Serpents, Chapter 2

[mrstater]

Title: Serpents (2/?)
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: 10,217 words
Summary: Two years into a relationship with Remus, and the correct way to deal with full moons continues to elude Tonks, dredging up her insecurities and memories of painful past failures. Voldemort's attack on a fellow Order member puts everything into perspective for her...But will Remus see the light?
Author’s Notes: A leap into the future in the Caring For Magical Creatures universe, which I think should stand alone even if you've not read that fic, though the background might make more sense as it's a POA-era R/T romance. This chapter refers specifically to a one-shot written for that ficverse, entitled You Should Know... I cannot thank Godricgal enough for being my faithful cheerleader as I did battle with this chapter all week, and for her beta work.

Prologue: Judgment Day | 1. Vicious Cycle |

2. Up From the Grave

"Aha! I knew Dad kept an axe in here!"

At the sound of Remus' voice, Tonks, taking a turn about the frosty garden in back of his house glanced over her to see him emerging from the woodshed. She kept walking and looking all around the property as he shut the shed doors and locked them, and continued, "Good job we're only taking it Christmas tree hunting to keep up the appearance of doing it the Muggle way."

"Why's that?" Tonks threw back, stopping when, in her peripheral, she saw him break into a jog toward her. "D'you really think it's wise to jog with an axe in your hand?"

Remus raised his eyebrows, but slowed to a walk. "Probably not -- if I were you."

"Why, you--!"

She'd instinctively raised her hand to punch him playfully in the shoulder, heedless of the fact that it probably wasn't any wiser to punch people with axes in their hands if you wanted to keep them in one piece, only to have her words cut off by having the thing appear suddenly in her face.

"Bit rusty," she said.

"Not to mention dull." Remus ran his thumb along the blade, then held it up to show her that every thread of his gloves remained intact. "I think we'd be hard put to butter our bread with this."

"Lucky we've got bread knives and chopping charms, then."

"Indeed."

Lowering the axe to his side, Remus looked down at her with a smile and took her hand. "Those Auror eyes of yours aren't missing a detail of the house and grounds," he said. "Should I be frightened?"

Tonks shoved aside guilty thoughts that she hadn't yet managed to put Remus at ease that, small and ramshackle though it was, she loved the woodland cottage where he'd grown up. Instead, she focused on the fact that this time, he'd been far less disparaging of his humble means. Maybe, by making herself vulnerable and confessing to him that she'd never been on holiday with a man, or gone to bed with anyone (which they were sure to do this weekend, tonight even) she'd bridged the gap between them.

Plus it was practically impossible to think of anything negative when he'd just called her an Auror, even though she wasn't yet. No one had ever had more faith in her that Remus seemed to.

"You should be quaking in your boots," she said.

"I'm sure I would be, if I were wearing boots."

Tonks rolled her eyes. "I've been imagining you here as a little boy, and I expect you to tell me where and what you played at."

Remus chuckled quietly, and Tonks guessed that even if it hadn't been cold his cheeks would still have been tinged with pink, that even if he hadn't been dodging decapitation by low tree branch, he still would have ducked his head so that his long light brown hair obscured his face.

It was all she could do not to skip a little with glee. She managed to refrain, but couldn't hold back a giggle, which was mortifying enough. Though really, she'd just told him was a virgin. Surely nothing ought to embarrass her now?

"I knew it'd be something blush-worthy," she said.

Lifting his head, Remus darted his eyes sidelong at her. "Actually, it was horror at the prospect of you meeting my childhood story with, 'Aw, ickle Wemy, such a cute darling thing.'"

"Oi!" Tonks pulled up short and dropped his hand. "I'd never, in a million years, call you 'ickle Wemy'!"

"Wouldn't you?" Remus asked, facing her with brows raised in amusement.

With a snort, Tonks folded her arms across her chest. "You're pretty sure whatever it was you played at was cute and darling enough to merit it."

He grinned smugly. "As it so happens, I can only imagine my childhood games weren't terribly different from your own, except that beyond wearing false beards made from cotton wool, I couldn't make myself look like the people I was pretending to be."

"So now you're assuming my childhood games involved morphing?"

"I know what they say about assumptions," said Remus, "but considering you impersonated your mum so you could go drinking on your first Hogsmeade weekend..."

Tonks' mouth fell open, but then she recovered her wits. "Morphing at thirteen to try Firewhisky isn't the same as..."

Didn't recover them for long, apparently. The sandy eyebrow arched high on Remus' forehead rose still further toward his fringe.

"All right," she admitted, "so I occasionally played Professor McGonagall and tried to teach my stuffed animals Transfiguration."

Remus' laugh was a low rumble in his chest as he stepped toward her, reaching out to touch her fingers where they rested on her forearm. "Were you a good teacher?"

His blue eyes peered brightly through his silver and gold fringe.

"Merlin, no!" Tonks uncrossed her arms to push Remus' hair out of his face. Tucking it behind his ear, she locked her hands around his neck as his free hand slipped inside her open coat and settled on her waist. "I was very impatient, and handed out detentions and docked heaps of House Points every other second because none of them could do a decent Appearance Charm."

"That's especially cruel," said Remus, wincing, but stroking her side through her bulky jumper, "since Appearance Charms are taught in Charms, not Transfiguration."

"I knew that, but I didn't want to morph into Professor Flitwick."

"Not as shocking to your mother to have her small daughter shrink to two feet tall instead of grow to almost six?"

"Exactly," said Tonks. "Damn hard to climb the ladder to my tree house, as well. And anyway I can't do male morphs. I mean, I reckon I could, it's just that I never wanted to..."

She felt her face go very red, and dropped her gaze.

"I must say," said Remus, "I'm rather relieved to hear that. I mean..." His face coloured, too and his eyes darted away. "...not that I ever wondered if you had or could..."

"Anyway," said Tonks, stepping round him and scanning the yard again, "this is supposed to be about you, not me."

"I had a tree house, too," he said, and pointed to a giant oak tree with branches that yawned wide enough to hold a good-sized playhouse. Only there was nothing there.

"Is it under Fidelius or something?" Tonks asked.

Remus chuckled, and there was a nostalgic look in his eyes. "A storm took it in my seventh year. Dad and I planned to rebuild it that summer, but of course I joined the Order immediately after I left school, and Dad passed away that autumn..."

His voice trailed away into the winter silence. Though they were standing in the crisp, open air of the countryside, Tonks felt oppressed by the utter lack of knowing the proper thing to say.

Luckily for her, Remus caught her hand and squeezed it. "You never saw a better tree house."

"I saw mine," she replied.

"Was yours perfectly cylindrical and a reproduction of Professor Dumbledore's office, complete with crayon portraits of the previous headmasters and a papier-mâché Fawkes?"

Tonks jaw dropped, and she actually felt a prickle of envy as she wagged her head. "Mine had flowerboxes in the windows and a kitchen. Mum meant it to encourage me to be a proper housewitch. Have you got any of those portraits about, or were they all lost in the storm?"

"Miraculously," Remus answered, "a number of them were caught in those bushes."

She turned her head to follow the sweep of his hand across the yard. At the edge of the forest clearing in which the house was nestled, grew a clump of unkempt holly bushes laden with the brightest red berries she'd ever seen.

His cold, but very soft, lips on her cheek diverted her attention from the shrubbery.

"I made them one afternoon when Dumbledore popped in for tea," Remus went on, "and he--"

"Did he do that often?" Tonks interrupted, awe-struck at how casually he'd mentioned it, as if Albus Dumbledore popping in for tea was something every Wizarding family experienced.

She was even more startled when Remus nodded and said, "All the time. Very close friend of my parents'."

It made sense, she reckoned, considering that Dumbledore had gone to such lengths to make it possible for Remus to be able to attend school. Had he helped Mr. and Mrs. Lupin keep Remus' condition a secret from the start?

"Anyway," Remus was saying, "Dumbledore charmed my drawings to speak, and the voices are remarkably like the actual portraits, as I was delighted to learn when I was at school -- despite the circumstances that took me to the Headmaster's office not being at all delightful. "Possibly I could be persuaded to hunt for my old art work after we find those elusive Christmas decorations."

"Oh you could, could you?" Tonks said, tilting her face up toward his as his arm tightened around her waist.

"Mm-hm."

It was murmured against her mouth, and the next few minutes were spent in very sweet persuasion which she suspected included him convincing her to do a number of yet-to-be-named things, as well.

Anything he asked, she would do, if only he kept kissing her like this...

Almost abruptly, Remus pulled away.

"Talking of which..." His hand slid from her waist to take her hand again, and he led her toward the forest. "...the day's short, and we'd best find a Christmas tree before dark sets in."

"Avoiding talking about your childhood any more?" Tonks asked. "Afraid you're pressing your luck on me calling you ickle Wemy? Cos I'm not letting you off the hook, not when you baited it with that little morsel about getting sent to the Headmaster's office."

"On the contrary," said Remus. "I was just about to point out to you that that grove of Scots Pines formed my base camp when I was Mr. Figg, photographing the magical fauna of India for Wizarding Geographic."

"Obviously you didn't read Wizarding Geographic well enough, or you'd know Scots Pines aren't part of India's flora, magical or otherwise."

"I'm not sure I knew they were called Scots Pines when I was six," said Remus, "and anyway, I seem to recall someone else taught her stuffed animals Appearance Charms in Transfiguration?"

Tonks started to glower up at him, but her gaze was drawn by the vivid holly bushes he'd shown her moments before. Closer to it now, she saw that between the two sprawling shrubs that clearly hadn't been pruned in years, a dome structure that appeared to be made of stone -- no, concrete -- rose up from the ground; a square of rusted metal -- with hinges, it was a door -- was bolted to the centre.

Dropping Remus' hand, Tonks jogged toward it to have a better look. "This cellar thing must've been a great place to play."

Skidding on an icy patch when she pulled up short in front of it, she shot her hands out to break her fall, banging into the door.

"Or pretend you were drummer for the Hobgoblins," she added, shaking the pain out of her hands.

"That's not a cellar," said Remus, maintaining his ambling pace, one hand stuffed into his trouser pocket, as he approached her. "It's an air-raid shelter."

"Air-raid?" Tonks wasn't sure what the words meant, but something about them rang hollow and foreboding within her. She stepped away from the air-raid shelter, whatever it was.

"Do you know about the Muggle World Wars?" Remus asked. "Have your grandparents ever mentioned the second one, in the 40s?"

Now she thought about it, she had heard them refer to "the War" -- but she'd never paid much attention, because to her "the War" meant the one against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and she heard quite enough about that from wizards, thank you very much.

"This house belonged to my Muggle grandparents," said Remus, "and during the war, people built shelters like this to protect them from German bombs."

"Those exploding things that knock down buildings?"

Nodding, Remus reached out to rest a hand on the dome. His fingers curved gently, almost reverently, over the concrete, and for no reason at all, Tonks imagined him standing beside a white marble tomb, saying a lingering goodbye to someone he loved very much.

"An air-raid shelter's an unusual feature in this part of the country," he said, "but London was hit so hard that many people were terrified of the war spreading and prepared for the worst."

"Your grandparents never had to use it?" Tonks asked.

"Not for air-raids, no. Much later it proved a blessing for the parents of a small, but no less deadly, werewolf."

"You..." A howling gale whipped up, and Tonks shivered. "You transformed in there...when you were a little boy?"

Remus nodded, once; then, smiling, he slipped his arm around her shoulders and turned her toward the forest. "Let's not spoil Christmas Eve talking about that, shall we?"

She had a million questions: Wasn't it dark down there? In winter, cold? Did it frighten you? How could your parents stand to lock you away? But having made up her mind to do anything he asked, she let them go.

And had continued to do so ever since.

Now, standing before the concrete and iron that contained Remus beneath the ground, she wished more than ever that she had not kept silent. The holly bushes, wild and overgrown on either side, seemed so out of place with their shiny, waxen leaves and festive red berries. More than that, in the context of full moons and transformations, the shrubs only reminded her of the Oak and Holly Kings' mythic bid for dominance -- a duel to the death. Her train of thought careened on where she didn't want it to go.

When Remus went down there last night, it was like a man going to die. He knew the Dark Creature would take him, that between moonrise and moonset, no such person as Remus John Lupin would exist.

And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

"Is he still...?" piped Molly's tremulous voice from behind, startling Tonks; she'd forgotten she wasn't alone. Damn! That meant Hestia was somewhere very nearby, as well. Merlin help her, if that silly woman giggled...

"Are you sure he's not...?" Molly's question trailed off again, but even though incomplete, it made Tonks' heart quicken, and panic snatched her breath.

Are you sure he's not...still gone? Oh dear Merlin. He hadn’t contacted her, though he'd promised he would. What would have stopped him? Had the werewolf retreated, and Remus returned to her from whatever far reach of existence the human man had been banished to? Or could he yet be gone? Could he...?

Every terrifying word she'd ever read about werewolf transformation and the Oak Moon barraged her mind, in particular the bits about the werewolf turning on himself if he could find no human prey.

Oh God...How much harm could a werewolf inflict upon himself?

You've no idea. No. bloody. idea. Cos he didn't trust you enough to tell you...Cos you didn't have the courage to make him tell you. He could be dead, and that shelter a tomb, all because you, you stupid coward, sat on your arse and did nothing...

Her knees buckled...or the world tilted at an alarming angle on its axis...or both. She reached out for something to steady herself--

--and felt the thin veneer of iced-over concrete beneath her palms, frigid melt-off seeping into her gloves.

It brought her to her senses.

Or at least made her sense something other than abject terror.

Something like total annoyance that Molly's inane babble had turned you into a nervous wreck that rivalled Mad-Eye Moody for the Paranoiac of the Year Award. Why do you always let yourself get carried away with other people's rubbish?

"Still a wolf?" Tonks said with a sniff of incredulity. "Molly, moonset was hours ago."

Molly's plump cheeks were very pink.

Not because she just hiked miles from the village, either, you great prat.

"I just thought..." Molly's brown eyes darted everywhere but at Tonks, briefly making contact with Hestia -- who, predictably, giggled. "Before you go down, I wanted to be sure...he won't...he's not..."

"He's not dangerous," Tonks snapped -- but seeing Molly shudder visibly, her normally smooth, round features pinched and etched with fearful lines, aging her, Tonks' conscience chided her again. She exhaled breath and anger, then said, "Why don't you go on to the house and start breakfast? He'll be hungry."

"Yes, of course," said Molly, her shoulders confident and erect now, eyes alert and focused, as if the mere mention of kitchens and cooking had dispelled any thoughts of werewolves locked in underground shelters and placed her once more in her element.

And then that perceptive mother's gaze was sweeping Tonks as she fished in her cloak pocket for the large, old key to the cottage. Their fingers brushed as she handed it over, and Tonks was startled to feel something like comfort pass from Molly to her, and then her own heart gave a little lurch of...gratitude?...affection? When their eyes met, she read a look on the older witch's face that said she knew that was her key, and not one Remus had given her just so she could look after him today. Molly turned and picked her way around flowerbeds half-buried in snow toward the house, and Tonks found herself battling an inexplicable urge to rush after her and throw her arms around her neck and burrow her face in that motherly shoulder.

God, it was just so good to have one less person to lie to.

It was either the best-timed giggle or the worst.

"Well," Hestia said breezily, "how do we get in, then?"

Tonks' abdominal muscles tightened, and her teeth gritted together so hard she was really surprised they hadn't screeched. The simper on Hestia's face made her want to scream through her clenched teeth.

Steady on, Tonks. Think how Remus always deals with Snape. Calm, collected, courteous. Somehow he still gets the joy of winding people up, too -- more than you, in fact, with your loose-cannon style of name-calling and swearing. So just stay cool. Hestia will never know what hit her. You can have your cauldron cakes and eat them too.

Forcing her jaw to un-clench, Tonks drew a deep breath, and reminded herself to smile in what she hoped was Remus' I'm-making-you-think-I'm-accomodating-and-compromising-but-really-I'm-getting-my-way-and-my-way-only smile. "I can get in and take him to the house myself," she said, "but if you could check upstairs to see the bedroom's in order, sheets on the bed, and all that, it'd be a big help. It's just up the stairs, end of the hall, and the linens are in the cupboard next to the bathroom."

Hm. Not exactly Remus Smart-Arse Lupin there, but you did rather channel your mum for the first time ever.

Except that Hestia wouldn't have looked at Andromeda Tonks with a widening grin and narrowed eyes and said, "You know Remus' house pretty well, don't you? I suppose he brought you here when he was courting you?"

If anyone had looked at Andromeda that way and said that, she wouldn't have got flustered thinking about how many times she'd been here, and everything they'd done; she especially wouldn't have got hung up on the first time he'd invited her, when for weeks beforehand she'd yo-yoed between being more excited than she'd ever been about anything in her life and dreading telling Remus, I know you're taking me away for the weekend because you want to sleep with me, and I really want to sleep with you too, only it may not be everything you'd hoped since, by the way, I’m a virgin; and Andromeda sure as hell wouldn't have had the urge to tell Hestia about everything just because she was realising she was sick and tired of hiding her relationship with Remus like it was a shameful secret.

But even though she was right chuffed to be courted by Remus and, apparently, her history the object of envy by someone who thought the days of courtship were over, she managed a monotone reply. "Couple times, yeah."

Hestia giggled. "You've a very good memory."

A pencilled eyebrow arched on Hestia's wide forehead, and suddenly Tonks found she didn't have to fabricate the negative feelings necessary for talking about a relationship that had come to a bad end.

"Necessary quality for an Auror," she replied.

A hiss as Hestia sucked in her pink cheeks.

Score one for Tonks.

"Yes, well," said Hestia crisply, giving her head of bouncy honeyed curls a toss, "bed-making isn't exactly a necessary quality for a Healer, but Healing is, hence the name..."

Her eyes flashed as they caught Tonks', and when another tittering laugh escaped the pursed red lips, Tonks wondered if Hestia wasn't a distant relation of Dolores Umbridge.

"Yes, well," Tonks mimicked, "werewolf handling's also a necessary quality for Aurors."

That's a bald-faced lie, and you know it. All the Auror training you got on dealing with werewolves was to do your best to stun them before the Werewolf Capture Unit gets to the scene of the rampage. And Hestia looks like she knows it, too.

But you could, though, Tonks. If put to the test, you could handle one. You could handle Remus.

"But you just told Molly Remus changed back," said Hestia, "so it's not technically a werewolf we're handling, is it? Just a man. Hee-hee! Man-handling. I like the sound of that. So I'll just go in with you!"

Looking horrifyingly like the giddy dorm-mates Tonks had always detested, Hestia hitched up her robes, showing off dainty boots with ice pick heels that made Tonks ask Merlin how the bloody hell Hestia hadn't turned her heel miles back and have to be left behind. As Hestia, smirking, made to step around her, Tonks caught her arm.

"No!"

Hestia looked witheringly at the hand crumpling the sleeve of her robe, and Tonks released her.

"What do you mean, no?" Hestia asked.

"You can't go in."

"I see. But mightn't Remus be injured?"

"Yes."

"And isn't that why you brought a Healer -- me -- along with you?"

It never would have occurred to Tonks that Hestia the Hyena, as she'd taken to calling her behind her back, could pull off the sort of pointed look and tone that could deflate a person in a half-a-second flat.

"I didn't mean you couldn't go in at all," she heard herself say "Only let me go first and make sure it's okay."

Oh well done, Tonks, way to assert the authority you worked so hard to achieve.

"Why wouldn't it be?"

Thank Merlin for small favours; Tonks' sudden onset of timidity abandoned her just as quickly as annoyance welled up again simultaneously with the onset of an epiphany.

"It's much simpler than that," she flung back firmly. "Remus won't want you don't there immediately because he'll be--"

The seizing up of her vocal chords undermined her authority yet again. How in Merlin's name was she supposed to make Hestia understand the gritty reality of what was going on right now, whilst at the same time preserving Remus' dignity? He was such an intensely private man; she imagined him standing beside her now, posture and mild smile stiffening as much at the mention of this as if he were actually publicly exposed.

She had a sudden new appreciation for why he didn't talk about what he went through every month.

Apparently the stall was too much for Hestia. Her robes concealed her pretty boots once again as she dropped her skirts and stood with her arms akimbo. "Of course Remus will want me there immediately! He doesn't want to stay in that miserable cellar any longer than he's been already, surely! He'll want me to check he's fit to be moved. And he must not be, or he'd have moved himself, or contacted you."

"HE'S PROBABLY STARKERS DOWN THERE!" Tonks blurted.

For just a second, Hestia looked startled, but then the simper returned, accompanied by the sound that made Tonks wish to Merlin she could abandon her upbringing and emulate Severus Snape and silence this infernal witch.

"Again," Hestia warbled, "need I remind you that I am a Healer, and seeing naked people's all part of a day's work?"

She had a point.

No, Tonks, she hasn't got a point. That look on her face is positively a bleeding leer. Seeing Remus naked is all part of a day's work for a hussy who wants to get her hooks in him, not a Healer!

"Maybe so," said Tonks, crisply, "but you're still Remus' Order colleague, and even his subordinate, first and foremost. It can't come as a surprise to you that he doesn't want every female member to be picturing him naked when he's standing up to speak at meetings, can it?"

Two spots of deep red coloured Hestia's cheeks, her pupils became hard, glittering gobstone-like dots -- like sodding Snape's -- and the corners of her mouth hitched upward as her lips parted to reveal a mouthful of teeth Tonks had never noticed before were rather pointed and hideous.

Oh God! Talk about emphasis on the wrong bloody syllable!

"Can't get him out of your head, can you?" Hestia said, voice pitched high and sickeningly sweet.

Maybe Hestia is bloody Umbridge, Polyjuiced and spying on you.

Conspiracy theorists are ridiculous, you know that, don't you, Tonks?

"He'd just feel more comfortable with me," said Tonks, voice strained with the effort of morphing away the deep red staining her neck and cheeks, which always felt so strange both because morphing always did, and the hot prickle remained even if the flush vanished.

"With you."

"Yeah. Is there an echo out here?"

"With you," Hestia repeated, slowly, as though to a child, "an ex, who jilted him for this very reason."

That bloody does it.

It was bad enough that ninety-percent of the people she knew thought she'd broken up with Remus because of the werewolf thing, and didn't think any less of her for it; she dealt with it because in secret was the only way they could be together. What she couldn't take was the other people she knew, people in the Order, believing that, and acting like she wasn't worthy to tie Remus' shoes. The break-up had been a bloody awful reaction, a snap decision she would regret for the rest of her life, not least of all because it caused people who should know better to believe a lie -- the very worst of whom was Sirius, whose coldness to her was even worse than the cutting remarks Remus had got him to stop making. You couldn't fight back against that.

Hestia, on the other hand -- Tonks had no problem fighting back against her.

Eighteen months' simmering frustration ought to have erupted, but somehow -- maybe she had managed to channel Remus -- Tonks remained at a low, steady boil.

"There's a pass-word to the shelter, Hestia, which Remus expressly asked me not to share with a soul -- for his safety as much as anyone's. Don't make me do something insulting like cast a Muffliato -- or do a Memory Charm on you. Go inside the sodding house."

For a moment, Hestia stared coldly back at her. Then, with a shrug, and a toss of her blonde curls, Hestia turned on her pointy heel and went.

That a look on her face says she's not about to let you get away with that, Tonks.

Not that Tonks was afraid of Hestia.

In fact, she pushed the thought out of her head. There were much more important matters at hand.

With a glance over her shoulder at Hestia's retreating form, she muttered a Muffliato anyway, just to cover her tracks, then gave her wand the neat little flick Remus had showed her, carefully enunciating the password: "Wadiwassi."

The iron door squeaked open with a sound that took her back to a fourth-year prank she'd played on Mrs. Norris, which had earned her almost a full term's worth of detentions, though it had been worth it to hear that screech that signified someone -- she -- had got the better of that stupid Kneazle.

A tug at her pocket diverted her gaze, and she startled to see that the packet of Drooble's Best Minty Freshening Gum she'd brought with her, per Remus' request, was, as though by invisible fingers, being drawn out. Tonks stared stupidly as the foil wrapper peeled back from one stick...Then the mint green gum was curling over itself, into a wad...

"SHITE!"

She jumped to the side, banging her hip on the open shelter door as the wad of gum suddenly shot from the packet with the force of a Bludger pounded by a Beater's bat.

"AIEEEE!"

Despite the screaming pain in her hip, Tonks automatically whirled round in response to Hestia's shriek.

She simultaneously wished she hadn't looked, and though she'd never seen a more beautiful sight in her life...

For Hestia, making all manner of unladylike squeals and grunts, had one index finger shoved up her nostril. She was poking about for something with one of her perfectly manicured nails....Oh, she'd got it...Was pulling it out...It was...

Oh. bloody. buggering. hell.

Minty green.

Not a booger. Gum.

The gum from Tonks' pocket. It had shot up Hestia's nose. But how on earth...?

Wadiwassi.

The pass-word was a spell!

You are an idiot, Tonks. A stupid, sodding great idiot. Remember when Remus asked you yesterday afternoon when you were doing your post-transformation checklist, and Remus made such a great thing of the gum, which you thought was totally weird cos he never chews gum? Yeah, next time he asks for something out of character, don't fall for the, "Then I can give you a good morning kiss" line, will you?

The Marauding bastard.

Even if he had just undergone a horrifyingly painful transformation.

Talking of which...She surreptitiously turned around and moved toward the shelter door...

...but didn't get there before Hestia called, "Really, Nymphadora, I thought even you would know this wasn't the time to joke."

Except that it was, though Tonks, stifling a laugh as she dropped to duck under the short door. Remus had given permission.

As she stepped down into the shelter, she glanced back over her shoulder, "Yes, but aren't you glad your nostril feels minty fresh?"

She waited till she saw Hestia's ordinarily pink face go tomato red with rage just before then pulled the door shut over the image, and let out a giggle of her own.

Actually, it was more of a cackle, but the sound, was drowned out by the clang of the iron. When the metallic echo had ceased, the silence of the dark space in which she stood seemed thick and oppressive enough in and of itself to keep anyone out of -- or within -- the shelter.

She didn't immediately take out her wand to show her in what corner of in this pitch dark, cold cavern Remus lay. She didn't reach out a hand to feel for the wall, to help her get her bearings. She didn't blink, or breathe. All action was bound by the particular brand of slithering fear that wound its way through every inch of the shelter and coiled around her heart, constricting and squeezing so that not a muscle could function, nor even her blood course a millimetre forward through her veins.

She told herself it was because of what she was imagining: a family of mild-looking brown-haired people resembling Remus -- his grandparents, his father -- huddled here in terror of an air-raid whilst, from the village, sirens wailed, and the hum of aeroplane motors drew ever nearer, bring with them the thunder of bombs. It was what she told herself , but she knew in her heart that her paralysis wasn't the bi-product of a bad vibe imprinted on this place because of its dark history, which she, a witch, born two generations too late, could never wrap her mind fully around; and as the shelter never had been used as it was intended, it wasn't likely that the purpose had left such a strong mark. No, what gripped Tonks was magic. Dark residual magic. A variety, which she'd sensed once before...

The crack of Apparition still rang in the crisp October air as the door of Hagrid's hut banged open and the groundskeeper blundered out, fumbling in his pocket for his key ring, jangling them as he searched for the one to open the golden gates to the school.

"Wotcher, Hagrid," said Tonks.

"Lo, Tonks," he replied, turning the key in the lock. "What, er, brings you 'ere tonight? Not that I won' always be glad t'see yer face, since yeh stopped Dung from Imperiusing me."

Hagrid stepped aside to let her pass through the gate.

"Just a visit," she replied, hopefully casually; but casual was difficult when your voice was shaking with anxious anticipation. "I'm a bit worried about Remus."

The gate clanged shut behind her as Hagrid leant back against it. "Worried about...Remus...Lupin?"

He wasn't meeting her eyes, and guilty knowledge couldn't have been written more clearly on the bits of his face not covered by black hair if the actual words, "There's something off about Remus and I know what it is" had been written there.

But though her heart had leapt into her throat, pounding, and her stomach churned with dread and anger and most of all hurt, she did her best to keep a mild expression. Like damned Remus.

"Are there any other Remuses who work here that I don't know about?" she said.

Hagrid's bushy black beard bobbed, and Tonks guessed that if his throat were visible, she'd have seen an enormous Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. The black eyes still didn't meet hers, and his fingers toyed with the golden bars of the gate. "It's just, he's, erm, indisposed."

"Is he?" said Tonks, probably without enough concern for a quasi-girlfriend trying not to appear suspicious; but then, Hagrid wasn't astute at the best of times, and now he was more troubled with covering for Remus than anything else. "Indisposed in what way?"

Hagrid's eyes rolled upward, silver as they caught the moonlight. They darted abruptly down again, settling on his great shuffling feet, and his lips barely moved between the matted curls of beard as he muttered, "Bit sick."

"Did he tell you to tell me that?"

Hagrid looked up at her, but seemed to shrink back against the fence. "Beg yer pardon?"

"Only we're quite close, Remus and I, if you know what I mean--"

"Yer sweet on each other."

"Yes, that's what I mean. I would have thought he'd tell me if he was ill."

"Erm, well, you know, male ego an' all that. Don' want the ladies to think we're weak."

If not for the fact that Hagrid already had made it perfectly clear that she'd been right to suspect Remus was avoiding her and keeping something from her, Tonks might have been convinced by that.

"Silly sods, the lot of you," she said, shaking her head. "I'll tell him so when I see him. Don't let him know I’m coming up, will you, Hagrid?"

She turned and took a few steps toward the school, but was stopped by a hand the size of a dustbin lid catching her arm.

"Yeh really shouldn' go up," Hagrid said urgently. "Lupin won' open his door ter yer, an' If yer don' believe me, ask Professor Dumbledore."

Unsure how to get Hagrid to release her, Tonks nodded and said, "All right. I'll have a word with Dumbledore."

Colour returned to Hagrid's face, and he let out a breath that could have uprooted a small tree.

"That's right," he said, with the wobbly smile of a person relieved to have been let off the hook, which Hagrid wore so often. "Talk ter Dumbledore, Tonks. He'll explain everything." Releasing her arm, he added, "I'll jus' let 'im know yer comin' up--"

But Tonks had taken her Comet out of her pocket, enlarged it, and mounted up.

"Hey!" shouted Hagrid as she kicked off the ground. "Where the bloody hell do yeh think yer goin'?"

Ignoring him, Tonks leaned forward on her broom and swooped up through the air toward the windows of Remus' rooms. She would catch him in the act -- the act of what, she wasn't sure, though wishful thinking and a flickering orange glow led her first to the office window. The male ego wasn't the only bruisable one, and hers would be less so if she found he'd brushed her off to do school work, or his precious Magical Creature research, than if she found him in his personal suite of rooms, entertaining another witch as he had her mere weeks ago. If he was two-timing her, as Desdemona was convinced, Merlin help him, no amount of Defence expertise in the world would protect him against her arts.

Pulling her broom to a hover in front of Remus' office window, she let go with one hand, pulling her sleeve over it, to wipe the condensation from the leaded glass panes as soundlessly as she could.

Not soundless enough.

Against the backdrop of a fire in the great hearth, the outline of a huge dog curled up on the hearth rug, sat up, ears pointed on the alert. Tonks gasped, rocking her broomstick, as a pair of gleaming amber eyes locked on her. The dog startled, too, scrambling to his feet, hackles raised.

She told herself she was imagining a look of recognition passing across the dog's face. She didn't know any dogs on the Hogwarts grounds, except for Fang, and why would he be in Remus' office? Unless he was sick, and Remus was looking after him for Hagrid, and Hagrid had been covering for himself...But no, Fang was black, and this dog, even though cloaked in shadows, was grey. Silvery grey, in fact, and not a dog at all, but a wolf, she saw as he stepped into the moonlight.

Was Remus learning Animagery? Is that why he'd avoided--

The train of thought was interrupted as a chill snaked up her spine, an evil more real and close than any she'd encountered in her Dark Arts training, clutching at her and dragging her one mental step backward.

The moonlight.

All at once, her mind registered the precise shape of the snout...the pupils in the amber eyes...the tufted tail...the reflection of the full moon, directly over the shaggy canine face in the window.

Not a wolf.

A werewolf.

Tonks' hands flew to her mouth, and she barely locked her knees around her Comet in time to stop herself flipping off the broom.

"Oh my God," she whispered. "Remus."

The werewolf's head drooped. Tonks' broom shot backward a few feet as he turned swiftly, his enormous, sinewy side passing by the window, brushing against it. For just an instant Tonks felt his power, and every fibre of her seized up in dread of fur and fang leaping through the window, consuming her.

But he kept walking away from her, until the tufted tail hanging between the hind legs, which had to be larger than a small horse's, disappeared into the shadows.

When he had gone, the relief Tonks expected to flood through her, warming and blessed, never came. There was only cold -- numbing cold in her bones and blood, emanating from the invisible hand that clutched her shoulder...

Black rags of robes that stank of death and decay swept around her, enveloping her in a suffocating blanket of patchwork images as she fell down...down...down...through a veil, and onto a hospital bed surrounded by green-robed Dementors who wore the faces of the people she knew...Her mother, sighing hopelessly, saying "Honestly, Nymphadora..." as she cast householdy spell after householdy spell in Tonks' flat...Desdemona saying, "Get over him, Tonks, can't you see he's not that into you? He's just too polite to say he's too old for you, and a girl like you couldn't possibly be enough for his needs..." Remus, gaunt and grim and ragged, giving her a long look of longing, and a murmured apology, as he turned away carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders...Rufus Scrimgeour, saying, "You fall too much, and without your morphing, you're nothing to the department..." And finally her own mouth open in a silent "No" and her shapeless form, mousy-haired form falling, falling through space when the golden Auror badge ripped from her robes...

"Expecto Patronum," Tonks whispered in the dark of the bunker, as she remembered doing outside his office, and though now there were no Dementors for her pig spirit guardian to charge at and root out with its snout, the sight of the curlicue tail as she stampeded on her dainty cloven-feet, pot belly swaying, made her smile, and feel pink all over. As it had done that long-ago night, evil's coils released her heart, and it began to beat again; against its rhythm, her mind supplied the repeated phrase: Remus. That's Remus.

Her eyes followed her Patronus through the darkness until it gradually lost its shape, and was nothing more than a swirl of silver, and then a wisp of faintly shimmering dust, and then nothing. Continuing to stare at the place in the air where it vanished, Tonks noticed, for the first time, a light so wan it could hardly be called a beam, filtering down from some sort of chimney. When she squinted, she made out the shape of a ladder with broken rungs leading up toward the light. It must have been some sort of alternate exit from the air-raid shelter, should falling debris have blocked the main entrance. Had the ladder been broken to prevent Remus from getting out via the escape hatch? The light fell in a criss-crossed pattern on the wall, indicating bars or some sort metal grate over the top.

To let air in, she thought. A solid covering, and he'd have suffocated.

For some reason, that thought made a lump well up in her throat. Though she knew there was no chance of anything of the sort having happened to Remus, her pulse quickened with a sense of urgency.

"Lumos," she said, and bluish light illuminated the corrugated steel walls of the bunker...

...along with the white, naked form of a man, curled in a in a foetal position on the dirt floor.

Tonks called his name hoarsely as she bolted toward him, but he didn't stir. God, his skin was ghastly, marred by greenish bruising. As his side expanded minutely with his shallow breathing, she could count every rib, make out the rise of his collarbone and shoulder blade; if she could see his back, she knew she'd be able to discern each vertebrae. The matted hair falling over his forehead, and the growth of beard, seemed to have gained new grey strands, though she hoped it was just the odd light from her wand.

Leaning in for a closer look, her foot caught on something metallic and rattling on the floor, and she crashed to her knees on the ground beside him. Before she could drag her attention back to Remus, her gaze was caught by the object that had tripped her: several lengths of chain protruding from the wall. From the open shackles lying to one side of him, Tonks judged that they must have been enchanted to release him at moonset. As she was wondering how the human-sized cuffs could have accommodated the much larger limbs and neck of a werewolf, she noticed two shackles still around the ankle and wrist on the side on which he was lying -- far too big, about the right size for the shape she remembered. They must also have been charmed to shift with his size. But why hadn't they shrunk and opened, as the others had done? Her eyes followed the trail of the chains from the cuffs, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to see that they had pulled loose from their bolts in the wall.

Dear Merlin -- Remus had broken his chains.

The chains that were meant to protect him from the werewolf's hunger for flesh.

Her eyes snapped back to the circular bruises around his wrists and throat. How hurt was he?

She drew the remaining shackles from around his ankle and wrist and kicked the chains aside, not minding the pain when she stubbed her toe through her trainer. Casting a quick glance around the small space, she spied a bundle of cloth in the middle of the floor. She Summoned it, and as it flew to her, it unfurled to reveal his robe -- in tatters. It hardly looked better after a Reparo (How many times had he destroyed his clothing, and pieced it back together again?) and dear God, she wanted to cry because the fabric was so, so thin.

He didn't stir as she carefully pulled his clothing around him, and Tonks couldn't decide whether it was a good sign that she hadn't hurt him, or indicative of him being even worse off than she feared.

Seated to the side of him, his head cradled in her lap, she touched her wand to his forehead. "Rennervate."

She held her breath, fearful of jarring him and mistaking that movement for his awakening. Was it her imagination, or had his eyelids, almost transparent and spidered with veins, twitched? No -- the lines at the corners of his eyes were deepening; his golden lashes were parting.

Next thing she knew, a pair of blue eyes was peering up at her. The whites were dull, and bloodshot, but the irises were so, so beautifully blue. And though the upward curve of his ashen lips was so slight that only a person who knew him well would call it a smile, Tonks saw it and felt no doubt that he was very, very pleased to see her.

"G'morning, Elphine."

She'd never heard a more wonderful sound than his low, rasping voice at that moment. His hair felt so soft between her fingers as she stroked it, loving every grey strand. As his face swam before her, and her emotions kept swinging somewhere between deepest sorrow and utmost joy, her body thrummed with delirium.

"I'm jolly glad you're awake, Lupin, cos there's something I've got to ask you."

A valley formed between his eyebrows. "What's that?"

"Who the hell was that Wadiwassi meant for?"

Eyes brilliant and dancing, Remus laughed.

And coughed.

Wincing, he clutched at his side and drew his knees up toward his chest.

"What's wrong?" Tonks asked, frantic again as her conscience took up duty as a Howler.

Stupid, stupid idiot Tonks! You should have seen to that first thing? What are you thinking, cracking jokes at a time like this?

But Remus was chuckling again, in between coughs, and rubbing his cheek affectionately against her knee. "I trust that by Who the hell was it meant for? you're telling me it affected someone other than yourself?"

"Hestia. I brought her along in case you were hurt. Are you?"

"I thought you might," said Remus, looking up at her with more smug gittishness than he ought to be capable of producing after the night he'd had. "I'd a hunch she might have annoyed you."

She probably shouldn't do, but Tonks couldn't stop herself arching an eyebrow at him. "Are you saying I'm predictable?"

"I think it's that I'm not saying you're predictable."

"I'd be impressed with the clarity of your Inner Eye, except that having a hunch Hestia might annoy me is on par with having a hunch Sirius might experience utter loathing toward Snape."

Another bout of laughter brought another bout with pain, which his clenched teeth and screwed up eyes told her was worse than the first wave.

"Are your ribs broken?" Tonks asked.

"I'm sure they're just bruised," said Remus, voice pinched with strain as he trailed his fingers gingerly down his side.

"What happened?"

"Memory's a bit fuzzy."

"Then how can you be sure they're only bruised?"

Remus looked at her for a moment, lips pressed together, weighing his words. "My guess is I threw myself against the wall in the attempt to break free."

She showed him the chains and told him how she'd found him.

"Explains the ache in my hip and shoulder," he said.

Alarmed by his bland disinterest almost as much as by what had happened to him, Tonks didn't stop to think before she blurted, "Do injuries you receive in your werewolf form carry over when you're back in your own body?"

Again, that moment of consideration before he answered, which gave Tonks just enough time to mentally scold herself for drawing more attention to his condition than the situation already had.

"Not precisely," he said, and then, with a puff of a laugh, added, "and thank Merlin, or I'd probably look like Mad-Eye after so many years of biting and scratching myself."

Tonks didn't follow up on the comment, and though hurt that he kept brushing her off, she squared her shoulders and did her best to let it roll off her back, and focused instead on how happy he'd looked to see her when he'd opened his eyes. He did care for her -- loved her, in fact. He was just being protective again, as Kingsley had suggested to her so long ago. She didn't need his protection, but maybe he needed to protect her in order to feel strong. She could give him that.

What if he doesn't think you're strong enough to know the truth, and therefore not strong enough for him?

"Shall I take you to Hestia?" Tonks asked, voice sharp in response to her inner voice, which seemed to startle Remus. Trying for a more controlled tone, she went on, "Or d'you want me to bring her to you? She's right pissed off at me, you know, for not letting her in. I got an idea she wanted to see you starkers."

Remus chuckled -- or coughed. "Word around the Order has it she's wanted to see me starkers since I was a fifth year and she was a first."

Oh, that horrible little cow! You really need to show her who -- and who alone, forever and ever, amen -- gets to see Remus starkers.

Tonks snorted. "Had a crush on you, maybe, but I promise you, first year girls don't want to see naked boys."

"Even if they're prefects?"

"Conceited bastard," said Tonks, lightly swatting his shoulder -- not the side that had strained most against his bonds. "Now answer the sodding question," she added, even though it was pretty obvious from the tangent that he didn't feel up to moving to the house, but didn't want to talk about the alternative. But she had to do something, and she didn't know what else to do.

"If you'll lend me a shoulder," he said, pushing himself to sit upright, "I can make it to the house."

"Thought you'd say that," she said as she draped his arm over her shoulder.

He looked sideways at her. "Are you saying I’m predictable?"

Tonks grunted, and so did he, as she hoisted him to him to his feet.
"I think it's that I’m not saying you're predictable."

Actually, it has a lot more to do with what Remus isn't saying. And you ought to be saying a hell of a lot more.

She ignored that voice. Right now, Remus didn't need her to say anything. He needed her to do what she hadn't been able to do for him before the Oak Moon rose. At the moment, that meant seeing him steady on his feet.

As she struggled to hold him securely around his slim waist whilst being careful of his ribs, he caught her eye.

"Thank you for not bringing her in," he said. "I'm just sorry you had to see this."

The pure gratitude softening his haggard features touched her deeply; at the same time, she hated that he was ashamed, hated herself for not being able to convey to him that he needn't fear rejection from her.

But why wouldn't he? You have rejected him, when he needed you most. He won't forget that easily. Time doesn't heal all wounds -- he knows that better than anyone.

Tears welled in her eyes; she was torn between looking away because she didn't want him to think she was upset by what she'd seen here, and not wanting to look away because he might think she was ashamed.

She settled for blinking, hard.

"What is it?" Remus asked, anxiety lending yet more strain to his already hoarse voice.

When she opened her eyes, and spoke, the words came out sounding more desperate and pleading than she meant for them to. "Why won't you take Wolfsbane Potion? You'd keep your mind...You wouldn't hurt yourself..."

Sighing heavily, Remus looked away. She knew that expression well, saw plain as the nose on Snape's face that Remus' thoughts were fixed on a very clear why. But one that he wouldn't open up to her.

Next thing you know, he'll be looking at you again, with that damn composure, probably wearing that ironic little smile, maybe even crack a joke. And you'll be feeling confused, frustrated, and inadequate. Again.

Except that this time, when Remus slipped out of her supportive arms, leant against the wall, rubbing his hands over his upper arms, as if to warm himself, and looked up at her, she could think of no other word for the look on his face than raw. She gasped, because she'd never seen him look like that, and she almost didn't recognise him.

At length he said, "When I have taken a week's regimen of Wolfsbane Potion, I retain full awareness of not only my human thought process, but every werewolf instinct and desire, as well."

His eyes darkened; his gaze didn't actually move from hers, but he wasn't looking at her anymore. At some point, though, he'd taken her hand, laced his fingers through hers, and held it very tightly.

"At Oak Moon," he went on, and Tonks, breathless, almost regretted her wish for him to open up, because he looked like he was reliving a nightmare. "I've never been more frightened, Elphine. Not even by Dementors."

He fell silent, and thankfully didn't expect her to say anything, because she didn't know what she could possibly say after that, to a man in whose face she could see a terrified five year old boy in a hospital bed, who couldn't understand that he'd been bitten by a monster and consequently had become one himself.

After a moment his eyes found hers again, and he gave her a small, sad smile. "It's cowardly, but I'd rather not know -- or remember -- what I want to do when I'm transformed."

Still holding his hand, Tonks pressed herself against him and hugged him fiercely. "You're the bravest person I know. The truest Gryffindor."

He stood a little stiffly in her embrace, but she felt his hand in her hair, and then his cheek resting against her head as he released her hand and settled his in the small of her back. His lips brushed her forehead, and he murmured against her skin. "I think you're forgetting about Harry Potter."

"No," said Tonks, shaking her head as she leaned back to look up at him. "I haven't, and I mean it."

His smile widened, and his eyes were so bright. She knew he was going to kiss her, which sent a thrill through her, but when he leaned into her, she held him back with her hand pressed lightly to his chest.

"Didn't you want to chew a bit of that gum you asked me to bring?"

His raspy chuckle tickled her ears, his beard and breath her neck...And then his mouth was on hers, kissing her hard at first, and searing, until his lips melted hers and they glided together, soft and smooth. He kissed her exactly how she liked, tracing the inner edge of her lip with his tongue, exploring tentatively, eliciting her small sounds of pleasure as invitation before he held her face in his hands and deepened the kiss.

There was no mistaking his affection, or his arousal, and Tonks wondered whether the actions weren't fuelled by reaction against the horrible things he'd thought and felt last night, if maybe he was driven by the need to find himself again in this most instinctively human of ways. If so, she didn't care. She wanted him to need her; if this was what he needed, she wouldn't deny him. And after all, it wasn't as if he was the only one who wanted to kiss...touch...love...God...there was adoration on his lips, and as he poured it into her, there was no room for feelings of inadequacy.

Also, there was no room for broken -- or bruised -- ribs, as was proved by Remus breaking the kiss too soon, pulling away from her with a hiss of pain.

Tonks was a little surprised at how instantaneously she regained her composure when a split-second before she'd been breathless, mind given over to body. She reckoned it indicated just how anxious she yet was about him.

"Come on, then," she slipping into the crook of his arm to support him, "into the house with you so Hestia can mend your ribs, Molly can fill you up--"

"You brought Molly along, as well?"

Great. You've embarrassed him with all this attention. Couldn't you have just asked her to send breakfast with you?

No -- this is good for him. He can't shut himself off. He needs to see how many people care for him, that it's not just you, and not unreasonable of you, to want to be let in.

"Someone had to cook you a proper hot meal," she said. "I think she figured out we're still together."

As they took their first halting steps up the slight incline to the door, Remus glanced down at her with a look of alarm. "What did she say?"

"Only that you should concentrate on getting inside and letting them look after you so I can help you with that other thing on your very manly mind."

He chuckled a little, his grin boyish as his hair fell into his eyes. "Molly didn't say that."

"Oh. Right, that was me."

As they stepped out into the light, Tonks felt light, even though Remus leaned heavily on her. This was a break-through, him letting her support him, and even more, him confessing to her about his fear. The setting of each full moon had always represented a chance to start anew, but now they were really and truly stepping out of the darkness, and into the light. Seeing the gratitude and love in his eyes when she looked up at him, and their eyes met, every ounce of work she'd put into this relationship felt very, absolutely worth it.

Except for this secrecy business.

"You made him walk back?" Hestia's shrill voice greeted them at the kitchen door. "Merlin's beard, Nymphadora! I don't care if he is an ex-boyfriend, he's an Order colleague, and we all need him in one piece!"

Somehow managing to glower at Tonks and simper at Remus at the same time, Hestia gave her wand a flourishing sweep and conjured a stretcher.

"Lie down, Remus dear. If you've injured your ribs, climbing up that pokey old staircase is the last thing you need to do."

Remus opened his mouth in protest, as did Tonks, but somehow -- she had no real idea just what happened -- it all ended with Remus appeasing Hestia, who smirked victoriously at Tonks as she levitated him up to the staircase to the bedroom.

When Tonks tried to go into the room to hear Hestia's prognosis, the rosy-cheeked witch blocked the doorway.

"I'm sorry, but you can't come in," said Hestia. "Healer-patient confidentiality, you know."

And she shut the door in Tonks face.

Locked it, too.

Tonks tried an Alohamora, which didn't work, and she heard Hestia giggle and say, "I was asked expressly not to reveal the pass-word!"

Yes, sir, Tonks thought as she clomped downstairs. Something has got to be done about this matter of secrecy.

Or Hestia will have to be hexed to next week.

Hestia's red, puffed-up face as she crammed a plump finger up her nose to fish for a wad of gum drifted to the forefront of Tonks' memory, and she had to sit on the staircase lest she tumble down it for laughing.

If there's one thing in this world you can be confident of, it's that your boyfriend won't hesitate to help you get your own back at Hestia Jones.

A/N: Thanks to all who have read and commented on the previous chapters. Hopefully I'll write a little faster this week. All who offer feedback this time will get a Marauder Remus of their very own to help you get your own back at your own personal nemesis.

Read Chapter 3