Married life was a strange beast.
It wasn't how Remus had expected. James and Lily had spent at least three months basking in the joy of just being married after their wedding, despite the war that was surrounding them. Perhaps Remus had expected that for himself.
The reality for Remus was that there was another war, he and his wife were still members of the Order of the Phoenix, and there was a lot to do. The newlyweds barely got a moments peace, all in all.
Tonks was required to spend a lot of her time at the Ministry. It was clear something was not right there, with more and more of the Ministry workers acting strangely. Including some of the department heads. Soon, Tonks was working double-duty, first doing her own job as given by her superiors and secondly investigating those acting strangely, which included several of those superiors. She was arriving home every evening after ten o'clock, regularly going back in before eight the next morning.
Remus wasn't exactly slacking, either. He wasn't living with the other werewolves any more, but was regularly visiting. He helped Ottoline and William set up their series of safe-houses across the country for the werewolves who didn't wish to join Greyback. Under disguise, he met with Mike who had remained underground with the werewolves who remained with Greyback and took reports of their activities. They seemed to be simply acting out the plans of Voldemort, lurking by Muggle settlements at the full moon and trying to kill as many as they could. Remus had procured some wolfsbane, and was planning to pass it to Mike each full moon who would then attempt to keep as many Muggles away as he could.
Along with Anna and Eugenia, he tried to track down newly-bitten werewolves and get them out of Greyback's reach before he could recruit them. This was a tricky task. It relied heavily on intelligence from Mike about where werewolf packs were likely to be, and then a quick swoop in as soon as the moon had gone down. They would pull anyone injured out of there, before the Ministry or Greyback could find them, and try to persuade them to stay in one of Ottoline and William's safe houses. Most of the time, it worked. The new werewolves were generally fearful of Voldemort, and of Greyback whom rumours were flying around about, and they were all too happy to be looked after by someone who wasn't associated with either of them.
None of it was easy. The Ministry had issued yet more anti-werewolf propaganda, including a reward of fifty Galleons for any witch or wizard who provided information that led to the capture of a werewolf. Tonks had found that funny, and along with Fred and George had done a whole skit around arresting him at the last Order meeting. Remus had laughed along with them. He had to; the other option was disappearing into a corner with a bottle of Firewhisky. Molly had pulled him aside and hugged him, saying she would march down to the Ministry personally to speak on his behalf if he was arrested. It wouldn't help. Remus had thanked her anyway. He did appreciate the sentiment.
There were rumours coming out of the Ministry that the next step would be fines for anyone associating with werewolves.
All of this was Voldemort's fault, well, and Greyback's. Most of the werewolves that would be arrested under this would be innocent.
Remus had been around checking on all his werewolf acquaintances after this announcement, to make sure they were safe. He didn't know how many he could keep safe, from the competing threats of Greyback and of the Ministry, but he had to help where he could.
This meant very little time for Remus and Tonks. They stole time in half an hour chunks on their worst days, a couple of hours together on a good one. Some nights, they didn't get chance to stay in the same bed. One of them would crash elsewhere, or get a middle-of-the-night callout just as the other was coming in.
To say it wasn't how Remus had expected it was an understatement.
It was as they were preparing to head over towards The Burrow, the night they planned to collect Harry from his aunt and uncle's house, that Remus realised this mission was likely to be the most time they'd had together in a week. He told Tonks this.
"Such a romantic date," she said, looking for her broomstick. "Really know how to make a woman feel loved, you. Oh, I give up! Accio Broomstick!"
"Is this, is it all alright?" asked Remus, his palms sweating.
"Of course it is, you fool," she said, reaching over and kissing him. Unfortunately her broomstick was still in her hand, and she whacked him round the back of his head with it. "We got married in a war. We'll have a honeymoon after that. Now shut up with your panicking, and come over here. We've got at least forty-five minutes before we need to leave, and that gives us enough time to…"
Remus did not need to hear any more, and he was on top of her before her sentence was finished.
Much more than forty-five minutes after Tonks' proposition, they were on their way to the meeting point at The Burrow. Tonks was once again searching for something without the use of magic, this time the Floo powder. Remus was getting nervous.
"Accio Floo powder!" shouted Tonks eventually, and the pot sailed towards her with powder flying everywhere. Remus bit his tongue. The rest of the night needed to go more smoothly than this. He took a handful of the powder and shouted his destination into the fireplace.
At the other end, he was evicted by the fireplace onto the Weasley's rug. He swallowed the wave of nausea caused by the travel, and took the abuse from Mad-Eye Moody for being late as he thoroughly deserved it. Everyone else involved in the plan was already present; Hermione, Ron, Bill and Fleur, Fred and George, Arthur, Kingsley, Mad-Eye, Mungungus, and outside in the garden sat on the grass, Hagrid. Molly was floating in the background, and a very cross Ginny. Aside from Mad-Eye's ranting about following process and the importance of good timekeeping, which was aimed at Remus far more than Tonks even though it was essentially her fault, and Mundungus' grousing about not wanting to be there, the room had almost a party atmosphere.
"We're going to rescue the Chosen One, the Chosen One, the Chosen One! We're going to rescue the Chosen One, to kill old Voldemort!" the twins were singing, to an irritating tune that Remus was sure he'd heard before and couldn't quite place.
"Quiet!" yelled Mad-Eye eventually, immediately silencing everyone in the room. "Is everyone here clear on the plan, as agreed at the meeting two days ago?" There was a room full of nods. "Good. Nobody must act outside of plan. The most important thing here is that we are disciplined and we stick to the plan."
"I thought constant vigilance was the most important thing," muttered Tonks to Remus, who stifled a laugh.
Nobody did stick to the plan. Mundungus fled, and Remus was certain he watched Mad-Eye fall to his death shortly after. Bill and Fleur got too caught up in fighting, and strayed too far north, running into a back-up group of Death Eaters waiting for them. Remus lost sight of the others early on. George, his Harry lookalike, was amazing, though. Remus mostly concentrated on flying, dodging Death Eaters and spells, while George took on their end of the fighting. He was holding up marvellously, sitting backwards the broom back-to-back with Remus to get a better vantage point from which to work spells. He was shooting them off at an impressive speed.
"Fuckin' hell, there's loads of them!" shouted George. "Reducto!" The Death Eater at the front of the pack pursuing them swerved to narrowly avoid his broom being blasted out from under them and crashed into the steeple of a church, disappearing from view. There were four more onto them, though. "Impedimentia! Depulso! Remus, is it ethical to Vanish Death Eaters? Transfigure them?"
"Do what you have to!" shouted Remus, spiralling to avoid a rush of flames. "Kill them for all I care, just don't let them kill us!"
"Didn't have you down as the ruthless type! Incendio!! Stupefy! Stupefy! Furnunculus! Remus, looks like we've got the greasy one on our tail!"
Remus checked behind him at George's last shout. He was right. In the back row of their opponents was one Severus Snape, killer of Dumbledore and Voldemort's loyal servant.
"Get him first," advised Remus. He swerved the broom to avoid a bright purple spell, crouching low over the handle to encourage it faster, and dropped into a dive to avoid a Killing Curse. On the back, George was throwing curses backwards into the Death Eaters, hitting a couple more.
"Sectumsempra!" shouted Snape, and Remus, busy avoiding a curse from Antonin Dolohov, couldn't dodge Snape's. George screamed, a horrible blood-curdling scream, and flopped to the side. Remus caught him, causing the broom to swing almost 180 degrees around to face the Death Eaters, and battled to right himself, George and the broom. A bloodstain spread across Remus' shoulders as he supported George on the broom, dangerously quickly in his opinion.
"George!" shouted Remus, as he fought to control the broom and the Weasley. "Hold on, yes? Can you grab my robes? Anything! Stay awake!"
Remus took his other hand off the broom handle and willed the broom to behave. Without looking, he fired the first spells to come into his head over the shoulder as his other hand supported George. He'd lost track of which way they were travelling. He'd have to hope he could curse enough of them to get a chance to look at the compass on the broom handle and swoop down to see where he was. Fucking hell. George was slipping again. He pulled him upright a little bit more, ignoring the blood pouring off him, and released another volley of curses over his shoulder. A scream suggested at least one of them had hit the mark.
"They've got the right one!" shouted one of the Death Eaters, and Remus and George were suddenly alone in the air.
"Fucking hell," said Remus. "Hang on in there, George. Shit."
He'd run out of swear words by the time they arrived at their appointed safe house, very nearly late for their Portkey.
Remus lost the next few hours to all intents and purposes. If you'd asked him afterwards what he'd done, he could have said that he'd gone back to The Burrow, mildly threatened Harry to ascertain he wasn't an imposter, drank some Firewhisky in commemoration of Mad-Eye, and gone to search for the body. He could just about recall who was there, but the details were fuzzy. The room he'd been in at The Burrow, where he and Bill had gone to retrieve the body, conversations he'd had were all a blur.
He should have looked after George better, he kept thinking.
And afterwards, all he could do was Apparate back to Tonks' flat, well their flat now, open the door and fall asleep on the carpet.
Tonks prodded him awake the next morning. She looked as if she'd been up all night. Her hair, blonde and chin length, was rough and her eyes were slightly bloodshot with crying. Mad-Eye had been close to her. She'd confided in him when she'd had trouble with Auror training, and he'd given her extra help. He never did that. He'd been the one to pick her out for the Order, assuring Dumbledore she was the brightest new Auror for years. They had been friends, and trusted one another, as much as Mad-Eye had trusted anyone.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there to talk to you," said Remus, propping himself up at the table. He had the remains of a carpet-mark on his face from his choice of sleeping location.
"You had to go and look for him," she replied. "Someone did."
"I should have stayed," he said. "I should have remembered you were close. You're my wife. It shouldn't be left to Molly Weasley to comfort my wife when I could do it."
"We're both learning how to do this marriage shit," she said. "I'm off to bed. Coming?" They fell into the bed together, and clung to each other as if they never wanted to break apart. Remus breathed in the smell of her and relaxed for the first time since they'd left the flat together the night before.
And if Remus was honest, things didn't improve any more over the next few weeks. The Ministry threw out more anti-werewolf laws. Greyback and his pack had been attacking at random, not always waiting for the full moon. Remus' work was cut out tracking down the victims and helping them to safety. More and more of them, especially the Muggles, were not surviving. There had been an attack on one of William and Ottoline's safe houses for werewolves. Luckily, William had been there, and the house mostly full of qualified wizard werewolves, and he had managed to fight the Death Eaters for long enough for the occupants to Apparate to safety. Remus had needed to strengthen the secrecy and protective charms on the rest of the safe houses after that.
Everyone knew Remus was a werewolf, even the Ministry, by now. His status as an unregistered werewolf, which was illegal, was soon going to cause problems. Especially for Tonks. Some of the others in the Auror department had heard of her entanglement with him and were making her life more difficult. Two of them cornered her one day and threatened to hold her hostage until Remus registered. She'd more than held her own in the ensuing fight, and the two Aurors had been disciplined, but Remus was worried.
"I'll leave, if that's what you want?" he'd offered that evening, when they were having a rare dinner together. His eyes stayed on the red mark on her wrist where one of them had grabbed her the whole time he spoke.
"Do me a favour, and never suggest that again," she'd said, grimly. "I'm not scared of those two idiots. Can't let the dickheads win."
He'd been unconvinced by her breezy manner. Maybe she wasn't scared, but he was scared for her. Kingsley promised to keep an eye on the situation, but he was rarely in the Auror Headquarters these days.
And so it was with an overwhelming feeling of worry and panic that he came into their bedroom the afternoon after Bill and Fleur's wedding, when Tonks had summoned him in with the words "Remus? Erm, I've got something to tell you."
The feeling grew when she told him to sit down. Had she been attacked again? He flicked his eyes over her to look for obvious injuries, and felt a wave of relief when there weren't any. She'd been fired from her job as an Auror on the spot, when they were still at The Burrow, due to her connection with him and with the Order, so it couldn't be related to her work. What was wrong?
She was happy. That was a good sign. She'd been so happy the last few weeks. He had been growing less and less convinced by this whole marriage, as he was putting her in danger, but she was having the time of her life if the look on her face was anything to go by. It was something special, the knowledge that he was making the woman he loved feel like this. On bad days, when nothing was going in their favour, like yesterday, it was the only thing keeping him around.
He never ever wanted to hurt her.
"Remus. Oh, Merlin's beard, I don't know how to say this. I'm pregnant."
"You're… you're what?"
"Pregnant. Going to have a baby. Bun in the oven. Egg under the dragon. You know. Baby. In here." She pointed to her stomach.
Remus' heart dropped. A baby. Shit. They'd been careful. He thought they'd been careful. He didn't want this baby. It was going to be a monster and it would be all his fault. The baby was going to have a shit father.
"Tonks, I…"
"I looked it up, and I can't find anything that says it's going to be a werewolf. There are a handful of occasions of werewolf males and witches, well, mating, for lack of a better word, and the births are recorded as 'no known traces of lycanthropy'. It's not exactly the plan, is it, but I think it will work out."
"Tonks, you don't…"
"There's no guarantees with anything, of course, and there's the war as well. I'll stay out of it, though, I promise. I wouldn't do anything to endanger our child."
She was not the danger. He was. Werewolf. Half-breed. Dangerous.
"Tonks, I can't do this."
"What?"
"I can't be a father. You don't understand."
"Don't you dare try that one on me again." The tentatively happy look on her face was gone, and replaced with anger.
She had every right to be angry. This was his fault.
"It will be like me, I'm sure of it."
"You're the fucking king of facts, Remus Lupin, and checking stuff in books to make sure you've got it right. I've read every fucking book on this subject and all of them suggest you are wrong."
"And the books weren't written by werewolves. They're not accurate!"
He'd ruined her life. He just knew it. She'd end up like his mum, lonely and poor and forever looking at her child with heartbreak in her eyes.
"I dunno. One said 'werewolves are known for their obstinate, argumentative and sometimes aggressive behaviour outside of the full moon' and I'd say you're definitely ticking off numbers one and two there."
He had to get away. Give her a chance.
"I should never have married you. I can't do this."
"And what exactly do you propose I do now, then? We've made a baby, Remus. Well, technically, a foetus. I'm keeping it. It's going to be a person. It's time to deal with that fact."
Remus stood up from their bed, automatically smoothing down the purple striped coverlet as he did so. He took the three steps to the bedroom door, and opened it. Tonks was still on the edge of the bed, the corner of the duvet in her hand. She looked so impossibly sad, with tears welling in her grey-blue eyes. The exact shade that he'd told her was his favourite. He left the room, and the crack of his Apparition out of the flat could be heard from the living room.
He didn't know where he was going. He knew he had to leave. Fuck, he'd never wanted to hurt her, but this baby was the thing that would do exactly that when it turned out to be a monster just like him.
"Voldemort can take me now," said Remus, feeling a strong urge to throw his wand into the nearby dustbin. "Be better for everyone."
A wizard in dark robes and a Death Eater's mask was standing across the alleyway from him. Looked like the day had just got worse.