Here is another story I had started. Since I am already working on another story, Holding it Together, updating this one may take low priority. I should still update semi-frequently though; about once a weekish. This is not connected to my other story, and will pretty much follow cannon.
I don't own Harry Potter, no matter how much I want to.
Nymphadora Tonks crept around the book shelves, looking for something anything that would help her. I've only been married to him for just shy of two months and he's already rubbing off on me! Tonks thought as she tried to find her answers in text just as she had often seen her bookish husband do. Now she knew the attraction. She wasn't quite ready to discuss her… issue with another person just yet. She just wanted to grab the book and go before anyone could see her in that section. She had gone to great lengths to avoid detection, selecting a tiny little bookstore in muggle London rather than the crowded Flourish and Blotts in Diagon Alley. Tonks supposed it was the same for muggles as it was for witches… unless throwing a werewolf into the mix complicated things.
A cough from behind her made her jump out of her skin. "Excuse me madam, do you need help finding anything?" The speaker was a kind-faced older lady, the shopkeeper, she guessed. Tonks just spluttered, trying to form a coherent sentence. "Where are the baby books?" she finally choked. The lady smiled, a knowing look on her finely wrinkled face, and lead the way.
"Here, this is the one you want." The woman handed Tonks a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting. The cover depicted a heavily pregnant woman in a rocking chair, one hand on her round belly, staring off wistfully. The mutely colored patch-work background gave the image an over-all feeling of domestic bliss. Tonks wondered at the phrasing of the title. That's a rather nonspecific way to put it, she thought, imagining if she came home to Remus that night and told him, "Sweetheart, I'm expecting." He would probably answer, "Expecting what, darling?" without even looking up from whatever he was reading.
"So, what do you think?" the clerk asked, diverting Tonks' thoughts.
"I'll take it," she answered, if only because of the title. It would be good to know what to expect, if only in one area of her life. Her world was slowly turning to chaos, and it would only get worse from here. Tonks followed the little saleslady to the counter, eyes darting around the shop for anyone she knew. She wasn't ready for anyone to find out, not yet anyway. Her eyes fell on a journal sitting on a table. It had a soft brown cover and was tied closed by gold cord wrapped around its middle. She was drawn in by the book, with its comforting leather and paper smell that reminded her so much if him. She placed it on the counter with the pregnancy book and paid for them both.
"Congratulations, dear," the lady said as she handed Tonks her purchases. Congratulations, it felt nice to hear someone say it. It made her feel like this was a normal situation; like it wasn't in the middle of a war she was neck-deep in and like her husband was not a werewolf. It felt so normal, so blessedly normal, in a world gone mad. "Thank you," she said, perhaps a bit too fervently, before leaving the little bookstore to sneak her purchases into the house without her husband seeing.
A few hours later, Tonks was sitting alone in the bed. She had stuffed the pregnancy book into the darkest corner of the mattress. She now held the journal, stroking its soft cover. She felt so alone in this, even if it was her choice to keep it a secret. The need to share was building inside her, threatening to burst out. Stroking her still-flat stomach, she picked up her quill and began to write.