Written for Isa, as a Christmas present...
As inspiration, the Damien Rice song, "Tongue," has been used. A sequel to that other Remus/Tonks story I wrote, "Polestar of Subsidence." All fluffy, sort of.
And it started. She felt it again. The redness rising in her throat like a wave on cusp of a great hurricane, coming from nowhere all of a sudden - just in time to envelop her in a misty sweetness that tasted like strawberry jam on a scone the day after final examinations at the Auror Academy.
She thought she could break away from him. Her bright pink hair as bright as the nose on her face in this winter weather, she sat back and thought quietly that she could be over him. He was ages older than her, he wanted nothing to do with her, she was convinced.
"I love you," she said to him, fatefully.
"Silly, Nymphadora, you have no concept of what love entails," he whispered back, his hands in his pockets, like a rabbit hiding amongst layers of tweed.
And so it was.
****
And it started. He arrived home, and these four walls permeated with her. She was so full of life that he could barely stand to think about this rigor mortis life he had accustomed himself to. He Apparated into his home, saw the beige carpet with strawberry jam stains that just could not be removed and a stuffed Hippogriff in the corner belonging to the sprite half his, half hers.
He thought he could break away from her. He had married her because of the child. He had destroyed their friendship because he had impregnated her, and it was all over. He thought that he could be over him. She was ages younger than her, she wanted nothing to do with him, he was convinced. But she had sniffed around, she had stayed, she had developed a genuine fondness for him.
"Silly Nymphadora, you have no concept of what love entails," he had explained matter-of-factly. Secretly, though, he was scared, and tired, and frustrated, and... well... scared.
Because he loved her as much as she said she loved him.
****
And it started.
The silence that he promoted after his soul's death just ceased to be after the child was old enough to talk. Sirius would have had a good time with her, he was fond of commenting to his wife, as the child grew from broccoli into a large oak tree. She was truly his child, developing ideas and intelligence, life and goodness, laughs and frowns, a little from her father - a lot from her mother.
Sirius' name was not mentioned during their long silences, but she knew that secretly her husband pined for a return to that time before she was married to him. Back when he could sneak past a curtain and share a laugh or a frown, an idea or a goodness with that smirking, tow-headed boy who masqueraded as his best friend when they were in public.
What she did not know was somewhere along the line, he started looking at his wife - the woman who shared his name - with the same exceptional trust and love as he had once seen Sirius.
He watched her as she changed her hair color, and her puffy red lips into purple thin ones, and her bright green eyes into fuschia tinted ones, and heard the giggles coming from his daughter.
He watched her as she skulked around him when he wanted to isolate himself, when the only thing he wanted to do was sit in his den and grade papers. "Are you done yet? Are you done yet? Are you done yet?" With the tenacity and never-ending energy of a twelve year old. "Come on, Remus, come on, Remus, come on, Remus. We want to play, we want to play, we want to play."
Her voice fades in whispers, repetitive whispers as it did that night when he was overcome with a physical yearning he couldn't ignore.
Constant.
Enduring.
He watched her as she slowly grew from someone invisible, enmeshed in his own torrid existence into someone that could pull him out of that dark place he had inhabited since he died.
It was watching a scene out of one of those Muggle things... movies - where they called? A scene of his wife and his daughter. The operative concept being here that he was watching. Observing. Seeing.
And it takes but a moment for all to come together. Ten years of friendship. Eight months of marriage. Nine months of pregnancy. One night of physical ecstasy. A lifetime with a woman and a girl. Eleven years before the girl went to Hogwarts. The numbers swirl about his head as they often do. He has always had a logical mind - Sirius was fond of telling him that if he weren't a werewolf, he sure would have made a fantastic mathematician.
And it started. He observes the scene in front of him. She looks up at him as she clutches the child's foot, playing keepaway as her nose changes, her hair changes, her mouth changes, her heart changes.
She extends her arms to her, a glint of happiness in her eyes. She knows this is the moment it changes.
He nods at her - an invitation into the moment.
A sweet, beautiful truth he never knew he always wanted. A torturous sentence: the effects of too much Firewhiskey, too much loneliness and a scent too womanly, too intoxicating to be ignored resulting in the sweetness giggling just feet ahead of him.
"Come, come be with us."
And it starts.