Nymphadora Tonks slammed the door shut behind her, barely noticing the clamor made by a few falling picture frames as the entire house seemed to shake with the force of the closing door. However, that burst of anger seemed to really be the only physically violent action that she was capable of displaying because the instant the door closed she was leaning against it, forehead pressed against the junction of the white painted door frame and the cool wood of the door itself. She could remember very few times in her life before that moment that she had ever been quite that enraged, as she was a generally cheerful person not often prone to bouts of anger even in situations of immense frustration, but it seemed that one person in particular seemed to make her lose her mind totally when it came to calm, rational, or cheerful in the face of frustration. There was no single person on earth more frustrating to Nymphadora Tonks than Remus J. Lupin.
Lupin was many things, among them a patient teacher and a fellow Order member, but the chief cause of her frustration laid with his propensity for self-deprecation, and his struggle with lycanthropy. Merlin knew that she could see how he came to the first (as the second was a rather unavoidable event that had changed the course of his life forever), but even self-pity and low self-esteem had to have their limits when logic dictated that such behavior was no longer quite rational, or necessary. She was sure that playing it safe made him feel much better in the short run, never getting involved too seriously with one witch or another so that he never had to tell them his terrible secret and be faced with their loss as the truth drive them from his arms, but how happy with being alone for his entire life could one man be? It was written into the human genetic coding, after all, that the chief function in life was to survive to sexual maturity so that reproduction could happen, and the human race continued. It was wired into every being's genetics. Living along wasn't how anyone was meant to live, but yet Lupin seemed intent on forcing himself to live miserable and alone for the rest of his life when she had all but thrown herself at him.
She had, she thought with a smug smirk, gotten him to go out with her a few times and they had even dated briefly. She had known he was a werewolf before she even got involved with him, and he knew she was aware (given that they had come to know each other through work (of a sort) and his werewolf status happened to be one of the things that made him so chiefly useful at that particular time), and she had thought that going into things with both of their eyes open to the dangers and realities would have circumvented this nonsense. But no, apparently the entire thing went deeper than anyone could have imagined. Sure he dated until he could no longer keep the truth from his girlfriends, and then left the relationship, but it wasn't the telling that repelled him from having any real, lasting relationships. Rather, it was his feelings that he was unworthy of live because fo what he was. She thought the idea was utter nonsense, and had told him so. Not that it appeared to make any difference to him whatsoever.
Shakily, Tonks dropped her keys and wand on the table beside the door, tossing her coat and purse onto the sofa as she passed it on her way to her bedroom. The action diverted her brain away from her thoughts for a while, but it returned as she crossed her bedroom to seat herself at her vanity, booted feet making clomping noises on the hardwood floors.
The truth was, Tonks was madly in love with Remus, and she had thought after their few dates that she had found the one she was meant to be with. And they had continued to date, and she had only become more and more sure of her choice. She had thought about the cost of being in love with a werewolf, what that would entail were she to become his wife (as she one day wanted to be) and had decided that all the hardships that their relationship would have to endure (given the negative nature of werewolf sentiments not only in her current workplace but in the Wizarding world as a whole), but she decided that it would be well worth it if she were able to spend that time with Remus. She had also considered what being a werewolf meant for him, how it changed him from day to day, how it had changed his entire life, and how it would continue to affect him for the rest of their lives. It was nothing Tonks wasn't willing to handle, and she was confident that if he had the same willingness to try that she did, that everything would work itself out.
Of course, there was no point in her trying to make things work out if her partner in those efforts was determined to keep their relationship from ever leaving the ground. It seemed to Tonks as if every thing she did in order to make the relationship thrive Remus undid. He swore that he was a monster, that she could do better, that he would hurt her, that he didn't deserve to be happy, that it was cruel to make it seem as if things could work when they could not because he was a werewolf. He always had an argument, and Tonks had been forced to give in and beat a hasty retreat to try and salvage what was left of her shredded heart.
Not that there was any of it left to save. The behavior was frustrating, but it could be fixed, and while Tonks had left Remus end things between them (because there was no sense in refusing to allow someone to breakup with you) she never intended to stop fighting. Seeing him day to day for Order meetings and missions, however, was starting to wreak havoc on her nerves.
Tonks stared hard at her reflection in the mirror. The sight in front of her was a familiar one, although it was one she had not been accustomed to seeing in many years. As a metamorphagus, Tonks had been changing her appearance at will since the middle of her Hogwarts years, and though she did revert to her natural form every once in a while (mostly for family functions) she preferred the pink-haired appearance that she had chosen to be her normal look. However, intense frustration and the pain and loss of heartbreak and breakups had apparently shorted out her powers and she was forced to stay in her natural form for however long it took them to right themselves again. It was rather fitting, she supposed, that she look as miserable as she felt. She knew that people at work and in the Order whispered about her well being; though her pale, heart-shaped face and dark eyes were captivating on their won, her mousy brown hair just served to dull the other features until she just looked dull and mousey and miserable. Which, she supposed, she was.
This entire war was looking more and more hopeless as time went on, and Remus was still dead set on being miserable. Dumbledore was dead, with all his talk of finding love, and Remus still wanted to be alone. It was getting to be ridiculous. Didn't he see what this was doing to her? She wished she could just rage at him and make him see sense, but she had been brought up by a mother who still held somewhat to a pureblood's sense of decorum, and she didn't think she had ever raged at anyone in her life. Although, if everything else had failed, where was the harm?
A flick of her wrist had her hair styling itself into a loose twist, and a few well-placed pins secured the entire thing. She took a brief moment to look in satisfaction at her reflection (as much satisfaction as one could have with an appearance that she would have done away with in an instant if she was able to do so) before clomping back out into the hallway and towards her keys, coat, and wand. With a loud crack, she disapparated.
"Tonks, what are you doing here?" Remus asked as he opened his door and came face to face with an irate metamorphagus.
"I'm knocking some sense into you," she muttered as she shoved him aside and breezed past him into the flat that Remus called home. With very little choice, Lupin closed the door behind her and followed her into his living room.
"Can I offer you anything to drink?" he asked politely, more than a little put off by her distinct lack of manners and the odd way she was acting (which, if he admitted it was a bit arousing under the oddness).
"This really isn't a social visit, Remus," she said, trying to gather her thoughts and her wits. She had really only thought as far as the front door when she had apparated, and was now going solely on instinct, but she was also aware that at some times, instinct wasn't everything it was cracked up to be.
"Order business?" he asked, surprise showing in his tone. They had, after all, just had a meeting not too long ago, and he wouldn't have thought that anything could have come up that required that he and Tonks pair up to do something in such a short amount of time. Although, admittedly, with Dumbledore gone, the Order was looking a bit lackluster these days, so it was possible.
"Not that either," she said shortly. He said nothing, just stood there awkwardly while he attempted to process the information. She took a deep breath. "Remus, this is ridiculous. You love me, I love you, why are you so dead set on making us both miserable?" she asked, having found no better lead in to her dilemma than the blunt truth.
His eyes darted up to meet hers and then flashed down to the floor somewhere near her feet. "Dora, I've told you," he said quietly, unwilling to meet her eyes. "I'm a monster, and you deserve better than to chain yourself to someone who isn't worthy of you."
With a quiet bang, he found himself plastered to the wall that had been behind him, as Tonks advanced on him, wand drawn. He was puzzled, he hadn't even noticed her draw her wand, or even been able to see that it was within easy reaching distance, but he supposed that it was her auror training at work that had enabled her to draw it without him noticing, and it was her knowledge of spellwork that had him stuck, spread eagle, to a wall.
"Bullshit," she said visciously. "You, Remus Lupin, are no monster, and we both know it. Either you are seriously stupid to believe what you're trying to make me believe, or you're covering up for some other reason. Which is it?" she asked mercilessly. She had winced a bit when he had hit the wall, perhaps she had overpowered the blasting hex a bit, but it was also satisfying to take some of her anger out on its actual cause and speak her mind for once.
"Neither," he said, voice rising half an octave as he entertained the thought that she was truly crazy. "Tonks, this is crazy, let me down." He struggled against the spell holding him to the wall to demonstrate his point, looking around the room for something that would help him, finding nothing, before coming back to her face.
"You call yourself a monster, Remus, and yet you are the gentlest man I've ever known. You may turn into a wolf when the moon is full, but you've never hurt anyone, and are terrified by the thought that you could. That only proves further that you are not a monster. You have a disease, but you control it, it does not control you, or there would be one more Fenrir Greyback on the loose.
"However," she continued, pacing in front of him, "you are nothing like that particular werewolf. And you still are convinced that you should never be happy. It drives me crazy," she told him simply, but with a slight inflection that suddenly reminded him a bit of her aunt, Bellatrix. "You are everything good that has happened in my life, Remus," she informed him, "you are not a monster and I love you for it, despite your disease, and you love me. Why won't you let yourself be happy?" she asked. "My eyes are open fully, and the longer you try to deny it the more you seem like a jackass." Tact had never been a particularly strong suit of hers.
He found suddenly that he really couldn't object to anything she had said. He still thought she deserved better, but then again, what man didn't think that of the woman he was in love with. There was something about loving that placed the other person on a slight pedestal, and left the person placing them there always a little baffled at what thing he had done to deserve such an awesome partner. And Dumbledore would have wanted more love in the world, wasn't that what someone had said when they had first found out that he was dead? He wanted her so much that it ached sometimes, and she had just debunked all of his excuses in one go. And, if he wasn't lying to himself, he thought sometimes the only thing that had stopped him from caving to her in the first place was her acceptance of their breakup. He had seen that she wasn't happy, but she hadn't pressed the matter much and that was enough to help him stay strong.
He realized suddenly that he had been released, and that Tonks was waling away from him, her boots crunching over the remains of a glass vase that had been caught in her overpowered blasting hex and knocked to the ground. Heedless of the glass and his bare feet, he hurried after her, grabbing her by the arm and turning her around.
They stared at each other for a brief moment before she growled slightly in her throat and glared at him, tugging on his grip to resume her walk to the front door and, he assumed, disapparate. He hesitated for a moment under the obvious anger that he saw in her pale face, but then tugged her closer, ignoring the slight struggle that she put up under his grip. Without much thought about it, he pressed his lips to hers, feeling the struggle to leave die as the seconds ticked on, their lips still touching.
It seemed like ages, but then her arms were twining around his neck, one of his hands was moving to her face and the other around her waist, and she was kissing him back. For that one moment, nothing else mattered. With a primal growl, which caused her to chuckle against his lips, he picked her up, still kissing her passionately, and carried her into his bedroom.
As Tonks had discovered only moments before, there were sometimes when it was good to let the beast inside out to howl at the moon.
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...
...
If you could only see
The beast you've made of me
I held it in but now it seems you've set it running free
Screaming in the dark
I howl when we're apart
Drag my teeth across your chest to taste your beating heart
My fingers claw your skin, try to tear my way in
You are the moon that breaks the night for which I have to howl
My fingers claw your skin, try to tear my way in
You are the moon that breaks the night for which I have to howl, howl
Now there's no holding back
I'm making to attack
My blood is singing with your voice I want to pour it out
The saints can't help me now
The ropes have been unbound
I hunt for you with bloodied feet across the hallowed ground
Like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins
Uh-huh
I want to find you, tear out all your tenderness
And howl, howl
Be careful of the curse
That falls on young lovers
It starts so soft and sweet
And turns them to hunters
Hunters, hunters
Hunters, hunters
Hunters, hunters
Hunters, hunters
The fabric of your flesh
Pure as a wedding dress
Until I wrap my self inside your arms I cannot rest
The saints can't help me now
The ropes have been unbound
I hunt for you with bloodied feet across the hallowed ground, and howl
Be careful of the curse
That falls on young lovers
It starts so soft and sweet
And turn them to hunters
A man who's pure of heart
And says his prayers by night
May still become a wolf
When the autumn moon is bright
If you could only see
The beast you've made of me
I held it in but now it seems you've set it running free
The saints can't help me now
The ropes have been unbound
I hunt for you with bloodied feet across the hallowed ground