It was her fifth year as matron when she fell in love.
She supposes, later, that she should have seen it coming all along. From her first year, she had been entrusted with keeping him safe—with protecting him from himself. Every month at the full moon, he would come to her office, miserable, and she would do her best to lift his spirits. Together, they would walk to the Whomping Willow, where he would leave her, the sadness etched into his face. At seventeen, she was hardly any older than he, and he had already experienced so much pain and sadness. It was certainly not the kind of caretaking she was expecting to do as Hogwarts Nurse, but she did it. It broke her heart, but she did it.
He seemed less heartbroken the next year. He was still a werewolf, still a monster in his own mind, but he had friends to take his mind off it. Once a month he came to her and she still led him off school grounds, was always there to treat him when he came back scratched and bruised. Each month she was painstakingly wipe the blood from his arms and forehead, and he would look up at her with blue eyes shining and not be able to express his gratitude.
By third year, he was impatient with this healing. She was older now, and he was too, and he was too busy to be waiting around forever while she healed him. This saddens her, and she doesn't know why. They rarely speak, although she tries her best to get him to open up. She understands, but she doesn't accept. And all of this makes her very surprised when, just before he leaves for the summer, he comes to the hospital wing of his own accord and hugs her silently. Just that, and nothing else, and she is confused, but content.
It is becoming more obvious by their fourth year. He seems to spend more time than ever in her wing, and it is not always for himself. His friends seem to be accident prone and come in frequently with odd injuries, and he is always there, watching patiently, waiting. Looking at her with blue eyes and trying to express something. She never knows what. And anyway, she heals them all and tries not to be distracted by his eyes. She notices with a tinge of jealously that he laughs around his friends. He has never laughed around her, not once.
She finally understands the next year. The something he had always been trying to convey, the something in her own heart that made it pound every time he came in. The way her skin tingled when he unexpectedly brushed her hand with his won. She was angry with herself for being so thick. And she was angry with herself that she refused to do anything about it. She watched him, from afar, and realized that it was always going to be this way, with the two of them in separate worlds, together but never in the same moment. His wounds upon returning became fewer and fewer every month, and she irrationally wished it was due to her that he was healing.
He has just turned seventeen, and she twenty-three. When he kisses her, it is like magic in the most real sense. It is more powerful than any healing she could ever perform. It is fire in every fiber of her body, and she has to remember that she is an staff member and he is a student and they could get in trouble for this. She has to push him away.
It has been a very long seven years, and she cannot say no.
Later in the year, after this affair has gone on, he comes early on a full moon, as is his custom, and finds her laying in one of her own beds. Her face is contorted in pain. He goes to her, afraid, and she begs him to find Dumbledore, and he goes. She is crying because she knows what is happening and because she knows everything will end that night. He returns, with Dumbledore, and somehow the headmaster manages to get her to St. Mungo's, because she obviously cannot heal herself, and she feels so inadequate.
After a very long night, the nurse comes in and shuts the curtains around her.
"I've miscarried." It is not a question, and so the nurse does not try to answer her. She nods and tries to hold back her tears, irrational tears, because she knows this would have been the end of everything. This is the end of everything.
He comes in the morning, scratches on his forehead, and he sits silently at her side, her hand in his. She stares at him for a long while before she cries, and when she does cry, it is not for their child, because she has already cried herself out. It is for this man, the man she loves, and the life they will never have.
"Were you going to tell me you were pregnant?" he asks after a long while. She has shifted so he can sit on the edge of the bed, and she is torn between comfort and desire to push him away.
She isn't sure what to say. "I don't know," she says evenly. "I suppose, eventually."
The words "this is just as well, then," are on the tips of both of their tongues, but neither says it. She should have seen this coming all along.
"I'm going to join the Order, after I graduate," he says after another long silence. "I won't be able to find work, and it's war…" He breaks off and looks to her.
She finds herself momentarily unable to breathe, but when she gains her composure, she can feel the tears returning again. "I can't watch you hurt yourself anymore."
He nods heavily and looks away and won't let go of her hand. It tingles where he makes small circles with his thumb.
"I have to go," he says finally. "I have homework, and they'll be wondering where I am."
She nods and looks away, and she knows this is goodbye, and she is breaking inside, and she finally says, "Goodbye, Remus" and tries not to look at him.
He drops her hand but cups her face in his, forcing her to look into his blue eyes and see every scar on his face. He kisses her, fire in her veins, and before she can say anything he is gone.
It is only then that she realizes she has never said "I love you." And this burdens her more than anything else.
fin.
A/N: Um...angst. And I like this more than I thought I would, considering the pairing. And I was thinking about this, and these two are actually closer in age than he and Tonks were (as her age is never mentioned, I had to take some liberty with it. According to the HP wiki, she was born in the 1950's or earlier, and as he was born in 1960 and she is six or so years older than he, so she would have been born in 1954, by that). How odd.