Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Round 9:

Theme: Disney films

Position: Seeker for the Holyhead Harpies

Prompt: Use The Hunchback of Notre Dame for inspiration (I used the lyric "Who is the monster and who is the man?" from the title song, "The Bells of Notre Dame")

Word Count (Pages): 926

Monster

Who is the monster and who is the man?

For the first time since he was five years old, Remus Lupin opened his eyes and looked up at the full moon without fear.

It was a thing of beauty, he thought, and even though he was already dead and could no longer feel, he swore the moonbeams brushed across his face were cool and smooth and comforting.

Dead.

He'd been dead for a little over a week, but for the most part, he felt no different than he had in life. He still woke up every morning and made breakfast in the tiny kitchen of his cottage. He still kissed his wife on the cheek while she struggled to arrange her bedhead-plagued hair. He loved Tonks in the mornings; she liked to stand barefoot on the cold tile floor of the bathroom with her bathrobe tied haphazardly around her waist as she leaned into the mirror and decided what she was going to look like today. "Pig's nose?" she'd ask him some mornings. "Green skin? What sort of monster would you like to be married to today?"

He always managed to hide his flinch when she used the word monster.

But now—here he was, standing on their porch and looking up at the full moon, and he was entirely human.

"Tonks?"

The afterlife was simultaneously the same as and different from the world of the living. Their house was the same, down to the dent in the shabbily-painted front door where Tonks had plowed into it on her broomstick once, but instead of its old wooded backyard, the cottage sat on a neat little plot of land in a place that bore a striking resemblance to Godric's Hollow. Lily and James lived across the street, and next door was 12 Grimmauld Place, where Sirius still refused to sleep.

"Tonks?"

They hadn't yet found their other fallen friends, but the Potters said the Prewetts lived around the corner, and Sirius got a particular glint in his eye when he mentioned he knew where to find Marlene McKinnon's house.

"Tonks!"

"Remus?"

She appeared on the porch, eyes bleary and hair piled up on her head. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and he knew she'd been crying. There was much to cry for: the loss of their son (though their son had lived, and that should have been something to celebrate), the loss of their lives, the broken world they'd left behind.

"Tonks." He was pointing.

She followed his finger and looked at the sky. "Full moon."

He nodded. "Look at me. Human. Not a monster anymore."

She narrowed her eyes. "You were never a monster."

"I was."

She didn't say anything.

"It's beautiful," he said.

She slipped her hand into his, lacing their long, cold, and decidedly human fingers together. "Do you think he's looking at the moon?"

"Teddy?"

She nodded.

"I hope he's asleep. It's nearly eleven."

Tonks smiled. "I've always liked the moon." He could see tears building in her eyes. "Do you think he'll like the moon someday?"

He kissed her forehead. "How could he not?"

"Do you think he'll hate us?"

"For dying? Or for giving him such odd genetics?"

She laughed, and he felt such relief from the sound that he nearly forgot they were dead. "I meant for leaving my mother in charge of him, actually."

His turn to laugh, now, and she squeezed his hand. "Your mother isn't so bad."

Tonks raised her eyebrows. "She named me Nymphadora."

"I like your name."

Tonks was quiet for a moment. "D'you think he'll hate us for naming him Teddy? What if the other kids are mean to him?"

"Why would they be mean to him?"

"What if—I dunno. What if they call him Teddy Bear?"

"I promise you, Nymphadora." He stretched out the syllables in her name, and she rolled her eyes. "Nobody is going to be foolish enough to make fun of a boy who can change his fingernails into talons and claw them apart."

Tonks gasped. "D'you think he'll be violent?"

"Of course he won't." He turned his gaze back to the moon. "Although, his father is a werewolf."

Tonks rocked up on her toes and kissed Remus' cheek. "Was a werewolf," she said. "Look at the moon. Look at you. Not a monster anymore. Just a man."

He smiled slightly. "I struggled with it for thirty years—more than that. Who am I? What am I? Who is the monster and who is the man?"

"Easy." Tonks tugged him toward the rocking chairs on the porch and sat down. "The monster was Greyback."

He sat beside her, never letting go of her hand. "It's odd, isn't it," he said as he began to rock. "Feeling safe, I mean."

"If you need more danger in your life, I can always morph my face to look like Snape's while we're sleeping."

He felt his face twist with horror, and she laughed.

"And the truth comes out," he said, shaking his head. "You were the real monster all along."

The moon shone down upon their clasped hands, and they faded off into silence as they watched the sky.

"Remus?"

"Yes, my monstrous wife?"

She tightened her hold on his hand. "Careful, or you'll wake up beside Dumbledore tomorrow."

The noise of disgust in the back of his throat shocked even him, and she laughed until tears spilled out of her eyes.

"Remus."

"Tonks."

She tilted her head back until she was fully illuminated by the moon. "I'm happy."