Tonks has always been one of my favourite minor characters in Harry Potter (and she's pretty high on my list of favourite overall characters too), and Remus has also always been one of my favourites. So, of course, I love this pairing. In case you were wondering, the line 'Forever shall the wolf in me desire the sheep in you' comes from a Nightwish song, 'Beauty and the Beast', which I obviously do not own. I was reading some Remus/Tonks fanfiction for the first time, and suddenly that line came up within the song (I hadn't even realised what song was playing). In response, I decided to dash this off in the ten minutes before I shut my computer off to go to bed. So here it is. In case you hadn't already guessed, I am not J.K. and therefore neither of these guys belong to me.

This either occurs somewhere within book 6, somewhere at the very end of book 5, or in the dead space between the two books. You decide.

Desire

Tonks had decided to confront him. She wanted to make Remus see that they could have more than meaningless encounters during dark nights. She had wanted to tell him that she loved him, and that she thought maybe he could love her. She wanted to tell him that, whatever pain he was in, together they could get through it. But she had not expected this.

"I've been thinking about it, Tonks." To her, Lupin looked as if like he was trying to be cold, but he couldn't quite do it. He just looked sad, and defeated.

"Then why haven't we ever spoken about it? If you've been thinking so much why do we never talk?" Lupin looked far into the distance. From the back of his mind, unbidden, came the lines from an old poem; one that he had studied long ago in the libraries of Hogwarts. When he had wanted to know everything there was to know about werewolves, and whether they could truly love.

"Forever shall the wolf in me, desire the sheep in you."

"Remus, Remus I don't…"

"It's your innocence! You're young, and unspoilt. The part of me… the wolf in me, wants that. Wants to take that innocence and destroy it." Tonks looked at him, and a dangerous glint appeared in her eyes. She stepped forwards, anger in every line of her body.

"So, you think I'm an innocent child, Remus?" He looked alarmed by the suggestion.

"No, no, not a child. Just… young." Tears filled the woman's eyes.

"You… you are so naïve! What, you think just because you've got the weight of the world on your shoulders, that no one else has ever hurt? You think just because I'm young that I don't have painful secrets? Things hidden in my past that I tell no one?" He had turned away, but she grabbed his hands and turned him, forcing him to look at her, "Remus, I hurt. I have been broken. Maybe not in the way that you consider yourself to be broken, but broken, all the same."

"It is different!" Remus sounded almost desperate now, pleading, "I don't know what happened to you, and I have no right to hear it." He held up his hand, to stop her revealing anything, "It is different. You may have been broken, but you yourself said it. Maybe without realising, but you made the distinction. Broken. Past tense. Me… I'm still broken. I can never be fixed. I can never be whole… for you." Tonks was crying freely now.

"Remus, I don't want whole. I don't want fixed. I want you, and you don't seem to understand it! All these nights we've spent together, and yet we don't talk. You sneak into my room, we have sex like, like animals! And then you creep away. Not one word, Remus. Do you have any idea how much it kills me?" Guilt flooded through him.

"I am so sorry, Nymph…"

"Don't!" She sighed now. The intensity of her emotions seemed to have deflated her. "I understand. What we do, it fulfils some need in you. It makes you feel…"

"Whole." He completed her sentence.

"But it's not enough. During the day, we talk. We joke around, and we chat about meaningless things. But you never tell me anything real. You don't share your feelings; you don't share your past. And I cannot continue being used as an antidote to whatever it is you're going through. Remus, I think I'm falling…"

"Don't say it, please, don't!" She continued, as if he had never spoken. She had to say this now, or maybe she never would.

"…in love with you." She paused, letting the weight of those words sink in, "But I can't go on like this. I can't go on having meaningless sex with you and then us both pretending that we haven't. Either start something, right here, or…" She paused again, and swallowed. Her throat suddenly felt dry, "or end it now. Because I can't keep doing this."

"Then…" Remus couldn't look at her. He couldn't meet her eyes and see the hurt, and the betrayal that would come with what he was about to say, "then it has to end, Tonks." She went cold. She felt as if his words had struck her, like a physical punch to the gut. Without a word, she Disapparated. Remus sat heavily at the table, and put his head in his hands. There, in the darkness and silence of the kitchen, he began to sob.

Reviews would be nice. I do have an idea about Tonks' dark secret, which probably involved her lovely aunt Bellatrix. At some point I might write it, but only if enough people ask. Also, please comment on the characterisation. I tried to stay as true as possible to the pair of them, but I think this is deeper than we see them both during the books, so some feedback on that would be nice. :)