Borrowed Time Part Two.

Definitely Ron Weasley, or a remarkably close version of him. Eating a bright yellow ice cream.

"Canary flavour," he said helpfully, seeing the direction of Remus' eyes. "Not sure about it yet; the fellow back there told me it was great and I think he's the sort that could talk you into anything. All he needs is loads of gold jewellery and he'd make a good second hand broom salesman. Do you want one? There's a lot I've never seen at Fortescue's – I nearly tried chicken."

"Thank you, no." Remus wondered how to phrase his next thought and decided to just go for it. "Er, what exactly are you doing here, Ron? Not that it's not always a pleasure to see you, of course."

"Well, you must have requested me." Ron took a large bite of ice cream as his sandy eyebrows knitted together in obvious surprise at Professor Lupin's obtuseness. "It'll be something to do with the word you picked, I bet."

Loyalty… An apt choice, indeed.

"It's great," Ron said indistinctly, "I've never been a guide before."

"Don't worry, I've never been a—" What the hell was he? "A … visitor before."

"I dunno really what I'm supposed to say. I'm sort of hoping that somehow Malfoy being turned into a bouncing ferret will have some profound hidden meaning for you, that'll really turn your whole life around and make you see the light. I'd kill to see all that again."

Remus burst out laughing. "I'm quite sorry I didn't get to see that myself. But," he looked at the screen, "it doesn't seem to be that exciting, I'm afraid."

"No, it is." Ron lowered his ice cream. "It's your first lesson."

Indeed it was. Ron roared with laughter as the Boggart looking exactly like Snape and wearing a lace-trimmed dress lurched towards Neville; muttered "Go on!" as Seamus tackled the shrieking banshee, and then grimaced as he himself faced the giant spider. Remus felt him tense, the long legs jerking in sympathy, as the on-screen Ron froze momentarily before bellowing: "Riddikulus!"

"Bloody hell," Ron breathed next to him. "I still hate those things."

"Yes, but you know how to deal with Boggarts."

"Yeah." Ron seemed lost in thought for a bit, staring at the screen, and watching the rest of the lesson. The screen flickered and moved on to Remus teaching Harry to conjure a Patronus, followed by Snape confronting Harry and then himself about the Marauder's Map. "I wish you'd been able to stay on," he said, after a while.

Remus felt the heat rise in his face. "I do, too."

"You never mentioned the thing with the Swelling Solution, did you?"

"No." Remus kept his expression very still in case Ron was watching.

"Good, because … well, I just meant to hit Crabbe and Goyle on the backside, to get them back for some of the things they'd done. I didn't know I'd splashed myself and how … everything swells."

"Ron," Remus started but he didn't get any further.

"Only you got me out of a right jam there," Ron said quickly, very red in the face. "If I'd bumped into anyone else – anyway, I reckon I'm here because you must need help with something. So the only thing I can say is that I'm sure you'll work it out because you worked out exactly how to help all of us back then. I need to be able to fight alongside Harry, not drag him back, and I got an Exceeds Expectations in Defence Against The Dark Arts this year, and that was because you showed me I could do it. Hermione won't admit it but she struggles sometimes with practical stuff, and she still says you're one of the best teachers she's ever had. As for Harry – well, I reckon you might have saved his life when you taught him how to Conjure a Patronus. You gave him a bit of his Dad back, too. And he saved all ours, didn't he?"

Remus tried to say something round the sudden lump in his throat and above his thudding heart about endangering them all in the first place. How that negated everything else. How Ron was touchingly naive and not seeing the bigger picture.

"I've got to go now." Ron looked at him quite fiercely, his top lip covered in yellow ice cream. "But you work it out. That's what you did in the Shrieking Shack to make us listen. I thought afterwards that I'd believed a werewolf and a murderer, and I thought I must have gone barmy. You were going to kill Pettigrew because of what he did to your friends. But I trusted you all the time, even while I was … scared to death of you. We all did. And we were right."

He disappeared into thin air as Remus stared wide-eyed at him.

After a long while, he realised that the screen and events had moved on. Or rather, they'd moved backwards, because he saw episodes from his childhood and school years. The lump in his throat returned when he saw just one evening of James, Sirius and Peter working on ways to become Animagi; the arguing and debating that went on, the risks they took in trying to transform, and how they instantly changed the subject the minute he walked in on them. He watched Peter hiding the evidence of their workings out while the other two laughed and joked, and wondered how many times they'd done this and he'd been completely unaware.

The mist swirled over the faces of the past and brought him a new one. Her eyes were far too bright and her long red hair was every which way; she was laughing at him, gesturing with the glass in her hand, and he still ached with regret for all the misunderstandings that arose from this one night.

Lily Potter in never before seen disarray. Stunningly beautiful to go with it.

"Is that where it all went wrong between you?" asked Minerva McGonagall with interest. "I always wondered but never liked to ask."

Remus had been making vague guesses as to who the third guide would be. Somehow he'd never even considered Minerva, though she's been the loyalist of colleagues and friends, both at Hogwarts and in the Order, and surprised and touched him, perhaps most of all, when she'd spoken out in the hospital wing.

The snag was, he'd never quite forgotten the fact that she'd once taught him, and it was somehow always easy to feel about twelve again in her distinctly stately presence. It had taken him forever to get used to calling her by her first name.

He offered what he knew was an embarrassed smile, took a grip of himself, and said, "Yes."

"You don't have to explain," she began, looking at him not unsympathetically through her square spectacles, but he rather thought he should make a stab at it as if there was anyone who'd understood the Marauders and that time, it was her.

"It's shortly before her wedding," he said, pushing his hair out of his eyes and feeling sweat on his brow. "She'd had a fair amount to drink and she was pulling my leg about being the next one to get married. She said Sirius would never settle down, and Peter was far too anxious to, so that left me. She said," he watched the screen for a minute, thinking how very young they'd both been, "that girls either married a good man, or the man who set their soul aflame, and that rarely, very rarely, did they find both. And she couldn't believe she had."

"Humph," Minerva snorted, whether expressing agreement or disgust, Remus wasn't entirely sure and it took him another minute to continue. The words had to be right because there was no way he was going to be disloyal to the girl who'd been his great friend and who lived on so clearly in her son.

"She said I was a good man," he said, at last. "She said, in another life …" He stopped.

"And you thought …?"

"I thought she was confessing," he said tiredly. "Now I know she was just being kind, like she always was, but once she'd said it I couldn't forget. And I felt guilty. I acted guilty because I said nothing."

He hoped – and thought – that Minerva could read between the lines, because there was no way to explain that Lily's words had released feelings he'd only been dimly aware of. For years he'd thought of her simply as 'James' Lily' and it had apparently held them securely dormant and unnoticed. Now he found himself with a head full of might have been, and could have been, and he bitterly turned his criticism upon himself. She was more attractive to him than she'd ever been, and it would have been far better for them all if he'd never known; if he'd managed to vanish what he felt upon hearing her words, and oblivate himself into the bargain.

"So you stayed away, I imagine?" Minerva's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Yes. Dumbledore was finding more and more work for me by then and I jumped at it all." Remus glanced at the screen again and saw, just as he had so many years ago, the look Lily gave him for the tiniest of seconds before she laughed and raised her glass again. Why hadn't he realised that wanting to marry someone, being in love with them, didn't stop you finding other people attractive?

What it did do, was stop you acting on those feelings, because they were meaningless in comparison. She'd realised that and couldn't have expected him not to as well.

From the stern look on her face, Minerva was reading between the lines again, and he felt compelled to add: "In time, I realised what I should have known at once; that she was still Lily, still my dear friend, and that the words of one drunken night meant less than nothing. But I think the seeds of doubt had been planted, at least in Sirius' head."

"I'm sure a certain Peter Pettigrew helped things along there no end," Minerva said tartly. "There are always several factors in these things, Remus, and there was considerable evil at work there, as well. You have no need to blame yourself."

Remus bit back an almost hysterical desire to say, "Yes, Miss."

"And now there's Nymphadora Tonks." Minerva looked at him, her eyes narrowed in thought, and obviously the thought was how best to take his breath away. "Do men marry a good woman or the one who sets their soul aflame or both?"

"They ... wonder if they were leader of the Order how they could ever willingly send her into danger." Remus looked at the screen, feeling extremely uncomfortable, because discussing his love life with his ex-teacher was almost certainly going to give him nightmares. He cleared his throat. "Which is one of several reasons why you'd be much more suitable than I am for it. You must have considered it, surely?"

The faintest of breezes stirred his hair, as though someone had left a door ajar somewhere. He knew the scent and the clink of the bangles she wore, even before she spoke.

"Nope. Can't really say as I have. Other things to bother about, like the prat whose supposed to be doing it, and keeps mucking around." A pair of very attractive legs in tight fitting jeans stretched out next to him, and a black studded boot nudged his ankle. "Wotcher," added Tonks, cheerily, as Remus blinked at her in surprise and delight.

Then concern. "What are you doing here?" It came out far more abruptly than he intended.

"Nice to see you, too. I'm so glad I volunteered for this."

"You … volunteered?"

"It sounded attractive when I was told about it. You and me alone in the dark. Possibly embarrassing moments in your past for me to rag you about for ever more. Obvious opportunities to snog in the back row, if we're bored stiff. Of course, I didn't realise there is only one row."

She leant towards him, her eyes alive with mischief and intent, and he felt the familiar lurch in his stomach as his gaze automatically rested upon her bright hair and her skin and her mouth. He touched her face with his fingers, lightly tracing her cheekbone as she leant into him, rejoicing silently, because this was exactly like old times and a million miles away from the groove of polite wariness they seemed to be stuck in elsewhere.

He was inches away from her soft pink lips when he stopped. "But … you're not my Tonks, are you?"

She gave a loud snort of laughter which made her jade earrings jangle. "Now that has got to be one of the most chivalrous things you've ever said. You can't be unfaithful to me with me." Despite her words, her face was both vulnerable, and young looking. More quietly, she said, "Thanks for that. But it's all right. I'm me, not a version of me. That's what being a volunteer is."

"But you…" He stopped again.

"I don't really get it all, but you need me, so I'm here." She grinned engagingly at him and sank back in her chair. "I understand you turned down the ice cream, so I've bought you a Butterbeer." She reached down by the floor and passed him a bottle, wrinkling her forehead in thought. "Old Sexy Voice next door says I won't remember anything when I go back, that's the only pity, but I'm sure if I see… Are you okay?"

Remus, who'd taken a welcome mouthful of icy cold Butterbeer, promptly choked on it. "Old … Sexy Voice?" he wheezed, when he could speak.

"Yeah." Tonks looked unabashed. "For a faceless robe, he's packed full of sex appeal. Husky voice, really dry wit, fabulous hands." She sniffed. "It's okay; I don't expect you to appreciate these things and there's no need to be jealous. I like my men to have the same hair style they've been cultivating for the last thirty odd years." Her voice rose with laughter as she pointed at the screen. "That's you, isn't it? You're so small and cute. Oh, I've simply got to remember this!"

The boy was on his knees peering through the banisters at the top of the stairs. A memory stirred somewhere in Remus, along with a feeling of unease.

"You've even got the fringe!" Tonks clapped her hands together in delight.

"Once you find that winning look, I believe in sticking to it," he murmured absently, trying to remember what he knew he should.

And then he did.

"Tonks," he said, as she reached for his hand, and the voice of his mother on the screen, distraught and anguished, carried clearly to them.

"But why can't you inform the authorities about him? About what that werewolf's done!"

His father was sat slumped at the table, staring at her with equal grief. "Because it was informing on him in the first place that led to this. And it was made quite clear to me that you'd be next, and he wouldn't stop till he'd found everyone I cared about and made them pay for what I'd done."

Tonks' hand tightened convulsively on his. "Is that…?" she asked quietly.

"I think so." Remus was amazed how calm he felt. How numb. It was all so very long ago now. "I didn't realise what I'd heard until years later when I found out about Greyback, learnt that I'd been bitten on purpose, and asked my mother."

"I see." Tonks sat in silence as the mist blocked the scene from view.

Remus squeezed her fingers. "It's all right, you know."

"No, it's bloody not, and you know it isn't." She stared at him fiercely. "I know you tried to tell me all year what he's like and I'm very glad I saw this."

For a moment, he thought she'd finally seen the folly of being with someone like him, but then he knew better and was ashamed for even letting it cross his mind. He brought her small hand to his lips and kissed it, in inexpressible love and gratitude.

"We're going to get him," said Tonks, her face set, "we're going to get Bellatrix, and we're going to help Harry get Voldemort. We're going to get the lot of them. Aren't we?"

It was impossible not to grin at her, to fold her in his arms and bury his face in her hair. He still didn't see how he could willingly send her into danger, but he very much doubted he was going to be allowed to quibble about it.

"About time," she said, rather indistinctly over his shoulder. "I thought they were never going to show anything good."

He turned slowly, reluctant to let go of her, and his eyes widened as he saw what was in front of him.

"That's not…?"

"Yeah, it is." She nodded. "Our first proper date and the day you broke my broom."

"Our first proper date was at The Spinning Wheel Café, where someone managed to fall off the wheel half way through, and ended up sat in the middle of someone else's table. Rather like someone managed to fall off their broom and broke it themselves."

"I didn't fall off; it crashed. I went down with my broom as every good flyer should." She gave him a mock glare. "And it was our first proper date. I only crashed because respectable, mature Professor Lupin had cheated, taking a short cut in our race, and I was trying to catch up."

"Flying through a hay stack was all part of your plan then, was it?" He laughed and ducked away from her slap, remembering something that Smartarse had said earlier. "Come on," he said, standing up, and holding out his hand to her.

"What?" She stood up and followed him, only hesitating as she reached the screen. "Can we…?"

"Apparently so."

They linked hands and he spared a moment to marvel that he was the one making spontaneous decisions, and then they were in the mist. For a moment, it was like being touched by a thousand cold threads all at once, and then the breeze and the sun stroked his face together, and she was sat behind him on his broom, the broken pieces of her own and the picnic hamper tied firmly beneath them.

Her hands were round his waist and he was aware of the occasional rub of her shoulder against his back. There was intimacy in talking without having to raise each other's voices, and the Remus of then knew, as did the Remus of now, that he really couldn't believe this was happening.

They found a spot for the picnic and landed in a giggling and uncoordinated heap. They ate and drank and laughed, and smiled at each other. As the pink glow of the evening faded and warm shadows closed in around them, the moment came when he knew he should gently pull her to her feet from where she was lying on the rug looking at him and take her home. Take them both back to their own homes.

But he didn't.

"I do have a special fondness for a good, old-fashioned romance," said Minerva McGonagall, who was blowing her nose on a tissue.

Remus was more than slightly disconcerted to find her rather than Tonks beside him, especially as she seemed to have turned into Molly Weasley on him, and himself back in the armchair again. He could still feel the warmth of the sun on him as he struggled to focus on the screen and gather his thoughts. Surely Minerva hadn't seen the end of that?

Had she? Merlin.

No, she'd said old-fashioned, which she surely wouldn't if she'd…

Merlin.

"Your time is running out," said Minerva, which didn't answer things one way or the other. "Scenes are speeding up, which is why the guides keep changing. Mind you, that young man does run things most effectively. Like clockwork, I might say. Is that a Birthday cake?"

"Er, yes." Remus struggled to gather his scattered wits which he seemed to have left behind on a picnic rug in the countryside.

"Yours, I take it." Minerva smiled. "And there's Nymphadora waiting for you. This must be a very happy memory for you."

Remus nodded, trying to think clearly. "Yes, it was a great day. We were both off together, and she'd made the cake as a surprise, and…" He stopped. Memory clicked into place. A variety of swear words started to form in his head as it dawned on him just how very happy a memory this was.

"You must have had a romantic Birthday dinner?" Minerva watched, a deep frown between her eyebrows gradually replacing the affectionate twinkle in her eye. "Or … perhaps you decided not to bother. I do … hope that door's firmly shut."

"God, I'm so sorry!"

Minerva gave him a tight smile which said he was never too old for a week's detention. "Press the button, Mr Lupin," she said, in a voice of ice, as he remembered, far too late, what Smartarse had told him about changing the guide.

She disappeared and he leant back in his seat and closed his eyes with relief, feeling a trickle of nervous sweat running down his back.

"Hi," said Ron's voice. "Have I missed anything good? What's going on—"

"No! Don't look!" Remus flung himself up and started scrabbling frantically for the button.

"Bloody hell," said Ron, in tones of deepest admiration, purple ice cream poised half way to his mouth. "I didn't know you knew how to kiss like that, Professor."

"Don't look!"

The tips of Ron's ears were suddenly bright red. "Er … She's not going to fall over, is she? I mean you having your hand stuck up there can't help, can it? Bloody double triple hell!"

"I told you not to look!" Remus hit the button furiously, so hard that Ron disappeared and then, for a horrific moment, almost reappeared again with his huge, goggling eyes. Remus leant on it with all his might and only dared to breathe when he finally seemed to be completely alone, and the last remaining trace of Ron was his dropped and splattered cone on the floor.

He took a deep breath and checked the seat next to him was still empty. How long was this damn scene going to go on for?

"Ah, Remus," said Dumbledore, from somewhere behind his right shoulder. "I'm afraid the hour's nearly up and I need to show you—" He glanced up at the screen. "Ah. Well. It's always good to see a little more love in the world—"

Remus had both hands instantly on the button, attempting to push it through the arm of the chair by force of will, as well as desperation.

Dumbledore disappeared in the middle of saying, "Though that did appear to be rather a lot of lov—"

"Relax," said Tonks, as he jumped violently away from her hand lightly touching his arm, "it's me. I've been trying to get back here for ages. It's not much fun watching yourself having sex, is it?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Remus, bitterly. "It beats watching it in the company of three other people. Now that's something I can really not recommend."

Tonks snorted. "Don't worry. They're only versions; our real friends haven't seen anything. Please God." She peered at the screen through narrowed, critical eyes, while Remus resolutely averted his. "I really can't watch this, my thighs look so chunky, and I've got to go for good in a minute." She paused, then added, "Though your bum looks nice. I never normally get to see it from this angle."

Remus put his hand over hers. "Tonks. When we go back, up there, I don't want it to be like it is at the moment. With us. I know it's going to take a long time, but—"

"A good row, I think." She grinned at him, the light in the dark eyes dancing. "Always worked for my parents. They used to scream like mad at each other, and then I remember them walking around with smug little smiles, and I really will be scarred for life if I even think about what that meant. But we need to stop being so damn nice to each other and act like real people again. People who laugh, argue, and have sex against the kitchen door on your Birthday because they can't spare the time to get to the bedroom."

Remus felt the heat rise in his cheeks again at the same moment as his heart seemed to stop and then turn over to start again. How had he ever met a woman like this?

"I made the flat a complete wreck this morning to drive you nuts," she said musingly. "I thought the filthy socks on your book would send you over the edge, but no, you just gave me that understanding little smile, and I really could have clocked you one, no pun intended. I know it's not perfect, Remus, I know we've hurt each other and neither of us can forget that immediately, but you need to do what Dumbledore believed you could and I want to help you every step of the way. We all do. Doesn't that make you happy that people believe in you? That I do?"

He leaned across the chair and gathered her, a little awkwardly, into his arms and kissed her. She threaded her hands into his hair, sighed with what seemed like relief against his mouth, and then kissed him back with a feeling and need as intense as his own as he pulled her half across the chair and into his lap.

For a while they stayed together like that. Wrapped round each other. Floating. Dreaming. Then she was gone, though he knew she was still with him.

"Just one more scene for you to see," said Dumbledore softly, and Remus turned to see what he'd expected from the start. The moment when he asked Dumbledore why Snape, and not himself, had been chosen to teach Harry Occlumency.

Dumbledore had answered with several reasons, all convincing in their own right, especially the fact that Snape was a superb, and far better, Occlumens. Then, after what looked like a definite afterthought, he'd reduced Remus to stunned silence by saying that he simply wasn't prepared to run the risk of having Harry Potter and a future leader of the Order together more than he could possibly help it.

"I hope your faith from then isn't misplaced," Remus said quietly, looking at him sat in the armchair.

"I don't have any doubts." Dumbledore smiled slightly through the half-moon spectacles, nodding his head, and Remus wondered if this was the last time he'd ever see him and felt immeasurably saddened.

"I just have faith," Dumbledore said, and vanished.

The door in the corner sprang open again as the beam of light started to fade, and the hooded figure looked in.

"Time for you to go," he said, cheerily.

Remus followed him once more, a little wearily. The screen of mist seemed to be thinning, dissolving into the gloom. "Do I get hit on the head again?" he asked, dryly.

"Now if I tell you that, it spoils the surprise." The robed figure produced the irritating soft laughter, slim shoulders shaking slightly.

"Do you know," said Remus, "if I thought you were really another version of me, I'd find that far and away the most disturbing thing that's gone on in here?"

The hood tilted sideways to consider him. "You're different yourself to how you were an hour ago. Different again to how you were at eleven o'clock this morning. Time and events change you all the time; I've just lived through different ones."

"Well there's always one final test." Remus went and sat in the other chair, opened his mind in case of a nearby Legilimens, and thought of what he wanted to know.

"Oh, that's good." The hood nodded approvingly. "If a bit rude, calling me that. Yes, once a Marauder, always a Marauder, and I, too, know how to improvise. Goodbye, Remus Lupin. Try and get yourself a sense of humour and look after your Nymphadora for me."

The room was plunged into darkness again and he felt another sharp blow on his head.

-----------------

"Ow." Remus tried to sit up and realised that consciousness was back, this time with an accompanying headache. At least the lights appeared to be on.

"Are you all right?" He was looking into Tonks' anxious face. Dark eyes. Pale skin. Pink hair. Jade earrings. Staggeringly lovely.

"Yes." He wasn't, but he thought he might be in time. They both might be. That almost made him smile and he looked up at the grandfather clock, which was regarding them gravely from its great height.

It was just gone four o'clock.

"What happened?" he said, struggling to his feet as she put an arm round him to give him support.

"I don't know." She frowned. "It all went dark and that clock was literally screaming, and I heard you cry out. It seemed to take ages for the light to come back and then I saw you lying on the floor. Did you hit your head or something?" She smiled; rather warily, rather politely. Not at all sure of his response. "That's supposed to be my trick, not yours. Hey!"

He put one hand on either side of her face and kissed her. It lasted several seconds.

"I missed you," he said.

"Yeah." She was staring at him, her lips still parted. "Well. Er, feel free to miss me like that again." She grinned suddenly with a flash of the old Tonks.

"I will." He grinned back at her, watching the light dance in the dark eyes, the warm colour flooding her face. Home, a row about dirty socks, then lots of laughter and making up, he thought. Make the most of every single moment, however long we've got. Don't think about what's unbearable. Just get on with it because that's all you can do. That's all everyone does.

She was reaching into her back pocket, pulling out the slip of parchment, and opening it so that he could see. "I didn't want to show you this before," she began, "but now it's gone four, and I'm worried that something hasn't happened which was supposed to."

Dear Nymphadora,

Remus will need help from a volunteer at four o'clock, Friday afternoon, in the Time Room at the Ministry.

I know I don't even have to ask.

I trust this finds you in the pink of health.

Your friend,

Albus Dumbledore.

"What do we do now?" Tonks said, anxiously.

He smiled at her.

Because he knew.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hope you enjoyed it and it would be great to know if you did. Many thanks to those who've reviewed so far. :)