I've been a Potter fan ever since I learned to read; I've been a Remus/Tonks fan ever since they existed. Quite recently, however, I encountered another phenomenon: Wolfstar. I was sceptical at first, but am now a real shipper. Many Wolfstar fans seem to believe that Remus/Tonks isn't realistic. I think otherwise - which is an opinion I've wanted to voice for some time now; the result is this story. It is basically retelling the books, from Remus's perspective.

Each chapter is associated with a song which inspired me a little. The song for this chapter is "Almost Lover" by A Fine Frenzy.

Enjoy :)

Hannah x

1. Luckless

- 1981

Ironically, he got the news from the Daily Prophet.
Even years later, he would think back to that night. He had been at home, completely oblivious to the world around him. He had thought about so many things, but never, never once did it occur to him that such terrible things were happening that night, just outside his door.
And he would keep thinking, he should have been there to help his friends, to die with them or at least clean the mess behind them, the way he had always done, ever since their school days...
Remus couldn't really bring himself to believe it when he read it in the newspaper.
James and Lily were dead. Sirius had betrayed them to Voldemort, he had killed Peter and was now in Azkaban. And Harry, Lily's and James's young son, had defeated Voldemort.
Nobody had cared to owl Remus the news. He had very few friends, and by the end of the night, all of them were dead or imprisoned, which was why seeing everything in the Prophet was such a shock.
At first, he didn't know what to feel. It was just too much to take in all at once. He was sitting at his breakfast table, having just eaten a bit of toast, but now he felt the urge to vomit.
All of it... everything he loved and cared for, all his life - gone in a second.
Then, his head started spinning, and he closed his eyes. Tears were running down his cheeks - tears for James and Peter, his best friends, for gentle, kind-hearted Lily and their son, who would grow up an orphan... never again would he have friends like them, good people, people who had given him, the werewolf, a chance - people who had done so much for him... and Remus remembered all those times when he had had the chance to tell them how utterly grateful he was for their friendship, for everything they'd done - he would never get a chance to thank them again, they were gone forever...
The day passed in a blur and Remus didn't do much else than cry. Some time around midday he remembered Sirius, who wasn't dead, but locked up in a cell in Azkaban; a fate, some would argue, that was worse than death.
They had, for a long time, suspected a traitor amongst their friends. James an Lily had made their plans to go into hiding secret, only one other person was supposed to know their whereabouts - and that person had been Sirius. The secret-keeper, the spy, the traitor.
And Remus couldn't help wondering if everything Sirius had told him, everything that had happened between them, had been a lie.
Sure, during the past weeks they had grown distant. They hadn't seen each other as much. James and Lily were in hiding and so was Sirius. He had only dropped by once in the last week, he had been quiet, not telling Remus much about anything. He had seemed distant and had taken his leave soon, only giving Remus a quick kiss. At the time, Remus hadn't been too suspicious. He knew Sirius was worried about James and Lily. He also knew his lover suspected him - Remus - of being the traitor. Sirius had never said anything, but Remus knew him well enough to guess what he was thinking. He hadn't been too surprised.
But now, after Lily and James were dead and Sirius had been imprisoned for their murder as well as Peter's and twelve Muggles' - now, everything was different.
Remus could have sworn at the time that Sirius was true. He would have trusted him with his life. He would never have thought that Sirius, of all people, had gone over to the dark side.
Now, it seemed that he had been wrong.

And while many, many other families, witches and wizards came out of hiding and celebrated the fall of the Dark Lord, Remus Lupin retreated even further into solitude. Only once, the day after he had gotten the news, he talked to someone.
"I'm absolutely sure Sirius was their secret-keeper", Albus Dumbledore said. "So it must be true... I didn't want to believe it either, Remus."
Remus wondered idly whether Dumbledore knew of the special relationship the werewolf had had with Sirius. It wouldn't surprise him; the old wizard saw things other people didn't, and sometimes seemed to be able to look straight into Remus's heart.
He listened to Dumbledore go on about how sorry he was for everything to have ended this way, and for Remus to have lost all his friends, and how he thought it was partly his fault. Remus couldn't help thinking that he would much rather have Voldemort in power, if that meant that James and Lily and Peter and Sirius, even Sirius, would still be here. Dumbledore was the only person he trusted, the only person who was even remotely close to him - but Remus would never describe the relationship they had as close. Dumbledore had been his headmaster for so long, he had given Remus a chance, he had been the first person who knew of his lycanthropy and actually treated him like a human being, not some kind of monster. Remus owed Dumbledore everything he had and had great respect for him, but it really didn't go beyond that.
He eventually left the headmaster with a forced smile and a muttered "Thank you"; after that, it was months, if not years, before he saw a human being again.

His routine was simple. He ate, slept, transformed into a wolf every full moon and spent the better part of the remaining month cleaning up the mess he would make. He didn't get a newspaper, he didn't care what was going on in the world. He didn't even try to get a job. Most of all, he tried to forget.
He went numb over the months from trying not to think about what had happened. Trying not to think about his friends, killed by the man he thought he'd loved. Trying not to think about Sirius. Especially not Sirius.
About one thing, he had made up his mind very soon. He was not going to visit Sirius in Azkaban. Remus didn't doubt that he really was the traitor and felt he didn't deserve to see his friend. He didn't want to ask Sirius why he had done it. He didn't want to break down in front of the Dementors, which he knew he would if he were to visit his former lover.
There were times when Remus hated Sirius so badly and bitterly that he felt himself wishing the Animagus would die the most horrible deaths of all. There were other times, when he would wake up from a dream where Sirius had pleaded with him, trying to tell him he was innocent, trying to make him believe. And every time Remus woke up from a dream like that, he would wish with all his heart that he could believe Sirius was innocent.
Remus was positive that he wasn't, but every now and then he couldn't help but wonder; every now and then, a small, hopeful What if would enter his thoughts, only to be drowned quickly by the facts.