Chapter 1 - Memory
Nymphadora Tonks looked up at the clock in her room as she finished getting ready for the Order of the Phoenix reunion. She knew they would be late if they didn't leave soon.
Albus Dumbledore had sent a memo to Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody today requesting the presence of himself, Kingsley Shacklebolt and her at her cousin Sirius' home that night.
Tonks had already been there this afternoon to pick up her daughters from Sirius care to come home and get them ready for the night. Sirius had offered for her and the girls to stay the night after the party knowing that the girls would probably have already fallen asleep by the end of the night.
Tonks was pulled from her thoughts of the day when she heard a bang come from her five year olds room. She rushed down the hall and into the room to find both of her girls sitting on the floor and a bookshelf laying in front of them, books strewn all over the floor.
"What happened?" Tonks asked annoyed but also relieved that neither of her children were hurt.
"We were pretending that the floor was lava and I leant on it and it fell."
Tonks shook her head at the five year old, she was just as clumsy as she had been at her daughter's age. Tonks hugged her girls, just glad that they were both okay. She lifted the bookshelf back up and decided she would get a bracket the next day to attach the back of the bookshelf to the wall so that this wouldn't happen again.
Tonks looked at the clock in the room and realised that they were now running late. She sighed and helped her girls finish getting ready.
They were half an hour late by the time they left the house and headed to 12 Grimmauld Place, Tonks was glad that they only lived up the road otherwise they would have had to apparate to get there. She and the girls enjoyed the walk which they took daily to get to the house.
Tonks looked around making sure that the coast was clear before walking up the steps to the front door. She didn't bother to knock, instead grabbing her key from her jeans pocket and opening the door.
"Tonksy, about time you showed up, I missed you," Sirius called as he approached them.
Tonks laughed, "you saw me two hours ago."
"Yeah but still," Sirius hesitated, "um Remus is here, he uh he's got some news."
Tonks nodded and followed her cousin, her girls in tow, to the upstairs sitting room. Tonks noticed that they were the last to arrive as she scanned the room.
"Tonks!" Lily said excitedly as she rushed forward to hug her best friend.
Tonks hugged Lily back. They hadn't seen each other in over three weeks as James had taken his family away for the school holidays.
"How have you been?" Lily asked Tonks.
"I've been good. Mackenzie has been loving helping Sirius with the cars, of course she just sits in the driver's seat and turns the key to check the engines but she loves it. Charlotte has been trying to help me bake lately, she thinks it's funny and always licks the bowl clean when I'm finished. Work has actually been slow, you'd think with You Know Who being returned that there would be more chaos but there hasn't really been any," Tonks explained.
"Weird. Sirius obviously loves having Kenzie help though, he hasn't stopped talking about the girls since we got here," Lily started, her and Tonks laughed, "Charlie is so much like Amy, she did the same things at her age, finding everything funny and licking the bowl clean no matter the situation."
They both laughed at the memories.
"How was Hawaii?" Tonks asked Lily.
"It was gorgeous! We had so much fun. Harry moped for the first few days because he missed his friends but he ended up getting over it. He taught Lucas how to swim and he did archery with Amy. We all took advantage of the spa getting massages, manicures, pedicures, facials etcetera. It was great to be able to do Muggle things for a few weeks without having to think about the Wizarding World," Lily explained.
"It sounds amazing," Tonks responded.
"It was pretty good," James said as he and the kids came over to them.
Tonks smiled and hugged James, "so did you get a facial mr manly man," Tonks teased.
James looked around, clearly making sure that Sirius wasn't around before he spoke, "yes and I have to say I wouldn't mind getting one again."
"James getting a facial, Lily please tell me you got a picture of that," a voice behind them spoke as he approached.
They all turned around and saw Remus Lupin approaching them. James and Lily looked at Tonks to see how she would react.
Tonks simply smiled at him, "it's good to see you Remus. How are you?"
It had been over a year since they had been in the same room together, Remus had moved to America insisting that he needed time to find himself. The last time they had seen each other Tonks had told Remus that she loved him and had never stopped loving him from the moment they had ended their relationship fourteen years ago. Remus had said that he loved her too but they could never work because of his lycanthropy and he had left.
"I've been pretty good actually," Remus started with a smile, "I'm actually getting married."
Harry took this as his queue to get Amy, Lucas, Kenzie and Charlie out of the room. Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Fred and George saw them and decided to follow.
Lily looked nervously at her best friend and James looked around for Sirius, when he spotted him he motioned for Sirius to join them. Sirius saw Tonks frown before quickly changing to a smile and he knew that Remus had just dropped the bombshell and he excused himself from his conversation with Molly Weasley and walked over to his friends.
"Congratulations," Tonks said as she displayed a smile and gave him a quick hug.
Sirius took that moment to call the room to order as he saw Tonks smile falter and her demeanor change.
"Well let me welcome you all here for our first meeting for the new Order of the Phoenix. Welcome back to our original members, it's great to see you all again, and welcome to all of you newbies, make us proud," Sirius and everyone laughed at this before Sirius made a decision, "I would also like to take this time to congratulate my good friend Remus Lupin, who most of you know, on his recent engagement. Alexandra is a lucky girl," at this a young woman approached Remus and he wrapped his arm around her waist.
Everyone in the room clapped and called out their congratulations to the couple.
Tonks took that moment to slip out of the room. Only Lily and Molly noticed her leave, they followed her when they could tell that no one would notice their disappearance.
They walked out into the hall and found Tonks leaning her back against a wall a few feet away. She had her head in her hands.
"Tonks, are you okay?" Lily asked as they approached her.
Tonks took a deep breath and looked up at her friends, her eyes were full of hurt.
"Tonks dear, he isn't worth this. You told him how you felt and he left. We know you were hoping he would come back for you. Now it's time for you to focus all of your attention on the girls and not worry yourself over him," Molly said the last word bitterly. She knew just as well as Lily the love that Tonks has for Remus.
"The last thing that Jack said to me before he went to find Bellatrix was that I had to tell Remus how I felt. The entire time we were together he knew that he wasn't my true love but that I loved him with all of my heart. I knew that I wasn't Jack's true love but that he loved me with all of his heart. We knew this from the moment we met but we were both sick of not getting our happy endings with the ones we wanted and we took the plunge together. We had said that if the time came where we could get our dreams with the ones we want that we would part ways and still be friends. When Kenzie came along we promised that whether we were together or apart we wouldn't miss anything and the same with Charlie. When he died I sent a letter to Jack's true love to tell her that he had died and to tell her how much he had loved her, of course without giving away our world. She sent me a letter in return saying that she hoped that I got my true love before it was too late because she regretted not having her time with Jack. Now my true love has found someone else and I don't know what I'm supposed to do," Tonks said, her voice breaking at points.
Molly and Lily didn't know what to say at this revelation.
They heard laughter coming from the room across the hall and decided to go and investigate to relieve the tension filled air.
In said room were the children.
Fred and George were allowed to use magic at home now so they were taking advantage of it to bring joy to their family both blood and non blood related.
Tonks, Lily and Molly stood in the doorway as they watched Fred levitate a 'sleeping' George on his bed towards the roof, they smiled genuine smiles as they watched. The kids were all laughing as George 'woke up' and hit his head on the roof and shrieked from 'shock'. Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione usually didn't laugh at the twins antics but they allowed themselves to this time knowing that the younger kids were enjoying it.
The three women decided to leave the kids and get back to the party.
Remus spotted them re-enter and decided he should probably talk to Tonks about what had happened since the last time they were together.
Tonks saw Remus walking towards her and she quickly walked over to Kingsley and Mad-Eye, "start engaging me in deep conversation please, I can't talk to him right now."
Kingsley and Mad-Eye noticed Remus and pretended to be talking about important things with Tonks not wanting Remus to have another chance to break her heart again. Mad-Eye was Tonks mentor and he saw her as a daughter and protected her as such. Kingsley was like a brother to Tonks and he protected her like an older brother looks after his little sister. Together the three were a mismatched family.
Remus noticed that they were deep in some sort of conversation so he walked away leaving them to it and deciding he would talk to Tonks later.
By 11:45pm everyone had either left or crashed somewhere in the house.
Remus never got to talk to Tonks because she had disappeared at 10:15pm and not been seen since. He and Alexandra said goodbye to Sirius, Lily and James who were the last ones left in the room and then left. The Weasley's had all gone to the bedrooms that Sirius had offered them earlier that day and everyone else had left.
Tonks was in the largest room on the fourth floor of the house, there were only three rooms up there, Tonks', Sirius' and Buckbeak's. She was sleeping on one side of the bed with her girls sleeping on her other side. The only difference was that she wasn't asleep and her daughters were.
The clock chimed midnight and Tonks climbed out of bed, careful not to stir her babies and walked to the window seat. She sat and looked out onto the street. She watched as Remus and his fiance walked away from the house. Everything was quiet, the only sound was the gentle snoring of Mackenzie and Charlotte. Tonks watched as the lights of the street lamps flickered.
Tonks thought back to that fateful night that Remus broke her heart for the first time. It was a week after Voldemort had attacked the Potter's and Remus had invited her to dinner after work saying that he wants to talk to her. Tonks had been looking forward to it and gotten all dressed up. She was ready early for the first time since their very first date and she had sat on her couch for over an hour in anticipation for her night out with her amazing boyfriend.
Remus had arrived right on time, the only difference from their previous dates was that he hadn't bought her flowers or chocolates. Tonks had found this strange but she hadn't questioned it, she was just glad that he wanted to spend time with her.
They had gone to the restaurant and only ordered a main meal, Remus had said that he wanted to talk elsewhere after they had enjoyed a meal. Tonks hadn't questioned this either, thinking that he wanted to ask her something important that they had talked about a few times.
After their meal they had gone for a walk around the park near Tonks apartment. Tonks had thought 'this is it, this is the moment Remus is going to ask me to marry him'. Remus had other plans though and had instead talked about how he cared for her but that it was too dangerous for them to be together. He had told her that as a werewolf her wouldn't be able to get a decent job to provide for her, he had said that he already could barely afford to look after himself. He had told her how dangerous he was because he was a werewolf and how people would treat her differently if they knew. He told her that she would be shunned and probably be kicked out of her auror training, she was only a month away from being fully qualified and even then she could lose her job if people knew she was with him. He had told her that he would never be able to give her a family like she had always wanted because he was terrified that he could pass on his disease to potential children.
Tonks had just stood there in shock. She had cried and shouted that she didn't care more times than she could count. It didn't change a thing.
Remus had done the right thing by taking her home and then told her that he hoped they could still be friends but anything more than that was off of the table.
Tonks sighed, what had changed? Sure it had been fourteen years but only last year he fed her the exact same lines and now he's engaged to some Muggle?! What had happened between the last time that they talked and today?
Just as Tonks was about to use her mobile phone to call him it began to vibrate rapidly, indicating a call. Tonks was glad she had remembered to put it on silent with the girls sleeping in her room.
Tonks quickly grabbed her phone off of the bedside table worried that the noise of the vibration against the table would wake the girls.
"Hello?" Tonks whispered into the device.
