Tonks kicked her boots off as soon as she stepped into her mother's home. A fraction of a second later, Teddy was shoving a piece of parchment into her hands, his hair a bright, radiant yellow.

"Mummy, look! I write!"

Tonks gazed at her son's handwriting. His Ds were uneven and his Y lopsided, but he had managed to write "TEDDY" in large, sloppy letters.

"T – E – D – D – Y! Teddy!"

"My brilliant boy," Tonks said, smiling at him. "Come here, darling." She wrapped him up in a hug, holding him tightly, her heart swelling with pride.

"Mama!" Hope was toddling towards them, holding out one of her stuffed toys. Tonks scooped Hope up, planting a kiss on her daughter's forehead, feeling especially drawn to her children that afternoon.

"Dinner's ready," her mother announced, popping her head out from the kitchen. "Come along."

Tonks took Teddy and Hope into the kitchen. Hope was placed in her chair, Teddy in his, and Tonks took the last available seat, with her children sitting on either side of her.

"Remus said that he'll be home a little while after the students are settled into their dormitories," said Tonks, taking a bite of her Yorkshire pudding. "He's having a chat with the four werewolf students and giving them a tour of the new facility before he leaves."

"Have they given it a name?"

"No. They don't want to publicize it, I don't think."

"Gran says Denys an' Wally are big boys," Teddy said, with his mouth full of pudding. "They go to school."

"Don't talk with your mouth full of food, Teddy," Andromeda admonished. "And yes, they are. When you turn 11, you'll go too."

"I wanna go now!"

"You'll have to wait, sweetheart." Tonks brushed mushy peas off Hope's chin, sighing when she realized the baby had gotten peas in her hair. Teddy scowled, his lips curling downward just like Remus's did when he was unhappy.

"I heard from Mr Johnson today," Andromeda said lightly. "George Weasley's father-in-law."

"Oh?" Tonks brushed the royal blue strands away from her face. "And?"

"He mentioned a support group…for widows and widowers."

"You're one of those things, aren't you?"

"What makes you think that I need something like that?" Andromeda asked, cutting her chicken with vigor. "Or that you felt it appropriate to contact a near-stranger over a personal matter?"

"You told me you're lonely, in so many words." Tonks slathered butter on her dinner roll, unconsciously covering her palm in it. "This isn't for dating. It's for you to talk about dad with other people who get it. They're all Muggles, so it's not like anyone's going to recognize you. I reckon you could even use Glamour Charms to change your appearance."

"I don't need this, Nymphadora. I'm managing perfectly well."

"What did you do last night? And every other Saturday night all summer?"

"I've been reading Celestina Warbleck's new memoir, The Art of the Bewitching Ballad."

"You've been doing that…all summer?"

"I'm managing—"

"Mum. You're not managing. You and dad used to go out, travel, do things. When was the last time you did any of the things you used to do? Before the war?"

"Please don't use my life as an excuse to ignore the problems in yours," Andromeda snapped. Tonks dropped her fork and watched as her mother stood from the table and began doing the dishes, as Teddy descended into throwing food at his sister.

"Stop that, Teddy!"

His hands, face, and clothes were covered in his dinner. Hope was similarly filthy, but before Tonks could wipe her face, Andromeda whisked her off her seat.

"Give your son a bath upstairs. I'll manage with your daughter in the sink."

Tonks felt several conflicting emotions rising in her chest, but being unable to sort them out immediately, she yanked Teddy out of his chair and brought him up to the bathroom. As she scrubbed him clean, ignoring his whining that he didn't have his favorite rubber ducks, she was reminded of the miserable, long months she'd spent living with her mother; despite how slowly they were rebuilding their relationship, it had been loads better to live with Remus than with Andromeda.

Tonks finished bathing Teddy, dried him off, and dressed him in clean clothes. He was placated with the promise of sweets if he behaved for the rest of the evening, but with how late it was getting, he could barely keep his eyes open as she brought him back downstairs.

Andromeda was there with Hope, who had fallen asleep after her bath.

"I shouldn't have lashed out at you," Tonks ventured. "It wasn't fair for you to lash out at me, either."

"I know…" Andromeda ran her fingers through Hope's soft, fine curls. "…and I'm sorry."

"Will you think about it? Going to that group?"

"I will, but only if you tell your husband how poorly your daughter performed in her evaluation from the Ministry. Or how poorly all the children performed, with your son as the only exception."

Tonks felt her face drain of its color. "Why…so he'll leave us? Panic and run off? Is that what you've been after?"

"I was under the impression you were going to be more honest with him."

"And I thought I told you to stay out of my marriage."

"And I told you that I didn't need help."

Tonks glared at her mother, two shades of grey eyes glittering at each other with fury. Their glaring contest was interrupted when a wolf-shaped Patronus appeared in the living room, speaking in Remus's voice.

"I'll be home shortly."

"I have to go," Tonks said, in a clipped tone.

She gathered her belongings and carefully extricated Hope from Andromeda's arms without another word. Teddy was barely awake enough to walk to the fireplace, but Tonks managed to get through, moments before Remus appeared through the Floo as well.

"Let me help you," Remus said, taking Hope and Tonks's rucksack off her shoulders. "I'll take Teddy, too. Get yourself a cup of tea…I'll be down in a few."

Tonks exhaled, relieved, and watched as Remus took Teddy and Hope upstairs to put them to bed. A shiver of guilt coursed through her; she knew that he knew she was holding something back, but he hadn't pressed her. She shuffled into the kitchen and set the kettle on for tea, slowing down to prepare a cup for Remus, too.

With both mugs in her hands, she returned to their living room and sat down on the sofa, taking stock of her mother's words. Though it wasn't her business to interfere, Andromeda had a point. Tonks leaned back, holding her steaming mug in her hands, and took a sip, grimacing at how over-brewed it was.

"They're tucked in," Remus announced, as he stepped off the last stair. "You had to give them baths at your mum's?"

"Teddy thought it would be fun to play with his food." Tonks took another bitter sip. "The other cup's for you. I'm sorry it's not very good."

Remus frowned slightly and took a gulp of the tea, making a face at it. "It's…not bad. Not my favorite mug, either," he mumbled. He set it down gingerly and took a seat opposite her. The fire crackled merrily across from them both, with little flecks of embers dusting the hearth.

"Wally's a Ravenclaw."

"We had him down for Gryffindor, didn't we?"

"His father was a Ravenclaw. The other new werewolf student, Ciaran, was sorted into Ravenclaw first," Remus said, wincing as he sipped his tea. "Quite a lot of sugar you put in this."

"You don't have to drink it. I won't be offended." Tonks placed her mug on the coffee table in front of them. "I'm dead tired."

"To be fair," Remus said, cracking a smile, "I don't think your state of wakefulness ever did impact your tea making skills."

Tonks snorted softly and let Remus vanish the tea. He bustled back to the kitchen and brought back two new steaming cups, placing one before her.

"Much better, isn't it?"

"It is," Tonks confirmed, seeing him smile at her. "Thank you, love."

Remus's eyes widened slightly. He took a seat closer to Tonks, not quite touching her, but nearer than before.

"So Wally's a Ravenclaw…how did Denys take it?"

"He seemed a bit put out," Remus replied, "but he and Wally are desperate to make their house Quidditch teams and I think they like the idea of being pitted against each other."

"Is Denys trying out?"

"Not for another year…he doesn't have a broom and Lottie can't afford a decent one. She's got a job now, with the boys at school. She told me she'd try to save up for a secondhand, newer broomstick, but if she gets one for Denys—"

"She has to get one for Wally, too." Tonks frowned, holding her chin in her palm. "We could get—"

"I thought of that and offered, actually." Tonks raised her brows at Remus's interjection. He said, "Lottie asked me not to. She doesn't want her boys coming to us every time they want something she can't afford, especially if they're not necessary things."

"I s'pose that's the sensible thing to do."

"Anyway, it's not as if Denys would try out this year. Not until all this bullshit with the Ministry is over."

Tonks drank her tea slowly, letting the hot liquid warm her chest. "Hope didn't do very well on her evaluation."

If Remus was surprised, he didn't betray it on his face. "I assumed as much."

"Teddy was the only one who did well."

One of Remus's eyebrows quirked at this admission. "What does this mean for us?"

"It's not looking good."

Remus drummed the side of his mug with his fingers. "Is there anything else I should know?"

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier…didn't want to worry you."

"I'm always worried."

Tonks frowned and looked away from him, settling her gaze on the trees swaying in the wind.

"Will you look at me, please?" She turned around to Remus holding his hand out for her. She took it and he exhaled softly, intertwining his fingers with hers, gently stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. "What do I need to know?"

"They're all behind, except Teddy. Hope's just small and she was sleepy for half the day, so Hermione didn't have a choice but to refer her to the Healer. She's trying to argue that Hope wasn't feeling well so her evaluation needs to be done again, but even if it goes fine, all the other werewolves' kids have been called 'feral.'"

"Feral?"

"There are only about a dozen kids of werewolves. They keep to themselves, these families, and since most of their parents are poor, dead, or injured, the kids fend for themselves. Or they don't get a lot of attention…or they've been abandoned and are living with relatives. The only kid who came close to being as 'well-adjusted' as Teddy was an almost eight-year-old girl called Moira, and her two-year-old half-sister, Aven."

Remus furrowed his brow. "That name…Moira…sounds familiar."

"Her mum died about two years ago," Tonks explained. "The kids' grandparents are werewolves and they're raising her. They don't live that far—"

"Hadrian and his pack," Remus interrupted. "After Sirius died, that's where I went first. Hadrian, his wife Gwendolyn…they had a son, who mated with another…a daughter too."

"The daughter was called Philomena. The record shows she had a kid with a wizard, but when the wizard found out that her whole family were werewolves, he ran off. She had another kid with a Muggle but died giving birth to the now-two-year-old."

"That's unusual," Remus replied, frowning more deeply. "Where's the child's father? The younger one?"

"The family says Philomena never told the bloke she was pregnant. It was a one-time thing, so they say. Both girls live with their grandparents."

"They're better adjusted?"

"They're not well-off, but yeah, they are," Tonks muttered, recalling the reports she pilfered and copied from the Beast Division. "They're homeschooling the older one and she's not as literate as she should be, but she's managing. The younger one isn't talking much for her age. Hermione intervened and scheduled a visit with a Healer for them too."

"And the others?"

"Behavioral problems, illiterate, living in squalor…some of these kids should be taken away from their parents, but not because they're werewolves—"

"Because their parents can't afford to take care of them."

"And the Ministry thinks it's because of the lycanthropy! Can't they see that it's not the werewolves' fault for not being able to keep a job?"

Remus's expression was pained. "They will never admit to that, Tonks."

"It's not because of the Ministry laws! Our laws prevent discrimination, but magical employers just rewrite their policies to have really strict rules about attendance! Muggle policies aren't much better, but at least they've got laws to protect people with chronic illnesses!" Tonks took her hand out of Remus's and stood to pace, feeling stifled in one position.

"It's not like they can afford Wolfsbane Potion, either, so they have no choice but to endure full moon after full moon, breaking their bones and hurting themselves while their kids are locked up somewhere to keep them safe until moonset! No wonder the Ministry wants to take them away, but it's not their bloody fault!"

Tonks ran her hands through her violently orange hair as she paced the length of the living room. Every family with a werewolf parent had failed their first evaluations, including the Lupins. For the ones who were deemed as having "feral" children, it wasn't the parents at fault, but magical society, for failing the families so spectacularly. For the Fields, apparently sending their granddaughters to Muggle school was out of the question due to the family's secretive nature. For the Lupins, Hope was too unhealthy to pass the first evaluation. Not a single family had been good enough for the Ministry's standards and measures were already being taken behind closed doors to take the children away from their families before the six months of evaluation were over, even the Lupins' children, for their "safety and well-being."

She let all this spill out, having carried it in her mind for over a week, and admitted that she was terrified both of Remus's reaction and her own knee-jerk impulse to quit her job, with a demand that the family move out of the country. She was not going to lose her children because of a few pricks running the Beast Division, who also happened to be colluding with even bigger pricks in the Wizengamot.

Remus listened patiently, his face an impassive mask, as she talked herself hoarse. He tapped his wand against her cup of tea, keeping it hot for her, but otherwise betrayed no other emotion or thought while she spoke.

"I know I should've told you right away," she concluded, taking a swig of her tea so quickly that she burned the roof of her mouth. "I'm a Hufflepuff. I'm not supposed to be running away from hard work! But…fuck it all. I'm just so tired."

Remus parted his lips to speak but she waved him off. "Don't take this to mean I'm giving up on you, us, or our family. I'm not giving up on any of us." She cleared her throat and took another hot gulp of tea. "I'm afraid I'm giving up on everyone else and being selfish. 'Cause you know what? Part of me does think those other werewolves' kids should be taken away."

Remus's Adam's apple bobbed in his throat. He stayed silent and she rambled on. "If magical society isn't going to help the families, the kids will suffer. It's not fair, but it's like the Ministry wants us all to fail. It's almost as if they want to punish the kids because of who their parents are…and I don't want to keep working for people who think that's okay, or let those poor kids suffer because the Ministry's full of dickheads."

Tonks finally sat down, next to Remus, and put her head in her hands.

"Have I gone mad? I feel just awful."

"You haven't gone mad," Remus said, putting his palm on her shoulder. She leaned into his touch, letting her head fall against his chest. He wrapped his arm around her hips, resting his fingertips on a bare patch of skin between her shirt and jeans. "I think, if you'd asked me a year ago, I'd have agreed that we should get out of the country…but…this is where we belong. If we can defeat Voldemort, we can defeat this."

Tonks sat up straight and snapped her eyes on Remus. He looked alarmed at the sudden shift and Tonks let herself break down another wall that had been built up between the two of them.

She leaned forward and captured Remus's lips with hers. He responded at once, moving his lips against hers hungrily. Her hand flew up, seemingly of its own volition, to run through his hair, the silver shining brightly in the light of the fire. His hands were on her hips, gripping her with desperation, and she moved to straddle him on the sofa, kneeling on either side of his thighs.

His lips were softer and firmer than she remembered; as she greedily tasted him, she wondered how she'd managed over a year without his touch. Remus gasped and mewled when Tonks began grinding against him. She could feel him against her - the want for him grew with each passing moment.

The heat was pooling between her legs, kindled by a fire that had been ignited in her heart; it now coursed throughout her body, spurring her to let go of any remaining inhibitions.

She gasped for air, frantic for more, and began unbuttoning his shirt, revealing the thin vest beneath. In an instant, his belt was cast aside and his zipper undone. Tonks pressed her hand against his length and—

"Mummy…?"

Tonks groaned against Remus's chest. He whimpered loudly against her bubblegum pink fringe.

"Mummy!"

"Teddy," Tonks whispered.

"MUMMY!"

Teddy was at their side, holding a blanket up to his chest, silver haired and shaking from head to toe.

"Did you have a nightmare, sweetheart?"

Teddy promptly burst into tears, reaching out for her. She hopped off Remus's lap and scooped Teddy up in her arms, holding his head against her collarbone, shushing him softly. From the corner of her eye, she saw Remus adjusting himself and picking up the clothes that had fallen to the floor.

"It's okay, Teddy," she murmured, rocking him gently. "You were just pretending in your sleep." If it wasn't for her son's terrified cries, Tonks might've laughed at how uncomfortable and irritated Remus appeared. He harrumphed as he got up from the sofa, taking the old mugs of tea with him to the kitchen.

Remus returned, holding a book under his arm, and sat down by the fire, absentmindedly flipping through the pages while Teddy calmed down. His breathing steadied and he stopped shuddering; by the bluish shade of his hair, he was falling fast asleep again.

"I'm taking him up," Tonks whispered to Remus. He nodded at her and she gingerly got up from her seat, taking care not to wake Teddy on her way upstairs.

She entered the children's bedroom, gently placing Teddy back in his bed. He'd wet his sheets and Tonks murmured a Drying Charm on them, hoping she'd remember to give them a good wash in the morning. She glanced over her shoulder, where Hope was sleeping peacefully in her cot. The room was smaller than she remembered it, but perhaps with Teddy's "big boy" bed, it was too small now. She brushed the dark blue hair out of Teddy's face and kissed his forehead, whispering a goodnight to him.

She had just closed the door when she heard another little voice crying from behind it. Sighing, she returned, realizing Hope had woken up.

"Okay, Hope," Tonks said, lifting her daughter up. "Let's go."

Tonks came downstairs, finding that Remus had changed out of his teaching clothes. He was down to just a pair of tartan sleeping trousers – the sight of his bare chest brought heat back to her chest, midsection, and the space between her legs.

Hope's continued loud wailing dashed all thoughts of him, and Tonks noticed the way his face fell when she came downstairs with their crying daughter.

"I'll take her," Remus offered, getting to his feet. The bulge was still noticeable in his trousers, but he swiftly took Hope and started rocking her. In between the baby's cries, Remus suggested Tonks go up to make herself comfortable. She rushed back upstairs, only to hear Teddy screaming.

She calmed him down again, and by the time she changed her clothes and returned downstairs, Remus was on the couch and snoring softly, with Hope on his chest, snoozing contently.

Admitting defeat, she went upstairs to her room, flopping face first into the bed. She was ready to turn off the lights and go to sleep when the door creaked open, revealing Remus.

"Hi."

"Hello."

"D'you want—"

"Let's ta—"

"You go first," Remus said, leaning against the doorway. His eyes washed over her hungrily.

"I know it's not what either of us wants right now," she said slowly, feeling the weight of guilt settling in her stomach, "but I wanted to talk a little more…about what we were discussing earlier."

Remus's jaw tightened slightly. "I understand."

"But I also want us to go back to sleeping in the same room. Will you stay?" A familiar look of hunger crossed Remus's eyes. He nodded and stepped forward, but Tonks put a hand up to stop him, feeling heat creeping up her neck and cheeks. "Err…do you mind putting a shirt on? You're terribly distracting."

Remus turned pink and a giddy grin grew on his face. He cast Accio and a shirt came zooming from the other side of the hall. He pulled it over his head and sat down on the bed, offering his hand to her.

"I don't expect anything else…but I'm very much looking forward to more."

"Me too." Tonks took his hand and lay back, feeling comfortable. "You've been amazing. I know you've been working very hard…so thank you."

"You've been working hard too. I wish you'd told me sooner about the evaluations…" Remus paused, taking a moment to look at her. "…but I understand why you didn't, though I hope next time I'll know about them when you do."

"If there is a next time."

"They won't take our children away without a fight."

Tonks nodded weakly and rolled over to face him. "Why don't you tell me more about the first day of the term? Other than Wally being a Ravenclaw, anything else I'd find interesting?"

"I don't know how Minerva did it, but I don't have to go back to the Ministry for the full moons."

"You don't?"

"She wants me to stay at the new werewolf student facility to oversee it. I'm not sure how she convinced the Ministry to accept this."

"Well, Hogwarts Headmasters and Headmistresses have always followed their own rules, haven't they?"

"I suppose that's true, yes," Remus murmured. "I'm exceedingly fortunate to have Minerva on my side."

"You also have Kingsley, and Harry, Hermione, the Weasleys…loads of people."

"It's what's giving me hope," he said softly. "I can't say I'm hopeful for the others, even my old friends, the Fields…I might pay them a visit to see if I can help…we might be the only ones who get to keep our family intact."

Tonks squeezed her eyes shut. The guilt had returned. While she and Remus were better off than the others, her heart clenched, torn between the knowledge that while the other werewolves' children deserved a better life than they were given, it wasn't their parents' fault.

Unsure of what she could do, she curled up against Remus, grateful for the progress they'd made.