'Til Death Do Us Part
Summary- The missing parts of the Deathly Hallows concerning Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks. A fan's tribute. Spoilers, obviously. Please R & R.
AN- Ship has resurfaced. Remus & Tonks, fellow shippers, this is for you.
Rated T for brief language and mature themes.
In the dead of night, inside a tiny, poorly lit chapel on the outskirts of London, three people gathered in shadows before the pew.
"Do you, Remus Lupin, take this woman, to be your wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do you part?" The old preacher wheezed solemnly the words he had spoken so many times, he had ages ago committed them to memory.
"I do," Remus said lowly, his eyes never leaving his betrothed.
"And do you, Nymphadora Tonks, take this man, to be your husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do you part?"
"I do," breathed Tonks, silent tears falling from her eyes, visible through the makeshift veil that Ginny had made. She'd always dreamed of the day she got married, never imagining it would be as rushed or as secret as this. She also never imagined getting proposed to the day she told her boyfriend of mere weeks that she was pregnant.
Still, tradition hadn't gone completely by the wayside. They had something old; her sparkling wedding ring that had been past down through generations of Lupin's, and something new, her veil. They had something borrowed; time, and something blue, her hair.
"I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride," the wizened preacher smiled down at them expectantly.
Remus lifted her veil and kissed her very tenderly. Several moments later, they thanked the man and left the church, fearing the protective spells they cast wouldn't hold for much longer.
A myriad of emotions churned in Lupin. He loved her so much, maybe more than he had ever loved anyone, and yet he hated himself for condemning her to a life as an outcast, a life she'd all too readily accepted. But that wasn't the worst of it. The child, the child! What would become of it? How could they have been so careless? They were pregnant, in the middle of a war, with a baby most likely to be contaminated with his disease.
Remus knew they had rushed to the altar, but after finding out she was expecting, he felt he ought to step up and do the right thing. He did love her so, and wanted to be with her and happy, but eventually his outlandish sense of guilt overruled all.
In the weeks that followed, his self-loathing grew as he witnessed her parent's grief at their union. They did not approve. He has been fool enough to think that they could, given their daughters outlook. They met the news that they were in-laws and grandparents-to-be with shock and bereavement. How could he have allowed himself to expect anything else? He was a werewolf! How dare he think he could marry and conceive with anyone, let alone Tonks, who was so innocent, so pure, and so perfect and beautiful. He had virtually destroyed her life.
His hate of himself became so all consuming and overwhelming, he found he couldn't stand to look at her anymore, to look into the eyes of the woman who's life he had ruined. He couldn't comprehend how those eyes could look back at him with love and hope, and finally, he could bear it no longer.
One night, he packed his things and headed for the door. She confronted him, confused and asking why. Merlin, she was so young and naive. His anguish peeking, he couldn't even look at her.
"Get yourself to your parents house and stay there," he muttered angrily.
"Remus, what...?" Tonks was utterly confounded. She thought they were happy. No, the world didn't approve, but sod the world, they loved each other!
"What about our vows, Remus! What about until death do us part? Didn't you mean that?"
"I said get yourself to your parents house and stay there!" he roared, summoning up the last of his strength, he pushed her out of his way and stormed out the door, her sobs hounding his every step. In a pop, he was gone, leaving Tonks on her knees, crying hysterically.
Shortly after, Lupin had a changing confrontation with Harry. He'd called him a coward for leaving his wife and child, and his words haunted him as much as the sound of Tonk's heart-breaking wails. It forced himself to take a finely focused view of himself and what he had done. Harry's accusation of cowardice, however hard it was to hear, brought a tremendous amount of clarity to his mind.
He married Tonks, and they were going to have a baby. He thought he was doing her a favor by leaving, thinking it would take the sting out of her new stigma. He was forced to see that he had not saved her, he had abandoned her when she needed him the most. In this dangerous time, stigma didn't really matter, everyone was in danger. What mattered was that he was there to defend his family to the last, as James had done, and as any decent man would do.
More ashamed at himself than he had even been, he decided that going back to her would be the right thing. He apparated to her parent's house, entered the protective barrier, and knocked on the door. If he'd had his tail that night, it would have been between his legs.
To his deep chagrin, Mr. Tonks answered the door.
"YOU!!" Roared Ted Tonks. "What are you doing back her, then? Come to bring my daughter more misery?"
"Please sir, I wish to speak to my wife," he managed to say with some degree of dignity. Remus was spared further confrontation because Tonks, alerted by her father's yells, had come to the door.
"Remus? What are you doing here?" Lupin felt another stab of shame when he saw her reddened eyes looking balefully up to him.
Ted Tonks grunted loudly and shifted aside. "Make it quick, Lupin. Then be on your way."
"Dora, I'm so sorry. I was wrong for leaving you. I thought that you would have a better life without me, but I can't let you go. Please, come back with me, I promise to make it up to you. I promise to never leave you again," he said quite earnestly. Still, her puffy eyes narrowed into judgmental little slits that Molly Weasley would have been proud of, and before he knew she'd drawn her arm back, she punched him as hard as she could muster in his gut.
He fell to the floor of the doorway, wheezing.
"That was for leaving me. And this," she said, yanking him up by his collar, "is for coming back."
He braced himself for another blow, but none came, and he had a moment to wonder why her voice had gone all soft before her realized she was drawing in to kiss him.
He wrapped his arms around her, his ribcage panging horribly, he kissed her back. "Dora, I love you. I've been an ass. I can't ask that you forgive me, but please come back with me? I want to be the one who keeps you safe, who keeps us," he placed a hand gently on her growing womb, "safe." He kissed her again. Merlin, he missed kissing her. He missed her presence like an amputee missed their limb, yet he didn't realize it until he had her back.
To his fortune, she agreed to return with him to the modest home he had procured.
When, in the history of time, had two people known such happiness in the eye of a hurricane? When Remus was not doing work for the Order (he had insisted she stay home and out of danger, and her protests diminished as her belly grew large) he was home with her.
At home with his wife. His inner demons defeated, he at last knew the utmost breadth and depth of contentment.
He remembered the words of the sage Rabindranath Tagore:
"I slept and dreamt that life was joy
I woke and saw that life was service
I acted and behold, service was joy."
Remus desired nothing but to serve his family until his dying day. Dying. It could not be avoided, even in their new bliss, the war outside was bound to creep in.
Remus came home one day to find his wife waiting for him. She seized the front of his robes and bent her head low against his chest, tears cascading down. He knew why, he'd gotten the news himself, but hoped that it would be him who told her, so he could be as gentle as possible. Unfortunately, she'd gotten an owl. He hated the though of her finding out all alone.
He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. "My father, my father," she sobbed.
"I know, darling," he whispered, stoking her dark purple hair. He bade her to remain calm, to think of the baby growing inside her. They sat on the couch and he held he while she cried, her tears flowing softly until dawn.
It is a shame that Ted Tonks did not live to see his only daughter give birth to his only grandchild.
Remus wanted her to go to St. Mungo's, where surely the healers would give her the best of care, but Mr. Weasley was able to convince him that it would be a grave mistake. The hospital was without mercy, under the watch of the tainted Ministry, and they would surely be looking for them. Torment dug it's dirty nails into him as he struggled, watching his beloved wife rack with contractions.
They had apparated to the burrow, where Molly, a decent midwife, having seven children of her own, oversaw her labor. Sweat beaded on Tonk's furrowed brow while Molly murmured charms and spells, she holding one hand, and Remus the other.
"Push, now, sweetheart, you can do it! It's going to be alright, you're doing great!" Molly encouraged. Her face shining with determination, Lupin pale at her side, she pushed with all her might, knowing the pain that all mothers must know. She did not cry, but strained moans and grunts escaped through her clenched teeth.
"That's it now, dear, keep pushing, I can see the head!" Molly exclaimed. She'd moved between Tonk's knees, ready to deliver the child. "Push, push!"
"You can do it, darling, keep pushing!" Remus prompted, parroting Molly and feeling rather faint, but as determined as his wife.
With a final cry, and a bone-crunching squeeze to Remus's hand, their child was born.
"Is it ok?" She panted. "What is it?"
Molly's kind face broke out into a heartwarming smile. "It's a boy! A beautiful baby boy!" She took the child into her arms, casting cleansing and examining spells on him, and a healing spell on Tonks. "He's perfect, dears, he's perfectly healthy." She cooed, looking down with love unto the newborn.
"Can I hold him?" Remus asked, desperate and hungry to have his son in his arms at last. The baby let out a soft cry as she handed him to Remus. It was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. He held their son in front of her, her pink hair plastered to her forehead, he wiped it out of the way.
"Look, Dora, look at the beautiful life we made." Tonks moaned and stroked her sons tuft of green hair.
"Hullo, you. So nice to see you at last. Did you have fun, kicking around inside of Mummy? Let me hold him, Remus. Merlin. I love you," she whispered to her new son. "I love you." She paused. A son. They had already chosen a name for a boy. "Teddy," she murmured.
"You did great, Dora, I love you," Remus emitted, kissing her face, the colour returning to his own.
He remembered again, the words of the sage Tagore:
"You feel good not because the world is right, but your world is right because you feel good."
It was the happiest day of his life. A happiness too quickly overshadowed.
The night of the Battle of Hogwarts, he ordered her to stay home. When she scoffed at this, he begged her.
"Please, Dora, for the sake of our child, stay here! Stay away from it! I must go...I'll be back as soon as I can!" With a final kiss goodbye to his infant son and worried wife, he left to go fight.
Following instructions had always been her weak point, and she would be damned if she was going to let her husband go and fight with out joining the fray. She was, after all, an Auror, and Mad-Eye Moody's protege. She couldn't let his memory down. Seeing her son safely into the care of his grandmother, whom however disapproving she was before, melted at the sight of little Teddy.
"He'll be ok, won't he Mum?" Tonks cast a worried look over her child, and kissed him for the last time, his hair turned pink and he giggled.
"I'll protected him unto death. Go my child, do what you must." Andromeda gave her daughter one last, tight hug.
"Goodbye, Mum. I love you." Pop.
Tonks apparated inside the Hogs Head and crawled through the passageway to the Room of Requirement. "Oy! Tonks?" Was the greeting she got from Ginny Weasley, who had seen Lupin dueling with Dolohov, but not since. Her words that she was sure he was ok rang hallow, and she ran after him.
Many tortured minutes later, she found him atop Gryffindor tower, battling Dolohov and Greyback alone and losing.
"NOOOO!" She screamed, launching herself into the fray, blasting spells at them.
"Ha, Lupin, here's your bitch, come to rescue you," sneered Greyback. "Let me kill her, while he watches," he laughed, and raised his wand.
A jet of searing green light was fired, aimed at her chest, but Remus pushed her out of the way. The curse hit him squarely in the head.
He fell hard unto the stone floor of the castle tower, the light gone from his unseeing eyes.
"NOOOOOOO!!!" She screamed, her horror renting the blackened sky.
Moments later, she joined her husband.
In another world, she met him.
"What is this place?" She asked to herself, feeling her naked body come to consciousness.
"I think...I think it is eternity," Remus answered, also naked, placing a hand on his wife's shoulder.
And death, like life, is what you make of it. They looked into each other's eyes and the nameless grey fog that surrounded them changed. The sun came out of nowhere, shining bright, yellow, and warm all around them. A grass-covered ground, lush and green, appeared beneath their bare feet, sprouting millions of colourful, fragrant flowers. Melodic songbirds flew through the air, chirping clear and happy.
"What is this place?" She repeated her eyes wide.
"It's heaven Dora. I guess, there was part of our vows that I didn't quite mean."
"What part is that?"
"Till death do us part," he spoke, as a world of unendangered and eternal happiness and bliss erupted all around them. "We are together still."
He took his wife's hand and looked into her unchanging brown eyes. She ran a hand through her own natural brown hair and stared back at him. His body, which was previously a canopy of deep, rough scars was now completely smooth. The thick red scar on his shoulder, were Fenir has bit him, was gone without a trace. His hair was also brown, the silver streaks were absent. His face, free of premature lines, broke into a wide smile, as did hers. He kissed her.
And they lived there in brightness and joy, without cold, or hunger, or sorrow forever.
AN- Last line paraphrased from Hans Christian Anderson.
There is some funny thing about saying you will never do something again that makes you bound to repeat it. I know I said I wasn't going to do anymore RL/NT, but understand that I didn't want to write this, I NEEDED to write this. I cried and cried when I found out what happened to my two favorite characters. Hope you liked it, and even more, I hope I did their memory justice. Rest in peace, my fictional loves.