Chapter 19: Home Is Where You Return To

He did not see her often. He could not see her often. Knowing this, he came to see her three more times before Christmas week was out—though Tonks steadfastly refused to appear at Molly's Sunday night supper. Remus felt relieved; he was never quite sure what would happen when he spent time with Tonks, and he preferred that it not happen in public.

He told her about the werewolves. He had not tried to tell anyone else except, of course, Dumbledore. The story of his autumn with the werewolves got all mixed up with tales of his boyhood, of Sirius and James and Peter, fever and pain, pulled muscles and bruised bones, missed chances and broken romances and the jobs he couldn't have. These things too he told her.

He told her about Fenrir Greyback, who had bitten him when he was three. He told her how he had grieved for that unknown werewolf, of how he had assumed he could not control himself, of how he had believed him to have bitten in a moment of unthinking frenzy. He told her of how he had discovered his assailant's identity during the First War, of how even then he had failed to grasp the particular horrors of combating a Death Eater who was also a werewolf, a werewolf who was also a Death Eater.

He told her about the children.

Tonks listened wide-eyed and mousy-haired, looking as young as the morning and about two hundred years old. Remus wondered that he had ever seen her as inexperienced, as naïve, that he had ever classed her with Harry and Ron and Ginny and Hermione, who—he had realized abruptly at Christmas—were not children anymore either. Tonks seemed to be aging before his eyes. How much of it was the war, how much was Sirius's death, how much was the effect of growing up a Metamorphmagus, of toiling through that submerged drama that he had, somehow, in those dim happy days last winter, never quite seen?

One visit after another dissolved in kisses and caresses and not-quite-shed tears. Much as his judgment opposed it, he no longer had the heart to push her away. It was very pleasant to hold Tonks's warm, slender frame to him as her lips explored his own. Sometimes he kissed her eyelids, the bridge of her nose, the temples where her pallid brow met her mousy hair. If limited to a few minutes, these indulgences seemed to inspire more of a dreamy, floating sensation than a predatory impulse; and Remus never allowed them to last more than a few minutes. More than his moonlit boyhood explorations of Hogsmeade, more than the war, more than his stints of shadowing Death Eaters, Remus's mission to the werewolves had taught him something about his own and others' capacity for violence.

Remus, scheduling his visits to Tonks around his peripatetic and infrequent appointments with Dumbledore, found himself on her doorstep at odd hours. April was sliding wetly into May when he rang the bell at five o'clock in the morning, scarcely expecting her to answer it. But she opened the door at once, tousle-haired and groggy, dressed in blue pajamas with a pattern of goblins and house-elves.

"I'm sorry to wake you," said Remus.

"I wasn't asleep," yawned Tonks. "Haven't been sleeping well since—what's that on your wrist?"

Remus pulled down his sleeve. "Nothing. I cut myself. It's healing."

"Remus—" said Tonks, pulling him into the lamplight and pushing his sleeve above the elbow. Just above the wrist, a crescent-shaped welt gleamed blood-red. His forearm was covered with dozens of crescent-shaped scars, superimposed one upon another, most faded, others puffy and fresh. Scratches as long as knife blades tore across the flesh. "Who attacked you?"

Remus looked at her silently.

"Was it Greyback?"

Silently, Remus removed his wrist from Tonks's grasp and brushed the sleeve down. "No one attacked me. I bit myself."

"When you were transformed? The potion isn't working?"

"I haven't been taking the potion regularly since I saw you last, Tonks. If I'm going to liaise with the werewolves, to live among them, I have to live like them. If they find out I'm taking a Wolfsbane Potion invented by wizards, they'll—well, I would be lucky to make it out of there alive. Surely you knew that."

"I didn't know. I could have figured it out if I had thought about it. I was trying not to." She hesitated. "It's dangerous for you not to take that potion, Remus." It was the first time Tonks had ever directly acknowledged that his condition was dangerous. Remus felt like laughing aloud. At the same time a surge of bitterness washed over him.

"No kidding," he muttered, stomping over to her sofa and squashing himself into a corner of it. "I'm lucky I've only attacked myself and—well—some of the other werewolves. I've been choosing the most isolated spots I can find to transform, and usually I convince a few others to join me. We fight with each other, we bite each other, we bite ourselves. And then we return to the camp to find out what havoc the rest have wrought. Greyback, of course, is annoyed with me. He knows what I've been doing."

She followed him across the room and sat down, tense and anxious, on the edge of the sofa. "Remus, is this assignment really worth it?"

"Honestly, Tonks, I don't know. Dumbledore wants it done and I'm the only one who can do it. I trust Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore is a great man, but, Remus—I think you're his idea of a werewolf. Talk to him. He should know what this is costing you."

Remus hesitated. Much as he would have liked to be rid of this assignment, he didn't feel he could decently withdraw. He remembered the First War. Nothing much had mattered to him then other than the defeat of Voldemort. He wasn't used to wanting to survive quite as much he did now.

"Is it just arms?" she asked quietly.

Remus shook his head. "Arms are the worst. Legs and feet are also pretty bad. No shorts or sandals for me. And I've got a nasty one at the moment on my—er—buttock."

"I'd like to see."

Remus grimaced. "Tonks—I can't just start taking off my clothes here in your living room—"

She shrugged. "Make yourself at home."

And Remus realized, in one shivery flash, that this was the closest thing he had to a home at the moment. Home is where you return to. This, the upstairs room at the Hog's Head, and the tumbledown cottage on the Isle of Skye where he kept forgetting to plant the tree.

"Remus," said Tonks quietly, "I'll leave you alone if you want me to leave you alone."

Remus sighed and shook his head. "Maybe it's just as well you saw the scars. I didn't mean for you to, but—"

"Remus, did you honestly think that a bunch of little scars was going to change my mind?"

"Not the scars. What they represent. What if I attack you the way I've attacked myself? Don't say it can't happen. I attacked James and Sirius sometimes, when they were transformed. Did you ever see the old gash on Sirius's left shoulder? And it does spill over. Most of the scars are from my transformations, but there have been a couple times when I wasn't transformed—when I had very violent dreams and—I woke up bleeding, with blood on my teeth—"

"Remus, I've thought about this. I think it's exceptionally unlikely that you would attack me, but what happens, happens. If it does happen, I promise I won't throw it in your face afterwards."

Remus's nose twitched. He realized, bizarrely, that he was about to cry. Slowly, very tentatively, he reached out and touched the blue silk of Tonks's pajamas. He stroked the printed house elf over her breast.

"Remus, do you know what a Metamorphmagus is?" asked Tonks suddenly.

"A person born with an underdeveloped melodermal-3 gene."

Tonks blinked. "Bizarre. I've never met anyone who wasn't a Healer who could tell me that off the top of his head."

"Hermione told me. And then I went to see Alfred Bones."

"Oh. Well, if you've seen Alfred Bones, you probably know that I'm not supposed to be alive right now."

"He said you were very unusual. He also said that high-functioning Metamorphmagi live long and healthy and productive lives."

"Don't you think that growing up knowing that I wasn't supposed to live past the age of two or three, that I wasn't supposed to be able to walk or write or do any spells, might have affected my attitude towards risk a bit?"

"What puzzles me," said Remus, "is that you've always portrayed your morphing ability as something positive. I've heard you bragging to Harry and Ron and Ginny—and even to Mad-Eye—about how easily you passed your Concealment and Disguise exam. You perform at dinner parties. You always acted like you were lucky—"

"I am lucky," interrupted Tonks. "I can do things that no one else I know can do. I've had experiences that no one else I know has had. They aren't exactly the experiences I would have chosen to have, but now that I'm having trouble morphing properly, I'm realizing how much being a Metamorphmagus has shaped me. It's not a goofy little thing. I learned a lot about setting limits for myself. And living with fear."

Remus stroked the silken house elf covering her breast. He contemplated undoing the pajama buttons and stroking the naked skin. Kissing it. Biting into it and tearing— A spasm of fear wracked his body. He shut his eyes and buried his face in his hands.

"Remus?"

When he didn't respond, Tonks took his hand and set it over her heart. She held it there. He felt her heartbeat. Her chest rose and fell methodically. He could hear her breathing.

"Maybe," said Remus, surprising himself. "Maybe someday. I can't imagine what would have to happen to make it possible for us to be together. But maybe someday."

The Hog's Head was deserted, chairs stacked on tables, a dustpan and broom snoozing idly in a corner. In the private room upstairs, Dumbledore was waiting for him. He was drinking tea and eating crumpets with raspberry jam. His crippled right hand hung limply beside him. Remus outlined what he had learned and what he had accomplished in the eight weeks since they had last met. It seemed pitifully little.

"This mission is taking a lot out of you," commented Dumbledore.

"I'm sorry that I've accomplished so little," said Remus. "Reasoned persuasion sounds good here, by the light of a comfortable fire, but it doesn't work out there. At least, I can't make it work. They don't listen to reason. They don't want reason. They want blood and revenge."

"You underestimate yourself, Remus. Now, you say that as yet only two or three werewolves are consistently joining Fenrir in his targeted attacks."

"Yes, I've kept tabs on them pretty closely. But that's not thanks to me. Werewolves are individualists. They don't like cooperating with anyone about anything. And very few of them plan ahead, for good or for ill."

"And you say that you have persuaded others to join you in transforming in isolated locations, so as not to hurt others."

"Yes. A few. I don't have any more followers than Greyback." Remus set his teacup on the table and wiped his hands moodily on a serviette. "I just don't speak their language."

"I know, Remus," said Dumbledore gently. "You're a little too human."

"Werewolves are human too," Remus pointed out. "Just not in the sense I'm used to. It was so strange going from three months with them to the Burrow—and then—" He broke off.

"This assignment won't last forever," said Dumbledore. "I have other plans for you. Soon. I do want you to go back and put in another couple of months. We need to keep tabs on Fenrir. Ideally, you should recruit one of the other werewolves to do this for us. Tell him enough and not too much—I'm not talking about inducting him into the Order—unless you find someone worthy, of course. Set up a reporting mechanism. It should probably be a two-way mirror . . ."

Remus nodded glumly. This was another one of those ideas that sounded good when Dumbledore announced it, by the light of the Hog's Head fire, and then emerged as next to impossible when he returned to live among the werewolves.

"I'll be keeping you closer to headquarters in the future, Remus," said Dumbledore. "Starting this summer. I'm going to put you back onto coordinating intelligence. Kingsley is well positioned to glean Muggle intelligence—you'll be liaising with him. And I think we might try a second mission to the giants. If the Death Eaters continue using them—" Dumbledore broke off abruptly. "A settled life will suit you better."

"I'm not complaining."

"No, Remus. I appreciate that. We all have to make sacrifices, and you've taken your turn. You're just about spent. I'm not going to let it do you in. In a few months I hope to see you back on the potion, living at headquarters and working from there. You should find someone to live with you, now that Sirius is gone. Or get married."

"There's no question of my getting married."

"Well, if at some point in the future you wish—"

Remus looked at Dumbledore as if he had never seen him before. It was as if Dumbledore had never seen him before, never known what he was. This man who had been his mentor for twenty-seven years. "Sir, there will never be any question of my getting married."

"Well, maybe there ought to be," said Dumbledore gently.

"Sir—"

"Albus."

"Albus—with all due respect, do you understand the risks?"

"You will, of course, have to marry someone who is accustomed to risk," said Dumbledore calmly. He averted his eyes to gaze out at the hazy pink sky. After a minute he turned back to Remus. "Remus, I'm saying this to you and Minerva both. I have not committed it to writing. If I should be incapacitated or—otherwise removed from the scene . . . Minerva is to take charge of Hogwarts and you are to take charge of the Order. You will continue what I have started, always recognizing that I may have made mistakes and that it may be necessary to adapt to new threats and changing circumstances. Severus has his orders directly from me and you will respect his need for secrecy. I am preparing Harry for an assignment that he alone can undertake. If there is an opportunity this summer, I may confide in you further."

"Albus—"

"I will not be able to spare you for the werewolf mission much longer," said Dumbledore. "I may have to recall you even sooner than we arranged. So you will make the most of the time and opportunities you have now. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"I am leaving now. I have a bit of traveling to do. Eat a good square meal before you go back."

They shook hands. Ancient in appearance but still vigorous in gait, Albus Dumbledore strode out the door, down the stairs, out the front door and down Hogsmeade's awakening village street as Remus stood watching from the window, eating raspberry jam with a spoon. There was a jar of Muggle Nutella on the table; he ate that too.

He never saw Albus Dumbledore again.