A Chance at Happiness
By Lady Comet
Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter or any characters contained within that world. That's all JK Rowling's. All I own is my ideas and my desire to bend and twist her characters to my evil purposes. Mwahahaha
Warnings – SPOILERS FOR HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE ABOUND! Do not read if you have not completely finished the book! Also, this contains male/male slash and hinted femslash, and heterosexuality. If any of those disturb you, read something else.
Notes – I haven't written in forever, but after HBP, I had to write this. For a while I felt a wrong needed to be righted, but now I just want to make it work. And if it sucks, don't blame me, it's been a while.
P.S. I did not get this beta'd, so I apologize for any spelling/grammar/etc errors. Thank you!
"Moony?"
Remus rolled over lazily, smiling at the form lying beside him. "What is it, Sirius?"
He had expected him to grin and make some ridiculous comment, like he did when they had been at school, or to joke and call him beautiful. But Sirius just stared at him, drinking in his features, and reached out a hand to brush a stray hair from his eyes.
"Remus," he started, his voice oddly grim, "if anything happens, I don't want you to wait for me."
He was silent for a moment, trying to understand what he meant. "Sirius, what do you . . .?"
"If anything happens, I don't want you to wait for me." He sat up, his black hair brushing his shoulders. "We're in the Order now, and we don't know what's going to happen to either of us. As much as I hate to say it, we could very well die…so if it's me, Moony, I don't want you to wait. If you can find happiness with someone else, don't sit around alone because you'd feel like you were betraying me."
Remus Lupin sat there, stunned, as he listened. His love had never been one to hold a serious conversation (despite the sound of his name), and his decisions tended to be rushed, not as thought out and selfless as this obviously was. He knew he had changed because of Azkaban, but in the last year and a half, he had started to be his old self again, and Remus had thought the experience might not have changed him so much.
He sat up to match him, and reached out to pull him close. "Sirius, let's not think about that. Please. We haven't had any time alone in weeks."
"But this is important, Remus," he protested, pulling loosely out of his arms. "We can't ignore what might happen."
"I know. But for once, I want to pretend everything's okay, that we're not in the beginnings of another war and no one we love might die. I think we deserve that."
"We do," he said. "And we're not going to get it."
Remus sighed, running a hand shakily through his silver-streaked hair. ". . . I know."
Sirius reached out to take his partner's hands in his, squeezing them slightly. "Love…we lost James and Lily, and as much as I don't want to believe it, we could lose each other. As much as it isn't like me, I need to be prepared. We need to be prepared."
"I'm not sure if I can do it, Pads. I thought I'd lost you already, when they all said you turned James and Lily in. If, if I do lose you, I don't know what I'll do."
"You'll live," he replied firmly, "for both of us."
Painfully, Remus nodded. ". . . Okay."
With a smile equally as painful, Sirius leaned in and kissed him. "Good."
"And what about you?" he asked.
"Me? Why, if I lose you I'll just live as a lonely, tragic bachelor for the rest of my life. Wouldn't it suit me?"
He shook his head. "You hypocrite."
He grinned. "You love me."
"I do," Remus whispered. "Very much."
Leaning forward again, Sirius wrapped his arms around his boyfriend, and pressed their lips together. "I love you too."
Nymphadora Tonks had never been what people would call romantic. Well, not in the sense they expected, anyway. She didn't want to swoon and receive flowers and candy and let a man lead her around on a leash. She wasn't even sure she wanted a man. No, she wanted to be more in control of what happened to her, and to have something real instead of sugar-coated, no matter who she was with.
Which is why she was so surprised, out of all people, that she wanted him.
He seemed like the kind of man who would treat women to candy and flowers and somehow be romantic, sensitive despite his condition. He wasn't someone she would have looked for on her own. Hell, her last two girlfriends had been less sweet than he was when he just talked to her. But then he showed up, arm-in-arm with her cousin, and more and more she found herself wanting him.
That is, until she found out about them. She had been playing a muggle card game with Sirius, alone together in Grimmuald Place when he told her, the confession unexpected and blunt.
"Remus and I are in love," he said, putting down a queen of hearts.
She stared at him for a moment, letting it sink in, and nodded her head. "Okay."
He smiled awkwardly. "Thought someone should know."
She never told anyone, understanding somehow that he would not want her to, and inside herself tried to put a wall around her feelings for Remus. Somehow she felt she had known; anyone who didn't know at least subconsciously was a complete git. They were inseparable. That knowledge, however, did not make it any easier.
Then Sirius was gone, so suddenly, and things changed faster than she could have expected. She mourned him for about a month, feeling responsible for his death. She would cry at night, hiding in a corner of the Order's new headquarters and praying no one would hear her, not that anyone was around long enough to notice anyway. She was barely around enough herself to have these moments of grief.
No one had noticed, and she wanted it that way. Until he did.
Before Lupin started living as a spy among the werewolves, he spent a few nights in headquarters, and on one of these nights he found her. He was wandering around the kitchen, lost in his own memories of Sirius, when a glass shattered behind him and he saw Tonks staring at him in surprise, tears running down her cheeks.
"I-I'm sorry," she choked out, avoiding his gaze as she picked up the pieces. "I'll go."
"What's wrong?" he asked, moving closer to her.
"Its nothing," she insisted in a firm tone that she and Sirius shared.
He shook his head. "No it isn't." He took out his wand, absentmindedly muttering "reparo" when all the pieces were collected. Putting the fixed glass on the table, he laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder, and forced a smile on his troubled face. "Nymph-, Tonks, if you need someone to talk to, I'm here."
Her features softened, tears threatening to spill harder down her cheeks, and for a moment she struggled to form words. Then she shook her head again, violently, and weakly brushed his hand away. "No. I'm fine. You need your sleep; you have a dangerous mission ahead of you."
"Are you sure?"
She nodded. "I'm sure."
He stared at her for a moment, then nodded back. "Very well. Good night, Tonks."
"Good night . . ."
He brushed past her, heading for the doorway without a midnight snack. Slowly, he stopped at the door, and turned to look at her again. "It wasn't your fault," he said softly, letting his intuition speak. "And he wouldn't want you to feel it was."
She bit her lip, forcing back her pain at being so exposed. She dare not turn around, but gave a quick nod, and muttered ". . . Thank you."
Saying nothing, he turned to leave again.
"Lupin . . ." she called out again, getting his attention.
He stopped, waiting for her to speak.
". . . You can call me Nymphadora."
Something in that made him smile, and he repeated her name, pausing again before he finally left the room.
Tonks leaned against the counter, feeling the walls inside herself crash and break down. And she realized that even having closed those feelings away, even feeling bad about them because he had lost Sirius, her desire was just a strong and even stronger now that it had been ignored. She spent the rest of the night rolling the repaired glass between her fingers, sitting at the kitchen table and deciding what to do.
In the morning, she decided to follow her heart, regardless of where it would take her.
Their first kiss was rough and unexpected. Remus was back at headquarters for a few days, granted respite from the community of werewolves in the silence of the empty halls. Underground, it was vicious, brutal, and it tore him apart to be part of what he tried to suppress within himself. Knowing that the man he took orders from was the one who had attacked him, turned him, and ruthlessly changed the lives of countless other children made him sick inside. But for Dumbledore and for the sake of good against Voldemort's evil, he fought on, living for these moments and the continuation of life, just as Sirius would have wanted him to do.
Besides, no matter how hard it was, there were some moments of comfort. Even if they came from a very unexpected place.
He was still warring within himself about it. He knew Sirius wanted him to be happy, but he still felt somehow it was a betrayal to their love to want someone else. She had, however, been showing up in his dreams, offering her support in what he was doing and giving him a release for the pain. Also, his attraction to a woman was confusing, as he hadn't wanted anyone but a specific man for more than twenty years. He knew that even if he chose to do something about what he felt, he was very much older than her, and different, and his life was too dangerous to drag her into it. It would hurt him too much if she got hurt.
He sat in the kitchen window, staring out at the waning moon with mixed relief and sorrow. The last full moon had not been a good one. What he might have done only made the truth of danger more apparent to him. Even if he chose to take the chance Sirius . . . his Sirius had offered him, even if he ignored his confusion and his age, loving her would only bring more danger into her life. Danger she did not need.
A sudden movement at the door caught his eye, and he turned to see Tonks in the doorway, her features slowly shaping back into her own. She seemed different. Her hair was now flat, and a bit longer. Every bit of her looked worn. She stopped, staring at him as if he were a ghost, until her face showed relief and then tried to mask it.
"Wotcher, Lupin," she said, stepping into the room.
"Hello, Nymphadora," he replied. "How are you?"
"Exhausted," she gasped out, slumping into a chair. She shrugged off the outer layers of her robes. "They've got me hunting Death Eaters, as usual, using my talents to try and get information. No luck though, all I end up with is frustration and a bloody headache from changing my body so much."
He nodded, rising to join her at the table. "Sorry to hear that."
She shrugged, again refusing to meet his gaze. They hadn't been alone since the night he found her crying, and she decided to let herself want him. She had seen him around, with other members of the Order, but was never able to make a move. "How's yours?" she asked.
"About the same. I . . . don't really want to talk about it."
She nodded, and got up to get herself some tea. As she moved, she could feel him watching her, but dared not do anything. He knew he was staring, but kept his eyes on her, studying her and remembering everything she had done and said inside his mind. Moments later she sat back down, tea in hand, and an awkward silence reigned between them.
It started suddenly, as if the words had a life of their own. She had been summoning up the courage to say something since she entered, but had been failing, until the question just rolled off her lips.
"Did Sirius tell you that I knew?"
Remus looked up in disbelief, turning to the usual denial they always had to feign. "Knew what?"
She continued before she had a chance to lose her nerve. "He told me, before . . . everything, that you were in love, and that he wanted someone to know."
He was speechless. They had never told anyone, though they suspected James and Dumbledore both figured it out, and now part of him was sure she still misunderstood. He searched for words, finding none. "I, well . . . what?"
"I don't mind," she said quickly, as if she was covering her tracks. "I mean, it doesn't bother me that you like boys. I'm the same, I like girls too. But . . ." She took a deep breath, forcing herself on. ". . .I was sorta wondering, well, if you like girls as well as boys, well, not as well as boys, you can't like them both equally, at least I think not, but what I mean is, do you like girls at all?"
I sound like a teenager, she screamed inside. He thinks I'm a git. What is wrong with me!
Remus sat and thought for a moment, staring at the table. He felt mildly guilty for making her wait for an answer, but he didn't know what to do. He hadn't decided yet if he should let her know he liked her, and didn't want to decide so quickly. Still, that was no reason to lie.
Tonks felt an eternity pass in those moments. She felt less in control than she had ever been in any love she had, but for the first time, it didn't bother her. All she wanted now was for him to desperately say yes and admit he wanted her too, and let her do all those things she wanted . . .but she would get to that later.
"I do, Nymphadora," he said finally, raising his head to meet her eyes. "It's been a while, but I do fancy girls like I fancy boys."
Despite herself, she grinned. "Oh. Good."
Again, silence filled the room, each of them filled with their own thoughts. Remus closed his eyes and leaned against the table. This shouldn't be happening, he told himself, it's too soon, and Sirius . . . I'm too old, too dangerous, she could get hurt, we could both get hurt. He heard his lost lover's voice fill his head, clear as it had been that night. '. If you can find happiness with someone else, don't sit around alone because you'd feel like you were betraying me." God, Sirius, I don't know.
Then he felt her move with sudden swiftness, and before he could open his eyes, her lips were on his, pressing into him with a force of desire he hadn't realized she'd been suppressing.
It lasted only a moment, his hands finding her arms and pushing her off of him to land in the seat beside. She looked just as surprised as he, but covered it quickly with a frown, turning away from him.
"I'm sorry," she sighed, frustrated. "I don't know why I did that."
"I don't know either," he admitted.
She drew her knees up under herself, sitting in a strange position, and fixed her eyes back on him. "Lupin . . . er, Remus, I need to be direct. I've wanted you since before Sirius left us, since before he told me you were his. Knowing that didn't change anything, though I tried to make it change, I tried." She switched positions again, planting her feet firmly on the floor and propping her elbows on her thighs, her hands hanging between her knees. "Do you like me, Remus? I mean, really fancy me?"
"It's complicated," he replied, trying to act distant and put her off. "I don't know how to answer."
"Try."
His brow furrowed, and he paused, thinking again, before he sat up straight and met her gaze. She watched the silver in his hair move and how his serious expression made him look even older, finding that she still felt just as much for him. Nothing he could say would change that.
"Regardless of what I may feel," he began, "there are things in the way that neither of us can do anything about. We are in the middle of a war, and besides that danger, there is a huge gap between our years. I'm too old for you, Nymphadora. And too dangerous."
"You weren't too dangerous for Sirius," she shot back.
"He became an animagus in order to be with me when I change. You can't do that, and I will not risk hurting you."
"Bugger that! And bugger age. Do you honestly think I care about that? A stupid number is not going to change how I feel."
He shook his head. "I've been around long enough to know that it makes a difference. You deserve someone who understands how you act, how time affects you. I may not. You also deserve someone who can take care of you, I don't have much money, and –"
She stood in a rush, growing more furious by the minute. "Do you really think I care about any of that!" She leaned forward and planted one hand on each arm of his chair, trapping him there. "I do not need a man to take care of me, or to understand my age. Anyone my age may not be able to understand me anyway; my other loves sure as hell didn't, male or female. I just want to be loved, Remus, and I want you!"
He stared at her, lips pressed shut in refusal to answer or give in. There was nothing else he could have said. As he realized this, a piece of him also realized she was right, and how much he really cared for her. That, in the end, told him to stop this. If he really cared for her this much, he might come to love her, and he wasn't sure he could handle it if he lost her too.
After he remained silent for more than a minute, Tonks stood back up, her eyes remaining fixed on his. "I'm not giving up," she stated. "You know I'm right, and I'm not going to let you ruin something wonderful we could have."
She smiled, and turned to leave, her robes spinning around her. He watched her go and waited until he couldn't hear her footsteps anymore, then stood and went to the window, gazing again at the moon. A part of him felt horrible for making her that angry, and for having to do this, but there was no other choice. It just wasn't right. She deserved better.
In the months following, Tonks did everything she could to change Lupin's mind, but nothing seemed to work. She grew depressed, more tired, suddenly feeling that it was all hopeless but unable to give up the fight. She saw friends dying around her, and grew more scared for him, a worry growing within her heart every time the moon was full. Her hair changed mousy brown to match his, whether she realized it or not, and she became more distant around everyone. They had many more arguments all like the first, all ending the same way. In desperation she turned to Molly Weasley for advice, leaving out a few key details, but even her suggestions did not help.
Then it happened, and everything changed again. The school was attacked, Dumbledore was murdered, and Bill had been attacked by Greyback. It was painful for all of them, losing such a great teacher, mentor, and friend. That pain was doubled knowing that Snape, who they all trusted, had killed him. Luckily, Bill was all right, though no one could know what the full effects of the attack would be until the next full moon. Lupin had been exposed as a traitor to the werewolf cause, and though that put him in danger, it made Tonks happy to know he could not go back underground.
That happiness was shattered when she saw Fleur react to Bill's wounds, and Molly's actions. The Veela did not care that her fiancé had been attacked by a werewolf, and might become one.
She snapped, confronting Remus right then and there without a care for who saw. Again he tried to argue, his usual solid refusal weakened by the pain of Dumbledore's death. And somehow, through all this, he heard the words of others and his resolve finally began to crack.
Dumbledore was gone, but what he would have wanted was still true. And he was right. It would be good for all, to have a little more love in the world, regardless of what pain it might bring.
That night, Tonks and Lupin found some time alone, and had a very long talk.
He closed and locked the door as she lit the lamps, crossing the room to sit at one of the desks. Most everyone was staying at the castle tonight, it was too dangerous to go back to Headquarters or their homes and no one thought the castle would be attacked again. They had chosen a random classroom to give themselves privacy, and told only McGonagall where they were going, so they would not be interrupted.
She sat down on top of the desk beside him. "Well, I certainly didn't think this was going to happen."
"What?" he asked.
"All of it."
He nodded, then opened his mouth to speak first. "Nymphadora, before you start on what they said, please hear me out."
"No."
"What?" he replied, taken aback.
She stared determinedly at him. "I said no. I'm not going to hear you out, Remus, because I've heard it all before. You repeat the same arguments every time we go through this, and I am not letting you go through them again. You heard what Molly, and McGonagall, and everyone said up there. They were right. You know they were right. And don't tell me you don't, I saw the change in you."
Part of him tried to protest, and would always try to protest. But this time, instead, he just sat back in his seat and nodded. ". . . I know. Things have changed. They are right. But that doesn't make any of my points any less valid."
"Does any of that really matter anymore?"
He looked at her, taking in the shade of her hair, her eyes, how tired she looked, remembering that it wasn't just the war doing this to her. He thought of her new patronus, which he wasn't supposed to know about. He drank her in, every curve of her body and line on her face, all the colors in her eyes. And he knew, without a doubt, that he would love her no matter how hard he tried not to.
I don't want you to wait for me, Sirius told him in his mind.
I will always love you, Pads, he answered. But I will find my happiness.
". . . All right."
She stared blankly at him in disbelief. "What?"
He shook his head, smiling genuinely at her, and met her gaze. "All right. You win."
And again, before she knew what she was doing, she was in his arms. Their kisses were gentler now, and not surprising, though still full of the passion and force their first had been. They gave into each other, allowing the joy of the moment to fill their every touch. Some might say that in their love a part of evil died, or that the war stopped, just for the briefest moment.
But for certain, in that moment, their time began.