HP FIC: Once
Title: Once
Author:
mrstater
Format & Word Count: one-shot, 4200ish
Rating & Warnings: R for sex. Lots of sex.
Summary: Remus and Tonks have been a little careless. The consequences.
Author's Note: A sequel to Water Falls, this fic was written for the March 2008 "Not Forgotten" ficathon at
rt_challenge , for the prompt: Sex contains all, / Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, / Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk; / All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, / All the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth, / All the governments, judges, gods, follow’d persons of the earth, / These are contain’d in sex, as parts of itself, and justifications of itself. ("A Woman Waits For Me" by Walt Whitman) The excerpt at the end of the fic is from Chapter 7 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Many thanks, as always, to
godricgal .
Once
After their shower, they share a cheese and biscuit plate and sip red wine in bed during the evening news on the WWN. Remus is not surprised that the broadcast makes no mention of the most pertinent event of the day, the death of Alastor Moody, greatest Auror of the age, even though it is surely as newsworthy as the death of Albus Dumbledore, which is still, a month later, the top story of the Wizarding world. Even so, the omission lays a heaviness on Remus' heart that makes it difficult to draw breath; Dora's fingers curl around a biscuit and crush it in her hand.
No words exist that can give comfort in these circumstances, or if any do, they do not know them. So they turn once more to each other's bodies, the one remaining constant in their lives, which is the height of irony for shape-shifters such as they.
There is no franticness now in their movements as in their earlier lovemaking session in the shower; lips meld languidly together, tongues probe, taking it in turns to taste and explore; hands rest, feather light, on breasts or cheeks or necks or stomachs; one finger, from time to time, brushes a strand of hair from a forehead. They are almost resigned to what has happened, they are beginning to prepare for what is to come, though they are in no hurry to arrive there.
And as Remus' fingers drift downward to stroke her warm wetness, his lips brushing the hollows where muscles stretch taut at the open V of her thighs to utter the Contraceptive Charm, he remembers.
"Dora..."
He lifts his head. Hers is still tilted back on the lumpy feather pillows, the curve of her neck framed in the valley of her milky breasts with their pink peaks of hardened nipples--a sight which, combined with her hand covering his to press his palm against her as she bucks her hips ever so slightly up into him, and her husky voice pleading with him not to tease her, nearly makes him lose his train of thought. He sits up on his knees and turns his hand over beneath hers so that they are palm to palm and threads their fingers together, holding her hand as if it will help him cling to what he must not forget again. She looks up at him, a question in her dark eyes.
"In the shower," Remus says hoarsely. "I didn't use the charm."
Dora's face is a study, drawn in the expression she wears at Order meetings, processing titbits of information. Then, tossing her head a little so that her pink hair fans out on the pillows, she says with an air of unconcern that reminds him, of all people, of Padfoot:
"Oh."
"Oh? Aren't you worried you might be...?"
"It was a few minutes in the shower. Just once."
"It only takes once."
Her eyebrows meet over the bridge of her nose as she pushes up on her elbows. "I don't have a stash of Pregnancy Detection Potions the cupboard, you know." Remus can't help but shudder a little at the word pregnancy, and she goes on: "They're not something I've thought might be useful to keep on hand. We're always so careful."
"Apparently not always. Shouldn't you check? Just to be sure?"
With a sigh, Dora glances at the clock on the bedside table. "The apothecary closed hours ago. I'll pick one up tomorrow if you're really worried, but I'm not." She squeezes his hand in both of hers. "We're always careful," she says again. "We'll be more careful in the future. It was just one time."
It only takes once...But Remus nods. "I'm sure you're right."
Sitting fully upright, Dora pushes herself toward him, slipping her legs over his so that the backs of her thighs rub against his and the slight pressure of her feet hooking at the small of his back pulls him down toward her. She draws their hands into their laps, and he inhales sharply at her touch, which immediately undoes any negative effect this discussion might have had on their amorous mood.
"We've more than enough to worry about without inventing troubles. I don't want to worry any more tonight."
"Me neither." He leans in to kiss her as he lays her down once more and resumes their love-making where he left off, casting the Contraception Charm. As he presses in to her, Pregnancy Detection Potions are pushed from his mind as thoroughly as if he'd never thought of them at all.
Though they sleep little during what is left of the night except to doze briefly between encounters, keeping vigil with their love-making, Dora rises with the sun and dresses in her crisply starched Auror uniform. Remus is as eager as she to learn what the Auror division makes of Mad-Eye's death, to know whether her department is the last bastion of justice in the Ministry of Magic, or if it, too, has been corrupted by Voldemort's spies. He doesn't know how he will make the time pass until Dora's shift ends.
As it turns out, Dora returns home much earlier than expected; Remus is still tidying the bedroom, making the bed and collecting the plates and goblets from last night's snack, when he hears a fumbling at the door, followed by her unnaturally subdued voice answering his security question. When he opens the door, she practically stumbles inside, brown-haired, with red-rimmed eyes that make her face seem even paler than it is.
Remus pulls her into his arms at once and nudges the door shut with his foot.
"What happened? Is even the Auror division silent about Mad-Eye?"
Not seeming to have heard him, Dora doesn't meet Remus' eye, but instead looks down at her robes; her fingers clutch at a puckered place in the fabric on her chest.
"They took my badge away," she says. "I've been sacked."
Her voice is so small, and it evokes within Remus the heartbreak and humiliation of every job he's ever lost, feelings he would never wish upon anyone else, least of all her, who for this very reason he put a stop to their relationship before their luck in love ran out and she was, inevitably, tainted by his curse.
Guilt crushes down on him so that he is the one leaning on her for support even as she tells him, quietly and truthfully, all the other reasons given by the Minister of Magic, the Head of Magical Law Enforcement, and the (reluctant, Tonks believes) Head of Aurors when she'd found them waiting for her at her cubicle: that they believe her to be a member of the Order of the Phoenix; that to be part of such a secret society is, in short, an abuse of the security status granted to her under the rank of Auror; and that she is a disgrace to Hufflepuff House in not proving an unswervingly loyal employee to the Ministry.
"They haven't sacked Kingsley, too, have they?" asks Remus, hoping with no great expectation that this has anything to do with the Order.
Tonks confirms that no, Kingsley still works for the Ministry--for now.
Coupled with her particular talents, she goes on to tell Remus, which had raised security concerns from her application to the Auror programme to which she likely would not have been admitted but for the insistence of Alastor Moody, who vouched for her character, and her dubious liaisons with Dark Creatures, to which they could no longer turn a blind eye (it was out of character for her to keep a matter such as a marriage quiet, and therefore they could only suspect her of some hidden agenda, or of being compromised), they had no choice but to strip her of her position. An MLE officer had been ordered to escort her to the Ministry's visitors' entrance.
"I'm so sorry," Remus whispers, his cheeks flushed with the mortification that must have burnt with in her, must still singe.
Her frame goes rigid in his embrace.
"Don't."
She looks up at him, eyes hard.
"It's my choice. I chose the Order. I chose you. I knew I was risking my job. I asked to be sacked."
She is so brave, Remus thinks, looking down into her dark eyes. Brave as any Gryffindor he ever knew; braver than he. Yet he heard the tremor in her voice, sees her blinking hard, and often, and knows her battle against tears shall be a losing one.
"You did choose, and you did know the risk," he affirms. "That doesn't mean you don't feel the pain."
Dora makes a sound as if this really is doing her tangible hurt, and he just glimpses her eyes gloss before she closes them, arches up on her toes, and kisses him.
"Please make it go away, Remus."
Touching his lips to hers tentatively, he wonders: can this really be all she needs? Her desperate response leaves him with no other choice but to lift her up in his arms and carry her to their bed, where he covers her body with his own and does his best to be her shield against the world.
But it is difficult to let himself go when he is acutely aware of the irony of trying to protect her when it is he who did her this harm in the first place. There are many stops and starts. When she does come, finally, she cries until she falls asleep.
Remus does neither.
That evening, Kingsley turns up, his welcome presence growing less so when he informs them that word of ex-Auror Tonks' marriage to a werewolf Remus Lupin of Hogwarts infamy has reached the ears of Dolores Umbridge. She came into the Ministry on a Sunday to begin drawing up new anti-werewolf legislation.
"She's banning them from marrying or having children," Kingsley says.
"What about us?" Remus asks, Dora beside him on the sofa, clutching his hand. "We took advantage of there being no such law yet in existence. I suppose no one ever thought anyone would want to marry a werewolf." He hears the note of bitterness creeping into his own voice, even as his words make him consider for the millionth time how lucky he is.
"Your case is at the centre of the debate," Kingsley says. "Magically, you're bonded for life, and Umbridge may not be able to legislate retroactively against that--but she's arguing that the Ban Against Experimental Breeding applies."
"That's vile," Tonks grits out in a throaty voice through clenched teeth, and Remus nods; there certainly is a vile taste in his mouth and nausea gripping his stomach as he remembers.
"Whatever you do," says Kingsley, standing, "lay low. If Umbridge has her way, you'll be arrested in violation of the Ban. Or worse."
After offering an apology, and a wish of luck, Kingsley leaves. Remus releases Dora's hand, goes to the door, and plucks his cloak from the rack.
"Where are you going?" Tonks asks.
"To get you a Pregnancy Detection Potion."
Though Remus' back is turned to her as he buttons the garment, in the pause he imagines Tonks blinking, her mouth opening and closing in stunned surprise.
After a moment she recovers herself enough to speak. "I'm sure I'm not pregnant. I can't be."
She sounds considerably less certain of this than last night, when she convinced him that they could not be so unlucky as to conceive the one time they were careless.
"All the same," he says, "wouldn't you rather find out before a test is forced on you by law?"
The words come out more gruffly than he means for them to, and he turns to find Dora looking duly shaken by them. He starts to apologise, but he cannot find words for how Kingsley's news has made him feel about himself, about Dora. By the time he's formulated even a feeble statement, Dora is getting up from the sofa, her face scrunched up as she morphs herself into a tall, but otherwise unremarkable, brunette thirty-something.
"You'd better let me go, then. There might be spies in the Apothecary--there must've been in the Registrar's--"
"Or Dung could have talked. I still believe he compromised our mission to move Harry."
"In any case, you'd probably do better not to be seen buying a Pregnancy Detection Potion when Umbridge is busy passing laws banning werewolf breeding, wouldn't you?"
While Dora is gone, Remus can do nothing but pace the flat. Every muscle is tense with fear as before a transformation; he cannot help imagining that Umbridge's spies--or Bellatrix Lestrange--are posted near the flat, keeping watch for Dora. Not even her disguise puts him at ease. When she returns, safe and sound, half an hour later, that fear is replaced by the anxiety of what the contents of her paper parcel will reveal.
Dora can't be pregnant, she can't. They're always so careful. It was only once....
Remus does his best not to let these thoughts show on his face, tries to look encouraging and unconcerned about the outcome of the test, because, as she slowly draws a phial of purple liquid from a box, Dora looks nervous enough for the both of them. He lays a hand on her shoulder as she uncorks it and a faintly grapey scent wafts out.
"Ugh." Dora pulls a face. "I hate grape."
"I'd offer you a biscuit to eat after you take it," says Remus, scanning the directions on the back of the box, "but it says here food can falsify the results of the test."
"Damn touchy potions."
"Like Wolfsbane Potion and sugar."
Tonks raises the phial to him, says, "Cheers," then knocks back the Pregnancy Detection Potion. She sputters and grimaces, making a great drama of the taste which, thankfully, distracts Remus from dreadful anticipation of the results during the two minutes required for the results to show as a colour change in her fingernails.
Nonetheless, when Dora's nails suddenly bloom hot pink, he has a good enough feel for time to know that the entire two minutes have not elapsed.
Dear God...His heart cuts off his oxygen supply. Undoubtedly pregnant.
Dora, on the other hand, though scowling, appears calm as she flicks the phial into the dustbin and takes another Pregnancy Detection Potion from the parcel.
"I'm taking another one. These stupid things are wrong all the time."
"It...says on the box 99.9% accuracy," says Remus, eyeing the box dubiously. "Highest satisfaction rating from Witch Weekly."
"Less than .1% of Witch Weekly readers are Metamorphmagi."
"Yes, but given what happened last night, I think it's unlikely--"
Dora silences him with a glare. "I'm. Taking. Another. One."
Remus nods, and she whips a phial of yellow liquid out of its packaging, thrusting the box at him.
"Here. I'm afraid I might've accidentally morphed my fingernails with the last one, expecting the worst, but as this one says a secret indicator symbol will appear on my stomach, I probably can't do anything weird."
Though Remus feels sure a second pregnancy test is only going to confirm pregnancy, he reasons that since he was never much of a Divination student, and Dora's morphing has been linked with her emotions, she might have a point.
He hopes she does, anyway.
She gulps down the Potion, this time followed by an mmm of pleasure. "Piña colada. Which isn’t really fair, if you think about it, because if I were pregnant--which I’m not--then it would be reminding me of something I'm not allowed to have for the next nine months."
"There's always virgin piña coladas."
Dora grins impishly, an expression Remus realises he hasn't seen in more than a day, and has missed, very much. "Obviously ironic drinks for pregnant ladies!"
As they laugh, Remus thinks that pregnancy, if she is pregnant, might not necessarily be the entirely negative turn of events as his gut reaction has led him to believe. If they can joke about Pregnancy Detection Potions in the midst of persecution, and the loss of employment, and mourning...Well, if you can laugh, Remus has learnt, especially if you're not alone, you can get through so much more than you could imagine.
"Well?"
Dora has stopped laughing, and is lifting up the hem of her t-shirt to expose her flat, toned tummy, which makes pregnancy seem such a preposterous notion. Her eyes are on him, wide and imploring.
"See a secret indicator symbol?"
Remus holds his breath. There is, indeed, a new mark on Dora's porcelain skin. Squinting, he bends to look closer.
"Is that...a loaf of bread?"
They stare at each other for a moment, then Tonks glances down in alarm.
"A bun in the...Oh bloody hell no, no, no, no! I can't be pregnant. One time we were careless. One bloody time! And what in Merlin's name are you smirking about?"
"I'm sorry," says Remus, pressing his fingers to his lips to hold back his laughter. "I was just remembering James saying the same thing when he found out Lily was expecting. Sirius was very impressed."
Dora gives him a look that ought to wither him, but Remus still feels ebullient as she throws the phial in the dustbin, where it shatters. She begins to stalk about the flat, gesticulating.
"This is not the time to go male on me, Remus! Don't you see this is the worst possible time for me to get pregnant? Or have you forgotten that two nights ago I was flying for my life from an aunt whose greatest joy would be to murder me? You're pretty high on Voldemort's Most Wanted list, too, I think. Mad-Eye's dead, and I'm going to be huge and lumbering and bloody useless when the Order most needs trained Dark Wizard Chasers. And what about when the baby comes? What am I going to do with it? Strap it to my back while I duel Death Eaters?"
As she stops in front of him, Remus lays his hands on her shoulders. "Dora, you're one day pregnant. It will be months till you're huge and lumbering..."
He falters when she gives him a look that says this was perhaps not the best thing to say, though he pictures her with a swollen belly and glowing complexion, and she is a beautiful vision.
"Even then," he continues, "I know you will continue to be an invaluable asset to the Order. And when the baby comes I’m sure your mother will be only too happy to look after her grandchild for us."
Dora's shoulders relax slightly beneath his palms. "You won't expect me to stay at home and hide, then? Because I couldn't, Remus, I wouldn't feel right if I weren't out there fighting. Not when Mad-Eye..."
"Of course I wouldn't ask that of you. You're a soldier."
She starts to smile, but doesn't quite manage it as another thought flits across her face, etching her young features once more with sadness and worry. She folds her arms over her chest and curls in to herself.
"Not that we're going to have a home to hide in. Merlin, how did I manage to get pregnant the day before I got sacked?" She looks around the tiny open-plan flat as if for the last time. "We're not going to be able to stay here. We've money enough in our vault, but not to pay rent. We'll need so much for the baby..."
"Yes, we will," Remus acknowledges, then shoves the bare facts from his mind because he can't think about all that now. Dora is pregnant, and the last thing she needs is to become upset, and he won't help her with that if he gives in to worry.
And, quite simply, he doesn't want to worry. Not now. Worst possible timing or not, this is happening, right now. On the rare occasions he's allowed himself to dream of the moment Dora would tell him he was going to be a father, he imagined happiness so acute he could scarcely believe in it. He wants to feel that now, more than anything, just this once.
"Dora."
He touches her arms, gently unfolds them and draws them away from her body.
"We're having a baby. A little you, and a little me." He lets his hand brush over her abdomen. "Inside you."
A smile. Her hair stands up in jaunty spikes, the most brilliant pink she's worn to date.
"We made a baby," she says.
And then she throws her arms around his neck, and he holds her tightly, lifting her feet off the ground and swinging her till her squeals mingle with his laughter. He kisses her all over her face and neck and the lobes of her ears and tells her how brilliant she is.
"I dunno about that," says Dora. "Seems like it had a lot less to do with brilliance than with forgetfulness."
Remus grins sheepishly, but that doesn't stop him from saying, "Speaking of which, seeing as we don't have to worry about those pesky little Contraceptive Charms for a while, would you be up for taking advantage of that?"
Dora gives him a look that is equal parts smirk and saucy gleam that couldn't make him take his hands off her if she hexed them to Oblivion.
"You're right," she says. "Sirius would be impressed."
Monday morning they wake too early when Dora's alarm goes off at her usual time for work. There is a terrible moment when her face freezes in realisation that she no longer has a job to go to, and Remus thinks he will never forgive himself for the sadness that clouds her eyes for just a second before she breaks out grinning, running her hands over her stomach. She tells him that this might sound strange, but she can feel her body changing in ways she's never morphed it before. She knows there's a little life growing inside, and she lays down beside Remus again with a happy sigh and kisses him deeply.
Remus is glad to see her spirits so much improved from yesterday in regard to both her state of unemployment and the prospects of motherhood; for his part, some of the lustre has dulled on waking like this. Dora's questions from last night threaten to bombard him. Were will they live? How will they afford food, much less all they will need for the baby?
He shifts so that he and Dora lie on their sides, spooning. He splays his hands across her belly, wishing very much that he could feel the stirrings of their baby which seem to bring her such deep joy and peace. Since he cannot, he makes love to her, slowly, side by side in the soft grey before dawn.
Apparently Tonks has been thinking, because when they finish, she fairly bounces out of bed and bubbles over about how she's just remembered her mother kept most of her old baby furniture, and that they should at least be spared the expense of furnishing a nursery for their little one. This does not do as much to alleviate Remus' troubles as it does hers. Will the nursery be in Ted and Andromeda's house, then? He can see no other option but to move in with his wife's parents, and he doesn't like it.
Tuesday brings another option, in the form of a lawyer bearing the news that Alastor Moody's will names Nymphadora Tonks the sole beneficiary of Mad-Eye's estate, including his house in Ickenham, his Invisibility Cloak, Magical Trunk, Sneakoscope, and other security items, along with the entire contents of his Gringott's vault, which is sure to be a dragon's treasure trove, as Mad-Eye had been the poster wizard for thrift as well as paranoia.
The inheritance, naturally, is a bittersweet for Dora, who still has tears for her lost mentor (though she insists it's bloody hormones and invokes Merlin's help if she turns into a snivelling mess just because she's pregnant); but mainly she is touched by this reassurance of Mad-Eye's love from beyond the grave. There couldn't be a safer place for them to lay low in these dark days, to raise a child, than Mad-Eye's house, well-protected by spells known only to him. She says in tones of awe, at intervals throughout the day, how he couldn't have known how much this would help them, and she describes Mad-Eye looking down on them from wherever he is, his heavily scarred, grizzled features wearing a properly chuffed expression. (Or does he have scars in the Otherworld? she wonders aloud. What about his magical eye?) Almost cheerfully she begins taking pictures down off walls and packing their things, and her jolly laugh fills the flat.
"Remus, did you ever imagine a anything as completely loony as you and me doing up a nursery in Mad-Eye Moody's house?"
Remus cannot say that he ever has done. He laughs with her, even though he doesn't feel anything close to genuine mirth, trying to be light of heart, for her sake. The inheritance is a Merlinsend, but he can't help but feel that it is his duty to rescue his wife...his child. Yet he knows it is futile to wish he could have done; his hands are tied, and soon, thanks to Umbridge, may be bound tighter still.
Dora has made her choice.
It seems that she has chosen nothing.
Although Lupin smiled as he shook Harry's hand, Harry thought he looked rather unhappy. It was all very odd; Tonks, beside him, looked simply radiant.
A/N: Reviewers get their very own Remus to help them cope with life's curveballs...or to help him cope with his issues.
Author:
mrstater
Format & Word Count: one-shot, 4200ish
Rating & Warnings: R for sex. Lots of sex.
Summary: Remus and Tonks have been a little careless. The consequences.
Author's Note: A sequel to Water Falls, this fic was written for the March 2008 "Not Forgotten" ficathon at
rt_challenge , for the prompt: Sex contains all, / Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, / Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk; / All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, / All the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth, / All the governments, judges, gods, follow’d persons of the earth, / These are contain’d in sex, as parts of itself, and justifications of itself. ("A Woman Waits For Me" by Walt Whitman) The excerpt at the end of the fic is from Chapter 7 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Many thanks, as always, to
godricgal .
Once
After their shower, they share a cheese and biscuit plate and sip red wine in bed during the evening news on the WWN. Remus is not surprised that the broadcast makes no mention of the most pertinent event of the day, the death of Alastor Moody, greatest Auror of the age, even though it is surely as newsworthy as the death of Albus Dumbledore, which is still, a month later, the top story of the Wizarding world. Even so, the omission lays a heaviness on Remus' heart that makes it difficult to draw breath; Dora's fingers curl around a biscuit and crush it in her hand.
No words exist that can give comfort in these circumstances, or if any do, they do not know them. So they turn once more to each other's bodies, the one remaining constant in their lives, which is the height of irony for shape-shifters such as they.
There is no franticness now in their movements as in their earlier lovemaking session in the shower; lips meld languidly together, tongues probe, taking it in turns to taste and explore; hands rest, feather light, on breasts or cheeks or necks or stomachs; one finger, from time to time, brushes a strand of hair from a forehead. They are almost resigned to what has happened, they are beginning to prepare for what is to come, though they are in no hurry to arrive there.
And as Remus' fingers drift downward to stroke her warm wetness, his lips brushing the hollows where muscles stretch taut at the open V of her thighs to utter the Contraceptive Charm, he remembers.
"Dora..."
He lifts his head. Hers is still tilted back on the lumpy feather pillows, the curve of her neck framed in the valley of her milky breasts with their pink peaks of hardened nipples--a sight which, combined with her hand covering his to press his palm against her as she bucks her hips ever so slightly up into him, and her husky voice pleading with him not to tease her, nearly makes him lose his train of thought. He sits up on his knees and turns his hand over beneath hers so that they are palm to palm and threads their fingers together, holding her hand as if it will help him cling to what he must not forget again. She looks up at him, a question in her dark eyes.
"In the shower," Remus says hoarsely. "I didn't use the charm."
Dora's face is a study, drawn in the expression she wears at Order meetings, processing titbits of information. Then, tossing her head a little so that her pink hair fans out on the pillows, she says with an air of unconcern that reminds him, of all people, of Padfoot:
"Oh."
"Oh? Aren't you worried you might be...?"
"It was a few minutes in the shower. Just once."
"It only takes once."
Her eyebrows meet over the bridge of her nose as she pushes up on her elbows. "I don't have a stash of Pregnancy Detection Potions the cupboard, you know." Remus can't help but shudder a little at the word pregnancy, and she goes on: "They're not something I've thought might be useful to keep on hand. We're always so careful."
"Apparently not always. Shouldn't you check? Just to be sure?"
With a sigh, Dora glances at the clock on the bedside table. "The apothecary closed hours ago. I'll pick one up tomorrow if you're really worried, but I'm not." She squeezes his hand in both of hers. "We're always careful," she says again. "We'll be more careful in the future. It was just one time."
It only takes once...But Remus nods. "I'm sure you're right."
Sitting fully upright, Dora pushes herself toward him, slipping her legs over his so that the backs of her thighs rub against his and the slight pressure of her feet hooking at the small of his back pulls him down toward her. She draws their hands into their laps, and he inhales sharply at her touch, which immediately undoes any negative effect this discussion might have had on their amorous mood.
"We've more than enough to worry about without inventing troubles. I don't want to worry any more tonight."
"Me neither." He leans in to kiss her as he lays her down once more and resumes their love-making where he left off, casting the Contraception Charm. As he presses in to her, Pregnancy Detection Potions are pushed from his mind as thoroughly as if he'd never thought of them at all.
Though they sleep little during what is left of the night except to doze briefly between encounters, keeping vigil with their love-making, Dora rises with the sun and dresses in her crisply starched Auror uniform. Remus is as eager as she to learn what the Auror division makes of Mad-Eye's death, to know whether her department is the last bastion of justice in the Ministry of Magic, or if it, too, has been corrupted by Voldemort's spies. He doesn't know how he will make the time pass until Dora's shift ends.
As it turns out, Dora returns home much earlier than expected; Remus is still tidying the bedroom, making the bed and collecting the plates and goblets from last night's snack, when he hears a fumbling at the door, followed by her unnaturally subdued voice answering his security question. When he opens the door, she practically stumbles inside, brown-haired, with red-rimmed eyes that make her face seem even paler than it is.
Remus pulls her into his arms at once and nudges the door shut with his foot.
"What happened? Is even the Auror division silent about Mad-Eye?"
Not seeming to have heard him, Dora doesn't meet Remus' eye, but instead looks down at her robes; her fingers clutch at a puckered place in the fabric on her chest.
"They took my badge away," she says. "I've been sacked."
Her voice is so small, and it evokes within Remus the heartbreak and humiliation of every job he's ever lost, feelings he would never wish upon anyone else, least of all her, who for this very reason he put a stop to their relationship before their luck in love ran out and she was, inevitably, tainted by his curse.
Guilt crushes down on him so that he is the one leaning on her for support even as she tells him, quietly and truthfully, all the other reasons given by the Minister of Magic, the Head of Magical Law Enforcement, and the (reluctant, Tonks believes) Head of Aurors when she'd found them waiting for her at her cubicle: that they believe her to be a member of the Order of the Phoenix; that to be part of such a secret society is, in short, an abuse of the security status granted to her under the rank of Auror; and that she is a disgrace to Hufflepuff House in not proving an unswervingly loyal employee to the Ministry.
"They haven't sacked Kingsley, too, have they?" asks Remus, hoping with no great expectation that this has anything to do with the Order.
Tonks confirms that no, Kingsley still works for the Ministry--for now.
Coupled with her particular talents, she goes on to tell Remus, which had raised security concerns from her application to the Auror programme to which she likely would not have been admitted but for the insistence of Alastor Moody, who vouched for her character, and her dubious liaisons with Dark Creatures, to which they could no longer turn a blind eye (it was out of character for her to keep a matter such as a marriage quiet, and therefore they could only suspect her of some hidden agenda, or of being compromised), they had no choice but to strip her of her position. An MLE officer had been ordered to escort her to the Ministry's visitors' entrance.
"I'm so sorry," Remus whispers, his cheeks flushed with the mortification that must have burnt with in her, must still singe.
Her frame goes rigid in his embrace.
"Don't."
She looks up at him, eyes hard.
"It's my choice. I chose the Order. I chose you. I knew I was risking my job. I asked to be sacked."
She is so brave, Remus thinks, looking down into her dark eyes. Brave as any Gryffindor he ever knew; braver than he. Yet he heard the tremor in her voice, sees her blinking hard, and often, and knows her battle against tears shall be a losing one.
"You did choose, and you did know the risk," he affirms. "That doesn't mean you don't feel the pain."
Dora makes a sound as if this really is doing her tangible hurt, and he just glimpses her eyes gloss before she closes them, arches up on her toes, and kisses him.
"Please make it go away, Remus."
Touching his lips to hers tentatively, he wonders: can this really be all she needs? Her desperate response leaves him with no other choice but to lift her up in his arms and carry her to their bed, where he covers her body with his own and does his best to be her shield against the world.
But it is difficult to let himself go when he is acutely aware of the irony of trying to protect her when it is he who did her this harm in the first place. There are many stops and starts. When she does come, finally, she cries until she falls asleep.
Remus does neither.
That evening, Kingsley turns up, his welcome presence growing less so when he informs them that word of ex-Auror Tonks' marriage to a werewolf Remus Lupin of Hogwarts infamy has reached the ears of Dolores Umbridge. She came into the Ministry on a Sunday to begin drawing up new anti-werewolf legislation.
"She's banning them from marrying or having children," Kingsley says.
"What about us?" Remus asks, Dora beside him on the sofa, clutching his hand. "We took advantage of there being no such law yet in existence. I suppose no one ever thought anyone would want to marry a werewolf." He hears the note of bitterness creeping into his own voice, even as his words make him consider for the millionth time how lucky he is.
"Your case is at the centre of the debate," Kingsley says. "Magically, you're bonded for life, and Umbridge may not be able to legislate retroactively against that--but she's arguing that the Ban Against Experimental Breeding applies."
"That's vile," Tonks grits out in a throaty voice through clenched teeth, and Remus nods; there certainly is a vile taste in his mouth and nausea gripping his stomach as he remembers.
"Whatever you do," says Kingsley, standing, "lay low. If Umbridge has her way, you'll be arrested in violation of the Ban. Or worse."
After offering an apology, and a wish of luck, Kingsley leaves. Remus releases Dora's hand, goes to the door, and plucks his cloak from the rack.
"Where are you going?" Tonks asks.
"To get you a Pregnancy Detection Potion."
Though Remus' back is turned to her as he buttons the garment, in the pause he imagines Tonks blinking, her mouth opening and closing in stunned surprise.
After a moment she recovers herself enough to speak. "I'm sure I'm not pregnant. I can't be."
She sounds considerably less certain of this than last night, when she convinced him that they could not be so unlucky as to conceive the one time they were careless.
"All the same," he says, "wouldn't you rather find out before a test is forced on you by law?"
The words come out more gruffly than he means for them to, and he turns to find Dora looking duly shaken by them. He starts to apologise, but he cannot find words for how Kingsley's news has made him feel about himself, about Dora. By the time he's formulated even a feeble statement, Dora is getting up from the sofa, her face scrunched up as she morphs herself into a tall, but otherwise unremarkable, brunette thirty-something.
"You'd better let me go, then. There might be spies in the Apothecary--there must've been in the Registrar's--"
"Or Dung could have talked. I still believe he compromised our mission to move Harry."
"In any case, you'd probably do better not to be seen buying a Pregnancy Detection Potion when Umbridge is busy passing laws banning werewolf breeding, wouldn't you?"
While Dora is gone, Remus can do nothing but pace the flat. Every muscle is tense with fear as before a transformation; he cannot help imagining that Umbridge's spies--or Bellatrix Lestrange--are posted near the flat, keeping watch for Dora. Not even her disguise puts him at ease. When she returns, safe and sound, half an hour later, that fear is replaced by the anxiety of what the contents of her paper parcel will reveal.
Dora can't be pregnant, she can't. They're always so careful. It was only once....
Remus does his best not to let these thoughts show on his face, tries to look encouraging and unconcerned about the outcome of the test, because, as she slowly draws a phial of purple liquid from a box, Dora looks nervous enough for the both of them. He lays a hand on her shoulder as she uncorks it and a faintly grapey scent wafts out.
"Ugh." Dora pulls a face. "I hate grape."
"I'd offer you a biscuit to eat after you take it," says Remus, scanning the directions on the back of the box, "but it says here food can falsify the results of the test."
"Damn touchy potions."
"Like Wolfsbane Potion and sugar."
Tonks raises the phial to him, says, "Cheers," then knocks back the Pregnancy Detection Potion. She sputters and grimaces, making a great drama of the taste which, thankfully, distracts Remus from dreadful anticipation of the results during the two minutes required for the results to show as a colour change in her fingernails.
Nonetheless, when Dora's nails suddenly bloom hot pink, he has a good enough feel for time to know that the entire two minutes have not elapsed.
Dear God...His heart cuts off his oxygen supply. Undoubtedly pregnant.
Dora, on the other hand, though scowling, appears calm as she flicks the phial into the dustbin and takes another Pregnancy Detection Potion from the parcel.
"I'm taking another one. These stupid things are wrong all the time."
"It...says on the box 99.9% accuracy," says Remus, eyeing the box dubiously. "Highest satisfaction rating from Witch Weekly."
"Less than .1% of Witch Weekly readers are Metamorphmagi."
"Yes, but given what happened last night, I think it's unlikely--"
Dora silences him with a glare. "I'm. Taking. Another. One."
Remus nods, and she whips a phial of yellow liquid out of its packaging, thrusting the box at him.
"Here. I'm afraid I might've accidentally morphed my fingernails with the last one, expecting the worst, but as this one says a secret indicator symbol will appear on my stomach, I probably can't do anything weird."
Though Remus feels sure a second pregnancy test is only going to confirm pregnancy, he reasons that since he was never much of a Divination student, and Dora's morphing has been linked with her emotions, she might have a point.
He hopes she does, anyway.
She gulps down the Potion, this time followed by an mmm of pleasure. "Piña colada. Which isn’t really fair, if you think about it, because if I were pregnant--which I’m not--then it would be reminding me of something I'm not allowed to have for the next nine months."
"There's always virgin piña coladas."
Dora grins impishly, an expression Remus realises he hasn't seen in more than a day, and has missed, very much. "Obviously ironic drinks for pregnant ladies!"
As they laugh, Remus thinks that pregnancy, if she is pregnant, might not necessarily be the entirely negative turn of events as his gut reaction has led him to believe. If they can joke about Pregnancy Detection Potions in the midst of persecution, and the loss of employment, and mourning...Well, if you can laugh, Remus has learnt, especially if you're not alone, you can get through so much more than you could imagine.
"Well?"
Dora has stopped laughing, and is lifting up the hem of her t-shirt to expose her flat, toned tummy, which makes pregnancy seem such a preposterous notion. Her eyes are on him, wide and imploring.
"See a secret indicator symbol?"
Remus holds his breath. There is, indeed, a new mark on Dora's porcelain skin. Squinting, he bends to look closer.
"Is that...a loaf of bread?"
They stare at each other for a moment, then Tonks glances down in alarm.
"A bun in the...Oh bloody hell no, no, no, no! I can't be pregnant. One time we were careless. One bloody time! And what in Merlin's name are you smirking about?"
"I'm sorry," says Remus, pressing his fingers to his lips to hold back his laughter. "I was just remembering James saying the same thing when he found out Lily was expecting. Sirius was very impressed."
Dora gives him a look that ought to wither him, but Remus still feels ebullient as she throws the phial in the dustbin, where it shatters. She begins to stalk about the flat, gesticulating.
"This is not the time to go male on me, Remus! Don't you see this is the worst possible time for me to get pregnant? Or have you forgotten that two nights ago I was flying for my life from an aunt whose greatest joy would be to murder me? You're pretty high on Voldemort's Most Wanted list, too, I think. Mad-Eye's dead, and I'm going to be huge and lumbering and bloody useless when the Order most needs trained Dark Wizard Chasers. And what about when the baby comes? What am I going to do with it? Strap it to my back while I duel Death Eaters?"
As she stops in front of him, Remus lays his hands on her shoulders. "Dora, you're one day pregnant. It will be months till you're huge and lumbering..."
He falters when she gives him a look that says this was perhaps not the best thing to say, though he pictures her with a swollen belly and glowing complexion, and she is a beautiful vision.
"Even then," he continues, "I know you will continue to be an invaluable asset to the Order. And when the baby comes I’m sure your mother will be only too happy to look after her grandchild for us."
Dora's shoulders relax slightly beneath his palms. "You won't expect me to stay at home and hide, then? Because I couldn't, Remus, I wouldn't feel right if I weren't out there fighting. Not when Mad-Eye..."
"Of course I wouldn't ask that of you. You're a soldier."
She starts to smile, but doesn't quite manage it as another thought flits across her face, etching her young features once more with sadness and worry. She folds her arms over her chest and curls in to herself.
"Not that we're going to have a home to hide in. Merlin, how did I manage to get pregnant the day before I got sacked?" She looks around the tiny open-plan flat as if for the last time. "We're not going to be able to stay here. We've money enough in our vault, but not to pay rent. We'll need so much for the baby..."
"Yes, we will," Remus acknowledges, then shoves the bare facts from his mind because he can't think about all that now. Dora is pregnant, and the last thing she needs is to become upset, and he won't help her with that if he gives in to worry.
And, quite simply, he doesn't want to worry. Not now. Worst possible timing or not, this is happening, right now. On the rare occasions he's allowed himself to dream of the moment Dora would tell him he was going to be a father, he imagined happiness so acute he could scarcely believe in it. He wants to feel that now, more than anything, just this once.
"Dora."
He touches her arms, gently unfolds them and draws them away from her body.
"We're having a baby. A little you, and a little me." He lets his hand brush over her abdomen. "Inside you."
A smile. Her hair stands up in jaunty spikes, the most brilliant pink she's worn to date.
"We made a baby," she says.
And then she throws her arms around his neck, and he holds her tightly, lifting her feet off the ground and swinging her till her squeals mingle with his laughter. He kisses her all over her face and neck and the lobes of her ears and tells her how brilliant she is.
"I dunno about that," says Dora. "Seems like it had a lot less to do with brilliance than with forgetfulness."
Remus grins sheepishly, but that doesn't stop him from saying, "Speaking of which, seeing as we don't have to worry about those pesky little Contraceptive Charms for a while, would you be up for taking advantage of that?"
Dora gives him a look that is equal parts smirk and saucy gleam that couldn't make him take his hands off her if she hexed them to Oblivion.
"You're right," she says. "Sirius would be impressed."
Monday morning they wake too early when Dora's alarm goes off at her usual time for work. There is a terrible moment when her face freezes in realisation that she no longer has a job to go to, and Remus thinks he will never forgive himself for the sadness that clouds her eyes for just a second before she breaks out grinning, running her hands over her stomach. She tells him that this might sound strange, but she can feel her body changing in ways she's never morphed it before. She knows there's a little life growing inside, and she lays down beside Remus again with a happy sigh and kisses him deeply.
Remus is glad to see her spirits so much improved from yesterday in regard to both her state of unemployment and the prospects of motherhood; for his part, some of the lustre has dulled on waking like this. Dora's questions from last night threaten to bombard him. Were will they live? How will they afford food, much less all they will need for the baby?
He shifts so that he and Dora lie on their sides, spooning. He splays his hands across her belly, wishing very much that he could feel the stirrings of their baby which seem to bring her such deep joy and peace. Since he cannot, he makes love to her, slowly, side by side in the soft grey before dawn.
Apparently Tonks has been thinking, because when they finish, she fairly bounces out of bed and bubbles over about how she's just remembered her mother kept most of her old baby furniture, and that they should at least be spared the expense of furnishing a nursery for their little one. This does not do as much to alleviate Remus' troubles as it does hers. Will the nursery be in Ted and Andromeda's house, then? He can see no other option but to move in with his wife's parents, and he doesn't like it.
Tuesday brings another option, in the form of a lawyer bearing the news that Alastor Moody's will names Nymphadora Tonks the sole beneficiary of Mad-Eye's estate, including his house in Ickenham, his Invisibility Cloak, Magical Trunk, Sneakoscope, and other security items, along with the entire contents of his Gringott's vault, which is sure to be a dragon's treasure trove, as Mad-Eye had been the poster wizard for thrift as well as paranoia.
The inheritance, naturally, is a bittersweet for Dora, who still has tears for her lost mentor (though she insists it's bloody hormones and invokes Merlin's help if she turns into a snivelling mess just because she's pregnant); but mainly she is touched by this reassurance of Mad-Eye's love from beyond the grave. There couldn't be a safer place for them to lay low in these dark days, to raise a child, than Mad-Eye's house, well-protected by spells known only to him. She says in tones of awe, at intervals throughout the day, how he couldn't have known how much this would help them, and she describes Mad-Eye looking down on them from wherever he is, his heavily scarred, grizzled features wearing a properly chuffed expression. (Or does he have scars in the Otherworld? she wonders aloud. What about his magical eye?) Almost cheerfully she begins taking pictures down off walls and packing their things, and her jolly laugh fills the flat.
"Remus, did you ever imagine a anything as completely loony as you and me doing up a nursery in Mad-Eye Moody's house?"
Remus cannot say that he ever has done. He laughs with her, even though he doesn't feel anything close to genuine mirth, trying to be light of heart, for her sake. The inheritance is a Merlinsend, but he can't help but feel that it is his duty to rescue his wife...his child. Yet he knows it is futile to wish he could have done; his hands are tied, and soon, thanks to Umbridge, may be bound tighter still.
Dora has made her choice.
It seems that she has chosen nothing.
Although Lupin smiled as he shook Harry's hand, Harry thought he looked rather unhappy. It was all very odd; Tonks, beside him, looked simply radiant.
A/N: Reviewers get their very own Remus to help them cope with life's curveballs...or to help him cope with his issues.