[Author's Note]
Just if you were wondering, this takes place presumably somewhere in late OotP, possibly around January. I'm not that great at romances, but I'm hoping my humour writing takes over for that. (more detail AN at the end of the story.)
On a slightly breezy Sunday afternoon in a home so dark — so horrible, so gruelling — sat some of the bravest wizards and witches that currently occupied the Wizarding world. In the disturbing house sitting on the premises of Number 12 Grimmald Place, five members of the elusive Order of the Phoenix sat together in the drawing room talking — reminiscing. Remus Lupin and Sirius Black were sitting on the couch, both looking younger then they have been in quite a few years, while Nymphadora Tonks sat in a bright purple recliner that she happily brought from her house to make the house look, in her own words, "less of a bloody excuse for a decent house" as she promptly tripped over the repulsive troll-legged umbrella stand. Across from her sat Charlie Weasley who had arrived 3 hours earlier from Romania, needing to give Dumbledore an exclusive report. Sitting beside Charlie on a slightly comfier chair obtained Bill Weasley who was enjoying the time spent with his brother, Tonks, and two of the remaining Marauders.
The reminiscing started as soon as Tonks found a photo album brought by Remus who didn't actually want anyone other than Siruis and himself to lay eyes on. However, as they delved deeper into some of the photos, after laughing often and many sad expressions, Tonks flipped the photo of Sirius and James jumping into the Black Lake for a dare in the middle of March where the lake was no longer ice, though the air was still quite cold, to reveal a photo that promptly swept the smiles off of Tonks', Sirius', and Remus' faces.
In the photo, Remus swept a beautiful girl across the Hogwarts grounds. Her blonde hair blew in the wind as both Remus and the girl grinned broadly, for apparently no reason at all. All of a sudden, six other people came flooding into the picture, all grinning just as much as the two original occupants. James and Lily ran through, holding hands, as did Sirius with another girl. The last couple ran through laughing, though still holding hands, and immediately tripped.
"Well, who do we have here, apart from the obvious, of course?" Bill questioned, looking at the photo as it repeated itself.
"Well, let's just say two people present could burn in hell."
"Now, now, Padfoot," Remus sighed.
"Which two?" Charlie asked, seeing as everyone in the picture looked decent enough.
"Well, there is Pettigrew, for one thing."
"He's not even in that picture though...?" Charlie trailed off, questioning Sirius.
"Maybe not, but he still took the picture, so he was present. Stupid, bloody rat."
"Okay, so who's the other one?" Tonks questioned. "And who is everyone in the picture."
"Well," Remus said, clearing his throat uncomfortably, "the girl with Sirius was-"
"Kayleen," Sirius muttered.
"Er— yes," Remus said awkwardly, not completely pleased with the current topic. "And obviously, there's Lily and James. Then the two who tripped are Benjy Fenwick and Victoria Clysdale— you may have heard of Benjy... he was from the first Order. Vic was a Gryffindor, but Benjy was Ravenclaw. He hung out with us for a little in seventh year as Vic was one of our friends."
"And," Charlie said, drawing the word out, wanting to know about the woman with Remus, as Tonks clearly wanted to know, but not wanting to ask.
"Well, her name is," Remus said, pausing for a moment. "Sydney— her name is Sydney Kyes. She was the same age as us — Sirius and I, of course — but she was in Hufflepuff."
"Which directly translates into 'the biggest bloody twat who walked this horrible place we call earth.'"
"I take it you don't like her, Sirius?" Bill questioned jokingly.
"Not a single ounce."
"Care to share?" Charlie asked.
"Well, who's going to do it, Moony?" Sirius said bracingly.
"I might as well," Remus said sighing. "At least I'll tell the truth — even though it is quite ugly —because there is no doubt that you'll add on, no matter what."
"True, true."
"So, as I'm sure you've all caught on, we dated-"
"Surprisingly we got that; I'm not quite sure what it was — it was either the dancing around in the grass or the snog you guys tried to conceal behind all the other couples."
"Yes, thank you for your input, Charlie," Remus said, smiling slightly. "Anyways, we dated for a good chunk of that year — it was November, I believe. Anyways, it was almost a year later that we ended up breaking up; we dated for about ten months. My friends accepted her, while her friends... well, they didn't really like us, but whatever. I figured that it was time that I should— er, tell her the truth. She knew there was something up, but I told her she'd know eventually.
"So, one day I got the courage to tell her the truth-"
"Even though she deserved to get sucked into a magicked black hole."
"And possibly have demon fish attack her while multiple flesh-eating slugs slowly tore her eyelids off— I know Sirius. Trust me, I remember your elaborate plan and it still haunts me to this day," Remus said, chuckling softly. "Anyways, like I said, I decided to tell her the truth about my condition. She had always acted so— anti-prejudice for everything, I thought it'd be alright. But no, apparently she was anti-prejudice about everything, except dating a werewolf; understandable, I guess, but it hurt me just the same. Maybe even more because I thought she wouldn't mind. I had amazing friends who didn't care and my parents still cared for me, despite what I am. I guess my eyes just got blinded by love, and I took to many steps into the dangerous waters."
Love, Tonks thought. So he loved this woman. The woman who possibly broke his heart. Love is such a strong word, one that he daren't say, yet he used it so carelessly in that sentence about the woman who couldn't except him the way he was— he's only broken, she just needed to except that. Sure, a little dangerous, but only once a month, and yet he still takes precautions. He's just a little broken. She could feel her hair turning brown as she realized the love that he carelessly gave to a woman who threw him aside could never be projected to herself. She realized Remus couldn't love her— he probably still had feelings for the 'twat' as Sirius so heartily sais. Charlie's voice, however, brought her out of her depressing thoughts and back into the similarly depressing house.
"Wait, so you loved this woman? She sounds like a—"
"Twat," Sirius said, cutting him off promptly.
"Yes, thank you, Sirius," he chuckled. "Anyways, truthfully, she doesn't sound so charming."
"Might not sound like it now, after what we told you, but she actually was quite charming," Remus answered. "But no. I didn't love her."
"Now I'm just confused," Bill said.
"I told her I loved her, but I think it was just an illusion. Something that was so projected into my brain. I was delusional, and I went with it, not thinking about the consequences. You don't understand the position I was in, with my friends surrounding me. On one side I had Lily and James who were meant for each other— soul mates, if you will. Everyone knew they'd get together, just no one was quite sure when. And there was Sirius and Kayleen— an outsider could look at the two of them and realize that they were born for each other... even though the glares that they sent to each other occasionally were slightly terrifying. They had a rather scary love-hate relationship where it was nerve racking to get in between the two of them.
"Then there was Vic and Benjy," Remus said chuckling. "They were head-over-heels for each other— metaphorically and literally as you can see from the picture. Much like Nymphadora here, Vic wasn't quite sturdy on her feet at the beast of times. The way they looked at each other was breath taking, even if you weren't one of the ones in that relationship. It contained so much intensity; everyone knew they were going to marry each other one day. Then there was me, with my girlfriend who everyone liked and appreciated her inspirational speeches— she didn't want to join the Order as she wasn't too great at dueling or anything. I almost felt obligated to tell her how much I loved her— even if it was a little exaggerated. However, I couldn't tell her I loved her without telling her my secret as well."
Remus sighed and wiped his hand across his face, regretting bringing the album in the first place. "Just remember," he said. "Recognize your feelings and sort out the illusions of love before you say anything or act on idiotic impulses. You can't be in love multiple times — you can only feel like you are in love many times over. True love and the emotion that hides behind the fake love looks a hell of a lot the same, but there are crucial differences. If you screw things up, much like I did, just remember there is always someone out there that does share the feeling, or will, of true love with you.
"Perhaps I should have waited to tell her the truth," Remus said, finishing his story. "Mind you, if I did wait, I would have been even more royally screwed over if I did end up falling in love with her."
"That would have sucked," Tonks murmured stupidly, gazing at Remus like she had never seen him before.
"Well, we should go," Charlie said loudly, noticing Tonks' face, dragging his brother out of the room as they both said their good-byes quickly.
"Well, I'll leave you to it, mate," Sirius said, winking, and promptly strolling out of the room.
"I feel as if that was staged," Remus commented dryly.
"I swear, I didn't—"
"I know, Dora," Remus chuckled. "I didn't think either of us meant for this afternoon to go in this direction."
"Yeah... but I don't think it was entirely worthless."
"And why would you say that?"
Tonks sighed and said, "I want to know the truth."
"What truth would that be?" Remus answered, frowning slightly.
"How many times did you love like that?" she asked in all one breath.
"Once," he said, looking directly at her as she physically deflated. "Dora, you need to learn how to rephrase your questions."
"What?" she asked, moving her eyes to meet hit, her eyebrows furrowing.
"You said like that... you never asked about the true love."
"Would your answer change?"
"No, that's only one as well."
Tonks stood up quickly, narrowed her eyes, and said, "Why don't you just stop. You're already far behind, I don't think you'll ever catch up."
Remus stood up and moved swiftly towards her, blocking off her escape.
"Did I not just say you need to rephrase your questions?" he asked, chuckling. "But I'll make this easy for you — Dora, I have only been in true love once while I have only been in delusional love once, as well. Two separate occasions. Two different people... it almost feels like two different lives, but there it is. Do you understand now?"
A smile tugged at Tonks' mouth as she said, "I think so."
Remus wrapped his arms around her waist as she put her arms around his shoulders, there lips coming close to each other —
"Demon fish... black holes...?" Tonks murmured.
Remus chuckled lightly and said, "Oh, and flesh-eating slugs, crushing bones with fingers, gnawing on ligaments, and many other gruesome tactics."
"Er..."
"Yeah, we'll let Sirius tell you the details if you really want to know."
"Alright, let's go find him," Tonks said brightly, her hair turning an electric green when Remus took her hand and led the way up the stairs.
[Author's Note]
For those who read my Reading the Books series, yes that prompted this story. I wrote this on my iPod one night, but I just edited and tweaked it on the computer. But anyways, I hope you enjoyed this, and like I said earlier, I'm not the best at romances, so I winged it. You should check out my Reading the Books if you like that type of story and if you haven't read it yet. I'm still putting along on it, but we're getting there. Also, check out my other one-shots on my profile such as the one about Severus, Word so Cold, the one with a fatherly relationship of Remus/Harry titled Truth and Reason. :) Anyways, have a good day, or night, or whenever you read this, and I hope to see some... Reviews!
Fixation33 / Haley