Chapter Eleven
Thanks for reading, guys! Recognisable dialogue comes from Deathly Hallows; no copyright infringement intended.
Note: My beta, Richard's Confessor, said she found Andromeda annoying in this chapter. That wasn't my intention - I saw her as a mum who had high hopes for her daughter and as such while she accepted Lupin as her son-in-law after an internal struggle, the idea of them having a child was repulsive and highly dangerous. I see her as very strong-willed and protective of what she sees as 'hers' - kind of like Bellatrix, only with vastly different values. Anyway, let me know what you think. And special thanks to Richard's Confessor for getting my chapters back to me so quickly - any delays are my fault in the writing.
-HPFG.
"You idiot! You stupid – irresponsible – idiot girl!" Lupin raged at his wife. He could see it as clearly as if it was written on her face; she had gone behind his back and actively encouraged a pregnancy that she had known he hadn't wanted.
And now she had God knew what growing inside her.
He thought quickly. He had done a lot of research into preventing and terminating a pregnancy should the worst happen. There weren't a lot of options available to him in the magical community – their population being so low, they weren't big on preventing or terminating a conception – and so he had sought information from the muggle community. "I'll find a muggle doctor who'll do an abortion," he said.
Her eyes flashed dangerously that he had so much as dared suggest it. "No," she said.
"Yes. You knew from the beginning I didn't want children."
"What you want and what you get are two different things," she said.
"You can't be serious. Do you have any idea what you'll be exposing yourself to? Werewolves aren't supposed to breed, Dora."
"Says you. You're a half-breed. I'm full human. That means there's a seventy-five percent chance that nothing will go wrong."
She had pulled the number out of her ass, and even if there was some truth to it, Lupin still didn't like those odds – by her own admission, that meant there was a twenty-five percent chance that something would go wrong. And when you were talking about a vicious animal, that mean a lot could go wrong. "Dora, please – I'm begging you," he pleaded with her.
"I want a child, Remus."
"Then you should have had an affair. It's not too late for you to do that. Get rid of this baby and have an affair. I'll understand."
She slapped him, tears welling in her eyes. "Do I mean that little to you that you'd see me with another man?"
"Of course you don't! Dora, you mean everything to me. That's why I don't want you to have this child. You have no idea what it could do to you. I couldn't live with myself if you got hurt."
"Well, I couldn't live with myself if I killed my child, Remus," she countered. "It's my body. You can't make me give it up."
Maybe not, Lupin thought. But I can sure as hell try to convince you.
"You foolish girl!" Andromeda screamed at her daughter. "I thought I raised you smarter than that! Get rid of it."
"No," Tonks said defiantly.
"Remus, talk some sense into that idiot you married."
Lupin's expression was grim. "You think I haven't tried?" he asked. "I'd rather see her pregnant to someone else than to me."
Andromeda brightened. "Well, there's your solution. Have a termination, dear, and try again with someone... less risky."
"No!" Tonks screamed. Merlin, do you know what you're asking of me? "
"We're asking you to put yourself first, Dora. You have no idea how complicated this pregnancy could be."
"And it could be a breeze," Tonks countered. "You're both being over-protective. You can't make me give up my baby."
"I did try," Lupin said. "I don't want her to have this baby any more than you do. Maybe even less. I know what I'm capable of. If it's inherited any of my wolf side, then –" he broke off, shuddering.
"You can sense these things?" Andromeda asked. "I thought you guys responded to your own kind."
"It's not that simple. I'm not sensing anything, but that doesn't mean she's carrying a human." He sank into a chair and brought his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs like a child. "I should have been more careful," he said. "I should have realised how badly she wanted a child. I shouldn't have just assumed that I was sterile. Oh, God, if something happens to her, it will be my entire fault."
Andromeda happened to share Lupin's opinion that he should have taken more care and not just assumed that he was sterile, but he was so distraught that she couldn't help but have a little sympathy for him. She had no doubt that if something did happen to his wife, then he would take full responsibility, deserved or not. And Tonks was the one who had gone to the effort of conceiving, behind her husband's back, no less. "You would have stopped it if you'd known what she was up to," Andromeda said. "You couldn't have known what she was going to do."
"But I should have. I should have known how baldy she wanted a baby. I just thought she had accepted it when I said I didn't want children." Or maybe she knew that I did and thought I wouldn't mind if she went behind my back. "I keep thinking about what could happen to her. What kind of shitty husband am I that I didn't see this coming?"
Andromeda tentatively put her hand on his shoulder. "It's not your fault," she said.
"I don't know which of the two the bigger idiot was," Andromeda raved to Ted that evening. "Her for ignoring how dangerous it could be for her to have his child, or him for not realising how desperate she was and being more goddamn careful. Not to mention the fact that this whole disaster will bring disgrace to her – and to us."
"I thought you brought enough disgrace to yourself when you married me," Ted said mildly.
"You would think something like that," she snapped. A muggle-born, he had never quite understood the nuances of the pecking order of the magical community – he got that a Black like her was considered to be way above a muggle-born like him, but he didn't get just how shameful mixed-breed marriages were, especially when that half-breed was a werewolf.
"Well, you said he said he couldn't sense anything," Ted pointed out.
"He also said that that doesn't mean she's carrying a human," Andromeda reminded him. "Oh, God, how could he be so thoughtless? Why did he have to think with his dick instead of his brain? Pretty fucking stupid for a Professor."
"Dromeda –"
"Don't try and placate me, Ted," she said stonily. "He's disgraced and endangered her. I wish we'd never met him. I wish – I wish – why couldn't she have ended up with a nice boy like Charlie Weasley? Why did she have to be so infatuated with – with a goddamn animal?"
Ted Tonks took his wife in his arms to comfort her. "Whatever happens, we'll deal with it," he said soothingly. "What's done is done. It can't be taken back now. All we can do is be there for her and try and convince her that a termination is the right thing."
"We never will," she said tearfully. "She's so in love with him that she won't even think about destroying something she feels was conceived in that love."
Lupin hadn't meant to eavesdrop on his in-laws, but he had been passing the room and his supernatural sense of hearing had picked up every word. While it was only what he had thought himself, it still killed him to hear his wife and him being discussed that way. Thoughtless. Idiot. Disgrace. He considered himself to be all those things, but hearing Andromeda say them was all the worse. He had been thoughtless, he had been an idiot, and he had brought disgrace to not only Tonks but her parents – people who had been a friend to him when they had known full well what he was. And if that's what her parents were saying about him, knowing full well that he loved her even though he shouldn't, then what would everyone else be saying about them once word got out that he'd gotten her pregnant?
He should never have married her. He certainly should never have allowed her to get pregnant. She was better off without him.
He couldn't stay here. He couldn't be around her, and he certainly couldn't sponge off her parents hospitality, even thought Andromeda had insisted that they stay here; her profession, before she had given it up to raise her daughter, had been as a Healer; Tonks wasn't likely to get better care at St. Mungos, and this way, she would be tended to by someone who at least respected her right to have this baby, even if they thought she was an idiot for wanting to.
Yes, she would be fine with Andromeda and Ted – as fine as she could be. They could take better care of her than he could – after all, they were right in the fact he should never have gotten involved with her.
"No! I don't believe you!" Tonks screamed hysterically when her mother informed her that her husband had walked out on her. "You're making it up! You never wanted me to marry him!"
"No, I didn't, but I wouldn't lie to you over something like that. He's left." Andromeda handed over the note that Lupin had left.
Dora, my love,
Marrying you was a mistake. I should never have allowed my emotions to get the better of me in a moment of weakness. Being married to me will bring you nothing but shame and heartbreak, and I can't continue doing that to you. You're better off without me and I seriously wish you'd reconsider this child.
Remus.
Tonks crumpled the paper in her hand, and her face crumbled in grief. She had known he wasn't happy with her pregnancy, but she hadn't thought that he would leave. It was like someone had turned off a light in her heart. She felt achingly empty.
"He has a point," Ted said. "We all wish you'd reconsider this baby. You'll find someone else, Dora."
She stared at her father. He had loved her mother for almost thirty years, been willing to accept what she would be losing for marrying a muggle-born... and yet he couldn't understand how his daughter could do the same thing. "Don't you get it?" she asked hysterically. "This is the only thing I have left. I've lost my husband. I won't lose my child."
"I am Remus John Lupin, werewolf, sometimes knows as Moony, one of the four creators of the Marauders Map, married to Nymphadora, usually known as Tonks, and I taught you how to produce a Patronus, Harry, which takes the form of a stag," Lupin recited to Harry, Ron and Hermione to prove he was who he said he was.
Harry lowered his wand. "Oh, all right. But I had to check, didn't I?"
"Speaking as your ex-Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, I quite agree that you had to check. Ron, Hermione, you shouldn't be so quick to lower your defences."
After he had walked out on his wife – his pregnant wife, no less – Lupin had tracked down the trio with the vague idea that he would join them on whatever mission Dumbledore had left for Harry. He filled the three in on everything that had happened since Bill and Fleur's wedding – news they were completely starved for since being on the run. Scrimgeour had been killed with Thicknesse replacing him as a figurehead Minister of Magic while Voldemort controlled things from behind the scenes. His own in-laws had been targeted, although Lupin could take small consolation out of the fact that Ted and Andromeda had incurred the Death Eaters wrath for their part in helping Harry escape from his aunt and uncle's place and not because their daughter had married a werewolf.
"Why didn't Voldemort just declare himself Minister for Magic?" Ron asked.
Lupin laughed at that. "He doesn't need to, Ron. Effectively he is the Minister, but why should he sit behind a desk at the Ministry? His puppet, Thicknesse, is taking care of everyday business, leaving Voldemort free to extend his power beyond the Ministry. Naturally many people have deduced what has happened: there has been such a dramatic change in Ministry policy in the last few days, and many are whispering that Voldemort must be behind it. However, that is the point: they whisper. They daren't confide in each other, not knowing whom to trust; they are scared to speak out, in case their suspicions are true and their families are targeted. Yes, Voldemort is playing a very clever game. Declaring himself might have provoked open rebellion: remaining masked has created confusion, uncertainty and fear."
He broke the news to Hermione as gently as he could that Voldemort and his Death Eaters, under the guise of Ministry respectability, were targeting muggle-borns, maintaining that since magical ability was inherited, muggle-born witches and wizards must have stolen the ability, and therefor weren't real witches and wizards but frauds to be prosecuted – or persecuted. Hermione took it was surprising grace; she had always known that 'her kind' would be among the first to be targeted should Voldemort get any amount of power. "What about your father-in-law?" she asked. "Isn't he a muggle-born?"
Lupin flinched at the reference to the wife and in-laws that he had left behind. "Andromeda's still a Black, even a Black who married a muggle-born. The name still holds a lot of clout. That should afford him a degree of safety, certainly more than what others have been afforded." He took a deep breath and launched into his reason for arriving at Grimmauld Place. "I'll understand if you can't confirm this, Harry, but the Order is under the impression that Dumbledore left you a mission."
"He did, and Ron and Hermione are in on it and they're coming with m," Harry replied.
"Can you confide in me what the mission is?"
"I can't, Remus, I'm sorry, If Dumbledore didn't tell you, I don't think I can."
"I thought you'd say that. But I might still be of some use to you. You know what I am and what I can do. I could come with you to provide protection. There would be no need to tell me exactly what you were up to."
There was a look in Harry's eyes that Lupin had been banking on; his supernatural strength, vision, hearing and smell would make for a good bodyguard and general protector. Not to mention his knowledge of the Dark Arts and how to defend yourself against them. Having a werewolf having your back was no small thing. But it wasn't Harry who spoke next; it was Hermione. "What about Tonks?" she asked.
"What about her?"
"Well, you're married! How does she feel about you going away with us?"
"Dora will be perfectly safe. She's at her parents place. As I said, Andromeda's still a Black, which makes Dora a Black, too. She's as safe as anyone can be in these times."
"Remus... is everything alright... you know... between you and –" Hermione began tentatively.
"Everything is fine, thank you," Lupin said tightly. He saw Hermione turned pink at his shortness. The seconds slipped by agonisingly slowly before he finally said, "Dora is going to have a baby."
"Oh, how wonderful!" Hermione said.
"Excellent!" Ron explained.
"Congratulations," from Harry.
Lupin gave an artificial smile, knowing that it must look more like a grimace than a smile, and said, "So... do you accept my offer? Will three become four? I cannot believe that Dumbledore would have disapproved, he appointed me your Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, after all. And I must tell you that I believe that we are facing magic many of us have never encountered or imagined."
"Just to be clear," Harry clarified. "You want to leave Tonks at her parent's house and come away with us?"
"She'll be perfectly safe there, they'll look after her," Lupin said. "Harry, I'm sure James would have wanted me to stick with you."
"Well, I'm not. I'm pretty sure my father would have wanted to know why you aren't sticking with your own kid, actually," Harry said bluntly.
The colour drained from Lupin's face for being spoken so bluntly to – and by his former charge, no less. He constantly felt guilty for walking out on Tonks, and had to keep reminding himself that it was for the best. "You don't understand," he said.
"Explain, then,"
Lupin swallowed. "I – I made a grave mistake in marrying Dora. I did it against my better judgement and I have regretted it very much ever since."
"I see," Harry said. "So you're just going to dump her and run off with us?"
Lupin sprang to his feet, toppling his chair backwards and he glared at Harry so fiercely that the younger man stepped back in fright. "Don't you understand what I've done to my wife and my unborn child? I should never have married her. I've made her an outcast! You have only ever seen me amongst the Order, or under Dumbledore's protection at Hogwarts. You don't know how most of the wizarding word sees creatures like me! Don't you see what I've done? Even her own family is disgusted by our marriage, what parents want their only daughter to marry a werewolf? And the child – the child -" Lupin seized handfuls of his own hair and began tearing it out, so distressed was he over the thought of what he had done. "My kind doesn't usually breed! It will be like me, I am convinced of it – how can I forgive myself, when I knowingly risked passing on my condition to an innocent child? And if my some miracle, it is not like me, then it would be better off, a hundred times so, without a father of which it must always be ashamed!"
"Remus!" Hermione said, on the verge of tears, shocked that a man that she so admired could think and act like that. "Don't say that – how could anyone be ashamed of you?"
"Oh, I don't know, Hermione," Harry said with uncharacteristic viciousness. "I'd be pretty ashamed of him." Lupin looked as if Harry had hit him. "If the new regime things muggle-borns are bad, what will they do to a half-werewolf whose parents are in the Order? My father died trying to protect my mother and me, and you reckon he'd tell you to abandon your kid to go on an adventure with us?"
"How – dare you? This is not about desire for – for danger or personal glory – how dare you suggest such a –"
"I think you're feeling a bit of a daredevil," Harry said. "You fancy stepping into Sirius's shoes. I'd never have believed this – the man who taught me to fight Dementors – a coward."
Lupin raised his wand to Harry, ready to curse him for his being insubordinate, but Hermione interjected. "Remus, don't," she pleaded. "What's done is done. Your wife needs you. Your child needs you. You can't just abandon them like – like –"
"A coward," Lupin said weakly. "I'm a coward."
"I didn't say that," Hermione said, although she was inclined to agree with his assessment. But it was almost as distressing to see her former DADA teacher so broken and guilt-ridden as anything else they had come up against in the past few months.
"You didn't have to. I walked out on my wife. Didn't even say it to her face, I left her a note. I'd be surprised if she even took me back."
"You don't know what she'll do. And you owe it to her to try," Hermione said gently. "Whatever shame she's endured already – and that wasn't your fault, it was the fault of small-minded people who think anyone who's not pure-human and pure-blooded is scum – won't go away just because you left her. So you may as well be by her side. We all have our battles to fight. Yours has to be to support your wife through this period."
Lupin traipsed around London for days, thoroughly miserable. Every time he thought he'd come to a decision as what to do, he started to panic. Finally he decided to just go to the Tonks house and play it by ear.
Andromeda answered the door. "Leave, before she realises you're here," she said, not entirely unkindly; he could hear the gratitude in her voice, thankful that he had walked out on her.
"I need to see my wife," Lupin insisted.
"You need to go," Andromeda said. "Please. She's just starting to get over you. A few more weeks and we might be able to convince her to have a termination. You may even be able to get an annulment and she can marry someone more suitable for her."
They both knew that was a lie; if she hadn't gotten over him in the five years between seventeen and twenty-two, a few weeks would have made no difference. "Andromeda, let me in, before I knock you over."Andromeda reluctantly stepped aside so Lupin could charge through the front door. "Dora!" he yelled. "Dora, I need to see you!"
She was standing in the living room, and he was struck by how different she was in just a matter of weeks. She looked pale and stressed, and he guiltily knew that he was responsible for that. What happened to his marriage vows? For better or worse, in sickness and in health... He had been reluctant to marry her, but having married her, he should have made her his priority, done everything in his power to make her happy. Instead, he had tried to run away and needed to be told what-for by a bunch of seventeen-year-olds.
Her pregnancy was advanced enough to show ever-so-slightly, and he felt an immediately bond with his unborn child. How could he have left that? He strode over to her, took her hands in his and dropped to his knees, kissing her swollen belly. "Please, take me back," he begged. "Please, I'll do anything." He tilted his head to look up at her, his eyes swimming with tears.
"You won't leave me again?" she asked, clutching his hands tightly as if to physically stop him from running off again.
"No," he said. "I promise. Til death, remember?"