Title: If You Fall
Word Count: 7600
Rating: PG--it's pre-relationship, or just-coming-up-to-relationship, or something
Disclaimer: Characters and situations depicted belong to the Harry Potter universe, which belongs to J.K. Rowling. This was written for the Support Stacie fundraiser, with all money raised going to help Stacie cover her cancer treatment costs.
Author's Notes: This was written for the Support Stacie auction, for my winning bidder, notasitseems_x, who requested a story about Remus and Tonks, who "didn't get enough coverage in the book". She wanted a missing-moments sort of thing, and let me choose which time period to work with. It took a bit longer than expected, and a fair amount of research for me to get a handle on the characters, but she was very patient, and I had fun delving into Remus/Tonks fandom. :)
She has generously given me permission to post the story. Thank you, notasitseems!
Thanks also to my ever-wonderful, faster-than-light Beta Reader, phoenixtorte . I don't know what I'd do without you.
If You Fall
It was more fun hanging out in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, Tonks decided, when it was just the three of them as usual—Sirius, Remus and herself. Nothing against Kingsley, but Moody was, well, moody.
"I don't like it," Moody said. "Damned elf is up to something. Shouldn't even be here. Should have got rid of him from the start. Constant vigilance!"
They certainly didn't keep Kreacher around for his housekeeping skills. Tonks swiped a thumb over the counter, coming away with a layer of grime. With Molly Weasley busy looking after Arthur, the kitchen had deteriorated sadly. If her own scouring spells were any good, she might have a go at it. Then again, maybe not… as the only female frequenting the place on a regular basis, she felt that in a way it was her duty not to do the cleaning.
"It's no secret that he'd rather we weren't here," Remus said, his hands neatly folded on the table. He looked tired, she thought. The full moon was only a few days away. "Still, he's bound to obey Sirius. I don't think he's any danger to us."
He'd been danger enough to Buckbeak, though, hadn't he? Tonks felt her hair flush red at the thought. A Hippogriff was not exactly helpless, but contained in that small room, Buckbeak had been near enough to it. Sirius was up there now, tending his wounds. Buckbeak wouldn't let anyone else near him.
It was cowardly, that was what it was, attacking the animal like that. She hadn't liked Kreacher to begin with, but now the only thing keeping her from flinging her bra at him—take that for clothes, you nasty little sot—was Dumbledore's insistence that the elf knew too much to be set free.
Besides, it was her orange bra—the lacy one. She liked it.
She felt Remus looking at her, and realized that she'd better say something to explain the hair colour change. "How was he able to hurt Buckbeak, anyhow?" she asked. "He had to know Sirius wouldn't have wanted that."
"But Sirius didn't explicitly tell him to leave Buckbeak alone," Remus said. "He wasn't going against a direct order."
"So now we're supposed to sit down and make a list of every single thing we don't want Kreacher to do?" She had a better idea—tell Kreacher to lock himself in a closet and stay there for a year or twelve, until this whole mess was behind them. If she had been alone with her cousin, she might have even suggested it, just to make Sirius laugh. In front of Remus… she kept her thoughts to herself.
Kingsley sighed and rubbed at his forehead. The gesture was oddly reminiscent of Harry. "I agree, it's impractical, but it might be the only—"
His words were cut off by the large, silvery doe that leapt through the wall. "Where's Black?" the doe asked, speaking in Snape's voice. It was a combination that took some getting used to.
"Severus?" Tonks asked.
The doe turned to her. "Harry says that Voldemort has taken your idiot cousin captive at the Ministry," it said. Its glow illuminated the dingy kitchen.
Tonks blinked at him. "At the Ministry? But—"
Behind the doe, Sirius appeared, leaning against a doorframe. "Does he now?" Sirius drawled. "That's fascinating. To the best of my knowledge, I'm right here. As ever. Lovely to see you looking so… transparent, Severus." He tossed down a bundle of bloody bandages. "Kreacher? Deal with this," he ordered. "It's your mess, after all."
The elf appeared from nowhere, gathered up the bandages, and disappeared, scowling as ever. Tonks resisted the urge to kick him.
"Why would Harry think that Voldemort has Sirius?" Remus was asking, looking back and forth between Sirius and the doe. He looked stunned.
The doe shifted her shoulders in a way that Tonks supposed was meant to approximate a shrug. "I've no idea. But I'll speak to the boy as soon as I can pull him away from Umbridge."
"Umbridge? That toad," Moody said, standing. He'd been on edge since they'd gotten word of McGonagall's injuries yesterday. "The sooner we're rid of her, the better."
"Your opinion is duly noted," the doe said in Snape's voice. Tonks hadn't known that a doe could sneer. "You're sure this is Black, are you? Not someone Polyjuiced?"
Not likely, Tonks thought. Buckbeak would have known if Sirius wasn't who he appeared to be.
"I hate your guts," Sirius offered by way of evidence. Tonks hid a smile. Three words to describe Sirius Black: witty, sharp... charming. Provided that one's name was not Severus Snape.
"That's hardly a secret," the doe said. "Still, the obnoxiousness is convincing."
"Find out what you can," Kingsley said. "With Dumbledore gone…" He didn't finish the sentence, but he didn't need to. Things were out of control at Hogwarts, and seemed to be becoming more so. Who would lie to Harry about something like this? And why would Harry believe them without checking for himself?
"Naturally," the doe said. "I trust that you'll all remain here?"
"Naturally," Sirius said, mimicking Snape's tone. "It's what I do."
The doe bounded away through the wall again. The kitchen looked dimmer after it had gone. No one seemed to want to break the silence.
"His Patronus," Remus said finally, looking at Sirius. He swallowed. "Did you know?"
Sirius nodded. "Seen it before."
"Excuse me." Remus pushed back from the table.
Tonks stood, ready to follow. Remus gave her a small, tight headshake as he left the room.
Sirius moved aside to let Remus go by, but blocked Tonks. "He'll be all right," Sirius said. "Give him a minute."
She glared. If anyone knew Remus well, she guessed it was her cousin, but letting Remus walk away, visibly shaken, went against her instincts.
It went against her curiosity, too, which she had to admit was among the strongest of her instincts. Why had Snape's Patronus bothered him so much?
There wasn't time to ask. Rather than following Remus, she let Sirius charm her into staying in the kitchen. A short time later, Snape's Patronus appeared again and all hell broke loose.
* * *
Tonks floated into blurry wakefulness. She felt peaceful and warm. The smell of cotton and strong bleaching spells surrounded her—not offensive, but not entirely pleasant, either. Perhaps if she let herself drift again it would help.
"Nymphadora! Can you hear me?"
She knew that voice. She opened her eyes. Molly Weasley's features seemed to ripple.
Tonks tried to focus. "Not… Nymphadora," she said.
Molly's relieved laughter was too loud. She was about to close her eyes to see if it dulled the sound when she caught sight of the dim, hunched-over figure behind Molly.
"Remus?"
"I'm here," he said. "How do you feel?"
She felt a grin spread across her face. "Lovely," she said. "Floaty."
Molly patted her hand. "Painkillers, dear."
Painkillers? Why?
She must have looked confused or said something out loud, because Molly patted her hand again. "Never you mind about any of that. We'll talk about it later."
Later sounded good. She was rather tired. Something about the white room and the bleach smells clicked, and she understood that she was in St. Mungo's. Hardly the first time. "Did I get 'em?" She wasn't sure who she had been after, but she was an Auror. There was always someone, wasn't there?
Molly frowned, but Remus moved to stand closer, and that was wonderful. Except that he looked so terribly sad. "You got them," he assured her.
She smiled, but her eyelids were getting heavy, so she couldn't smile and look at him at the same time. "S'good," she said. When she was able to focus on him, she wondered why he didn't smile back.
"'Wha's wrong?" she asked. "You look like your dog just died." It was a Muggle expression, one her dad sometimes used.
That didn't explain the absolutely stricken expression that flashed over his face, or why Molly spun towards him with a small cry.
"She doesn't mean it," Molly said. "She doesn't know what she's saying."
But Remus was already backing out of the room. He took all the happy, floaty feelings with him.
"M'sorry," Tonks said, although she suspected that it came out slurred, and she wasn't sure what she was apologizing for anyhow. Being awake was confusing. She wished Remus would come back.
There had been a battle, she suddenly remembered, although she couldn't pin down any of the details. She hoped no one had been hurt. Before she could put words around that thought her eyelids fell closed and dragged her down with them.
* * *
When she woke again, there was rather less of the floaty feeling and rather more pain. The upside was that at least she knew where she was and what had happened.
Well, some of it, anyhow. She remembered arriving at the Ministry and she remembered dueling Bellatrix. The fact that she was here meant that she probably hadn't won.
Damn. The world, she thought, could do with less Bellatrix.
She struggled to sit up but gave it up as a bad job when her head threatened to explode. She and her head compromised—she could have her eyes open so long as she lay perfectly still. Unfortunately, that afforded her a view of only the boring, white ceiling, so she cheated and rolled her head to the side.
Remus was there, beside her, sleeping in a chair.
"Oh." The sound was out before she thought to stop it, but he didn't stir.
Asleep, he looked younger.
She took a deep breath, trying to make room for the warm-expanding-glowing feeling in her chest. He was here.
She wondered what day it was. She had never in her life been so fixated on the calendar as she had in the past few months; knowing what he was, knowing what the moon did to him, she tracked every phase. They'd gone to the Ministry on Thursday night. The full moon would be Sunday. She hoped it was Friday now, not Saturday. If it was Saturday, he should be at home, resting properly.
But she loved that he was here. Friday, then, she decided. At least until anyone told her otherwise.
His head slipped forward. He startled awake, blinking. He froze when his eyes met hers.
"Wotcher," she said. Her voice sounded warm and intimate to her own ears.
"You're awake," he said. "I'm sorry. I must have… you don't mind my being here, I hope?"
Mind? He really had no idea, did he? "I don't mind," she said.
"Kingsley thought—best not to leave anyone unguarded, just now."
"Oh." She felt oddly disappointed.
A Medic bustled into the room. "I thought I heard voices," she said. "How are we feeling, Miss Tonks?"
We? "I'm all right," she said. Better if the Medic would bugger off.
That's hardly charitable. The voice inside her head sounded remarkably like her mother's. Well, it could bugger off, too. She was sore from a duel she had presumably lost against the Chief Crazy of the Death Eaters, it was the middle of the night (what night?), she was stuck in the hospital, and the one good thing about all of this was that she got to be alone with Remus. So no, she wasn't feeling charitable about the interruption.
"Let's just see, shall we?" The Medic performed a series of spells, humming under her breath as she did so. She seemed satisfied with the results, if the humming was any indication.
"How is she?" Remus asked.
The Medic smiled. "She'll be just fine," she said. "We'll give it another day, then she can go home."
"She is right here," Tonks said. Remus shot her an apologetic smile.
"Can you sit up?" the Medic asked, not even acknowledging the fact that she had been talking as though Tonks weren't in the room.
Tonks tried again, but the pain that shot through her head stopped her halfway. Someone caught her and lowered her back to the pillow. It wasn't until the pain faded slightly that she realized the hands had come from the wrong side of the bed—Remus' side, not the Healer's side.
"Mm-hmm," the Healer said, making notes with a quill. "At least one more day, and I'll bring you something for the pain. It will help you sleep."
"I don't want—" she started, but Remus cut her off.
"That would be lovely," he said. "Thank you."
She glared at him as the Healer left.
"Do you want to get out of here or not?" he asked. "Believe me, I know whereof I speak."
She supposed he did, at that. Besides, if she was going to be drugged again, she wasn't about to waste the next few minutes arguing. She wanted information. "What happened?" she asked. "The fight at the Ministry. Tell me."
Pain lines drew tight around his eyes. "We won," he said. "If you can call it that. Voldemort revealed himself to the Ministry. The children are all safe."
She had been an Auror long enough to recognize a partial truth. "Who isn't?"
"Pardon?" He wouldn't meet her gaze.
"Who isn't safe? If everyone were all right, you'd have said so. You only mentioned the children."
He exhaled.
She waited.
"Sirius," he said finally, eyes closed. "We lost him. Through the Veil. I'm sorry. I know you had come to care—"
The Medic returned, carrying a vial of something green and awful looking.
Remus, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, stared resolutely at the floor.
Sirius. Bright, funny, stubborn Sirius.
"Is everything all right?" the Medic asked.
"Fine," Tonks said. Sirius who drank too much and who tended Buckbeak like a mother. "Look, can you please just leave the potion?"
"I need to watch you drink it."
Tonks glared. Could the woman not take a hint? "We're talking about something important." Sirius. Her cousin. Sirius who made her laugh.
"Miss Tonks, I have other patients to attend to."
"Yes, of course, I'm sorry," Remus said, standing. "In any case, I believe that our conversation has concluded. I have… nothing else to report." His tight smile made Tonks shiver. "If you'll both excuse me for a moment. I need to—" He left without finishing the sentence.
The Medic watched him go. She turned back to Tonks, frowning. "Not an argument, I hope. I won't have visitors disturbing my patients."
Tonks stared at the door. "Nothing like that. It was… he had some bad news. About a friend." Sirius.
"I see." The Medic's face softened. "Well, drink up, dearie. He'll be back. He's hardly left your side."
Feeling too defeated even to protest the term 'dearie', Tonks let the Medic help her drink the potion. It tasted as foul as it looked.
It didn't take long to work, either. Tonks felt her eyelids growing heavy before the Medic had settled her back onto the pillow. "Wha' day's it?" she asked.
"Saturday, dear. It's Saturday night," the Medic said.
Tonks was nearly sure that was a bad thing, but she couldn't remember why. She felt warm and comfortable and content. Just before everything faded away, she heard footsteps and felt someone take her hand. She fell asleep smiling.
* * *
It was nearly a week later when Tonks saw Remus again. She had spent a day or two at home after being released from St. Mungo's, and after that, every time she dropped by Headquarters he managed not to be there.
No one had seen him much, as far as she could tell, although she wondered where he was living if not at Grimmauld Place. She could understand him not wanting to be there, so soon after losing Sirius. The place was depressing and full of ghosts, or at least it felt like it ought to be... every ghost but his.
She wondered if it might have been comforting rather than otherwise, seeing him again, even in ghostly form. Every time she rounded a corner or entered a room, she half expected to—not to see his ghost, but rather to see him living, laughing, having a drink and lounging on the moth-eaten furniture wearing his tatty bathrobe.
But why would Sirius choose to come back here? He had hated this mouldy old house. "Spent entirely too much time here as it was, didn't you, luv?" she murmured to a framed photograph of a much-younger Sirius.
"He'd have said so, yes." Remus's voice, coming from behind her, made her jump.
"Merlin's garters, don't sneak up on me like that!"
"My apologies." He nodded to her, distant, formal. "If you've a moment, we're wanted in the drawing room."
"Remus." He had turned to go, but stopped at the sound of his name. "I… I haven't seen you. How've you been?"
His eyes flicked from her to the photograph and back again. "As well as any of us, I suppose. And you? You… recovered all right?"
She nodded. "I'm fine. Thank you." Bloody hell, they sounded like a couple of old codgers meeting at a reunion. What was going on here?
His answering nod was stiff. "I'll see you in the drawing room, then. Whenever you're ready." He hesitated as though he might say more, but left the room instead.
She struggled against the urge to run after him. With her luck, she'd trip over something and knock them both down the stairs. No, if he wanted space, she'd give him space. It wasn't as if she was desperate.
Well, mostly it wasn't.
Arthur and Molly Weasley and the twins were waiting in the drawing room, along with Moody. Remus had taken a seat in a dark corner, a little removed from the others. When Tonks entered, Molly gave her a warm smile.
Fred and George stood. "Tonks! Good to see you! You're looking—" George started.
"—lovely as ever," Fred finished.
Unlike most people, Tonks never had any difficulty telling the two apart. Maybe it was that, being able to change the shape of her own facial features, she paid more detailed attention to other people's. George was slightly taller and finer-featured; Fred's eyes were rounder.
And then there were what she liked to think of as her Auror-style observations. Fred was more likely to glance around a room when he entered it, taking stock, while George would focus on the loudest person or brightest object. They took turns starting sentences, at least when others were around, but George was more likely than Fred to break a silence.
Grinning at both boys, she thanked them for the compliment, noticing as she did that Remus was looking steadily away. She let Fred and George escort her to a seat between them on the couch; why not? At the very least, they were fun to be around.
George tugged at a lock of her hair. "I like the orange," he said.
Oh. She hadn't realized she'd done that. Best to leave it now, though, rather than drawing even more attention to it. "Weasley's of the world, unite," she joked.
Arthur outlined his plan for them to meet Harry at King's Cross station and leave his Muggle family with a few things to consider over the summer. Not much was said about the way things had been for Harry in the past, but reading between the lines, Tonks gathered that it wasn't good.
"How's he been?" she asked. "Since Sirius…"
Everyone grew quiet at the mention of Sirius' name.
"It just seems to me," Tonks said loudly, "that Sirius was probably the closest thing to a proper family that Harry had." There was no point in not dealing with it, was there? It was all well and good to warn the Muggles not to mess about with Harry, but the boy had to be hurting right now. He needed more than that.
"He has us," Molly said. Tonks thought she sounded defensive.
"Then why does he need to go back at all?" Tonks asked.
"Dumbledore's orders," Arthur said. "It's for his own safety. Otherwise we'd love to have him stay at the Burrow."
Tonks nodded. Dumbledore rarely explained his reasoning, so it was no surprise when Arthur didn't elaborate. The situation didn't sit well with her, though, and she turned to look at Remus, to see what he thought of it. He'd been quiet throughout the whole conversation.
There was a good reason for that. At some point, most likely when Sirius was mentioned, Remus had left the room. Tonks sighed.
"What's wrong?" George asked.
She shook her head. "Nothing."
"In that case," George said, "care to—"
"Join us for a drink?" Fred finished.
Remus had gone off somewhere, presumably to be alone. The older members of the Order of the Phoenix were talking amongst themselves.
Tonks turned her hair fuchsia, a colour that she knew suited her. "Why not?"
* * *
Hours later, Tonks stumbled through the front door of Grimmauld Place, having decided (wisely, she thought), that it was better to crash there as she often did than to brave the mess in her flat in her inebriated state. That Remus was here, of course, had nothing to do with it. Nor with her inebriated state.
Not that she was often inebriated. Oh, no. It had been at least… a week? No, more than that, because of the hospital. She had missed the regular weekly Aurors' outing, or perhaps two of them.
She was leaning against the wall, attempting to count the days on her fingers when Remus appeared, peering out of the kitchen.
"All accounted for?" he asked.
"All what accounted for?"
He nodded at her splayed hands. "Your fingers," he said, his face perfectly serious. "I had assumed that you feared some Apparition mishap."
"No," she assured him. "No mish… mishap."
"Excellent," he said. "Because that would have been a shame. Your hands are lovely."
Tonks blinked. The gentle flirting didn't sound like Remus. Or rather, it did, but not recent Remus. This was Remus with a Time-Turner, Remus come back to her from before Sirius' death. "You all right?" she asked.
He took a step back. "Fine, thanks. Yourself?"
She had wrecked it. The flirting tone was gone. He was back to being the polite but slightly distant stranger that he had been since Sirius died. "Fine," she said.
"Had a good time, then? With Fred and George?"
"I did, yes."
"Well. That's good, then." He turned to go.
Tonks had never considered herself one for social finesse, but some cues, even she couldn't miss. She took three stumbling steps after him and managed to grab his elbow before knocking over the troll-leg umbrella stand. Three words to describe Tonks: clumsy, clumsy, clumsy.
Whatever she had meant to say was lost as Mrs. Black's portrait erupted into shrieks. By the time she had righted herself and Remus had quieted the portrait, the moment had passed.
"I suppose that's good night," Remus said, smiling gently.
"G'night," she said, although the last thing she felt like doing was going to bed.
* * *
The full moon, Tonks decided, was a bitch. Once a month she chewed Remus up and spat him out and left him… well, left him looking like this. Pale and drained and old, lying in a bed only because someone else had put him there—he'd never have made it himself. And Wolfsbane potion or no, some of those scars looked fresh.
She wouldn't know; she hadn't been there when Moody came to check on Remus first thing in the morning, because bloody Remus insisted that she not be.
Stupid and proud. As if she'd care. "You're an idiot, you know," she said conversationally. Remus gave no sign of hearing. Let him sleep; Molly had sent soup for him, but it would keep under its warming charm.
Moody had been the one to lock Remus into the cellar room and Moody had been the one to let him out again. But Tonks had stayed the night in Grimmauld Place; Remus had no say over that, and Sirius had given her a room to use, after all.
Moody's spells had been all about security, not about privacy, so she'd heard Remus howling all through the night. She shivered. It wasn't a sound she was likely to forget anytime soon.
"You missed Padfoot, didn't you?" she whispered. Maybe it was good that he had his wolf form. Maybe it helped that he had a way to let things out, because he sure as hell wasn't doing it the rest of the month. Three words to describe Remus Lupin: polite, reserved, controlled.
Not controlled now. It was probably wrong of her to be here; he wouldn't like it, if he knew. But Molly had suggested that, as it seemed to have been a rough transformation, looking in on Remus throughout the day wouldn't go amiss. Tonks was just looking in on him, that was all. For the past forty minutes.
She fingered the sheets. The thread count was probably astronomical. Nothing but the best for the Blacks. Remus had teased Sirius about his taste for fancy sheets and asked him how he had gotten by without them in Azkaban. He'd been allowed to do that, to tease Sirius about Azkaban. No one else would have dared. Sirius, in return, had been merciless about Remus's 'furry little problem'.
That was what each of them had needed—someone to be easy with. Someone who didn't talk around the hard parts and the rough edges; someone who didn't pretend that they weren't there. Lacking that, this past month, Remus had grown away from everyone, even from her. Especially from her.
Remus moved his head and mumbled something in his sleep. Tonks held her breath until he settled, and then slipped out of the room. She'd check on him again later.
* * *
The creak of a floorboard in the hall gave him away. Without looking up from her novel, she called, "Molly said you weren't to be out of bed until nightfall. It's not nightfall yet."
"Which is why I was sneaking," he said, after a brief moment.
"Nice try," she said. "Auror, remember?"
"I'm at your mercy."
She smiled because she thought he meant it to be funny, but really, it wasn't funny at all. His stance, leaning against the doorframe, was obviously supposed to look casual. It would have done, if she had missed the tremble in his legs. "What are you doing up?"
He glanced down, then back up at her before answering. "Even a werewolf needs to use the… facilities once in a while. I suppose Molly would make allowance for that?"
"Oh. Oh!" She was pretty sure her hair was blushing. "Er, yeah. Of course. Do you, er, need help?"
"I'll manage." He smiled.
She went back to her novel. She was enjoying a particularly steamy scene involving the captain's berth of a pirate ship. It was a long scene, and made her toes curl more than once, which was why perhaps more time passed than should have before she noticed that Remus hadn't come back.
"Remus?"
No answer. She set down her novel.
There was probably tons of tricky etiquette involved when dealing with someone of the opposite sex who had been locked in the bathroom for entirely too long on the day after their full moon transformation. Then again, etiquette had never been her strong suit. She paused in the hallway for all of a fraction of a second before banging on the bathroom door.
"Remus? Are you all right?"
No sound emerged from inside.
"I'm coming in," she said. "Alohomora!"
"Tonks! What—?" In the claw-footed tub—literally claw-footed, she thought they must have once belonged to a Hippogriff—sat Remus. He had drawn his knees up when she burst through the door. He looked frantically from her to the open doorway and back again, probably torn between wanting to run away and wanting to keep his… assets hidden.
"Sorry! Sorry!" She backed away, raising a hand to screen her eyes—although she was terribly tempted to peek between her fingers. "You'd been so long, and I didn't hear anything, and I got worried. I—why didn't you answer me?"
"I did," he growled. His face was flushed, though, more of an embarrassed colour than an angry colour. Tonks considered herself something of an expert on the subtleties of colour.
Yes, she was peeking, so what?
He was definitely embarrassed, which was sweet, really, because it wasn't as though she hadn't seen plenty of… assets before. Although not his. Which was a shame, because what she could see was promising.
"I didn't hear a thing," she said.
Remus looked surprised, then thoughtful—as thoughtful as one can look, when nude and knackered and cornered in a bathtub. "I should have realized," he said. "It's an old house, of course, and the Blacks weren't much given to updating. Muffling charms on the bathrooms were considered a polite necessity in Victorian times."
Only Remus could give an architectural history lesson from the bathtub. "Oh," she said, dropping all pretense of screening her eyes.
Her brain stalled somewhere around the sight of Remus's bare, damp chest. Going beyond just peeking had been a bad idea. "Er, how's the water?"
She imagined stripping down and slipping in, maybe leaving her underthings on as a tease—she had worn the orange, lacy set. The water would be cooling slightly by now, but Remus' skin would feel warm against hers, and…
"Tonks?" Remus said.
"Uh-huh?"
"Much as I appreciate the concern, now that you've seen I'm all right, do you think—?"
"Oh! Right. Yeah. I'll, er, just be going then, shall I?" She backed out of the room and closed the door behind her.
Bugger. Bugger, bugger, bugger. If she had tried, really tried, it just might have been possible for her to make a bigger fool of herself.
"'How's the water?' Lovely, Tonks. Well done." She stopped muttering when she remembered that the bathroom's muffling charm was one-way.
Bugger.
* * *
Her book didn't hold her attention after that. Not even the pirate-captain-cabin scene, which she made every effort to re-read. There wasn't a claw-footed tub in the cabin as described; she was nearly certain of it. So the scene playing through her mind really had very little to do with the words written on the page.
She listened, and when she heard the creak of the bathroom door followed by Remus's slow footsteps in the hall, she opened the book again and pretended to be reading. Her face, she knew, was bright red, but with effort she managed to control her hair colour. No reason for Remus to suspect. No reason for him to stop. No reason for—.
"Tonks?"
Bugger. She took a deep breath. "Yes, Remus?" Narcissa Malfoy herself never sounded so cool and collected.
"I'm sorry. It's just—could you—" There was a thud.
She was off the couch in a flash. Remus sagged against the doorframe.
"May have overdone it," he managed, as she pulled his arm around her shoulders and took his weight.
She helped him to his room. As soon as they reached the bed, he collapsed onto it. His skin had a chalky tint.
"Remus…"
"It's fine," he said. "Just… did too much."
Too much? He'd walked down the hall, presumably used his magic to run the water for the bath, soaked for a bit, then tried to walk back. Molly had been right. She shouldn't have let him out of bed at all. "But you'll be all right, won't you?"
He smiled in response, eyes closed. "I hate that you have to see me like this."
"Don't be an arse," she said, settling the blankets over him.
"Thanks," he murmured. Which might have been for the blankets and help, or might have been a sarcastic response to the arse comment. She almost hoped it was the latter, but he didn't elaborate.
She thought he was going to drift off, so she kept silent. She certainly, absolutely, did not hover. Much.
Except that her elbow knocked over Molly's bowl of soup, which had been protected by a warming charm but, regrettably, not a sticking charm.
Remus startled awake at the crash.
"Sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorry," Tonks muttered, Vanishing the mess with her wand.
He laughed. "You know, I never liked that kind of soup anyhow."
That made her feel better. "What kind was it?"
"Er, no idea." He cleared his throat.
So much for that. But he was awake now, and Tonks decided it was time for a change of subject. "So, er, now that I've risked Molly's wrath by letting you out of bed and feeding her soup to the carpet, tell me… why the bath?" Judging from the way it had exhausted him, it wasn't part of his day-after-the-full-moon routine.
He looked down at his hands before answering. "I should think that was obvious. I wasn't sure I could manage the shower."
She rolled her eyes and waited for him to continue.
"It was one thing when I was on my own, or when… Sirius was my caregiver." He clenched the sheets at the mention of Sirius' name, but that was the only sign that anything was amiss. "It's quite another to feel unclean and disheveled in front of a lady," he continued. Some of the tenseness left him as he finished speaking.
I like you disheveled. "That's the first time anyone has ever called me a lady," she said. "There are Aurors who would be pissing themselves laughing right now."
He met her eyes. "Their loss."
All of a sudden, Tonks found it hard to breathe.
"I'm sorry," he said, glancing away. "I shouldn't—"
"Why not?" She groped for his hand. It felt cold. "Remus, why not?"
"You know why not," he said. He left his hand in hers, of course—he was too polite to pull away. But he didn't return her grip.
He was withdrawing. Had he been able to, she was sure he would have excused himself and left.
"Have you noticed," she asked, making her voice as casual as possible, "how many of our conversations lately end with you leaving the room? Well, except in the bathroom. Then it was me leaving." Her hair had to be Gryffindor red by now; she couldn't bring herself to check. "At least now you're too knackered to disappear on me."
"I don't disappear," he said, so quietly that she had to strain to hear him.
"You do." She paused and muted her hair back to a nice, respectable mauve. "If I had a problem with you being a werewolf, do you think I'd be here now? No. I'd be at home, and you'd be left to Molly's fussing, or maybe Moody's tender care."
"Merlin forbid," he murmured.
"It's not funny! You're an idiot, you know that? You're so brave with every other thing, but when it comes to me, you run away every single time. Oh, you do it politely, so it hardly counts as running, but you know what? It's the same thing." She released his hand so she could pace around the room. "You must know I like you. You're too smart not to know that. It's one of the things I like best about you, you know? How smart you are."
She didn't look at him. If she looked at him, this would be too hard.
"You're smart and you're caring and you're brave. I've seen the way you are with Harry and the others." She smiled at the thought. "You teach them, and they don't even know they're being taught. You'd do anything for them. You care so much. Why is it so bloody hard for you to see that someone else might care for you?"
She stopped at the window. Someone, maybe Remus, had cast a spell that made it show a woodland scene, rather than the grubby bit of London where Grimmauld Place resided. It must have been Remus. No one else would have thought of it.
"I do, you know," she said. She ran her finger along the window ledge. Dust in every other room, but not this one. Remus must have cleaned it; it certainly hadn't been Kreacher. "I care for you. I mean, I'm not talking about love eternal or anything—" Well, not out loud, she wasn't. "I just think… it's worth exploring, isn't it? That's all I'm asking. Just… stop running away. Give it a chance." She swallowed, because the next part was going to be hard to say. "Give me a chance."
When she had finished, there was no sound in the room but his steady breathing.
It wasn't like him to leave someone hanging like that. Had she overdone it? She had. She had pushed too hard; she always pushed too hard.
"Remus," she started, turning to face him. "You're—"
His mouth was slightly open, his breathing even and deep. As she watched, his eyes twitched rapidly behind closed lids. Dreaming.
"—asleep. Of course you are."
It was good to know he found her as fascinating as she found herself. She couldn't manage to be angry, though. She felt a smile curve her lips. Perhaps the day after the full moon was not the best time for heartfelt discussions.
His eyes stilled and he seemed to melt more deeply into the bed as the dreaming ended.
"G'night," she said, fixing the covers over him. She shook her head. "My orange bra is wasted on you, you know that?"
* * *
Tonks nodded at Kingsley as they boarded the same elevator. There were enough others on board that he wouldn't expect her to chat. That was just as well. It had been a long shift, and there was an Order meeting later tonight.
She was looking forward to getting home and getting cleaned up, first. For her own sake, of course. Not that she wanted to impress anyone else.
Really not. Because what would be the point?
She wasn't sure how much of her speech Remus had heard before drifting off. She hoped that he had at least heard the part where she called him an idiot, because in the days that followed, he had more than validated that opinion.
He was embarrassed, she supposed, or overwhelmed, or not wanting to trouble her, or some other form of Remus-specific idiotness, because she hadn't seen him in days. She hadn't spoken to him in nearly a week. Whenever she entered a room he was in, he generally found some perfectly polite, perfectly valid reason why he needed to leave. Except, of course, for the Order meetings, but the two of them were well chaperoned there, weren't they? Besides, he disappeared the instant the meetings concluded.
The elevator dinged her stop. Remus was an idiot. A stubborn, scared, infuriating idiot.
The doors slid open. Remus was… here. At the Ministry.
There was no mistaking his profile, or the way he moved. It was him. What was he doing here?
Effortlessly, she slid into the crowd behind him, keeping an appropriate distance to see without being seen. Kingsley must have noticed Remus, and noticed her following him, but she didn't care. He wouldn't say anything. He was good that way. Three words to describe Kingsley: commanding, perceptive, discreet.
Remus made his way past the elevator banks to the stairwell. The Wizengamot, on the tenth floor, was only accessible by stair. Surely he didn't have a court appearance? With Voldemort exposed, much of the corruption at the Ministry had vanished, but there had been plenty of ridiculous, trumped-up charges laid during the past year. Something to do with his being a werewolf, perhaps.
She didn't realize how tightly she was gripping her wand until her fingers started to hurt.
The stairwells were less populated than the elevators. Tonks waited a moment after Remus had entered the stairwell before following. She paused, listening. As expected, the only footsteps she heard came from below. The Atrium, where she had first spotted Remus, was on the eighth floor; the Wizengamot two floors down, on the tenth. When all was quiet and she was certain he had left the stairwell, she made her way down the stairs.
Only to find him sitting on a step, facing the door that led to the ninth floor—the Department of Mysteries.
"Remus?" Her voice was pitched low, but it still rang and echoed in the stairwell.
"Hello, Tonks," he said, still facing the door. "You caught me."
She walked the rest of the way down to sit beside him. No need to ask what he was doing there, really. "You miss him, don't you?" she asked. She darkened her hair to a shadowy blue, out of respect.
"Of course." He sounded surprised that she had to ask. "But I don't generally make a habit of moping around the Department of Mysteries, if that's what you mean. No, I came here today on a very specific errand. And yet…" He shifted as though getting ready to stand.
She took his right hand, the nearest one, and pulled it towards her, pinning it between her knees. She held his arm for good measure. "Tell me."
"I thought perhaps here… but this is the wrong place, I see that now. He's not here."
No, he's wasn't. "Where, then?"
He shook his head. "Not here, not his home. If Grimmauld Place could ever have been termed a home. No, I don't know where. I don't suppose it matters. It was a silly idea, really. I don't know what I—"
"What did you want to say to him?" she asked, before he could talk himself out of continuing the conversation.
He looked at her for a good ten seconds before answering. "I wanted to speak with him… about his cousin," he said finally. "But I think I know what he would say."
She stared back, as evenly as she could manage. "Perhaps you should talk to his cousin instead."
"You are entirely too smart for my own good." He was trying to lighten the mood. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe she could work with that.
She smiled. "Smart, is it? Might have a few Aurors laughing at that idea, too." Would he remember?
"Their loss," he said quietly.
He remembered. She squeezed his arm.
"This is a bad idea," he said.
"Yeah, well, I'm full of them," she said. "And don't think you can walk away, either. I'm holding your arm for a reason."
He sighed before speaking. "You were out with the Weasley twins last month. Do you remember that? You came back, and you were… well, perhaps a bit tipsy, and flushed, and lovely. You smiled at me, and all I could think was that I'm as old as Fred and George added together, and if I may say so, they make a slightly better match for a woman of your… calibre."
Calibre? What did that even mean? She frowned. "You think that I… with Fred and George…"
"No! No, of course not. Not that it's my business either way." He raked a hand over his face. "I'm making a mess of this. It's just that you've got so much life in you, and light, and I… I'm not like that."
"I like the way you are," she said.
They were sitting so close, surely he—but he didn't have a choice, did he? Not the way she was holding him.
She let go of his arm. It had to be when he was ready. When he was ready, or not at all.
He rested his hand on her knee for a moment, then let it fall away. "Tonks… I'm not the one for you."
He was going to do it, wasn't he? He was going to leave. The idiot.
Well, she wasn't about to stop him. When he was ready, or not at all. She kept her head lowered as he stood.
"I'm sorry," he said.
She sat there and listened to his slow, heavy footsteps as he climbed the stairs. Eight steps, then a pause where the staircase turned. She knew without looking that her hair was a dull, mousy brown. It always was, when she felt this empty.
Eight more steps. Another pause. He was at the door.
Idiot. She sniffed, but didn't cry. Crying wasn't going to help.
She heard him open the door. She heard his step, then the door falling shut behind him. He was gone.
"And you're going to let him get away with that?"
The voice in her head sounded remarkably like Sirius. She glanced up, but there was no one there. "Sirius?"
There was no answer. She didn't really expect one.
She ran.
* * *
She caught up with him outside the Ministry. She was winded, and she owed apologies to at least half a dozen people whom she had banged into or knocked over on her way outside, but she caught up with him.
"Remus!"
He stopped.
She jogged the last few steps to his side. "How do you know? How do you know you're not the one for me? And anyhow, maybe I'm the one for you! Did you ever think of that?" She was magenta-mad, ready to fight, ready to make him see.
He smiled. "If anyone, it would be you."
She hadn't expected that. "Yeah?"
"Of course." Once again, he sounded surprised that she'd even had to ask.
Well, that changed things. Coming from Remus, that was as good as an invitation. She grinned and threaded her arm through his. "I can live with that," she said. "It'll do. For a start."
She glowed yellow, and made him Apparate them both home. Three words to describe how she felt: hopeful, hopeful, hopeful.
-end-