Chapter Three:
To Remus's great but silent relief, Tonks lived in no mansion, as he'd feared she might. Andromeda had gotten no part of the family fortune, and she and her husband Ted made an honest, moderate living, as did their daughter. Ministry employees were paid notoriously badly, which was why the Weasleys were chronically poor and why Tonks lived in a studio apartment perhaps a closet larger than Remus's old flat. Tonks threw her wand and satchel onto the square foot of counterspace in her diminutive kitchen, and deposited Remus's battered suitcase onto a dingy rollaway couch squeezed against the wall next to a rickety wardrobe and an obviously secondhand bed with a sagging mattress.
"Welcome to my ever-so-humble abode," Tonks said cheerily. "Not much to look at, but since I have very few gentleman callers, aside from yourself, the mess of a bachelor flat doesn't bother me much."
"Wouldn't that be a spinster?" Remus mused aloud, but Tonks ignored him. She, with a frenetic energy that escaped her guest, was already making tea and boiling two eggs, her wand directing all action in what, to Remus's mind, was a distressingly cluttered kitchen.
While Tonks made afternoon tea, Remus compulsively straightened and cleaned, fluffing out pillows and smoothing out wrinkles in had once been a puce shag carpet.
Tonks paid Remus no mind until his hands inched towards her wardrobe.
"Oi! No rummaging through my undergarments!" she called out at him, and he practically leaped backwards.
Abashed, he moved towards the kitchen, looking for something helpful to do.
"Leave be, Remus," Tonks said with a touch of irritation. "I invited you over as a guest, not a housekeeper. Sit down and … and read the newspaper, or something! I can't work with you hovering about."
Remus did just that.
A half-hour later, Remus and Tonks shared soft-boiled eggs on toast with a warm mug of tea, perched on the edge of the decaying sofa, plate on one knee and mug on the other.
"I'm sorry about the hospitality, Remus, but I have evening shift," Tonks said apologetically.
"No, Tonks, I'm sorry for being such a bother," Remus apologized in turn. "Dumbledore will give me my orders tomorrow, and I'll be out of here quick as can be. You have better things to do than keep a werewolf on your sofa."
Tonks sniffed, but was already a minute late, and had to bustle about collecting wand, robes (the Ministry did enforce dress codes), and satchel.
"I'll be back about midnight!" she shouted, before disappearing through the door.
Alone in somebody else's home, Remus was at a loss. Finally, he decided that the wisest course of action would simply be to go to sleep.
A light sleeper, when Tonks came home in a clatter at one twenty-seven in the morning, Remus bolted upright, his hand inching toward his wand. He relaxed when recognized her exhausted face, and sank down onto his pillows again, but sat up again when he saw the tears on her face.
"Tonks!"
"I'm sorry, Remus, but it's been a bad night," she said, sniffling. She dumped her things on the floor with a thump and then fell backwards onto her bed.
"What happened? Or – is it classified?"
"It'll be in the paper tomorrow, of course," Tonks said bitterly. "Two kids, not even in Hogwarts yet, were attacked by Dementors in Lincoln, and a wizard intervened too late to save them. God, I hate – walking up to their parents, telling them their kids are nothing more than shells anymore, empty forever…"
The loathing that Remus always felt when he thought of the Dementors made him rigid with shock and anger.
"Oh, Remus, we're not winning," the young auror said hopelessly. "The Ministry's paralyzed. Aurory's useless – we mop up afterwards, we don't do anything to prevent this stuff, or, God forbid, take preemptive action. We just chase after shadows when the deed is done and apologize about it afterwards. I hate this!" She pounded her fist on the mattress, which groaned noisily.
"Here, sit up," Remus said, and he handed Tonks a massive slab of his "medicinal" chocolate. While she munched on the sticky sweet, he rubbed her back slowly, until the shuddering sobs she'd been repressing all day faded away.
"Oh, you're such a dear," Tonks said between mouthfuls.
"It's nothing," Remus said softly. "Shh, shh. Tonks, you do more than almost anybody. You work so hard, of course you're tired…" He comforted her softly until she was done with the chocolate.
Licking her fingers, Tonks smiled tearfully at him. "I don't know what I'd do without you," she said, sniffing. "You're such a rock."
And then she leaned over and kissed him.
At first, Remus began to respond, but then jerked backwards, horrified.
"Oh, Tonks, no, I can't."
Now angry, Tonks wiped a hand across her sticky, wet face and said hotly, "Why not?"
There were so many possible answers to the challenge that Remus chose the weakest one. "It wouldn't be right while I'm in your flat," he said.
"You idiot! I wasn't going to sleep with you, just kiss you!"
"And besides, you're too young. No," he amended, "I'm too old. I knew you – well, I met you, anyway – when you were still a toddler, and I was a grown man."
Tonks stared at him. "Remus. You're a wizard, and thirty-seven is not old! It's not as if I'm still in my nappies, you know. Or do you think I'm a – kid!"
Remus was surprised at how explosive her reaction was, and changed tack. "Tonks, I'm a werewolf. It would ruin your life to get involved with me. I'm a danger once a month –"
"So am I," Tonks said tartly.
"That's disgusting," Remus said, "and it's beside the point."
"It's perfectly natural, thank you very much, and how is it beside the point? You saw me three weeks ago, when I nearly killed Shacklebolt because he didn't pass the salt quickly enough for me, it's not like you go completely crazy for a week, is it –"
Remus reached out and put a finger against Tonks's lips, stopping her increasingly noisy arguments. "It would never work," he said softly.
"Because you won't even give it a chance," she said with uncharacteristic bitterness.
"It doesn't even have a chance," he retorted.
"Look, Remus, we may not even be here tomorrow - I'm an auror, you're about to become a spy, and you-know-who wants both our heads. Why shouldn't we get it while we can?"
"You sound like you think we're going to die any minute," Remus said, trying to lighten the tone slightly.
"Maybe we are," Tonks said softly. "Hell, I don't even know where you're going, where Dumbledore's going to send you."
She sounded small and lonely, too defeated to be the vibrant witch Remus – loved.
Giving in to the inevitable, Remus reached out toward her again, and this time, he kissed her.
When they broke apart, they sat in the dark flat, with only a sputtering electric light on in the kitchen, leaning against each other. It was dismal, Remus reflected, but it was life, and the Tonks next to him, tears still wet on her cheeks, was anything but dismal.
"You know, you were right in a way," Remus said half to himself, half to Tonks. "We may not be here tomorrow, and all that. Well documented fact that baby booms occur during and after wars."
Tonks giggled through her tears. "That's how I happened. My mother – I'm sure you've heard the story – during her seventh year, well, she got a little bit too much comfort from Dad."
"It's nice to know we're just acting out our biological imperatives," Remus said dryly.
Tonks leaned against him adorably. "Do you have any more chocolate?"