A/N: This is my first Harry Potter fanfic ever! I posted it up here a while back, but I guess no one liked it seeing as how I got NO REVIEWS WHATSOEVER. Oh well, maybe if I actually clarify a few things and beg like the poor beggar I am, I might get some reviews. Okay, this fic takes place in my mind after the 5th book and before the 6th book. So spoilers if you're the only person in the entire world who hasn't read the 5th or 6th book! I have no clue what Tonks' and Lupins' relationship status was then, but I'm making it so that Tonks had maybe only hinted at her feelings toward him at this point (a little while after Sirius' death), and he's pretty much in denial of it (It should be pretty obvious from the last couple of paragraphs, but I just wanted to clarify). If you think that she confessed her feelings earlier (I've read some Tonks/Lupin fics where her feelings were made known sometime during the Order of the Phoenix plotline), then I'm sorry. This is my little story, and so be it!
About the relationship between Remus and Sirius: well, well, well…there is nothing explicit in this fic besides their obvious friendship. Read into this however you want to, though. I'm completely open for interpretation. Do I think Jo Rowling intended Remus and Sirius to be anything other than old school pals? No. But I admit I do like how some fanfiction explores the two characters in a different light.
Disclaimer: I have never and will never own any rights to Harry Potter or any of its characters. I'll leave that in better hands than mine…
So read and enjoy, and PLEASE REVIEW!
Of Grief and Gray Hair
Lupin sat near the hearth, as close he could without fear that his shabby robes would catch fire. He could never seem to get warm anymore. The cold had permeated to his bones. Too many full-moon nights, he knew; too many unaided transformations. He was old before his time, he thought somberly as thick, gray-streaked brown locks fell into his face, casting even more depth to his already-shadowed face.
It was a meeting like any other, but it was late in starting, he observed, because not everyone had arrived yet. Some would never make it, never again. Such as Sirius. A long-harbored hurt rose from somewhere deep inside Lupin, much akin to the mind-clarifying pain of transformation into the monster that he was. He knew that if Sirius were still alive, and able to read his thoughts, the dark-haired wizard would have scolded him about the whole "monster nonsense," as Sirius, as well as James, had put it once. But Sirius wasn't alive. He was dead. Gone.
It seemed fitting to Lupin that he was the only one left. Two of his friends were dead, and the other had turned coward in a war where bravery and courage had nothing to do with whether or not one lived or died. He thought of laughing bitterly at the fact that Lily and James—so resourceful, so eager to live—had died so young. And Sirius, oh Sirius…The gray hair that hindered Lupin's vision brought back a vivid memory from his days at Hogwarts:
The Marauders were in their seventh—and final—year. The past two-three years had been nothing short of mischief managed for the four of them, what with the creation of their ingenious map and the fact that James, Sirius, and Peter were quite the successful animagi. Lupin was a prefect, and James and Lily had been named Head Boy and Girl. Life was perfect in those last weeks of the term; the future was theirs for the taking. Lupin had been dutifully studying in the library, along with Peter, for his N.E.W.T.s, which would take place in a short while. He left Peter there, though, the pudgy tag-along friend scrambling over Transfiguration notes, and headed back to the Gryffindor common room. The first thing he saw upon entering the portrait hole was that famous black head of hair—and the boy it belonged to. Sirius was lounging near the middle of the room, his arms casually draped over the sides of the red velvet armchair, his long legs outstretched on a cushioned ottoman. Sirius appeared to be doing nothing in particular. Only Remus—and James of course would have, and perhaps Peter might have—realized that Sirius was waiting for his friends. Waiting, yet it appeared he had never and never would wait for a single person on the earth. The dark-haired boy sank into the chair as if it were made only for him. That was part of Sirius' charm, Lupin thought almost enviably, that he could do as little as sit, and still have a gaggle of giggling girls whispering about him in the corner. It was only a mere collection of seconds that Lupin stood there before Sirius lazily, yet elegantly, shifted his eyes to look at his friend. Sirius grinned and the whispering girls from the corner raised the volume of their voices into near-shrieks of delight.
"Oi, Moony," Sirius said as Lupin walked across the room. "Bend down," Sirius commanded like a king from his throne.
"What?" Lupin asked incredulously.
"Come here and bend down," Sirius ordered, mock-exasperation on his voice. Lupin hid a smile and trudged toward the other boy as a man to his executioner. Lupin bent down, overly graceful, his torso parallel with the floor. He felt a hand in his hair, then a slight pinch. He let out a soft gasp more of surprise than of pain. He looked up, bewildered, at Sirius, who looked as if he'd won a thousand-galleon prize in some sort of contest. Then Lupin realized what Sirius held in his hand. Between long fingers that were still positioned quite close to Lupin's face, Sirius held a long gray hair, which he had deftly jerked from its spot on Lupin's head only moments ago.
"You're getting old before your time, Moony," Sirius stated prophetically, adding a grin as he dropped the gray hair from his hand. Lupin joined his friend, sitting on the near-by empty couch. The weight of Sirius' comment hit him like a sack of rocks. He knew his dark-haired friend meant it jokingly, so why did it feel like an omen of death? Well, he was speaking to someone who impersonated a Grim once a month, Lupin thought light-heartedly.
"You'd better be careful, too," Lupin grinned wolfishly, "men with black hair tend to go gray early on as well…"
"I have no clue what you are talking about," Sirius replied with an air of confidence, and with one flick of his dark locks, sent the giggling girls in the corner into a frenzy of gasps and whispered exclamations of awe. Then James entered, Lily walking beside him then splitting off in favor a group of her girl friends. James bounded toward Sirius and Remus as if he had forgotten to turn back into a boy on the last full moon and had remained a stag. Peter scurried into the common room not a moment later, almost dropping the heavy load of schoolbooks he carried. No telling what had become of the pudgy boy's rucksack. Accidentally scattering his notes all around his friends, Peter sat down short of breath. With all of them together, the lone gray hair that Sirius had plucked from his friend's head was immediately forgotten…
Lupin was jolted back to the present by a particularly violent crackling of wood in the fire. With Sirius' death only a couple of weeks behind them, most of the Order were in a mood of mourning. It hurt to lose someone; Lupin knew that all too well. He was cursed, not only being a werewolf, but also to have survived in a world that shunned and scorned his kind when his closest friends were beyond his reach. He knew if it weren't for people like Dumbledore and the Order and Harry and his young friends, Lupin would be desperately alone. Oh, Sirius' death hurt, but it did not hurt nearly as much as thinking, for twelve long years, that the dark-haired wizard had succumbed to Lord Voldemort and betrayed his best friend. Thinking Sirius a murderer was only second to those lonely nights of bone-crushing transformation, Lupin thought. Yet there had been a brief glimmer of hope when Lupin had learned the truth two years ago. Lupin had given his hand at teaching, and it had been like a shadow of the nearly perfect days he experienced at Hogwarts in his youth.
That feeling was gone now. None of his friends remained as they once were, and he had been forced to move on twice now in his life. He had a purpose with the Order, a purpose now that the Death Eaters were back striking terror on the wizard community. He had slowly begun to notice someone watching him. Shifting slightly in his seat, he recognized Nymphadora Tonks sitting in a chair nearer to him than any of the other members. Her normally bright and colorful hair was now a mousy brown, he observed, only a shade or two darker than his own, without the gray. She looked glummer than anyone else in the room—well, maybe except for him. Her robes looked fresh and new, and she was young, so she didn't seem quite as forlorn as she probably intended. Lupin knew that she had been Sirius' cousin, but still, she had only been a little girl when the dark-haired wizard had been sent off to Azkaban. She had finally become acquainted with her estranged cousin through her work as an Auror for the Order. Yet she appeared as if she had lost her only love, sitting there, watching Lupin. Refusing to connect two and two—it would hurt even more if her look really meant what he knew it meant—he felt her eyes search for his, and she looked as if she was trying her best to share his grief. He almost thought bitterly, "What does she know of grief?" But he stopped the thought, and smiled apologetically at her.
Lupin thought he saw her cheeks redden, but he dismissed the idea, seeing as they both were sitting near the roaring fire.