Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended. All credit goes to JK Rowling. If you see something you remember from the books or films, it does not belong to me. You can't sue me, I don't have any money.

Authors note: AU. The rating is mostly to be safe due to blood and a naked werewolf. Ignores large parts of books 6 and 7 just because I feel some people should not have died. Please note that my version of Tonks is in her late thirties with Remus 10 years older than her. Teddy is 4. Snape was rescued from the Shrieking Shack after Harry left. Because of the lack of interest in this story I've been putting of rereading it and correcting my mistakes, but things have picked up now and I felt the need to do some maintenance. Some mistakes may have slipped through, if you find any, please let me know and I'll try to fix them. Something else I picked up on was my incredible overuse of the word "had", but I've left it in for now.

Whimpering. That was all she could hear, whimpering.

She slid down the wall, her wand clenched firmly in her hand, and sat down on the hardwood flooring next to the trap door. It would only be a few more minutes. The whimpering was louder now, the creature moaned for a bit, and then came a noise that scared her, a noise that cut through the air like a knife. A roar, not one of dominance or anger, a roar of pain. The silence came so suddenly that it felt like an electric shock and she leaped into the air, wand at the ready, before bending down and pulling the heavy trap door open.

She slipped carefully down onto the wooden steps using her wand to light the candles that sat in brackets high up on the walls. She searched the large room with its thick, concrete walls until she found what she was looking for.

"O Merlin..."

The naked man was curled up into a fetal position, his whole body covered in scars, some fresh wounds, large bruises, blood and sweat. He was shaking and he moaned softly when she touched him. He tried to pull away from her but he was clearly in too much pain. His breathing was shaky and heavy and his eyes were tightly closed.

"Sh, sh, it's only me. It's over now, it's over, it can't hurt you now. Let me look at you, where are you hurt?"

Remus gave no response and she wasn't sure if he had heard her. She conjured another candle in a holder and lit it using her wand. She started by cleaning him up a bit, removing the blood with a few quick spells. At some point during the second transformation he'd been sick, so she cleaned that up as well.

She healed everything she could. Cuts knitted closed, smaller bruises disappeared and bones healed as she spent the next half hour using all the skills she'd been forced to learn during her auror training.

This was a routine they had perfected over the past four years. It started the afternoon before the full moon. They would drop Teddy of with either her own mother or Molly and Arthur Weasley, then they would come home, lay out everything they would need the following morning and make sure they had all the potions Remus would need to take. Remus would get ready, stripping naked and carefully putting away his wand. If they couldn't get Wolfsbane he would then go down into the basement alone and she would seal him in using magic. Some nights she would stay there, waiting for dawn to come, but more often than not she would go to her son, having tea with Molly or her mother and then sleeping on somebodies couch for a few hours before going home. Once in a blue moon she would be asked to spend the night at Azkaban, keeping a close eye on the werewolves that transformed there, holding the hand of some teary eyed recruit, fresh out of Hogwarts, who would most likely drop out of training before the next full moon could roll around.

She finishes up with the healing part of the morning after routine, casting one last diagnostic spell to make sure she hadn't missed anything important. His breathing had returned to almost normal and he wasn't shaking as badly as he had been when she first started. His eyes were still closed, but she could tell he was awake, and he opened them when she touched his face.

"Good morning, my love, do you think you could take your potions now?"

He didn't say anything but he gave a small nod.

She started with a pain relief potion, carefully opening the small glass bottle and helping him to drink it. The blood replenishing potion came next, and then one that would hopefully stop the shaking. The last potion would put him into a dreamless sleep for a few hours while his body tried to heal the injuries that she couldn't and she held off on that one for a few minutes. She used accio to call a thick blanket to her before moving over a bit to rest her back against the wall, stretching her legs out in front of her. She helped her husband to move a little closer to her until he could comfortably lay on his side with his head in her lap and covered his naked form with the blanket. She took the last of the little bottles and opened it, then helped Remus to drink it. She ran her fingers through his greying hair until he dozed off and then sat back and watched him for a few moments.

The war had hit them hard, they lost far too many friends and family members, but they had fought their way through it. They had found each other, fallen in love and had gotten married in one of the tiny little rooms at the Leaky Cauldron, with an official who would do anything as long as you payed him and only Mad Eye Moody as a witness. She was pregnant a month later, bringing a healthy baby boy into the world, a boy who had gotten her gift instead of his father's curse.

They had survived the battle of Hogwarts where others has not been so lucky. She had gone back to her job at the ministry as soon as anybody would let her and because of the changes to the laws set in place to keep werewolves from working, Remus had taken up tutoring, working with those who were seen as gifted in defence against the dark arts.

After the war had ended, it was discovered that Mad Eye had left everything he had to her, including his house in London. Together they had rid it of anything that could be dangerous and then put her small apartment up for rent and moved in. Harry had passed his auror training with flying colours and was now quickly moving up in the ranks working side by side with her.

With the Wolfsbane potion now more freely available, she was happy to say that this had been one of the worst full moons they had seen in months, simply because Severus was unable to brew it this month. Remus didn't trust anybody else to do it for him and had chosen to go without it instead.

Remus was snoring softly now and she put a comforting hand on his arm. There was no point in trying to move him, it would do more harm than good. Despite his fears and her own worries about the ten year age gap between them, his condition and the way the magical world would see them, they were happy. The people who truly mattered had given them nothing but encouragement and support. They were happy.

She could hear movement somewhere upstairs and she instinctively gripped her wand tighter. Constant Vigilance. She would never forget what Mad Eye had drilled into her.

"Tonks?"

Bill Weasley.

"Here, Bill."

The eldest of the Weasley children carefully climbed down the steps and into the basement before turning towards her.

"Hi, I just wanted to make sure you're ok."

She gave him a smile that lit up her eyes.

"We're fine, Bill, just fine."