Disclaimer: Characters contained within do not belong to me.

Author's Notes: I really want to thank you for taking the time to read and review; it means so very much to me, especially when I'm down in the dumps;)


Of Nymphs and Wolves

by Kristen Elizabeth


Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own. - Robert Heinlein


"Remus, come and look!"

At his wife's bidding, Lupin left the bathroom, toothbrush still in his hand, and came into the bedroom just in time to see his son's hair change from turquoise to neon green as he nursed.

Tonks laughed in delight as she looked down at Teddy. "Such a smart boy!" she crowed. "All that without ever losing focus on your dinner."

He was pretty sure that the smile on his face would have been described as goofy, but he couldn't make it go away. Everything Teddy did was brilliant as far as he and Dora were concerned. Every time he smiled, everytime he grabbed their fingers, every time he kicked his chubby little legs...they were all tiny miracles and more than enough reason to make Lupin grin like a fool.

When Teddy was finished, Lupin lifted him up and set the little boy against his shoulder while Tonks redressed. Gently, he patted his son's back, urging him to burp.

Tonks stood and came up behind her husband in order to plant a kiss on Teddy's chubby cheek. The baby cooed and flailed his arm against his father's chest.

"I love that noise," Lupin confessed. "It feels like he's trying to talk to us."

"He is." Tonks turned her nose into pig's snout and back again. Teddy watched, fascinated. "He's trying to tell us that he's quite happy, aren't you, sweetheart?"

The baby replied by opening and closing his tiny fist. His milky mouth widened into what would one day be a fully formed laugh. Unable to resist, Tonks gently seized his delicate fingers and brought them up to her lips.

Lupin kept rubbing the little boy's back until he finally burped. "I think they could hear that one in London," Tonks declared with a fair amount of pride.

"It's a little known fact that the Gryffindor boy's dormitory has an unofficial yearly burping contest," Lupin told her. "I have a feeling he'll be a champion."

Tonks gave her husband a look. "I thought we agreed to shelve this argument, even though it's clearly obvious that he has all the makings of a great Hufflepuff."

"Only a Hufflepuff would say that." Lupin laughed as his wife punched his free shoulder. "Consider it re-shelved, dear."

"That's right," Tonks sniffed indignantly. "Or else I might not have told you the good news."

Lupin sat down in the rocking chair that Tonks had just vacated. "There's good news?" he frowned. "Did I miss something on the radio? Has Harry...?"

She gently cut him off. "No, love. It's good news just for us." Tonks crossed to the bed and sank down onto the edge. "It's been four weeks since he was born..."

"Can't have been." Lupin searched the wall until he remembered that there was no clock in the bedroom. "It's only..."

"It's May 1st," she informed him. "He'll be a month old tomorrow. And..." Tonks leaned back on her elbow, hoping she looked enticing despite her still- slightly pudgy waistline. "The books say that you should wait a month before...you know..."

Lupin swallowed and nodded. "Yeah. Yes. I do know."

"So..." She drew herself up again and fixed him with a come-hither stare. "Why don't we put Teddy to bed, then?"

Tearing his eyes away from his wife, he looked down at his son. The green had started to fade from his tuft of hair as his eyelids grew heavier; he wasn't old enough yet to keep the color going while he slept. And Teddy would sleep, for at least an hour...

A lot could happen in an hour.

"Are you sure, Dora?" Lupin asked.

Tonks arched an eyebrow. "Are you turning me down, Remus?"

"Never," he immediately and hastily replied. "I just don't want you do anything you're not ready to do, just because some book tells you that you can, or because you think it's what I expect."

She rolled this around in her head for a second. "While I'm glad that you're trying to keep chivalry alive, love, just put Teddy in his cot, all right?"

Lupin stood up and took it as a sign when his son didn't wake or even stir at the sudden movement.


"Am I hurting you?"

It was the first, breathless words either of them had spoken since Lupin returned from the nursery. Tonks had slipped into bed, sans clothes, while he was gone and all it had taken was a crook of her finger for him to join her between the sheets.

Since then, there had been heated silence, punctured only occasionally by a whimper of need or a moan of pleasure. In the semi-dark, their hands and lips rediscovered each other, like dance partners who were out of practice, but eager to tango once again.

But when they finally joined, Tonks drew in a sharp breath. It hurt more than she had expected.

"I'm fine," she told him when he asked. "Just need a second."

Lupin shook his head. "We should have waited."

He made a motion to withdraw, but Tonks wrapped her leg around his thigh and held him in place. "Stop. If I couldn't handle it, I would tell you."

His eyes were still troubled. "I hate causing you pain, Dora."

"Some pains are worth it." She was starting to relax and she gave him a kiss to prove it. "Having Teddy hurt a lot more than this, but I didn't just quit in the middle."

Lupin tucked a wayward lock of hair behind her ear. "I'm very glad you didn't."

Tonks nodded as she pulled his head down for a kiss. When they broke apart a few minutes later, her discomfort had mostly faded, having been replaced by an aching need. "Remus," she whispered.

He laced his fingers through hers. "We'll go slow," he murmured. "Until you're ready."


Teddy gave his parents exactly one and a half hours of bliss before he alerted them to the fact that his nappie was wet.

It was the first time since his son was born that Lupin had to force himself out of bed to tend to him. Usually he was the first one up when Teddy started crying; not only did he never want his child to be cold or wet or hungry, but he also wanted Dora to get as much sleep as possible.

However, when curled up around his wife's deliciously bare body as they lingered in the final seconds of lovemaking, it took a minute for Lupin to react to Teddy's cries.

"I can go," Tonks offered, her voice heavy with sex and sleep. "He might be hungry again."

"That's a wet nappie cry." Giving her a soft kiss, he slid out from under the covers and reached for his trousers. "Stay here. I'll be back soon."

In his cot, surrounded by stuffed animals, Teddy's little tuft of hair was Weasley red and his toothless gums were on full display as he wailed out his misery.

"Hey there, mate." Lupin picked him up and held his son against his bare chest. "It can't be as bad as all that."

Five minutes later, with a fresh nappie, Teddy was back to his usual, angelic self. His hair was the turquoise blue for which he showed a clear, if unconscious, preference and he grabbed his father's finger with a surprisingly tight grip.

'How's our little stinker?"

Lupin glanced at the nursery door. His wife leaned against the frame, her arms folded over her bathrobe as she watched them. There was just enough light from the waxing moon outside for him to see the silver gleam of a tear on her cheek.

"Dora?"

Tonks shook her head as she brushed it away. "Always the tears." She smiled ruefully. "Didn't I used to be a big, bad Auror before we met?"

"Well, you did fall a lot," he reminded her.

"And you caught me." She came into the room, her arms still crossed. "I might have fallen in love with you that first time."

Teddy's tiny fingers were warm around his index finger. How had he gone from that night, Dora's first Order meeting when she had stumbled into his arms and lit up his dark world with her bubblegum hair, to this night where he was holding his son after making love to his wife...all in just over two short years?

"Have I ever thanked you?"

Tonks tilted her head to the side. "Thanked me?"

Lupin gently lay his son back down in his cot and tugged an impossibly soft cotton blanket over his legs. Finally, he turned his attention to his wife.

"A long time ago, I decided that there were things I would never have. My friends would have them...James found Lily and then he had Harry...Sirius had a different girl every month and was bound to eventually get tied down to one of them...and I tried to convince myself that I would be happy watching their lives from the far end of the table whenever I was invited to dinner."

He paused. "Do you remember what you told me on the night you volunteered for the Advance Guard?"

"Something cheeky, I suspect."

"You told me you wouldn't let anything bad happen to me." Lupin snorted. "Sirius had a good laugh over that one, at my expense, of course."

Tonks smiled softly. "Yes, he would have, wouldn't he?"

"I know you didn't understand then, and I wonder if you even understand now, just how much that meant to me, whether you were being cheeky or not." He took a step towards her. "Dora, I can count on one hand the people in my life who have truly cared about me and at the time, two of them were already dead. Now, it's four gone."

"Remus..."

"But then...there you were. Telling me you'd look out for me." Lupin reached for her hand and ran his thumb over her wedding ring. "I didn't want to care about you because I didn't want to lose you, too."

She sniffed and tried to give him a superior look, but her eyes were wet and red. "Well, then it's a good thing I never take no for an answer."

"A damn good thing," he agreed. "Because now I have everything I thought I never would. You made me a husband and a father and even though I was a great bleeding prat for far too long, I just want to say...thank you." He tugged on her hand, pulling her close enough to put his arms around her. "And...no matter what happens tonight or tomorrow or next week...I will always, always love you."

"You are a prat," Tonks told him in between salty kisses. "But you're my prat and I love you, too."

Teddy made a little sleepy baby noise, drawing their attention to the cot. Tonks leaned back against her husband's chest. "I think I'll want another one," she said a little while later. "A girl would be nice."

He smiled into her hair. "I think I'll want a couple more."

"Are you planning on coming up with a spell that will let you give birth to them?"

Lupin just held her tighter as they watched their baby sleep. "If I've learned only one thing in the past two years, it's that anything, absolutely anything is possible, love."


The next night, as they gave Teddy a bath amidst much splashing and laughter, Kingsley's Patronus appeared in the middle of the kitchen.

A call for help has come from Hogwarts...it is time to fight.


To Be Continued