Disclaimer: Not mine.
Even Better
Andromeda spots him in Diagon Alley one day, nearly eight years after what he mentally refers to as "That Night."
"Remus," she greets him warmly, matronly, almost, and he doesn't even have to remind himself that she has a daughter. He has gotten old, but he hasn't grown up, not in the right ways, and she is a living reminder that time does pass. That people move on.
"Andromeda," he greets her back, and tries not to notice the way her eyes linger on his threadbare cloak, the circles under his eyes. She invites him to tea and he accepts, reluctantly, gratefully. He hasn't had a square meal in a few days.
The house that she shares with Ted is small, but cozy, and she makes a show of bustling around to make him tea. She is proud, he realizes, of her small victories, her independence. Her security shows in the non-magical way she brews the tea, in the pictures on the mantle, half of which are frozen in place.
"How have you been, Remus?" she starts, and she smiles to let him know that her concern is genuine.
"Good, I've been tutoring…" he mumbles, and thinks of his shabby suitcase with its peeling letters, of the families that have kicked him out when he tells them what he is.
"Mm," she murmurs, and surveys him over the rim of her teacup. Her eyes are dreadfully like Sirius's, and he forces himself to look away, forces himself back to reality, however terrible it might be. In the first year after, he had to do this three or four times a day. Now, it's mostly in the mornings, in the twilight time between sleeping and waking, when every bit of him wants to believe that it was all just a bad dream.
They hem and haw over the weather, over new Ministry appointments. Andromeda voices concerns that her daughter, Nymphadora—Remus thinks that maybe Andromeda hasn't given up on the whole pureblood thing completely—is considering joining the Aurors.
"She's in a spot of trouble, actually—the things she and that Charlie Weasley get up to!—and I've made her come home for Easter hols. She's due any minute, in fact—"
As if on cue, the fireplace suddenly blares to life and a teenage girl with bright yellow hair and trunk in hand comes spinning into view.
"Dora!" her mother cries, and leaps up to embrace her. Remus shifts uncomfortably in his seat as the girl eyes him over her mother's shoulder. "Oh… Dear, this is Mr. Lupin. He's a… he's an old friend."
Nymphadora nods stiffly at him and then tell her mother that she is going to her room to unpack. Her trunk bumps on each step as she drags it upstairs.
Andromeda falters. "She's not usually this rude… Probably just vexed because she doesn't get to spend the holiday with her friends…" But she frowns and excuses herself to get more tea, and Remus wonders at this picture of domestic tranquility, and whether peace is always just another war.
He gives a start. The girl is back in the room, arms crossed, looking at him sullenly. They stare at each other.
"I like your hair," he offers awkwardly. It's even true. The yellow is disconcerting at first, but on closer inspection, it brings out the light in her eyes, the rosiness in her cheeks. He wonders if she dyed it herself, using some sort of potion, or if a friend transfigured it for her. It's too pretty to be the result of a cruel joke; he remembers when Sirius and James hexed the whole Slytherin Quidditch team to have pink hair, it was hideous, and they were in trouble for weeks…
Sirius again, the perpetual specter.
"Really?" There's a cold edge in her voice. "You don't think it'd look better like this?"
She scrunches up her face, as if in deep concentration, and her hair turns a bright, shocking pink.
Remus tries to hide his surprise: Andromeda hasn't mentioned that her daughter is a Metamorphmagus.
Apparently, he doesn't do well enough, because her expression turns, if possible, colder.
"Freaky, huh? And dangerous, too, because I could turn into anyone, without even using Polyjuice Potion, and you wouldn't even know it. I could sneak into the fucking Ministry of Magic and steal all those precious state secrets—I'm a real threat to national security. Honestly, I don't know why I wasn't registered and tagged years ago…"
She pauses for breath and eyes him again. Remus is frozen in his seat.
"And you're with them, right? 'An old friend…' If that isn't code for one of Mum's old pureblood pals, I don't know what is. Well I hate to break it to you, Mr. Lupin, but she isn't quite your little Black princess anymore, or haven't you heard? I'm a half-blood, and a half-breed, too, and I don't need your judgment or your rules—"
"I'm a werewolf." The words come out of nowhere, startling even him. He hasn't voluntarily made that admission in years, not since James and Peter and Sirius…
"A what?" she says in a completely different voice. There's shock, and pity. Fear, yes, but laced with a touch of—or does he imagine it—understanding?
"A werewolf," he says clearly. It's easier than he expects. "And I'm not a pureblood. The way I know your mother—well, it's complicated…"
She nods and sinks into a chair by the fire, staring blankly. Andromeda bustles back in with the tea. Remus thanks her as she passes him a cup.
"Andromeda," he says briskly, all awkwardness gone. "What do you think of the new proposal for stricter regulation and control of half-breeds?"
Andromeda looks at him in surprise, warily glances at Nymphadora, notes the change in hair color, and looks back at him, a nearly grateful expression on her face.
"Well, it's complete rubbish of course. That Umbridge witch is a hag… just veiled racism, and if that can pass in the Ministry in this day and age, what in the world did we fight the last war for…"
They pass the next hour comfortably on this topic, Nymphadora even chiming in with references to past ordinances and statutes, always managing to bring it somehow back around to the Aurors.
At half-past four, Andromeda checks her watch.
"Well, I must dash—told Mrs. Dearborn I'd help her prune her Shrivelfig. I trust you can show Mr. Lupin the way out, Nymphadora?"
"Yes, Mum." There is a touch of irony to her tone, but no more than an average teenager when speaking to a parent. Remus bites back a smile.
He fastens his cloak as Andromeda spins into the flames in the fireplace, and Nymphadora walks him to the door.
"Mr. Lupin…" she begins, her hand on the doorknob. "The way you knew my mother—you were friends with her cousin, weren't you? You knew Sirius."
He gulps, and nods. This girl has quite the way of striking him dumb.
"I remember him, you know," she says distantly, staring at the floor. "He used to come 'round to tea. Always brought me chocolate, or something from Zonko's. I think he might've mentioned you once or twice…"
She lifts her eyes. They're grey, he notices. She hasn't morphed them.
"I'm sorry about your other friends, of course, the ones that died… I just never thought that he would be the one to do something like that…"
"Neither did I," he says softly. Sirius, the recurring nightmare, daydream, ghost of a living man. And she remembers him, too, the wonderful person that he was, instead of the monster he became.
She sticks out her hand smartly. "It's been a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Lupin. I hope we'll run into each again soon, although I must warn you in advance that if I am on Auror patrol, I will not acknowledge you, and you probably won't even recognize me, so that won't really be an issue…"
Smiling, he shakes the proffered hand. "Call me Remus, then. And good luck with the Ministry… bring 'em down from within, you know…"
She smiles back and opens the door. "In that case, it's Tonks. I swear, my mother was high when she named me…"
Remus pauses on the doorstep.
"Oh, and I do."
"Do what?" Confused.
"Like your hair even better like that."
And with that he Disapparates.
A/N: Wow, this was a plot bunny that came out of nowhere. Mostly I was thinking about Remus in the time after James and Lily's deaths, and before we meet him in PoA. I assumed that he probably had to deal with a lot of demons, including the regulations put in place by the Ministry to corral half-breeds. And then I wondered if Tonks would have had an issue with those same regulations, or if she remembered Sirius at all (she accepts his innocence reasonably quickly, after all), and this was pretty much the result.
So thanks for reading. If you'd like, please leave a review. I've decided to get more serious about actually writing fiction now and again (practice for some original stuff) and I could use the feedback. Thanks!