A/N: What if Remus and Tonks had survived the Battle of Hogwarts? Whose lives would this ultimate couple change?

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - Magical & Mundane Literature: Genres - Extra Credit (Task 12) - Write a story where a canon-death didn't happen. Focus on the events that change should the person stay alive instead.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

After the Battle of Hogwarts, Tonks thought she would retire from Auror work for a while, so she could focus on raising her beautiful son, Teddy. However, the universe had an alternative course planned out for Nymphadora Tonks.

When she was at the park with Teddy, watching him ride around on his toy broom, she heard a bloodcurdling scream impale the peaceful aura of the playground.

At the edge of the park, near the slide, was a tall woman in a Death Eater mask, limping and waving her wand around. "The Dark Lord shall return!" she growled, pointing at a nearby mother, who whimpered and clutched her child to her chest. "And you will all learn what Dark magic can truly do!"

Then she let out a horrible cackle and blasted a dark red spell at the nearest person, a tiny four-year-old boy. Tonks, her Auror blood boiling, Apparated from the opposite side of the playground in record time, darting in front of the boy and performing a quick shield charm to protect him.

Tonks stepped back into a duelling stance, motioning for the boy to run, but the Death Eater didn't care about one fierce mother. She cared about causing as much suffering as possible in the little time that she had. The Death Eater turned around and whipped a fire charm all around her, sending children crying and running away. A father a few feet from Tonks was trying to contain the flames with his magic, but it was proving extremely difficult. Tonks attempted a body-binding spell, but the woman easily deflected the curse. "You're all traitors!" she roared, and the air surged with heat as more flames cascaded from her wand. "Bombarda! Bombarda!"

Terrified for her son's life, Tonks tried to Apparate to Teddy, for the flames were rising and heading in his direction, but she found herself still on solid ground. The Death Eater must have placed an anti-Apparition charm on the park after Tonks had rescued the boy; she realized that the effects of the charm were driving everyone mad with hysteria.

Screams and sobs shook the ground, but Tonks only stepped up to duel the Death Eater. "Oi!" she yelled, shooting a hex at the black-robed woman to distract her from the children. "Come on get me, you stupid arse!"

The terrifying silver mask turned to face her, its metal teeth gritted in a wicked grimace. "Finite Incantatem!" growled the woman, and her shield charm splintered like broken glass.

The first thing she felt was pain, ripping through her torso with the mad frenzy of a Cornish pixie. As she slowly returned to consciousness, she groaned, moving her hands to her stomach. It was wet, a mess of pink and red, and when she tried to find the wound all she found were her husband's scarred fingers. The air reeked of blood, smoke, burnt skin...

Remus was above her, pressing his hands against her bloody stomach. His voice was muffled, as though she was hearing it through water. "Look at me, love," he was saying, and Tonks started to smile. She loved hearing his voice.

She was bubbling beneath her skin, sewn together by a thin membrane; any moment now, she would burst into liquid and gush through Remus' fingers. Remus, she tried to say, but her voice trickled down her lips, hot and salty. Where's Teddy?

"Stay with me, love, stay with me!" His voice was getting more urgent, more distressed, but Tonks was too busy tracing the lines of his face with her eyes to notice. "The Healers are coming, don't worry, they're coming…"

Ice-cold pain suddenly speared her, just below her navel, and the gasp that erupted from her was nowhere near an accurate reaction, but it was all she could muster. She lost her grip on Remus' arm (had she been holding onto him this whole time?) and then her grip on consciousness, and the world swirled before her eyes, dizzying and far too bright.

"You're gonna be okay," said Remus… Her neck tilted back, weightless, like that of an infant… "You're gonna be…"

She wished their whispering would stop. She could hear them, nibbling at her skull; when she opened her eyes, the incessant noise finally ended, traded for a painful white light piercing her right pupil. It was a Healer, dressed in lime-green robes, her blonde curls pulled back into a messy bun. Behind her, a Healer-in-training in mustard-yellow robes bobbed up and down on his toes. "Are you with me, Mrs. Lupin?" The light floated in front of her other eye; Tonks wanted to slap it away. "Blink if you can understand me."

She forced her eyelids to close and then open again.

"Excellent," said the Healer. She asked her a few more questions until Tonks croaked, "Where are they?"

The Healer was startled by the sound of her voice. "Who?"

"My son...and my husband."

The Healer bit her lip and whispered to her apprentice. The blonde trainee then slipped from the room, returning in seconds with her distressed husband. "Dora!" Remus dashed to her side, even as the Healer clicked her tongue in disapproval. "Merlin, love, I'm so sorry…" He kneeled by the hospital bed, took her hand, and kissed it repeatedly, intertwining their fingers. "I should have been there…"

Tonks shook her head. "There's no way you could have known." She frowned. "Where's Teddy? Is he okay?"

"He's at your mum's," he explained. "And he's fine. He's got a couple burns, that's all, but he just really wants to see you."

The Healer, from the corner of the room, cleared her throat. "If you would, Mr. Lupin, there's something we need to discuss with you and your wife."

Tonks could feel her heart sink like an anchor in her chest, hitting the ocean floor with an anguished thunk. "What is it?"

The Healer pulled up a chair for Remus, who gratefully took it. He continued to hold her hand, giving her a comforting squeeze.

She cleared her throat again, her face solemn. "The curse that hit you, Mrs. Lupin, it caused some extreme internal damage. We were able to heal most of it, but…" Tonks wanted to scream. What was she waiting for? "The ovaries and uterus were severely damaged. Even with our best Healers on the job, the female reproductive system cannot reform itself the way, say, a kidney can. You're no longer physically able to bear children."

Although the Healer continued, explaining the exact extent of the damage, Tonks had stopped listening. Her ovaries? Her uterus? That wonderful fantasy she had in her mind where she had five children with Remus, each with a different aspect of his beautiful face… Watching her children go off to Hogwarts like Molly Weasley did, watching them play and grow up together… It had been destroyed.

"I'm so sorry about this, Mr. and Mrs. Lupin. It's a tragic situation, truly." She gave them a sympathetic look, gazing at the couple over her glasses. "At least you already have one."

As the Healer and her trainee left the room to give them privacy, Remus slumped back in his chair. Beside her, her husband began to cry silently, covering his face with his hands. He never liked to let her see him cry, but today Tonks pulled his hands away from his face and took them in hers. "This will not end us, Remus," she declared. Even though she could feel her anguish clawing its way up her throat, she still stood firm. "We can still have children."

"But she said—"

"I don't care," she interrupted, "what that moron said. I want a family with you, love, and that means that Teddy's gonna have brothers and sisters, remember? As many as I want."

She felt her insides ripple with pain. "Dora," protested her husband, "you heard her. She said we couldn't have any more kids."

Tonks shushed him. "I won't have my son grow up in a house by himself. We don't have to have biological children, Remus. There have to be magical kids that need parents, right? Especially after the War."

Remus shook his head. "They won't be ours, Dora. Those are other people's children. It won't be the same."

Tonks' expression hardened. "Family don't end in blood. They'll be my kids if I want them to be."

Gazing at his stubborn wife, Remus finally relented. "You think we can do this?" he asked, his voice quiet.

Tonks smiled. "Have a little faith, love," she said, sitting up to kiss him once. "Of course we can."

Remus and Tonks visited an orphanage for the first time a couple of months later, located just outside of magical London. They'd left Teddy with Andromeda and Ted for the day.

As Tonks was still recovering, Remus curled his arm around her waist as they arrived to help her move forward. Although she needed physical support, it was Remus who needed emotional support, for he was still unsure of the whole werewolf-as-a-father-to-all situation. She leaned into him, rubbing his back comfortingly. "Don't worry, love," she said. "It'll be fine."

To their surprise, the building looked more like a prison than an orphanage, painted an ugly gray color with bars on the windows. There were a couple of children out front, around nine or ten, raking the leaves. The two were dressed in the same drab colors as the house: gray and black.

As they approached, the children scattered, darting behind the house. Remus rang the doorbell, and a scowling woman greeted them. "What do you want?" She glared at both of them. "If you're selling something, I don't want it."

While Remus shuffled nervously next to her, Tonks stuck her hand out. "We're the Lupins," she explained. "We're here to discuss adoption?"

Her demeanor melted from hostile ice queen to smiling hostess. "Oh, you're the potential parents! Come in, come in!"

Both Tonks and Remus were unnerved by her sudden change in spirit, but nonetheless they entered the orphanage, hopeful for an adoption.

The woman, who introduced herself as Madame Martha Martins, sat them in the sitting room, where two skinny girls in gray dresses offered them tea and biscuits.

"Many of our children were orphaned by the War," Martins explained, grimacing. "After that, we went from… Twelve, I think, to forty-seven."

"How many do you have now?" asked Remus.

Her picture-perfect smile chipped. "Twenty-four."

"What happened to the others?"

"Most were adopted, but we had a couple runaways, too." She shrugged, sipping her tea. "That was before I took charge. This place was mad, I tell you, until I got here." Unbridled pride leaked over her face. "I got some discipline into these children. They're nothing short of perfect now, I promise you. Quiet, obedient, calm…"

Tonks coughed. Knowing it was time to take her healing potions, she asked for the toilet; Madame Martins directed her upstairs.

Going up the stairs, she held onto the railing to keep herself up, hearing the matron ask Remus, "Mr. Lupin, do you have a gender preference?"

She made her way to the toilet, taking a left at the end of the corridor, and then a right into the second door, and drank her prescribed potion. The discomfort locked within her torso subsided a bit, and she left, closing the door behind her. As she headed for the stairs, she heard some panicked whispers echoing in the hallway. Curious, she crept towards them, one hand against the wall.

"Micah…" This voice was higher, definitely younger, and broken between sobs. "It hurts."

As Tonks turned the corner, she could spot them at the end of hall, the younger child in a matching gray dress and socks sitting against the wall while the older one crouched before her. "I know it hurts," said the other one. The older boy was a teenager, dark with a mass of darker curls topped by a woolen gray hat. "But you gotta be strong, okay?

The little girl's blonde hair was matted with blood, and she cried, her cheeks shining in the dim lighting. "I hate Madame Martins," she wailed, hugging her doll. The boy dipped the edge of his scarf in the pail next to him and began to cleanse the scarlet from her hair. "I wish she was dead."

"I know, I know…" The older boy took her into his arms, shushing her and letting her cry into his shoulder. "It'll be okay. I know it hurts, but we have some parents comin' today. Maybe this time, you'll be picked."

The little girl whimpered as Micah pressed his scarf against her head. "I never get picked," she mumbled.

Micah took off his hat, placing it over the girl's head to cover most of the red patches. "Maybe this time they will," he replied, hopeful. "Just smile, okay? Pretend Madame Martins isn't there."

The girl sniffled. "Okay, Micah."

Before they could notice she was there, Tonks snuck back down the hallway and down the stairs, rejoining her husband.

Remus was currently talking about Teddy; although usually talking about his son made his entire mood improve, it was clear to her that his conversation was impeded by how uncomfortable he felt around the matron. "Ah, Mrs. Lupin!" the matron exclaimed. "So glad you're back. We were just talking about—"

"We'd like to meet the children," Tonks interrupted, her face stern. Remus glanced at her, startled by her sudden abrasiveness.

"Which ones?" asked Madame Martins.

"All of them."

Nervous, the matron cleared her throat. "Yes, yes, of course!" She cupped her hands around her mouth. "Children, line up!" Footsteps pounded throughout the house, and suddenly various children rushed into the room, short and tall, dark and light…

In seconds, all twenty-four of the children were lined up before them, staring at the ground. "Very good," said Martins. She gave each kid an introduction, stating their name, age, and demeanor. Elsie, Rhiannon, Arjun, Owen, Imani, Jared… Rhiannon, the blonde girl Tonks had spotted upstairs, still wore Micah's too big hat to cover the blood on her head. When she reached the end of the line, she snapped, "Where's Ash?"

The children didn't speak in response, only wincing when she raised her voice. "Muhammed," she warned, training her eyes on the final orphan. "Where's Ash?" she asked the boy. "You're always with her."

He shrugged, but his sudden shift from obedience to terror was evident to both Tonks and Remus. His hands shook, as did his voice, as he spoke. "I-I think she's in the garden, ma'am," he stammered. "You told her to pull the weeds—"

"Yes, yes!" snapped the matron. "I know what I told her to do!" She sighed. "I'll deal with her later."

"Who's Ash?" Tonks' question rang through the air.

The matron only glared. "She's just a troublemaker. Don't worry, she won't bother you." She shooed the children away. "Out, out, the adults are speaking!" She smoothed her hair down with her long fingers. "Do you have any children in mind?"

Remus and Tonks exchanged a convoluted combination of expressions, shifting from confusion to concern. "We'll come back after lunch," said Tonks. "We've got to talk about it."

The matron smiled, every one of her white teeth glinting. "Of course! Take your time!"

"Merlin, Remus, it's a bloody prison!" said Tonks, fingers pressed against her temples. They had walked to a bench near the orphanage and were both sitting, contemplating what had just occurred. Tonks was starting to get a headache. "Did you see the kids?"

"Skin and bones," replied Remus, nodding. "Reminded me of Harry when he was younger. When he was with the Dursleys."

"And those Muggles were just a hair short of child abuse." She sighed, conflicted. "And I told you about what happened upstairs. There's definitely more going on than she's willing to admit. We can't leave them there, Remus. We have to do something."

"What?" Remus threw his hands up. "We have no evidence! Nothing but the fear in their eyes! Even with what you saw, no jury would convict that woman."

Tonks scowled, flames roaring in her eyes. Her hair surged from one color to another, brown to purple to pink to bright red. "I don't care if I don't have any bloody evidence, Remus," she growled. "I'm gonna save my kids."

Skipping lunch, they went back to the orphanage; this time, the front yard was empty, making the building seem almost void of life. Tonks unlocked the front door with a quiet "Alohomora," and Remus followed her inside.

"Homenum Revelio," he hissed, and shadows rushed at the pair, alerting them that all of the inhabitants of the orphanage were in the basement.

Protected by a combination of muffling and cloaking spells, they snuck into the basement, finding every kid there, lined up against the wall. Madame Martins was pacing in front of them, her severe expression furious, having a heated conversation with one of the orphans. The children's fear was prevalent, seeming to swallow up the room as their matron spoke. The matron's two assistants, a man and woman in gray and white, each held a baby. One was sleeping, the other crying.

Madame Martins had the girl by the hair now and was snarling at her. She was probably sixteen, with thick brown curls and olive skin, and she was skinnier than the rest, her face hollow with hunger. "You know the rules, yet still you disobey me?"

Tonks took a step towards the woman, her rage exploding, but Remus held her back. The girl snapped, "You took her away from me!"

"Ash, she's no longer yours!" growled the matron, yanking the teen's head back."She's a ward of the Ministry of Magic, as you are, and you both belong to me!"

Ash spat on the matron's feet. "We don't belong to anyone."

Enraged, Madame Martins swung her hand back and slapped her across the face, and Ash collapsed on the ground. Tonks couldn't stand it anymore. She whipped out her wand and threw the matron against the wall with a nonverbal spell. Remus, already ahead of her, had retrieved the assistants' wands and taken both babies from them.

Tonks stuck her wand under the matron's chin. "If you touch my daughter again," she snarled, "I'll kill you!"

Madame Martins hissed, "These are not your children! They—"

Tonks Stupefied the cruel woman before she could say another word. "They're mine now."

Ash, still reeling from the blow, stumbled towards Remus. "Give her to me." Her face read anger, but her voice read panic. "Don't hurt her."

Remus, cradling both babies in his arms, kneeled to show that he wasn't a threat. "Is she yours?"

Ash nodded frantically. "Please, please, don't hurt her." Remus passed the baby to her, and she ran to the other side of the room as soon as the infant was safe in her grasp.

After all three of the superiors were unconscious, Tonks announced, "We don't have much time, kids, so if you want to get out of here, we have to go now."

"Where are we going?" The question came from Micah, the boy closest to her who she had seen comforting another orphan earlier that day.

"Home," said Tonks. "Somewhere Madame Martins can't hurt you."

The roomful of children cheered. Micah looked skeptical, Ash even more so, but they followed nonetheless. They couldn't Apparate or take a Portkey, but Remus had already contacted Arthur Weasley to ask for their car. As soon as they left the orphanage, they found a blue car at the edge of the street. Remus performed a massive undetectable extension charm on the vehicle, ushering the kids inside.

Arthur Weasley stood next to the car, gaping in shock. "Did you—"

"I'll explain later," answered Tonks, sliding into the driver's seat. "Now, get in the back."

Tonks drove them to Malfoy Manor, not the flat that she and Remus shared. "After the War, the Malfoys were stripped of their titles and property." She shrugged. "Now, it belongs to my mum, but she's not doing anything with it at the moment." She glanced back at the twenty-four children crammed into the back of the car. "It'll be your new home," she explained, "for now."

"Who are you?" asked one of the children before Micah could shush him.

"I'm Dora Lupin." She glanced at Remus and smiled. "I'll be your new mum, if you want."

The boy scowled in the rearview mirror. "That's what the matron said."

As Tonks pulled up to Malfoy Manor, she said, "I'm nothing like that evil bitch."

Ash burst out laughing, cackling so hard she could barely breathe, and soon the rest of the orphans followed suit.

Although Tonks was sure the Ministry would come after her for, well, relieving the matron of her duties, she didn't care. All she knew was that these children need a loving and safe home.

Tonks would be more than happy to give it to them.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Please favorite, follow, and review!

Fanfiction Writing Month: October [3498]

Writing Club - Character Appreciation - (relationship) married

Writing Club - Cookie's Craft Corner - Write about a character that dies in canon.

Writing Club - Showtime - (object) doll

Writing Club - Count Your Buttons - (word) fear

Writing Club - Sophie's Shelf - (dialogue) "If you touch my son/daughter again, I'll kill you!"

Writing Club - Angel's Arcade - (word) heated, (action) rubbing your boyfriend/girlfriend's back, color (bright red)

Writing Club - Lo's Lowdon - Write about an informal adoption.

365 Prompts Challenge - #90 "Family don't end in blood."

Gris-Gris Bag Station - (spell) Bombarda

Chocolate Frog Cards Club - (Bronze) Melania Black - Write about a couple who have one child but are unable to have a second.

Make Your Own Pizza - Step Five - (color) mustard yellow

The Golden Snitch - Through the Universe - #33 (Constellation) - (word) tragic

The Golden Snitch - Ollivander's Wand Shop - Quirnius Quirrell - Alder - Write about a Hufflepuff being stubborn.

The Golden Snitch - Dreamcatchers - Adoption - Write about a character being adopted.

If You Dare Challenge - #12 (Socks)

Are You Crazy Enough To Do It Challenge - #119 (Remus Lupin)

Character Diversity Boot Camp - #28 (room), Nymphadora Tonks