A/N: Sorry about the ridiculously long time it took to update this. Don't own the puppy or the pink fluzz.
Nymphadora85: thanks! I was feeling slightly odd when I wrote the first chapter, actually.
slightly so: great point you're making there. Most of my stories start when I think "Well, what if..."
Elf771: glad you liked it. Though you've probably forgotten about it now, after a 4 week break :)
crazy14: yeah. Usually, I don't take this long to update...
Moonbugg: w00tness. Finally have the new chapter! I always intended to make this a nice, long, serious thing, but 10 Things was just so much more fun to write
dolphinz87: thank you very much. Compliments make us pink and fluzzy on the inside )
Guilt
Two weeks of being Mollycoddled by Molly (i.e. being stuffed with food at every given opportunity) against two weeks of almost no food at all meant that when Remus woke a few hours afterwards, Tonks had not opened her eyes or given any sign that she was about to do so. He sat up on his bed and buried his head in his hands as everything drifted through his mind again.
What did Tonks see in him? They had basically nothing in common apart from a love of chocolate and a hate of the Dark Arts. He was old, poor and dangerous with no sign that his downward spiral into oblivion was going to stop or even slow, while she was a high flyer who had a very promising life ahead. What on earth did she see in a man with grey hair and a tea habit?
"Ah, Remus, you're awake. Good, good…" Arthur's orange head was joined by the rest of his body and he walked towards the bed. "Umm… Tonks hasn't woken yet, but Molly and Alastor are with her in case she wakes." A blink and then his words registered. Tonks had starved herself. Tonks had fainted. Tonks had not woken up. For the first time in many years, Remus had to actively suppress an impulse to swear and curse and throw his pillow around.
Arthur continued speaking, "If you're wanting anything to eat, there's plenty of food downstairs… We'll call when Tonks wakes, if you like." Remus wondered there whether he was actually barred from seeing Dora, or even entering her room. A small flash of anger uncoiled from the pit of his stomach, scarlet and crimson with fury, before fading away. Because it always did, because that was who he was. Remus Lupin, the mild, polite man who dressed in shabby robes and looked older than his years.
Nodding at Arthur, he swung himself out of the bed and stood up. He was still fully dressed, in the robes he had been wearing before. Arthur was still looking at him expectantly, and he realised that Molly had probably ordered Arthur to take him down to the kitchen and feed him. No doubt none of them had eaten properly, and at the very least it would be rude of him to mope in his room and deprive Arthur of his dinner.
Remus' theory was proved right when Arthur followed him down the stairs. The silence between them was not the usual comfortable one indicating they really had no need to discuss anything. It was a tense, quivering one balancing between tempers and tears, where neither of them wanted very much to broach the subject in question. Finally, almost at the basement kitchen, Arthur swallowed and plunged forward.
"Molly wants to take Tonks to St. Mungo's." This simple statement burned Remus' ears. He distinctly remembered that the only other time he knew her to have gone there was after the fight at the Ministry of Magic. Was it that serious? Molly was well known for being overly protective and motherly, but even she preferred to do the coddling at home, leaving St. Mungo's for the incidents which chocolate, healing spells and love couldn't cure. Despite Tonks' pathetic, draggled state, he had never thought she would need anything beyond those three. Knowing he wouldn't like the answer but still wanting to know, he asked, "Why?"
The question seemed to put Arthur onto firmer ground. He had obviously heard it from Molly's lips so many times that he immediately replied. "She won't wake up. Molly and Mad-Eye have tried all that they could think of, but she hasn't responded to any of it. But she is talking and mumbling a bit though, so maybe it's just a normal sleep that's a bit overdue…" The tone of Arthur's voice left no doubt in Remus' mind that he didn't believe it at all. And neither did he, come to think of it. "What has shggrr-" Remus coughed to clear his throat, it having unexpectedly clogged up.
"Do you know what she has been saying?" Curiosity and dread had wrestled inside Remus' brain. When curiosity finally won, he asked the question. Dread quickly took over as soon as the words left his lips, taking on the form of Molly Weasley as an avenging angel standing over Tonks' body. Arthur broke him free from the morbid train of thought he had been following, and proved that no news was worse than bad news.
"I actually have no idea whatsoever, I've only seen her once and then Molly told me to watch over you and take you down to get some food as soon as you wake up." The image of avenging Molly became, if anything, more vivid. Remus swallowed, not feeling even remotely hungry when he and Arthur sat down at the already set kitchen table. By the looks of things, Arthur was feeling somewhat the same, chasing his peas across his plate the way his sons did.
A step-clunk, step-clunk sound announced Mad-Eye going down the staircase. After some moments, the kitchen door swung open and he stood in the doorframe. Despite being a good head taller than the man, Remus felt quite intimidated by the ex-Auror's expression. "Want any food, Alastor?" Arthur asked half-heartedly. Mad-Eye made a hmph kind of sound before sitting down at the table across from Remus.
"The girl's not moved since she fainted," Mad-Eye informed Arthur and Remus in a disgruntled tone, "and I've just owled Dumbledore. Thought he should know about one of his soldiers being incapacitated." The slow, deliberate way he said the last word, combined with a cutting glare at Remus, left no doubt as to whom he was blaming. "Molly says that you're allowed to see her." The look on his face showed that he thought very differently.
Ignoring his imagination, which was now displaying a moving diagram of Mad-Eye advancing on him menacingly, Remus nodded and hurried out of the kitchen. He spent more time standing longer outside the guest bedroom's door than going up the two flights of stairs, before finally summoning up enough willpower to knock softly. The brush of hard wood against his knuckles gave him a fleeting anchor of reality, but faded when the door opened.
Molly, with too-red eyes and thin lips, looked at Remus with exasperation and distress battling for control of her features. After giving him a curt nod, she retreated to the bedside, but left the door open which he took as an invitation to follow. At the sound of the door clicking shut, a lump under the sheets gave a slight quiver, and Molly instantly bent over to inspect Tonks.
Standing awkwardly next to Molly, Remus couldn't help but notice how little a dent Tonks made under the sheets, the thin neck where every sinew stood out and a painfully pinched face. Molly too seemed to have diminished in size, creases rarely seen lining her face. He spoke as quietly as he could, but the sound still seemed to echo onerously through the velvet and tapestry draped room.
"Molly," Remus said gently, "you should go downstairs and get some food. Arthur's… waiting for you." That wasn't precisely true, but the man would no doubt be glad to see his wife. To his surprise, Molly didn't argue. For a moment, she looked at him with a piercing gaze, then opened her mouth as if to say something. But she closed it, swallowed and sniffed, before tucking in the sheets around Tonks' shrunken body one last time and hurrying out of the room.
Alone in the room, somehow Remus felt even more awkward than before. He could not look at the wasted face, now so reminiscent of Sirius', without the knife of guilt twisting ever deeper into his gut. Yet he could not draw his eyes away from her, or think of anything else. Somehow, he had never thought his words would affect her the way it had. He had tried to stop her in her tracks, for what he considered was her sake. But if anybody could have told him that this was the way it would turn out…
"I'm sorry," Remus whispered to her prone body. Brushing a lank lock of hair off her forehead, he stepped back and gazed at her through bloodshot eyes, hands deep in threadbare coat pockets. "I'm so sorry, Nymphadora."