A/N: Just so you know, all my stories that relate to the same world usually relate to each other as well; anything you discover here that wasn't written in JKR's novels will also exist in my story, Black Thoughts, which of course I recommend you R&R.
I knew that there had to be another reason for Moony turning Tonks down for so long. So I discovered one. All right, made one up – but really, what's the difference?
-For you.
Cold wind whistled through last autumn's fallen leaves and rustled the grasses around the gravestones. A rickety fence seperated the little graveyard from the ring of neat houses beyond. Although the place seemed to lie abandoned, a homely air surrounded the ivy leaves that crept up the walls of the cottages in a monument to the families that once laughed and played there. It was winter now, and in the few nights before this one, snow had fallen in an icy blanket to cover the old inhabitants that now lay as though sleeping six feet underground.
With a faint crack, a man appeared beyond the fence, under the kissing-gates with the rusty sign proclaiming to anyone that passed: Godric's Hollow. The man was middle-aged and shabby, with patched robes and greying hair, and wrinkles creasing the corners of his grey eyes. He swung the gates open softly and treaded a path through the snow towards the newest of the marbled stones. There he stood as if deep in thought, before with the merest flick of the man's wrist, a woven wreath of bright flowers floated through the air to land on the gravestone like an angel's halo.
Pulling his threadbare cloak a little closer around his thin frame, the man slowly sat down on a boulder in front of the grave. For a moment, he stared at the grassy ground as if he could see right through it to the flawless face below. Then his haunted eyes rested on the words carved into the marbled stone, and the clouds before the crescent moon parted momentarily to let the moonlight shine and light up the words for the man to read them.
HERE LIES SIRIUS,
A GOOD MAN,
A FREE MAN,
WHO LOST EVERYTHING BUT HIS LIFE TO SAVE THE ONES HE LOVED.
ONE MORE STAR WATCHES OVER US FROM THE HEAVENS TONIGHT.
A silvery tear fell from the man's eyes to soak into the earth below. "Ah, Sirius," he said softly, unabashed for his lonliness in the shadowy graveyard. "If only you had eyes to see, and words to give me now."
A slight breeze touched the man's hair and teased another tear from his eyes. He laughed softly, perhaps at his own folly in crying so readily for one prone to keeping his feelings closed in behind his wolfish face.
"You remember Andy, Sirius?" his voice assumed a casual tone, as though the man to whom he spoke still lived. He laughed again. "Of course you remember her, she was your cousin." He seemed to recall his surroundings then, and took another long look at the moonlit gravestone before carrying on in a wistful tone. "I was so in love with her, and naïve enough to believe that she loved me too..." he sighed angrily and turned his head away, continuing in a bitter voice. "...right up until she dumped me for that.... Ted Tonks." He spat the last two words out like venom from a snake. There was a long pause before he started again.
"You met their daughter, Nymphadora," he said, and a stronger, almost barking laugh escaped his lips. He sniffed as his tears began afresh. "She always said she'd call her daughter Nymphadora," he said, his voice changing in the struggle to hold back the tears. "Even after I kept telling her that the poor child would never speak to her again." He shook his head, turning it back to stare accusingly at the headstone.
"You dated every girl you could find, and you never had this problem," he said. "Me, I've dated..." he paused as though thinking, but there was no calculation required. "...three girls. Four, if I – but -" he stopped and put a hand to his temple to rein in his galloping thoughts. He drew a shaky breath.
"Tonks – Nymphadora – says she loves me," he said levelly. "I've turned her down time after time, but she keeps coming back. It's not that I don't like her, but – knowing my past with her mother, how can I accept her?" A sob escaped the man's bloodless lips. He drew a bottle from the folds of his robe and took a swig from it.
"I know what James would say," he said, the force of his tears shaking his thin frame. "He'd say go for it. He'd say that if I'm happy, it's okay. But that's just it," he said, jumping a little as a gust of harsh wind nearly knocked the bottle out of his hands. "I don't know if I could be happy, knowing that she could be with someone worthy of her – someone that doesn't become a monster every full moon." The man gave a huge, compulsive shiver.
"And what if she had a baby?" How could I force my... 'furry little problem'" his voice was bitter, sarcastic, "on an unborn child? But how could I marry her without it?" He took another swig from the bottle before stoppering it and slipping it back into the pocket of his shabby robes. He sighed, leaning forwards and tracing the letters of the dead man's name on the ghostly headstone. "What would you say, old friend?" he asked sadly. "Had you words to advise me with? You were never so reckless as James..." the words hung unanswered in the frigid night's air.
With another crack, a woman materialised under the distant kissing-gates. Shaking back her long, black hair, she walked with a proud stride to the grave at which the man sat, shivering and hurriedly wiping away his tears.
"Remus," she said gently, "how long have you been out here?" He tried to shrug as another compulsive shiver racked his body. She pulled a cloak out from under her robes and cast it over his shoulders. He shifted over to give her room beside him on the boulder. Together they gazed at the shadowy gravestone.
"How can we do this without him?" she said softly, her gaze from heavy-lidded eyes seemingly aimed at nothing. Remus shook his head.
"He'd probably be in Azkaban because one of his closest friends betrayed him," he said bitterly. She smiled sadly.
"He'd still have words to give us, though," she said. "He always did, even when they weren't wanted." She turned to look at his as he laughed weakly. "I've been talking to my daughter," she said, and he snapped his head around to look at her. She stretched out a pale hand to touch his forearm. "Remus, if what happened between us is holding you back... don't let it." She gripped his arm and gave it a little shake. He moved his other hand to cover hers.
"It's not that – well, not just that," he said, looking away from her dark eyes. "It's – I'm almost as old as you are. Don't you think she deserves someone her own age? Someone young? Someone whole?" Andromeda Tonks dropped her gaze.
"Don't you think she deserves to be happy? To have what she wants?" She looked back into Remus' grey eyes. "She wants you. If all that's holding you back is what you think she deserves... think about it." Remus sniffed again and looked back. "I would give anything to see my daughter happy in times of such sadness." She stood up, her hand lingering on his shoulder. He stood up too.
"Goodbye, old friend," he cast back at the grave. "Thanks for your help." As he turned away and walked back towards the kissing-gates, the breeze picked up again, winding itself between Remus' ankles like an affectionate cat, and seemed to say in the words of the dead man, you're welcome.
The two reached the kissing-gates, and with a crack, they were gone from Godric's Hollow.
The breeze fluttered around for a bit longer, playing in the ruins of an old house, lingering at the headstone of another, older grave, before settling down again. Then all was still.