Disclaimer: Not mine. But you already knew that, didn't you? xD
PHOTOGRAPH
"Remus."
A pause, and then his name again.
"Remus?"
He could not look up - could not tear his eyes away from the page of the album before him. Tonks appeared at his shoulder, and, hating himself even as he thought it, Remus could not help but regret that she had chosen to stop by that night.
Tonks didn't need her quick glance across the folio to know at which picture he stared: because this was a ritual for Remus, a habit he had involuntarily developed for himself, and one which Tonks had caught him at often enough. Every evening without fail, the photograph book found itself upon the kitchen table in front of him, or open in his hands, or splayed across his lap when he was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, as now. And while Tonks was admiring the soft play of the firelight through his silvered hair and along the lines of his drawn, tired face, Remus was admiring the photograph of Lily Evans.
It had taken Tonks a while to realize this, of course - because it was not so much a portrait of Lily as it was a photo of all of Remus's old school friends, himself among them. They appeared to be about nineteen or twenty at the time: all four of the old Marauders, with half a dozen or so other faces thrown in among them, one or two of which Tonks recognized and the remainder of which she did not. Remus stood towards the fore of the print, Lily on his left, and none other than James on his right. James was laughing, one arm slung companionably around Remus's shoulders, the other waving madly at the cameraman. Remus smiled only gently, casting a glance every so often to his left, where Lily, beaming spectacularly, was raising a champagne glass high in some sort of toast. There was not yet a wedding band around her finger.
Tonks had believed, at first, and not quite incorrectly, that Remus was feeling very alone. She couldn't even begin to comprehend what it must be like: Lily and James murdered, Peter believed dead and later proved a traitor, Sirius lost first to Azkaban and then, far too soon again, to death. Since childhood, Remus Lupin had lived the hard life of a lost and unwelcome man - and now, everyone that had ever dared to loved him, everyone that he had ever dared to love, was gone.
But it hadn't hit Tonks what he was really missing - who he was really missing - until much later. And even then, she didn't really understand.
"I could do her for you, if you like." The suggestion came quietly, and Remus realized only belatedly that she had even spoken.
"What?"
"Oh, like this, watch," she sighed, and he turned around at last to look. She was doing the wriggling thing with her nose, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, and after a second there was a pop - then another, and another. She seemed to grow smaller, daintier - her face stretched and paled into a creamy oval - her nose rounded off and receded into her face, her fingers lengthened, her hair darkened rapidly from bubblegum pink to a vivid red, falling down past her shoulders - and when at length her eyes blinked open once again, her coffee brown had given way to startling green.
Remus stared into the face of Lily Evans.
And then he turned away.
"…Remus?"
The voice did not match the face in his mind: when Lily spoke, the tone was sweeter but more frank - it was throatier but more full of light - it was more precise but at the same time, somehow more whimsical. Remus could remember, all those years ago, when they would sit together and she would ramble on and on, her words magical but meaningless, really - because all he ever heard was music. Tonks's voice now was flat, tuneless - and it carried the weight of far more reality than Remus would ever have the strength of heart to bear.
He could feel her hesitate behind him, her brief spur of confidence, her willingness to please suddenly replaced by an awkward lack of surety. Her hand brushed his shoulder, and he could feel her desire to rest it there, but it fluttered away to idle again by her side.
"Was I wrong?"
Lily had never doubted herself - Lily had always been assertive and bold, and somehow, she truly could no wrong. Remus had often wondered whether her confidence had stemmed as a result of her infallibility, or whether she was simply faultless because she herself had believed that she was. Why did Tonks lack Lily's delicate yet demanding poise? And why did he feel the need to compare them so?
A slight inclination of the head gave Tonks the yes that words never would.
"I'm - I'm sorry, Remus." A few pops from behind told him that Tonks was once again resuming her own person. "I just…"
"Don't worry about it." Remus could barely cut short the bark in the words; he shook his head and gave a helpless shrug. "I guess some things…just let them lie, Tonks, alright?"
Later that night, as she crawled beneath the blankets of the bed in her own London flat, Tonks reflected back on the encounter. What Remus had said was right, she decided; but why, then, did she get the feeling that he didn't believe his own words? And if he was so keen on leaving the past behind him, why, then, did he deny that photo album the dusty cover it so deserved?
A/N: Uhm, yeah, so...what do you think? I don't think I'm particularly fond of it, especially because it changes perspective rather a lot…but I wasn't sure how else to write it, and what can ya do, right? So I hope you all like, and go review if you know what's good for you :)