A/N: Oh, the joys of being on uni holiday and unemployed. Enjoy these frequent updates while they last! Some brief explanations here (which will be expanded on later) and a bit of plot development.
"I think we hurt his feelings."
"He'll be fine, Harry."
"Hermione, he thinks we're lying to him."
"Well, we are, mate."
"Ron—"
"I don't like it."
"Harry, we agreed."
"Remus is like a father figure to me, I feel horrible for not telling him."
"You have to think of Sirius."
"They're basically best friends! I don't get why he doesn't want him to know yet!"
"Apparently they're a bit more than friends."
"Oh do shut up, Ron."
The sound of a throat being cleared from the kitchen doorway stopped the conversation mid-flow. Harry looked up from the kitchen counter where he was slicing a loaf of bread and stared somewhat guiltily at his godfather, who was leaning against the wall looking amused.
Sirius ignored the sudden silence and instead sat down at the kitchen table, which had been restored back to its original state. He straddled a chair with his long legs and asked, "What's for dinner?"
"Toast," Ron said from his spot at the table where the as yet unopened Daily Prophet was lying in front of him, in a voice that completely betrayed the fact this was not the first time they had had to resort to that particular choice for dinner.
Looking even more amused, Sirius remarked, "Really? Between the three of you and your experience of living in the forest for half a year, the most you can manage to cook is toast?"
They had already briefly but succinctly filled Sirius in on the events of the war and their role in it, which he had listened to with a mixture of alarm, concern and – Harry could have sworn he detected it – pride. He had looked surprised at his brother's role in attempting to destroy one of Voldemort's Horcruxes, but the only comment he made on that was, "I guess he did realize right from wrong in the end, after all." He refused to say anything else on the subject. He had taken Dumbledore's death mildly enough; Harry had a feeling that his godfather had never really been on that great terms with the Hogwarts' previous Headmaster. Snape's role and death in the battle caused a haunted shadow of guilt and remorse flicker briefly across Sirius's face, but he said nothing on it otherwise. Harry had also briefly told him about Remus's role in helping the Order and at the Battle of Hogwarts, passing over it quickly, but he had held back from telling him one of the more important bit of news concerning Remus's personal life. He wasn't sure how much of their fire-call with Remus he had overheard before, but Sirius had never been the most attentive of people. His main concern was that he didn't know how his godfather would take it.
Sirius's own description of his return from death was a lot more vague and disconcerting. According to him, in some unknown dimension of space and time, a bright light had suddenly appeared. He had followed the light without thinking, getting closer and closer. When he reached out a hand to touch it, the light disappeared, and he suddenly found himself alive and breathing in the middle of London. Harry had a feeling that his godfather was deliberately keeping something back, but had chosen to let it go for the moment as Ron's stomach had let out a loud grumble closely followed by its owner's own remonstrations.
He tuned himself back into the conversation.
"Hermione transfigured food a lot of the time, which tasted like a whole lot of nothing," Ron was grumbling, earning himself a subsequent nasty look from Hermione.
"Somehow, Ronald, I didn't think gourmet food was top on our list of priorities at that moment in time."
Trying to head off the inevitable argument, Harry asked, "Can you cook anything, Sirius?"
His godfather looked sheepish. "Erm. Eggs?"
Ron looked measurably brighter. "Excellent. Eggs on toast it is. Has to be better than just plain bread."
Harry caught Hermione's What-Kind-Of-Host-Are-You look. Casting a glance at Sirius's drawn face and noting that his godfather did in fact look incredibly tired, Harry said hastily, "Um, that's okay. Don't worry, Sirius, we'll take care of it."
"Just don't transfigure them," Ron groused.
"Help yourself to something to drink, Sirius," Hermione said cheerfully. She walked around the kitchen table and headed towards Harry, hitting Ron smartly on the back of his head as she passed him and ignoring his indignant yelp. When she reached the spot where Harry was bent over with concentration on cutting even slices of bread, she grabbed a pan from the kitchen cupboards above him and examined it critically: it was brown and rusty, evidently from lack of use. She gave it a cautious sniff, wrinkled her nose with distaste and muttered a quick Cleaning charm under her breath. Then she gave Harry a resigned look. "I suppose you want me to…?"
"Thanks a million, 'Mione," Harry said, relieved, and passed her a carton of eggs before returning to his own task.
There was a comfortable silence in the kitchen as they each focused on their own thoughts. Then finally, as though unable to keep it in any longer, Sirius finally blurted, "So how's Remus?"
It was amazing how quickly a silence could turn heavy. Harry saw Hermione wince and crack an egg so hard against the bowl that one side of its shell caved and fell in along with a gloopy mess of broken yolk and egg white. Ron had picked up the Prophet and, spreading it open, raised it so that it blocked his face from Sirius's view entirely. Not wanting to be the one to break the news either, Harry doubled over the bread and focused on the sawing motion of his knife.
But silence was an answer in itself. "What?" Sirius said sharply.
Harry exchanged looks with Ron and Hermione. If their silent conversation could have been recorded, it would have been something along these lines:
Ron, you tell him.
No way, mate, you're his godson.
Hermione, you're a girl, you know how to be sensitive and stuff about these things. You tell him.
How sexist. Harry, it's your responsibility.
I didn't even know about him and Remus until a few hours ago! Why am I suddenly burdened with his relationship issues? Like I don't have enough of my own.
A dry cough caused the three of them to look over at Sirius, Ron lowering his newspaper abashedly. The animagus was looking impatient and a little irritated.
"As much as I love awkward silences… will someone please tell me what's going on? And Harry, if you put your face any closer to that bread you'll be slicing your own nose off."
Harry sighed and carefully laid down the bread knife, safely out of anyone's way. "Okay, here's the thing," he said slowly, and stopped.
Sirius looked at him expectantly.
Harry sent one last pleading look at his best friends, and when that returned no results, he closed his eyes and said, faster than the speed of light: "ThethingisRemusismarriedtoTo nksandtheyhaveakid."
He opened his eyes to be greeted by Sirius's look of bewilderment.
Hermione let out an exasperated sigh that seemed to say all too clearly why am I friends with you people? She wiped her hands on a paper towel and turned to Sirius. "What Harry was trying to tell you, Sirius, is that Remus is married. To Tonks."
Harry studied his godfather anxiously. So far, he didn't seem to be having any sort of adverse reaction. If anything, he looked more confused than ever. "To who?"
"Tonks?" Hermione faltered, glancing at Harry uncertainly. "Um, I think she's your cousin?"
"You mean Nymphadora?" Sirius let loose a bark of hysterical laughter. "You can't be serious!"
No one seemed to know quite how to respond to that. Hermione twisted the paper towel around between her fingers, looking torn.
The smile wavered on Sirius's face. "You mean… really?"
The three of them nodded.
Sirius studied the lines on top of the tabletop intently for a few moments. When he looked up, his face had become expressionless. Somehow, the blankness there scared Harry more than anything else. "You said something about a kid?"
Harry mentally cursed himself for blurting everything out in one go. Judging by Hermione's glare, she was doing the same thing.
He decided that the best policy was honesty. "Yes. Remus and Tonks have a son. Called Teddy. Teddy Lupin."
And the silence was back again, roaring in their ears, taking over the entire kitchen. Sirius's fingers were white from clenching the edge of the table. With what seemed like superhuman effort, he released his hold and took a deep breath. "That's great news," he said, and Harry felt his own heart contract painfully when he saw the hurt unable to be hidden in Sirius's eyes, the forced smile on his godfather's lips. "Really great. Excuse me," he added abruptly, and in an instant Sirius had pushed himself away from the table and was gone from the room.
Harry looked down at the loaf of bread, realizing that he wasn't hungry anymore. Ron frowned down at the newspaper in his hands, as if it could provide the answers to solving all of life's problems.
Hermione was fishing out broken pieces of egg shell from the bowl. After a few moments she gave up and pushed the bowl away, looking unhappy. "Poor Sirius," she murmured.
Suddenly, Ron let out a startled shout. He held up the paper for Harry and Hermione, eyes fixed on an article right at the center of the page, under a large black and white moving image of a horribly familiar leering man – if that was even the right description for him. Harry felt suddenly sick.
The caption read: FENRIR GREYBACK – NOT SO DEAD?
And underneath, the title of the article: SAVAGE WEREWOLVES SPOTTED IN EUROPE.
Silence had never seemed so deadly.
###
When Tonks finally arrived back home and stumbled into their bedroom, Remus was lying in bed, wide awake in the darkness. The clock on the bedside drawer read: 1:00AM.
He wanted to say so many things to her. He wanted to scream in frustration, throw accusations in her face, ask her where she'd been and what the hell she'd been doing because the alcohol he caught a whiff of all the way from across the room (once again, he thanked his outrageously sensitive werewolf scent) was definitely not from doing unit patrol duty.
But he was too fearful. Fearful of what opening the can of worms would entail, fearful that if he did, the thread holding their marriage together would finally dissolve, and he would be left with nothing. Fearful that his words could split his family apart and that the blame would sit squarely on his shoulders if it did so.
So he swallowed his resentment instead. "Did you catch anyone?" He asked, and he was aware of how loud his voice sounded in the silence of the night.
There was a pause. Remus could feel Tonks's surprise from across the room, vibrating off her in waves. "Why aren't you asleep?" He heard her say, and then: "No, we didn't."
"Couldn't sleep." He traced meaningless patterns into the bedsheet, watching as she changed into a nightdress. He saw the contours of her curves in the dim light of the moon that broke in through a crack in the curtains. He heard the bed creak as she got in and immediately drew the covers over herself, turning so that her back was to him. "I'm glad you're safe," he offered.
For a long while, he thought she wouldn't reply. He was just about to turn his own back and attempt to fall into oblivious unconsciousness when he heard it:
"Goodnight, Remus."
He almost didn't catch it, she had whispered it so softly against her pillow. But the words gave him hope, and he found himself smiling in the dark.
"Night, Dora."
Reviews are awesome! So much love for everyone who's supported this story so far! Here, have a cookie. If this is going a bit too slowly for you, don't worry, we will be picking up the pace in the next chapter.