PAIN

Big thanks to everyone reading this story! I had a lot of fun writing this chapter! It has Sirius in it for all you Padfoot-lovers out there! Just a quick note: anything in italics is happening in Tonks' head unless otherwise indicated.

I still own nothing. This is just a result of reading a ton of Harry Potter and letting my imagination run wild.

Tonks

I couldn't remember what happened. All I knew was that everything hurt. My arms and legs felt sore and heavy. I thought that my chest had cracked, and my head felt like it would split in two. What had happened? As my head started to clear, I became vaguely aware of the fact that I was lying in a lumpy bed. Someone shifted to my right, and I heard voices speaking in hushed tones. Where was I?

I ignored the pounding in my head and strained my ears to listen to the people in the room.

"She should be alright," an unfamiliar woman's voice said. "The Healing Charms should take effect any moment, and I expect she'll wake up soon. Just don't tell her anything that could upset her too much; we don't want her getting overly excited just yet," the woman instructed. Were they talking about me?

"Thank you," Mad-Eye's gruff voice answered. I could hear the light tapping of the woman's footsteps echo down the hall as she exited the room. There was a moment of silence before Mad-Eye spoke again. "I have to get back. There's a meeting soon, and I have to give an update. You'll stay here?"

"Yeah, but what'll I do if she wakes up?" Dedalus Diggle's voice squeaked.

"If she wakes up, you let us know and make sure she's alright," Mad-Eye answered impatiently.

"But what'll I tell her about him?" Dedalus' question could barely be called a whisper, and I had to strain my ears even more to hear it.

"Don't tell her anything!" Mad-Eye snapped. "You heard what the mediwitch said, nothing that'll upset her! She'll find out soon enough."

"Okay," Dedalus responded quietly. I heard Mad-Eye's uneven footsteps leave the room and continue down the hall.

I tried to wake up, tried to lift my head from the painfully uncomfortable pillow, but I couldn't. My aching head prevented me from so much as wiggling my toes; all I could manage was a light stir and a painful groan.

"Tonks?" Dedalus called nervously. I wanted to respond, but my entire body felt like it was being weighed down with an anchor. "Tonks, are you in there?" Normally, the childish question would have caused me to break out into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, but all I could do now was lie there and try to pry my eyelids open.

Finally, after what felt like hours, I forced my lead-filled eyes open, but I instantly regretted it. Everything was too bright. The ceilings and walls were painted a too clean white color. The sheets were heavily starched and smelled of cleaning supplies. Even the table and chair to my right were washed out and colorless.

I blinked several times to try to adjust to the brightness. I was in a hospital room. Dedalus was sitting on my right with his hands folded in his lap.

"You're awake!" he optimized. I could only manage a nod; my head still felt like it had been run over by one of those Muggle steamrollers.

"What happened?" I asked after a few moments.

"Well," Dedalus began, "Dolohov took you out, we're not quite sure what he did, but you had us all pretty worried."

I leaned back into the bed. My head was starting to clear, and my body didn't ache as much. Suddenly, my memory came flooding back. The fighting, bright flashes of light, crashes, explosions…Remus….Everything came back like a full-force whirlwind.

"Is everyone else ok?" I questioned, desperately hoping that the answer was yes.

Dedalus shifted in his seat, visibly uncomfortable by the question, "Everyone will be fine," he answered. "Bill got attacked by Greyback, but he'll be just fine." I allowed myself a sigh of relief.

-oOoOoO-

I was permitted to leave St. Mungo's the next day, and after a speech from Mad-Eye about how constant vigilance would have prevented me from ending up in the hospital, life went on pretty much as it always did. I hadn't seen Remus, but that night at Hogwarts had been the first time in six months that I had seen him, so I figured he went back to the werewolf colony and was staying there for a while.

Everything was pretty much normal. Remus and I still weren't talking; Molly was still fussing over everyone being too thin; Fred and George were still pulling pranks left and right; and Mad-Eye was still harping on the importance of constant vigilance (honestly, did the man talk about anything else?). Despite the fact that things went on basically the way they always had, there was an unmistakable gloom surrounding every Order meeting. I attributed it to the fact that Dumbledore, our leader in this madness, was now gone. No one talked about it much; I figured it was because it was so fresh in everyone's minds. Sirius had even taken to staying in his room for hours on end, only leaving to retrieve a bottle of firewhiskey from the cupboard in the kitchen.

One morning, I had arrived early for a meeting, and Sirius decided to grace me with his drunken presence.

"Wotcher, Sirius," I said pleasantly, hoping to get on his good side.

"Hmph," he responded. I guess I wasn't successful. He slouched up the stairs and to his room. I could hear the faint click of the door locking. I followed him up the stairs. He needed someone to talk some sense into him. This had been going on too long.

I marched up the stairs, but, being the oh so graceful person that I am, tripped on the edge of the last step. I fell face first to the ground, and my chin hit the floor. I rose to my feet, cursing under my breath and rubbing the underside of my sore chin.

I knocked on the door to Sirius' room. "Go away!" he moaned from inside.

"Sirius, it's Tonks. I want to talk," I said through the wood.

"Go away!" he repeated.

Now I was beginning to grow frustrated. I hadn't done anything! My hair turned from its mousy brown to a slightly redder shade of auburn. "Sirius, I swear if you don't open this door right now, I will hex you into next Tuesday," I growled from the other side.

I heard rustling and clanging of whiskey bottles inside. It was a couple of moments before Sirius was able to unsteadily make his way to the door.

"What?" he asked shortly. His breath reeked of alcohol and he looked and smelled like he hadn't showered in days.

"I wanted to talk," I answered as I pushed my way past him into the room. The room was totally disheveled and stunk with old firewhiskey. His bed was unmade, and whiskey bottles cluttered the room. I made my way deeper inside when my eye caught the sight of one of Sirius' pictures.

It was the one of him, James, Remus, and Peter when they were in school. Sirius had shown it to me so many times when he used to babysit me. He would tell me about all of his adventures at Hogwarts and all the trouble he got into. I was often told that I resembled him in behavior.

As I looked at the picture now, I thought of how so much had changed. Peter had been torn from the picture long ago, James was now dead, and Remus was putting himself in danger in the werewolf colony. I hurt for my cousin. He had to stay locked up in this gloomy house filled with so many awful memories rather than fight alongside his friends.

The sound of Sirius shutting the door interrupted my thoughts. "What is it you wanted to talk about?" he asked with speech slightly slurred with drunkenness.

"I wanted to try to get you to come down," I said, turning to face him.

"I'd rather stay here," he responded as he picked up a half emptied bottle of firewhiskey and raised it to his mouth. I knocked it out of his hands, and it crashed to the floor. "Hey!" he shouted. "What did you do that for?"

"I think you've had enough," I answered shortly.

Sirius looked at me angrily and slumped over to the bed. "That's funny," he said sarcastically, "I thought you of all people would have understood."

"Sirius," I began, sitting next to him on the bed, "we all miss Dumbledore. He was a great man but-," Sirius gave me a perplexed look, causing me to stop mid-sentence.

"This isn't about Dumbledore," he confessed quietly.

I was now totally confused. Who else could it have been about?

Sirius sighed. "They never told you, did they?" I had no idea what he was talking about, and my brow furrowed. Sirius sighed again and hung his head low. "Tonks," he began softly, "Remus died that night at Hogwarts."

I didn't believe him. I thought that he was just drunk, and it was the firewhiskey talking. I searched for the playful glint in his eye that would tell me that this was all a joke. But it wasn't there. His gaze remained hard and unmoving.

I felt my breath catch somewhere in my throat and my heart began to race. I thought of that day when I woke up in the hospital.

"What'll I tell her about him?" "Don't tell her anything!"

They hadn't been talking about Dumbledore. They'd been talking about Remus. Tears welled up in my eyes. He wasn't coming back. He was gone, and the last thing we'd said to each other had been arguing. I hated myself for not mending things between us, for letting it end this way.

"Why can't you open your eyes and see that I don't care?" I shrieked. "I don't care that you're poor or old, and I don't care that you're a werewolf!"

"But I care!" he shouted back, his face turning reddish. "I would make you an outcast! You would lose everything if you were with me!"

I had stormed out at that point, too angry to say anything else. Now, I would have given anything to walk back into that room and fix things.

Sirius had left to get more whiskey, but I didn't notice him leave. The pain I felt did for me what the whiskey did for Sirius; it numbed me. I didn't hear the other Order members enter the house. I didn't notice the shrieks of the portrait of Sirius' mother. I couldn't even feel the stench of the alcohol in the room burning my nostrils.

Remus was gone, and he wasn't coming back. Nothing I said or did would make him come back. For the first time in a long time, I broke down and cried.

Sorry for the downer. I know that chapter was a little sad. The next one will be a bit happier I promise! And for those of you wanting Remus in the story, he'll return after a few chapters, be patient :P I haven't finished the next chapter yet, and I have a basketball tournament this weekend, so it might be a while before the next chapter is up. I'll try to get it up sometime between Friday and Monday, but no guarantees. Don't forget to leave a REVIEW with your thoughts! They make me so happy.