripheral that Des' bedroom door was cracked, she went on, "You haven't any right, none at all, and you're damned right you were wrong. You're a bastard, Remus Lupin!"
"I was afraid this would happen," said Remus, getting up. "You don't need to be wound up before your examination."
"Wound up?" Tonks flung back. "You call this wound up?"
"Furious," Remus amended, tightly. "You certainly don't need to be furious before your examination."
"Try effing furious!"
Remus looked at her for a long time, then picked up the Marauder's map, carefully folded it, and tucked it into his pocket. "I should go."
Tonks followed him to the door. "That's right, Lupin -- run away from Hogwarts before they can sack you! Run away from me before--"
She lurched forward as her foot caught on the leg of the sofa table. As if it were second nature, Remus wheeled and caught her round the waist and kept her upright. Pushing him away, she tripped over her feet, landing on her backside on the table that had tripped her up to begin with, and the lamp crashed to the floor.
"Damn it! That's Des' lamp!"
"S'okay!" called Des from her room, apparently not giving a damn that they knew she was eavesdropping on them. Not that they had done anything to keep her from hearing. "I hate that ugly thing!"
Tonks shot Remus an accusatory look anyway. "Why are you doing this to me today? It's my Stealth final."
"I'm sorry," Remus said again, quietly. "Reparo."
Somehow, watching the shards of porcelain put themselves back together again, almost good as new, and Remus replace it carefully on the table at her hip, made Tonks feel as if she were crumbling.
"I wouldn't have told, you know," she said. "If you'd told me in confidence, I wouldn't have betrayed you."
"A true Hufflepuff."
Any other time, it probably would have been the right thing to say, but not today. Tonks folded her arms over her chest, steeling herself, hardening her resolve even though whatever had broken inside of her pierced and stabbed.
"I wouldn't have betrayed you, but I probably would have broken up with you."
Ignoring the stricken look on his pale face, acting on the orders of her constricted heart, she stood and strode to the door. "In fact, I know I would have, because that's what I'm doing now." She opened the door and stood to the side, arms still crossed. "Please leave."
Without protest, he did as she said, moving quickly even though he looked older than his years and very ill. He did pause in the hall and turn back to apologise again.
"I am sorry...Tonks." He looked like it had required some effort to call her by her surname, and though Tonks didn’t want to admit it, she hurt to hear him say it. "Sorrier than I can say. Good luck today." He reached out, as though to take her hand, but then drew back, looking forlorn. "I'll be thinking of you today."
"I'd rather you didn't."
She shut the door.
After she'd cast a Silencio on Cato, who'd come out of hiding to meow mournfully at the door and hiss at Tonks, total silence hovered thickly in the flat, as Des' wireless had either gone to a news break, or she'd shut the damn thing off because the lovers' quarrel had been so much more entertaining. In contrast, Tonks' jumbled thoughts clamoured cacophonously in her head. She slumped against the door, sliding down till she was sat on the hard floor, hugging her knees to her chest. Her head fell backward, and she beat it once against the door behind her, but then decided she really needed her brain in tact for her exam.
Her exam.
God...You just broke up with Remus...You almost let yourself love him...You almost thought he loved you...And now you're furious at him, and you're finished, over. Eight months, and nothing to show for it except a fail mark in Stealth.
This is why Kingsley warned you not to mix love and work.
Actually, it wasn't, and she knew it, which only made her more frustrated.
Desperate to unleash, she Summoned a teacup from the table, then pitched it at the wall, nevermind her mum; she'd just say she'd tried washing up. It crunched and shattered into a million pieces.
"BLOODY BUGGERING HELL!" Des burst out of her bedroom, clutching her wireless, a wild look on her face. "Tonks, you've got to hear..."
Balancing it on her hip, she did a volume charm just in time for Tonks to catch the announcer's voice say, That's right. According to Mr. Lucius Malfoy, father of third-year Slytherin Draco, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is out yet another Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Remus Lupin has given notice of his resignation on grounds that he's a werewolf. Can you imagine? Between that and escaped convict Sirius Black turning up there twice this term, education in this country's really going to the dogs. Can you believe it? A bleeding were--
"Shut it off, Des."
Des did. Feeling crushed by the weight of the silence, and of her conscience telling her she was a horrible person for breaking up with a man who couldn't be more humiliated, Tonks slumped over her knees and clutched her hair between her fingers.
"Bloody hell, Tonks," Des whispered. "You've been sleeping with a werewolf."
Slowly, Tonks raised her head. Her eyes locked on Des' t-shirt.
"Should have stuck with the Quidditch players, huh?"
A/N: A bit of an angsty start, but I promise the next part will see Remus and Tonks in a different time, and in a different (and hopefully better!) place. I'd love to know what y'all think of it, and as incentive, I offer reviewers the Remus of their choice to Floo (or Apparate, if you haven't got a fireplace and don't have anti-Apparition wards around your property) to you with a good luck kiss for whatever you're needing some good wishes for: noble Remus, who is so honorable that he'd rather have his good name besmirched on the WWN than bring any disgrace to Hogwarts; Magical Creatures specialist Remus, whose innate goodness is sensed by animals great and small whose affection for him will only enhance how gentle and adorable he his; or Mr. Moony, who turns up wearing a t-shirt with a naughty slogan: "Save a Quidditch player; ride a Professor."
Read Chapter 1
Author: MrsTater
Rating & Warnings: R for sexuality
Prompts: weakness; "In the light of Voldemort's return, we are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided."
Word Count: 5241
Summary: Two years into a relationship with Remus, and the correct way to deal with full moons continues to elude Tonks, dredging up her insecurities and memories of painful past failures. Voldemort's attack on a fellow Order member puts everything into perspective for her...But will Remus see the light?
Author’s Notes: A leap into the future in the Caring For Magical Creatures universe (which expanded from "Snidgets", written for the last Fic Jumble here). I think this fic should stand alone even if you've not read that fic, though the background might make more sense as it's a POA-era R/T romance. :) I cannot thank godricgal enough for letting me bounce zillions of ideas off her, helping me keep my story and the POA timeline straight, for her beta work, and for all-around great encouragement.
Prologue: Judgment Day
June, 1994
If Tonks had been required, on pain of death, to pick the worst day in the whole history of Wizardkind to come up for Auror qualification, there couldn't possibly be a worse one than today.
Well -- the day your second cousin was convicted of murdering thirteen innocent Muggles and was sentenced to life in Azkaban would have been pretty crap timing, as well.
But the day after your escaped convict second cousin Confounded three students into thinking he was innocent so they could help him get past the Dementors and escape capture is, at the moment, equally crappy.
The creak of a door startled her from the Daily Prophet she'd been hunched over. She looked up to see her flatmate, Des, peeking warily out of her bedroom -- where, for once, thankfully, there was no monotonous thumping R&B bass line.
"Your mum still here?" Des whispered, the roundness of her eyes accentuated comically by her skin looking darker than usual in the shadows of the dimly lit bedroom.
Almost laughing, Tonks shook her head. "She set the table, called me Nymphadora at least nine hundred times, tried to talk me out of sitting my exams and getting a nice safe job, an Apothecary, maybe, since I'm good at Potions--"
"Not really a safe job when you're you," Des interrupted. "I mean, splash a little Essence of Belladonna on you, and your skin dries out and sloughs off, and then it won't be your daft hair your mum's having a fit about, will it?"
Glaring, Tonks went on, "She said not to bother with the washing up because she doesn't want her good breakfast dishes shattered into a million pieces, and left."
Des heaved a sigh of relief and emerged from her room wearing very short pyjama shorts and a tight tank top emblazoned with a rude slogan. She flicked her wand over her shoulder, and the wireless crackled to life with the crooning of Boyz II Wizardz.
"Didn't mean to be rude or anything not coming out," Des said, rubbing her eyes as she made a bee-line for the kitchen and the cooker. "Only I haven't had caffeine yet..." She tapped the kettle and said over the screech, "and your mum scares the shit out of me."
"She does that. 'Specially when your pyjamas say, Save a broom; ride a Quidditch player. You do realise that as the Tutshill Tornados' Mediwitch, you're supposed to saving the players, and not their broomsticks?"
Putting a tea bag in her mug to steep, Des grinned and shuffled to the table. "They play better when they're getting regular shags. You'll see next year when they win the cup. Ooh..." The spread on the table caught her eye. "Blimey, your mum cooked you a full breakfast?"
Tonks removed her feet from the chair across from her and kicked it out. "Tuck in, mate. I'm too nervous to stomach anything but toast, and I don't fancy Mum coming to do the washing up and lecturing me about eating properly if I really intend to go through with this mad notion about becoming an Auror." She sipped her tea, then added, "And don't worry. She was too preoccupied with me and the news about Black to remember I had a flatmate, much less a rude one."
"Hence the cooking, eh?"
"Yep."
As Tonks resumed reading the paper, Des looked up from heaping her plate. "Shouldn't you be cramming or something? I mean it is your Stealth practical, right?"
Tonks stared at her. "Operative word being practical, just what do you suggest I cram?"
Shrugging, Des took a mouthful of baked beans. "Dunno. Balance charms or something?"
"Only thing I'll be cramming is this toast down your throat if you start with me, too."
Des raised one hand in a gesture of innocence as she sprinkled pepper on a tomato with the other. "I know it's too early to have starched robes and a tie on--"
"Mum insisted on re-ironing them for me, even though I did it last night."
"--but there's no need to be bitchy. And I've seen your ironing charms."
Tonks slumped in her chair and ran a hand through her cropped blue hair. "Sorry. It's just that I'm just really stressed about my Stealth practical."
"What I said about my Quidditch boys applies to you, too, you know." Des took a bite of toast then, covering her mouth with her fingers, said, "Why aren't you with Remus, having a lovely, slow morning shag? Term's over, isn't it?"
Tonks' fingers tightened, crunching her toast. Yet another reason why today was crap timing for her first day of Auror qualification exams: last night had been a full moon.
Thanks to exam week at Hogwarts, his schedule's barely allowed the odd goodnight Floo, much less sex.
"He's got exams to mark."
"At seven bloody thirty in the morning? And the DADA exam's a practical, isn't it?"
"He's been ill, as well."
Des chewed deliberately, one thin pencilled eyebrow raised on her smooth brown forehead. Tonks' stomach knotted. She'd used the excuse a lot -- eight times, to be precise, since she and Remus started going out -- and Des didn't seem to like it. Was she suspicious? Noticing the pattern of Remus' "illnesses"?
No, you conspiracy theory-loving prat! Only Aurors...or Auror cadets...or people who were going to flunk their exams and get shunted into MLE...think like that.
"Ill a lot, isn't he?" Des speared a tomato with her fork. "You know when they say about older men being better in bed, they're not talking about sick beds, right?"
"Lay off, will you?"
"Sorry," Des muttered, "only he might've owled you or something, that's all. Honestly, sometimes it looks to me like he's making excuses because he's not that into you."
"Look!" Tonks set down her mug so hard that she sloshed tea onto the platter of tomatoes. "Stop judging things you haven't got a bloody clue about! Remus is--"
A sudden crackle across the flat cut Tonks off, and she whipped her head around just as green flames exploded in the fireplace grate.
"Here," Des finished her sentence when Remus' smiling face appeared in the Floo.
The sight of him had the approximate affect of a Banishing Charm on the anxiety that had settled on her shoulders like a weight last night, and kept her from sleeping and eating. Calling his name, she leapt from her chair--
--only to catch her hip on the back and toppling it as she flailed to keep upright.
"Damn it!" she hissed, slapping the chair after she'd righted it. "I'm so going to fail my Stealth practical!"
"Wotcher, Remus!" Des greeted. "Get your skinny arse in here! Tonks' Mum sent over proper brekkers."
Remus glanced at Tonks as though waiting for her invitation, and when she told him hell yes, of course he was welcome to join them, he got out of the Floo.
As if Summoned, Cato, the orphaned Kneazle Remus had found on the school grounds and talked Tonks into adopting, and which had nothing to do with her but hiss if she made eye contact with him, darted from underneath the sofa and, purring like a bloody car motor, which he never did, rubbed against Remus' legs.
"Hello, Desdemona." Remus dusted off his robes, which hung even more loosely than usual off his thin frame, before dropping into a crouch to fondle Cato's ears and neck and murmur to him about how he clearly hadn't been turning his nose up at Tonks' food, even if he hadn't taken to her.
"Just Des!" Tonks' flatmate protested. "Gawd! Think you'd be used to that, going out with Miss Don't-Call-Me-Nymphadora Tonks!"
Tonks rolled her eyes, but Remus smiled pleasantly up at her as he rose. Slowly, stiffly, with the slightest of furrows in his brow, Tonks noted.
"Yes, well," he said, "she doesn't say that to me often, since I've got a pet name for her."
Getting up to take her plate and teacup to the sink, Des smirked. "Are your ears burning? Only I was just asking Elphine why you hadn't come over to shag the nerves out of her."
"Sod off -- Desi."
This earned Tonks an obscene hand gesture, but Des did return to her room, allowing them their privacy.
Tonks wished she'd thought to say, Sod off, Desi, and turn off that crap you call music.
"Musicians who spell boys and wizards with a Z ought to be sent to Azkaban," she said.
Remus smirked. "Wizards is spelt with a Z."
"Why, you--"
Tonks raised a hand to sock him playfully in the shoulder, but his hands caught her wrists deftly, pulling her in for a kiss. It was the sort of slow, lovely kiss she knew from experience led to Des' prescribed morning sex.
Or it did when he didn't pull back after a second or two, that was.
She didn't mind the brevity of the kiss; his eyes, though shot through with red, spidery lines, and rimmed with grey fatigue, held her, caressing her as his careful fingertips traced her face.
"You, Elphine," he murmured, "shall be brilliant on your Stealth exam."
"Think I may, now I've had a proper good luck kiss."
He leant in and brushed his lips to hers again. Her arms slid beneath his, encircling his slender waist, and when she splayed her hands across his back, pulling him into her, he kissed her a little more intently, his warm tongue opening her lips and gliding with hers. Slow heat coursed all through her, and it was as if fear had held her in a frozen shell, but now his care and affection melted that, releasing her into her own skin again, with no more troubling thoughts than that she really hated R&B in the morning, and that the stupid Kneazle really needed to get the idea that two were company, but a third rubbing against her boyfriend and swiping vengefully at her uniform, was definitely a crowd.
Well -- there was one thing that was slightly more troubling.
Or maybe not troubling so much as...earth-shattering.
It wasn't the first time a certain word that started with L and rhymed with shove had whispered to her, sending shivers down her neck and butterflies into flight in her stomach that were as real as the ones produced by Remus' lips and the wordless messages they spoke against her mouth. Nor was it the first time she'd brushed aside the L-word before it could drift up from her heart and form fully in her mind.
Cos, Tonks, if you're totally honest with yourself, you know you lashed out at Des asking whether Remus is all that into you because you're scared shitless she's right.
Not that he didn't participate as enthusiastically in their relationship; the way he was kissing her now proved that.
But enthusiasm isn't love, Tonks. It's not even partnership. You won't settle for less. It's not in you. No matter what anybody says, Hufflepuffs don't have to settle.
There was so much he'd always held back from her, right from the beginning, and at times, horrible as she felt for thinking it, Tonks had wondered if his being a werewolf wasn't a convenient excuse not to give himself as fully to her as she, deep down, wanted to give in to him. She couldn't give that without his reciprocation, and not just because her boggart was her blurting out, I love you! She'd worked too hard to get where she was, to be who she was, to commit herself to an emotion she knew would be all-consuming, requited or not. She refused to let go if it meant losing herself.
Except...he was cupping her face in his hands, suckling her lower lip, lightly scraping his teeth over it with a raw insistence she'd never felt before in his kisses. If she didn't know better, Remus was seeking solace, too.
And then something in her heart pinched.
Of course Remus had come over to kiss her good luck, but last night had been a bad night for him. He always seemed more needy for her after a transformation, but this time it was more than that. Surely knowing that while he was trapped for a night in his office in the form of a wolf, Black had been on the school grounds, and only by a miracle had not hurt more of the people Remus cared about, troubled him deeply.
Tonks' blood surged. Was he distressed? Had he needed to see her so she could soothe him?
Don't be bloody ridiculous. Black's the one part of himself Remus' has held back the most. You don't really think he'd open up to you now, without your prompting?
She pulled her mouth from his, wanting to look at him, but trailed light kisses over the gaunt hollows of his stubble-roughened cheeks, hoping to be surreptitious about reading him. But Remus kept his eyes closed. Tonks tried not to frown and let him feel her frustration as she pressed her lips to his skin. His eyes were far more likely shut because he was affected by her, not because he was hiding from her.
You're right to be wary, Tonks, but this time you're overestimating the power of the male brain, even if it is Remus. It's other bits that think at times like this.
With one last kiss on his lips, she relaxed her arms around him. Taking a step back, she slid her hands from his back, but kept a light hold on his waist, because she was definitely affected by him, and for all her deep thinking, felt light-headed and as if the floor weren't quite solid beneath her feet. Remus' chin scratched her as he kissed her forehead, then rested his against hers, his hands drifting downward from her face, skimming the thin sliver of her neck above the collar of her dress shirt, over her shoulders, finally settling, hooked, in the small of her back. It was then, with a deep sigh, that his blue eyes opened -- barely. He was dead on his feet, Tonks could tell.
"It was really sweet of you to come." She reached up to push a stray strand of hair out of his face, tucking it behind his ear. "I know you'd rather be lying-in after a mad week."
"Sleep when I could be kissing you?"
Tonks went rigid in his arms.
A line.
There's something on his mind -- you know there is -- and you've given him the chance to get it out, even if it was just a little to start with...And he gave you a bloody line.
Hands falling away from him as she felt a tightening, as of a physical bond, around her heart, she turned sharply in his arms, and he released her.
"I ought to at least try to eat something besides toast," she said, heading back to the table. "Help yourself. I wasn't kidding about there being enough to feed all of Hogwarts."
"Thank you...I'm not particularly hungry."
Resuming her seat, Tonks glanced up at him and saw that he was looking distractedly, one hand working through his hair as the fingers of the other balled into a fist, then flexed again, at his side. Merlin, his entire demeanour had changed whilst her back was turned for all of a second. He wasn't pacing, but he looked as though he might start at any moment. Like he was caged...
"Have a seat anyway," she said, kicking out the chair beside her. "And some tea. You're making me nervous."
"I'm sorry," he said, sitting, and then looked almost startled as Cato jumped into his lap. But the Kneazle rubbing its head against Remus' robes, kneading its paws on his lap, calmed him slightly, and Tonks watched his shoulders relax as his fingers occupied themselves stroking the wiry calico fur.
Also noticing that his eyes had drifted to the Daily Prophet lying between their placemats, she decided to throw him another line. "Talking of Hogwarts, that was pretty mad what happened last night, yeah? Did you hear any of the racket with the Dementors?"
"No." Remus shook his head. "I mean yes. I mean..."
Cato stopped purring -- which was a first for the Kneazle, at least when Remus' lap was in the picture -- and looked quizzically up at him, ears pricked, alert.
"Remus? What's wrong?"
She'd never seen anything like it, a face other than her own going through such a drastic transformation in the blink of an eye. She glanced at Des' bedroom door, not wanting to think about what sort of observations her flatmate would have about the older man in her life in this moment. She'd never thought -- not since her initial snap assessment of him -- that the lines around his eyes and mouth made him look old; just as if he'd lived, and with great humour. Now, for the first time, the only word that came to mind was careworn.
Remus did that living a long time before you came into this world. The things that shaped him into the man he is today, which haunt him, happened when you still wore pigtails and were driving your mum mad trying to figure out how to morph more teeth to lose so the Tooth Fairy would have to visit more often.
No wonder he holds back from you.
"There's something," he croaked, staring blankly at his teacup as his fingers picked at the handle, "a great many somethings, actually, that I must tell you."
Tonks sat up straight in her chair.
Speak too soon?
"I hate to burden you on the day of your exam," he went on, looking up and meeting her eye.
"No!" Tonks' hand shot out to touch his. Cato hissed, but she gripped Remus' fingers anyway. "No, it's okay. If something's bothering you, I want to know. Anytime. Merlin knows I dump stuff on you at really crap times."
The faintest of smiles appeared, and a few of the lines seemed to vanish.
You helped him.
"You'll hear anyway as soon as you set foot in the Ministry, and I'd rather you hear it from..." His gaze flickered away from her again, and his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. "...from me."
Nodding, Tonks said, "I understand."
His lips curved upward a little more, but not because his smile was widening. The creases at the corners of his eyes deepened, and his eyes looked darker. A bitter quality had crept into the smile.
"No," he said. "I'm not sure this is something that can be understood."
Tonks opened her mouth to ask what the hell he meant, but found she had no words.
"This morning," he said, "before I Flooed, I...I gave Professor Dumbledore my notice."
A bit of toast Tonks hadn't even realised she'd picked up plonked into her mug of stone cold tea. "You...?"
"Resigned," said Remus. "I will be leaving Hogwarts today."
Resigned? Leaving today? Tonks' brain struggled to comprehend the words, and keep up with the new ideas.
"The Headmaster has graciously arranged for a carriage to escort me to the Hogsmeade Station, so I can catch the train to Brockenhurst, even though I hardly deserve consideration after what I've done."
"What have you done?" Tonks asked. "Why would you quit? Is it the curse on the DADA job?"
"I'm cursed," said Remus with a short, bitter laugh.
Still struggling to process what she was hearing, Tonks could hardly believe her ears as Remus rattled off more words about himself than he'd ever spoken at one time.
Who are you kidding? More words than he's ever spoken in all the bloody time you've known him.
He began with something she didn't quite follow about a magic map, except that he drew a folded parchment from his pocket, spread it on top of the newspaper, asked her to touch her wand to it and try to make the invisible ink reveal itself, at which point a simple Revelo caused words to appear:
Mr. Moony presents his compliments to the lovely Miss Tonks, but registers no little amount of surprise that an Auror-to-Be didn't think of a more creative spell than Revelo.
Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony, and would like to congratulate him not only on securing the affections of a damn good-looking bird, but on mastering the art of being sarky, as girls really love that.
Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that either of you ever got laid, and Merlin's Balls! "The lovely Miss Tonks" is my little cousin?
Mr. Wormtail just wants to know whether Mr. Moony has told the lovely Miss Tonks about his furry little problem.
Tonks laughed, though she was really confused as to why Remus would show her a joke shop item when he'd just told her he'd resigned from Hogwarts. Maybe it was all just one great prank? Not terribly funny, or connected, but maybe he was just a bit mad from lack of sleep.
But no -- then he was telling her that Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs were him and his three schoolmates, nicknames earned because they'd secretly learnt to become Animagi to help Remus through his transformations...And somehow that was behind Black being innocent of the Muggle murders, and Peter Pettigrew, who was alive, was the real murderer, and worse, had betrayed James and Lily Potter to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (only Remus said the V-word without flinching)...All of which Remus had discovered last night because the Marauder's Map showed Pettigrew skulking about the school grounds, which had resulted in Remus losing his head, forgetting the final and most important dose of Wolfsbane Potion, transforming on school grounds, where he might have killed Harry, some other students, Black, Snape...
As he finished, his normally steady hands shook, rattling his teacup on its saucer as he set it down. He fisted Cato's fur.
Tonks was shaking, too.
"I don't believe it," she said.
"I confess, I cannot quite myself," said Remus, increasingly more pulled together as he stroked Cato's back. "I don't remember the actual...the part where I was transformed." The corners of his mouth hitched. "Hagrid found me in the Forbidden Forest after moonset and woke me asking if I'd eaten the Hippogriff."
"Could you eat a Hippogriff when you're a...?"
Remus raised an eyebrow, a sparkle coming into his eyes. Surprisingly, seeing him look like that, like the familiar smug git who drove her mad in every way, so calm and collected and cool after he'd just told her everything he had, as if that were all there was to it, infuriated her.
The band of emotion constricting her heart snapped.
"Did Black escape because you helped him?"
That band-like thing that felt tied around her heart coiled into a tight knot, found satisfaction at seeing his jaw muscle twitch.
"I wish I could have helped him," Remus said, "rather than spoiling all his chances at being exonerated, whilst Peter goes free. But that's the nature of Dark Creatures -- to ruin everything."
The self-loathing in his voice startled the anger right out of Tonks, though it did nothing to relieve her confusion. "If you didn't help him, then why the hell are you resigning? The timing's crap -- Fudge will suspect you were helping Black...Sirius...all along--"
"Snape outed me," said Remus, dully, sitting back in his chair.
"Why that greasy--!" Tonks whacked her knees on the table as she tried to stand, but Remus caught her arm.
"I've only myself to blame," he said, releasing her. "If it were merely an issue of my condition being made public, if my tenure had been untarnished by incident, then Dumbledore might have convinced even the most sceptical of parents that there was no danger in my being part of the staff."
"He could still--"
"Unfortunately for werewolves," he said, "we're lucky to be allowed even one strike against us. I've no doubt Dumbledore would fight for me, but I will not subject the school to the scandal that would arise as a result. Not when it's all due to me betraying his trust when he went to such lengths so that I could attend school, not when I kept the truth from him all year."
Tonks heard it all as if she were sat in a theatre, watching a scene played out by two actors on a stage. She waited, breathlessly, for the response of the girl with the blue hair and heart-shaped face, which came a long moment later.
"What about my trust?"
She realised it was actually her who'd spoken, because the words were thick and sharp and stuck in her raw throat. And she was standing now -- this time Remus hadn't stopped her. He was sopping up the tea she'd upset, which had sloshed onto Cato, who was yowling and leaping from Remus' lap to go and sulk, casting hateful looks over his shoulder at Tonks.
"I--" Remus began, but then fell silent. His gaze bent, head dropped, and he stared at tea-stained napkin in his hand.
"I found out what you are and stayed with you!" she cried. "I knew you were an unregistered werewolf, and I kept it secret! I let you take me home...to bed!" He was your first. You trusted him so... "And you didn't even have the decency to tell me..."
She shook her head, blinking back tears. She would not cry. Gritting her teeth, she pounded her open palms on the table, crinkling the Marauder's Map.
"You assumed I wanted success as an Auror so badly that I'd spill the beans about things that were your responsibility to bring to light!"
"I was wrong," said Remus, desperation in his voice, "completely wrong, Elphine, and I'm sorry--"
"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" she bellowed. Barely registering in her peripheral that Des' bedroom door was cracked, she went on, "You haven't any right, none at all, and you're damned right you were wrong. You're a bastard, Remus Lupin!"
"I was afraid this would happen," said Remus, getting up. "You don't need to be wound up before your examination."
"Wound up?" Tonks flung back. "You call this wound up?"
"Furious," Remus amended, tightly. "You certainly don't need to be furious before your examination."
"Try effing furious!"
Remus looked at her for a long time, then picked up the Marauder's map, carefully folded it, and tucked it into his pocket. "I should go."
Tonks followed him to the door. "That's right, Lupin -- run away from Hogwarts before they can sack you! Run away from me before--"
She lurched forward as her foot caught on the leg of the sofa table. As if it were second nature, Remus wheeled and caught her round the waist and kept her upright. Pushing him away, she tripped over her feet, landing on her backside on the table that had tripped her up to begin with, and the lamp crashed to the floor.
"Damn it! That's Des' lamp!"
"S'okay!" called Des from her room, apparently not giving a damn that they knew she was eavesdropping on them. Not that they had done anything to keep her from hearing. "I hate that ugly thing!"
Tonks shot Remus an accusatory look anyway. "Why are you doing this to me today? It's my Stealth final."
"I'm sorry," Remus said again, quietly. "Reparo."
Somehow, watching the shards of porcelain put themselves back together again, almost good as new, and Remus replace it carefully on the table at her hip, made Tonks feel as if she were crumbling.
"I wouldn't have told, you know," she said. "If you'd told me in confidence, I wouldn't have betrayed you."
"A true Hufflepuff."
Any other time, it probably would have been the right thing to say, but not today. Tonks folded her arms over her chest, steeling herself, hardening her resolve even though whatever had broken inside of her pierced and stabbed.
"I wouldn't have betrayed you, but I probably would have broken up with you."
Ignoring the stricken look on his pale face, acting on the orders of her constricted heart, she stood and strode to the door. "In fact, I know I would have, because that's what I'm doing now." She opened the door and stood to the side, arms still crossed. "Please leave."
Without protest, he did as she said, moving quickly even though he looked older than his years and very ill. He did pause in the hall and turn back to apologise again.
"I am sorry...Tonks." He looked like it had required some effort to call her by her surname, and though Tonks didn’t want to admit it, she hurt to hear him say it. "Sorrier than I can say. Good luck today." He reached out, as though to take her hand, but then drew back, looking forlorn. "I'll be thinking of you today."
"I'd rather you didn't."
She shut the door.
After she'd cast a Silencio on Cato, who'd come out of hiding to meow mournfully at the door and hiss at Tonks, total silence hovered thickly in the flat, as Des' wireless had either gone to a news break, or she'd shut the damn thing off because the lovers' quarrel had been so much more entertaining. In contrast, Tonks' jumbled thoughts clamoured cacophonously in her head. She slumped against the door, sliding down till she was sat on the hard floor, hugging her knees to her chest. Her head fell backward, and she beat it once against the door behind her, but then decided she really needed her brain in tact for her exam.
Her exam.
God...You just broke up with Remus...You almost let yourself love him...You almost thought he loved you...And now you're furious at him, and you're finished, over. Eight months, and nothing to show for it except a fail mark in Stealth.
This is why Kingsley warned you not to mix love and work.
Actually, it wasn't, and she knew it, which only made her more frustrated.
Desperate to unleash, she Summoned a teacup from the table, then pitched it at the wall, nevermind her mum; she'd just say she'd tried washing up. It crunched and shattered into a million pieces.
"BLOODY BUGGERING HELL!" Des burst out of her bedroom, clutching her wireless, a wild look on her face. "Tonks, you've got to hear..."
Balancing it on her hip, she did a volume charm just in time for Tonks to catch the announcer's voice say, That's right. According to Mr. Lucius Malfoy, father of third-year Slytherin Draco, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is out yet another Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Remus Lupin has given notice of his resignation on grounds that he's a werewolf. Can you imagine? Between that and escaped convict Sirius Black turning up there twice this term, education in this country's really going to the dogs. Can you believe it? A bleeding were--
"Shut it off, Des."
Des did. Feeling crushed by the weight of the silence, and of her conscience telling her she was a horrible person for breaking up with a man who couldn't be more humiliated, Tonks slumped over her knees and clutched her hair between her fingers.
"Bloody hell, Tonks," Des whispered. "You've been sleeping with a werewolf."
Slowly, Tonks raised her head. Her eyes locked on Des' t-shirt.
"Should have stuck with the Quidditch players, huh?"
A/N: A bit of an angsty start, but I promise the next part will see Remus and Tonks in a different time, and in a different (and hopefully better!) place. I'd love to know what y'all think of it, and as incentive, I offer reviewers the Remus of their choice to Floo (or Apparate, if you haven't got a fireplace and don't have anti-Apparition wards around your property) to you with a good luck kiss for whatever you're needing some good wishes for: noble Remus, who is so honorable that he'd rather have his good name besmirched on the WWN than bring any disgrace to Hogwarts; Magical Creatures specialist Remus, whose innate goodness is sensed by animals great and small whose affection for him will only enhance how gentle and adorable he his; or Mr. Moony, who turns up wearing a t-shirt with a naughty slogan: "Save a Quidditch player; ride a Professor."
Read Chapter 1