A/N: Haley, Mahoutokoro, Mizu. Prompt: "[he/she/character name] would make even the most confident person despair and lose heart." — Giorgio Vasari, about the Mona Lisa. In your drabble, it can be about anything or anyone else. (In this, it's about Remus.)
Tonks had never had a hard time in dating. That wasn't because she was so gorgeous that people flocked to her. There had been the occasional jerk who dated her only for the thrill of her metamorphmagus abilities, but she'd gotten rid of them quickly enough.
She was ashamed to admit that there had been a few times, when she was particularly young, where she had changed her appearance specifically to impress someone she had a crush on, but even after those years, she'd found that she had enough confidence to make up for whatever she looked like.
It had always been that way. Tonks felt enthusiastic about life, and she'd found that others tended to find it infectious. That wasn't to say that people were lining up to date her, just that she never let it get to her when they weren't interested. That was their problem not hers.
Remus Lupin was the first time Tonks felt her confidence waver.
For the first time, she found herself feeling despair over the rejection. She hated herself for it, but she couldn't get over it. There was something about him that had her enthralled in a way no one else had before, but it was made worse by his reasons for rejecting her.
He felt as much for her as she felt for him. She knew he did as he'd admitted as much when he'd rejected her. The rejection had come entirely from a sense of his own inadequacy, and as someone who had carefully built up her own confidence for years, Tonks was struggling with the fact that someone else's lack of it had finally done her in.
She watched herself in the mirror, tugging on strands of her mousy brown hair. It was the first time she'd seen her real hair colour in years.
She didn't like it.
