These characters are creations of J.K. Rowling, I'm just borrowing them :)
Remus walked into Grimmauld Place looking upset. Sirius noticed his friend's disposition, but didn't say anything. It wasn't until he went to the cabinet and took out the bottle of firewhiskey did he speak up. "Um, Remus, should you really be drinking the night of the full moon?"
"Oh, I don't think it'll really matter Padfoot. It'll just dull the pain and make it worse the tomorrow morning." Pouring himself a rather tall glass and sitting down, he took a sip.
"What happened?"
"I didn't get the job."
"You wouldn't need a job if you just allowed Tonks and I-"
"I don't need your money, I'm a grown man." He said quietly, trying to control his temper.
"This isn't a matter of maturity, Remus. We just want to help."
Remus slammed his fist on the table, "Dammit! I don't need your help either!"
"I'm your friend! Tonks is your girlfriend! If your worrying about your pride, you don't need to."
"You don't get it Sirius."
"Explain it to me then."
"After James and Lily were gone...you were in Azkaban, I thought Peter was dead...I didn't have anywhere to turn. When Harry seemed to disappear from the wizarding world, Gringotts closed their vault, so I no longer received the allowance James was giving me. I couldn't even get an interview in the wizarding world, and you can't hold a job very long in the muggle world when your out a few days a month without reason. Eventually, I gave up. I was homeless until Harry reappeared, and the vault was reopened. I had been off the streets for a year when Dumbledore asked me to teach."
"So really, you don't need our money anyway?"
He shook his head in reply, "I stopped the money over a year ago...Harry's going to be of age soon, and it'll be fully his money. He doesn't need some of it going to a werewolf once a month."
"You know Harry wouldn't-"
"I don't want to put him in that kind of situation. Harry may not need the money now, but eventually he will have a family, and it will be nice for him to have a cushion then."
"Then take our money Remus! We're both more than willing!"
"I don't need it Sirius!"
"Then tell me friend, what do you need?"
"To be normal," He whispered, leaving the room.
Tonks sat at the table with her head in her hands.
"Tonks, I don't think you should worry-" Sirius began with a sigh.
"Not worry? You don't think I should worry? The man, the man I love, is obviously in a pool of self-hate right now, and I can't even do anything about it! All because of stupid people who stick people with stupid labels and don't give a damn about actually getting to know someone! If he only realized that I don't care...that he really isn't dangerous, I'm sure he'd feel so much better about himself."
"The problem with Remus, Tonks, is he's always believed in the labels himself. Even when he was a kid, I remember the shock on his face when I first talked to him. It was as if he had accepted that no one would ever like him, ever. He never quite dropped it either."
She sighed and looked up at the doorway, stairs looming in the shadows. "Do you think he'll ever be okay?"
"He'll get by, Tonks, he always has, and I believe that he's already begun to change, Tonks. With you around, the wounds may heal eventually."
Sirius went to bed. He knew Remus wouldn't want to see him as a dog that night. Tonks on the other hand, did not sleep. She was up all night, waiting for moonset. It came, though it seemed to take forever. She climbed the stairs slowly, not wanted to trip and wake him up, if he had managed to sleep. She found him sitting outside his bedroom, shirtless, skin pink with stretch marks from his transformation.
"Remus?" She asked in a whisper, sliding down next to him. Laying her head on his shoulder, they sat there for a moment before he spoke up.
"The first time, in a long time, that I've felt like a normal person is when I'm with you. Sometimes it isn't even all the time with you. Just when I manage to forget."
"You want to know a secret, Remus? No one is normal, because they are always different in the eyes of someone else. Muggles aren't normal to us just as we aren't normal to them. Werewolves may not be normal to most wizards, but to some werewolves, wizards aren't normal. I'm not normal to most of the wizarding world, but most of the wizarding world isn't normal to me because they have such bland hair colors. No one is normal, Remus, but thats okay because thats why we have love. Love makes two people normal to each other, and if they have that, they don't need anything else."
Tears glistened in his eyes as Remus looked down at his girlfriend, "And what happens if one of those people realize that the other one is different?"
"Then they weren't really in love, or it doesn't effect them. Really, has it taken you this long to realize I'm different?"
He chuckled into her hair, "I was talking about the roles reversed actually, you realizing I was different."
"I promise you, if it was going to happen, it would've already. I love you through and through."
"And what happens if those two people run out of time to spend together?"
"For a former professor, I would've thought you already knew the answer to that."
Remus smiled and kissed the top of her head, "It seems like you're wiser in love than I am, Nymphadora."
"Well, Remus, its simple. They just don't let time run out."