Fingerprints still burn hot on Remus Lupin's flesh. Carefully lain imprints by long fingers that will never again run along his skin, making him shiver in their fiery wake. The heat of the body that should lie next to him is gone. Cascades of silky black hair and the laughing intelligence of molten silver eyes both toxic and enthralling are lost. Whispers of sweet nonsense muttered in the middle of the night while the wolf howls restlessly inside him will never again be spoken.
It is not grief that Remus feels; it is emptiness. Where there was once a heart there is no more. The thief has taken it behind the whispering veil where the man knows he cannot tread; the wolf does not care. The wolf wants its mate; it does not understand. But the man does. The emptiness will plague him for the rest of his life. The wolf inside him tears at his soul. It wants its mate.
The girl, Tonks, wants him. She is far too young; too pure: untainted. But she does not care. And neither does the wolf. The wolf wants its mate. Her feminine form subtly alters. Her short hair grows and darkens. Eyes flash silver in a face carefully molded into a vague likeness of the other. She knows what he wants, knows what the wolf wants, and offers it to him freely. The wolf takes what it is offered. The wolf does not understand. But the girl does.
And so does the man.