Grimmauld Place
Tonks bounced on the doorstep, bright smile, flickering energy and red rimmed eyes she hadn't morphed away.
"I've been listed!" she said brightly, holding out a scroll of parchment with an official ministry seal.
For a moment, he thought she'd been promoted. The words 'transfer of records' and 'report to the Department for Dark Creatures' burnt into his eyes, ice cold.
"Tonks. I'm so-"
"Ecstatic, right? Please tell me you're over the moon about this," she was looking up at him anxiously, like she really did want him to be delighted that she'd been recategorized as less than human.
How could he feel anything other than devastated? The life in store for her was penury and pity and outright violence.
Her effortful cheer was slipping.
"You said…" Her voice was quavery, "You said, liaisons between witches and dark creatures were illegal. You said…" Her bottom lip was trembling now…
I meant if werewolves were declared people, he thought despairingly, which they won't ever be. I meant that to be an end of it! It never occurred to me that they would-
"Remus, please say something, I've had a shit of a week and a more than usually depressing day, and I'm really trying my darnedest not to cry on your shoulder and beg, and quite frankly, I think all this unrequited love might be killing me."
It took a lot of effort not to sweep her up in a tight embrace and press kisses and reassurances into her dull, limp hair.
"How can you want a relationship with-"
"A Dark Creature? You tell me!"
"Yes, but-" He cut himself off in the face of her raised eyebrows.
"Monster? Aberration most foul? Freak? Perverted sex maniac?"
He stared at her.
"Is that what they're saying." But he knew it was.
"Tip of the iceberg, dear Remus. Someone, someone I work with offered to set me up in a nice little flat on the Thames with ten percent of the profits,"
"What?" He blinked. She couldn't possibly mean-
"Exactly." She said, "And while I have the utmost respect for sex workers, consenting and unconsenting, I don't- it's not-"
"I'm so sorry."
"Don't be sorry, be Remus. Tell me that financial ruin makes chocolate taste more chocolatey, and warmth warmer and friendship that much more beautiful, and tell me that you love me even though I'm clumsy and foolish and naïve and uncertain and I've lost my job, just tell me we're ok, Remus, just- please… Dammit! I promised myself I wasn't going to cry or beg!" She swiped brutally at her eyes and tried to stand tall. She was shaking.
He felt fixed to the spot. Paralysed.
"It… wasn't a passing fancy…" he said, and his voice sounded strange and far away.
She blinked at him.
"A passing- no. No, it's not. And you can at least invite me in, it's cold on the doorstep!"
He stumbled backwards in a daze.
He found he was helping her out of her coat, and trailing after her, feeling faintly confunded.
"Wotcher, Sirius,"
"Hey kiddo- Godric, what's happened?"
"Remus rejected me again," she said morosely, tossing him the crumpled scroll and flopping down onto a kitchen chair.
"Burying the lead, somewhat," Remus added, trying to regain his composure, "Given that metamorphmagi constitute a tiny proportion of the population, I think this can be understood to mean that someone in the ministry thinks you pose a threat,"
"I don't know whether to be flattered you think they're scared of me, or insulted by the implication I've done a crap job of hiding my affiliations! But it's nothing so sophisticated. The head of that department is a prejudiced sleazy bigot, and last week I had to ram my knee into his genitals 'by accident'. I don't know why they all want to fuck me if they don't think I'm human. Oh, don't look so shocked,"
That last comment was directed at Sirius, whose usually saturnine features were flicking from horrified to disgusted to furious in quick succession.
"Padfoot," Remus said quietly, so that Sirius would take the hint offered by his gaze moving to point at the scroll. Sirius's brow furrowed momentarily.
"Bastards." It came out low and repressed and rage filled. Remus gave him a warning look, tipping his head ever so slightly towards Tonks, glumly toying with the sugar bowl. Sirius cast a thoughtful look at the curl of parchment. "Still… at least his 'it's illegal to date a dark creature' excuse is bust!"
Tonks burst into tears.
Sirius bared his teeth at Remus in a humourless grin.
"Moony, ol' pal,"
Remus could think of nothing suitable to say.
"Moony." Sirius gave him a heavy look and jerked his head at Tonks, "Damsel in distress. Go on,"
Tonks stopped crying abruptly, and walloped Sirius with the scroll.
Remus felt his brain had been emptied out of useful things like words.
"If you cried occasionally, you might be less reliant on firewhisky," Tonks said accusingly to Sirius, "It's fine to have feelings, you know,"
"Oh, is it now," said Sirius, that dangerous gleam in his eye, "And how's that working out for you?"
Something happened, Remus was not quite sure what, but in the space a few seconds a grim sibling-esque play-wrestling match exploded. Tonks had a fistful of Sirius' dark locks, and was thwacking him with the parchment, while Sirius attempted to fend her off with one arm, and pour sugar on her with the other. For absolutely no good reason.
This was one of the stranger things about them.
The mercurial Black temperament perhaps.
It was decidedly not the sort of romantically charged earnest fighting of James and Lily. This had a familial feel to it, like they would staunchly defend each other in public, but viciously jab at each other when no-one was watching. Sometimes playing board games with them was an absolute delight, and other times… well, other times this happened, and it was all snapping comments and flinging small objects around and hairpulling.
There was no point intervening. They'd make a mess and devolve into caustic remarks, and sometimes Tonks cried, and sometimes Sirius sulked (usually with a bottle), but most of the time it was over quickly and they were back to joking around like nothing had happened.
Remus felt very conscious of himself. Of standing like an idiot by the table, in his ancient boots and his tired trousers and darned jumper, with his greying hair, and the strain of lycanthropy written on his skin in shadows and wrinkles and scars, his aching joints, always slightly swollen from being pulled apart and reset every month…
"Yes," He said, and it sounded like an echo from the hollow space inside him, "Tonks, I'm saying yes,"
The slightly-too-vicious play fighting ceased immediately, and they both stared at him.
"You…?" Tonks trailed off.
A gripping cold filled Remus' chest.
Tonks glanced back at Sirius, who jolted into action, placing a hand on her back and giving her a gentle shove.
"Go, go on, quick!"
And she was in his arms, damp, covered in gritty sugar, and holding him so, so tightly. Odd, that. It made it much easier to breathe.
Sirius was rocking back in his chair, a lazy grin on his face.
"'Bout time," he said, "Please, please get freaky in this house. The ancient and noble house of Black deserves to be desecrated,"
Tonks half let go of Remus in order to pivot and fling the abandoned sugar bowl at Sirius' head. He caught it, chuckling.
"You say nothing," She said, with passionate emphasis, as though she was concerned Sirius might somehow cause Remus to change his mind. One of her hands was twisted in the back of Remus' jumper tightly, almost like he'd nearly fallen from a great height, and she'd caught him just in time and was still trying to pull him back to safety. "C'mon, Remus," That part came out in a mumble, and she ducked her head against his shoulder as she steered him out of the kitchen, stumbling over her own feet and nearly dragging them into the door frame.
Remus cast a bewildered glance back at his oldest living friend.
Sirius looked happy.
His face, so often twisted with frustration or despair, depression, or the slightly manic glint of firewhisky, was relaxed. He was smiling a little, mostly with his eyes, crinkled crows' feet warming his harsh features. It was fond look. Then he winked.
Damn him.
"Have the two of you been scheming?" He asked Tonks.
"Always," she said, refusing to let go of him as they struggled down the hallway towards the front door.
"You fight a lot,"
"No, we don't," she said blithely, "We only ever come to blows if he's being rude about you. Or if he thinks I'm messing you around. But I'm not." She stopped dead and looked up at him earnestly, "I'm not Remus, I swear."
"If you have Sirius convinced, who am I to argue?"
She seemed relieved.
"He did threaten to break all the bones in my left foot if I broke your heart,"
"He what?!"
But her fingers were still gripping the back of his jumper for dear life.
"You let me deal with Sirius," she said firmly, dragging him towards the door. "He's all bark."
"Do you mind if I ask where you're taking me?"
"Home." She said pointedly, "There's no use going upstairs here, he'll only hang about eavesdropping. You have no idea how invested he is in this working out. He's really bored Remus, I mean really bored."
A horrible but also hopeful thought occurred to Remus.
"The two of you haven't been forging ministry documents by any chance?"
She sighed, and he hated himself slightly for thinking she might have morphed the redness round her eyes and faked the tears earlier.
"No, Remus, I really have been registered." She paused, hand on the doorknob. "It's not a bad idea though… OI! SIRIUS! THINK WE COULD USE MY REGISTRATION TO FORGE MINISTRY DOCUMENTS?"
"HUH? OH. YEAH MAYBE, LEMME THINK," Came the bellowed reply from the kitchen, "YOU KIDS HAVE FUN,"
"WE WILL," Tonks yelled back, "DON'T WAIT UP,"
Remus was still floating along in a bewildered state of unreality. There were granules of sugar all over his jumper.
Things stayed in this strange suspended animation state all the way to Tonks' flat. Even the queasy tug of apparition didn't ground him properly. He felt… light-headed. As though perhaps he was a ghost in his own life.
Tonks made him sit down on the sofa and pressed a large mug of tea into his hands. She brushed some of the sugar off his shoulder, and curled up next to him, warming her fingers on her own mug.
"What happens now?" he asked, hearing his own voice calm but distant.
She blinked at him.
"We have tea and biscuits," she said, fishing a battered tin out from under a cushion and holding it out.
"And then?"
"And then, probably more tea," she said, "Or possibly a curry. You're kinda pale."
Remus took a sip of hot tea. Such a comforting beverage. So… real.
Unfortunately, with reality starting to settle on him like a blanket, a rare but familiar feeling also started to flutter in his ribcage.
How had he forgotten how dreadfully shy he was?
What on earth had possessed him?
Where exactly had his brain gone?
He glanced sideways at her, but she was contemplating a crumbly jammy dodger, as though it was necessary to consider what the stray chocolate biscuit crumbs stuck in the jam might do to the flavour in advance of actually eating it.
Remus took another sip. He could feel the hot tea tracing through his body. His fingers were starting to warm up. His feet were starting to warm up. Which was astounding, as she'd made him take his shoes off at the door.
Was she just going to sit there eating biscuits?
"Tonks?"
"Mmm?"
But really, what was he supposed to say?
Remus had some more tea.
It was quite pleasant really.
She had a very nice sofa. Tattered but comfy.
Nice living room too. Lots of pot plants trailing foliage everywhere. Lots of brightly coloured mugs discarded on surfaces. A blocky muggle television set nestled in amongst the books on the shelf. It could use a bit of a tidy, but then, it was a friendly sort of mess. There was a rag rug on the floor, and a basket of clean washing cascading over the side of an armchair.
"I'm a slob, I know," she said ruefully, "But in fairness, I didn't know you'd be coming round. I would've tidied,"
"I like it," the words were out before he could think.
Apparently, he didn't think any more.
She eyed him thoughtfully.
"You can stop freaking out, you know," she said, dusting crumbs off her trouser leg, "We don't have to do anything."
What sort of thing?
He couldn't even think of a thing. It was all just.
What was happening?
He drank some more tea.
He risked glancing at her again.
She gave him a soft look, then put her mug down on a pile of magazines on the floor.
"I'm ordering a curry," she said, rubbing his arm, as though trying to warm him up. "Give you some time to acclimatise,"
Remus stayed on the sofa with his tea.
The small sounds of Tonks moving about the flat registered in his ears. She was flapping take-away menus, and shoving things in cupboards as she ordered food on a telephone with a long curly cord that swiped things off the bench and onto the floor.
Remus helped himself to a chocolate digestive.
He had very little faith in a biscuit's ability to return him to normal cognitive function, but on the other hand, some function would still be more than the current fluttering absence of anything sensible.
And at least it was comforting.
At some point, Tonks slipped out, and returned rustling plastic bags and cracking open plastic containers, and then she was presenting him with a large bowl of deliciously spiced food with broken pappadums wedged into the top like wafers in cartoon ice-cream.
Remus had the strong sense he was being looked after.
Perhaps he looked as peculiar as he felt. He had some curry.
For a while it was mostly the clinking of cutlery and the hot flavours of food.
"You know, it's weird," she said, as she cleared away the bowls, "I don't know how you're managing to look panicked and happy at the same time."
Remus blinked.
"That's an accurate summary of my emotional landscape just at the minute," he said, again unsure of whether his speech was connected to his brain in any meaningful way, "It's rather lovely to be here, and I've no idea how it happened. I remember it all quite clearly, but I'm still not sure how the afternoon changed from Sirius upending a sugar bowl over you, to sitting on your couch while you press beverages and biscuits and curry on me as though I were recovering from a nasty shock,"
She grinned at him.
"I think you are recovering from a nasty shock," she said, "Did you know you were going to say 'yes' before you said it?"
"No, not at all," he said, "Incidentally, I still don't really know what I've agreed to."
Tonks dumped the dishes in the sink and promptly ignored them, wandering back over and plonking down beside him again.
"You don't regret it, do you?"
Remus blinked. She looked worried. Her hair was still limp and brown, and there was still sugar in it.
"I may live to regret the curry," he said, in the vague hope of vanishing the anxious look off her face, "It was delicious, but I now feel like an overstuffed beanbag,"
The worry melted away.
"Curry has that effect," she said, yawning. "At least, it does when you eat vast quantities due to being freaked out. Merlin. What a day,"
"Tonks,"
"Mmm,"
"What have I agreed to?"
She blinked at him, then flashed a mischievous grin.
"What do you want to have agreed to?"
Remus ran his hands over his face. If only his brain would start working again. He felt cosy, and warm, and full, and sleepy, and very, very confused.
"I haven't a clue," he said, in perfect honesty.
Her eyes had gone soft again. Were they purple? The looked purple. A dark, velvety purple.
"Brilliant, because I've been quietly panicking since we got here. Sirius said you don't have much experience in the romance department, and it suddenly hit me that perhaps you might like an introduction, and frankly, it's not really my forte. I mean, I've done things. It's not that I haven't. But. I'm not really the, erm, sexual tutor that anyone would actually want. I'm clumsy in all areas of life. And I definitely ate almost twice as much curry as you. So. I mean, I'd like to, at some point, but." She pulled a face.
"If Sirius said I don't have much experience, he was vastly over-stating things," Remus said, discovering that some part of him had been braced against the idea of anything physical. "I have no experience at all."
"I've mostly had experiences I didn't like very much," Tonks offered. "So if anything, I'm in negative figures, if we were assigning some sort of grading system. Which I don't think we should. But you should definitely have the first shower so I have time to tidy the bedroom. It's not that I mind you seeing my knickers, but I'd rather that happened in a less slovenly way,"
Which was how Remus found himself standing under a punishingly good showerhead, surrounded by all manner of lurid bottles of shower gel and shampoo. It was so unutterably lovely to have decent water pressure. Perhaps that was what was addling his brain. He explored the little technicolour city of bottles and settled on pinkish one that claimed to be grapefruit scented. It smelt nothing like grapefruit, but a lot like Tonks.
Why was he going along with this?
He was a werewolf, for crying out loud.
In some inarticulate way, he felt like he was avoiding the answer. Better not to know, just now. Better to just… enjoy the fluffiness of the duckling-yellow towel, and put on the pyjamas she'd left out for him. Pale grey track pants with HARPIES emblazoned across the arse. An oversized black cotton jumper with a cartoon of a pink zombie kitten on it. His favourite item was the socks. He suspected she'd had to work quite hard to find a matching pair. They were the same type of sock, and both had stripes… just not same stripes.
He drifted into the kitchen and did the dishes while she showered. He tidied, by accident. The washing got folded. He might've watered the plants. He felt more normal now. Sort of warm, and clean, and well. Normal. Except…
Had he agreed to spend the night here?
And if so, when exactly had he agreed?
Tonks resurfaced, clad in mustard leggings and a grey top with picture of Asterix and Obelix on it, babbling apologetically about her hair. Remus could see nothing wrong with it, but apparently she had been aiming for orange and come up a pastel peachy-apricot. It was quite striking, with the purple pansy eyes.
Remus let himself be drawn down the hall after her, and found himself slipping into bed beside her, a strange twist in his chest at the sight of the patchwork quilt, a complicated pattern of diamonds on point, radiating out into a blazing star, like a mariner's compass, glowing with colour, blues and purples and oranges and reds…
There was something about quilts. It felt peculiarly old fashioned, the layers of bedding, folding the top of the sheet over to hold all the layers in place… It reminded him of visits to his muggle grandmother's place as a child… before… before things changed…
Tonks gave him a little half smile, her apricot hair on the bright blue pillow.
"You get much crisper lines with a muggle machine," she said, "I think that's why most quilts in the wizarding world are either stiff with enchantment, or a wobbly nine-patch. My Gran made this one."
"It's lovely,"
Tonks flicked the lights out with her wand.
Remus heard her shaky breath in.
"Thanks for being here," she said, "I, um,"
He heard the wobble in her voice, and hesitated only for a moment before pulling her into his arms, his heartbeat balanced by her watery despairing chuckle, and the way she clung to him like she was adrift in the sea.
He felt hot tears on his neck, and the shaky sigh that ran through her whole body as she curled her fingers into the back of his jumper. He let himself give in to the need to comfort her, stroking her silky hair and her shoulder blades, and mumbling reassuring nonsense. With each shuddering sigh, more of the tension left her, until she was curled warmly against him with the panic of her new Dark Creature status falling away.
He knew what he was agreeing to now.
Perhaps if things had been different, if there hadn't been a war on, if the massive machine of government hadn't chosen to declare her sub-human, if she'd had anyone else who knew her like he did, who knew the complexities of her double life, who could be there in his place…
That was a lie.
His resistance had collapsed in heap like so much clean washing the second he'd properly understood she was serious. That she felt about him the way he felt about her.
Whether there was a war on or not, life was brutal.
And he could see now that she'd been saying yes to him since he'd met her, turning up with food and board games, and laughter, and he'd been saying no, don't love me, don't be kind to me, don't sit with me when I'm sad and hurt and alone.
It was almost as though her sighs were contagious; a shaky exhale rolled through him like a wave, and he went weak jointed in her arms.
I'm here for you, Dora… I'll always be here for you…