Disclaimer: This story is based on the books and characters created and owned by J.K. Rowling, Scholastic and Warner Brothers. No money is being made from this. No infringement on copyright is intended.

AN1: warnings: HBP spoilers, minimal plot, angst and long AN at the end. I hope the long chapter makes up for it.

Against Hope

A stiff apology is a second insult... The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt. G.K. Chesterton

Tea and a Lack of Sympathy

Tonks had been here earlier in the week- or so Molly informed him pointedly, not bothering with staying out of their business. It was true, he was certain, but not because of his sense of smell. Although it had always been sharp, sharper because of The Bite and usually during the days around the full moon, even scent filters out of the air after a few days.

He knew because he had somehow grown accustomed to catching traces of her on things.

Tonks' favorite mug (knowing that she refuses to use any of Molly's dainty teacups for good reason) was still on the draining board instead of the cupboard. He knew that Molly usually clears the small rack by the draining board at the end of the week.

Ginny Weasley greeted him at the door wearing new Gryffindor red and yellow hair ribbons that he had seen before intertwined in the hair of a certain metamorphmagus.

And he found traces of her hair, the strands a light brown color that he spied on her during his last jaunt to London and on that night in the outskirts of a dark forest, when they last saw each other.

Molly instructed him to take off his coat and robes, and he weakly agreed, hanging both garments on the chair, conscientiously keeping both from leaving dirt in Molly's spotless kitchen. Only when he heard her sharp gasp did he remember why he didn't take it off at the door to begin with. It was not something he'd like to subject young Ginny Weasley to.

A long gash started at the side of his jaw, continued down the right of his throat and disappeared under the collar of his jumper. What Molly couldn't see- but could probably guess- was that it continued down his chest and stopped halfway to his stomach.

"Oh Remus, Dumbledore shouldn't have asked that of you." Molly said, hovering a few inches over his neck and fussing over the new scar. "At least this was cleaned right. We couldn't have you getting an infection.

What Remus didn't share was that he did have an infection for a few days, together with a fever. He nursed himself back to health, self-medicating on old potions long past their shelf life that he had in his cupboards, remnants of the good will of others

He was good at taking care of himself, the way he did, years ago when Voldemort was first defeated. While the Wizarding World won, he had lost everybody who cared enough to take care of him.

Well, he didn't have the fever now. Practical Remus gave a small shrug. "It is the least I could do for the Order. It is a stroke of luck that they have a spy ready made, one with a history with Greyback. The werewolves need to be convinced to join us or if not, stopped."

He kept his voice even, but his right hand, the one he kept on his lap, clenched convulsively.

Molly didn't notice and merely ladled up soup. Moody and the rest of the family would be over later for lunch, but Molly liked giving him a little head start on the food. He needed it more, she would say, and he would often politely decline. But there was something healing about having some warm soup in Molly Weasley's kitchen. And he needed something healing right now, although to heal him from what, he had yet to define precisely.

"Remus," Molly began as she poured him a mug of tea. (Remus noticed that it matched Tonks' mug.) "Tonks tells me that you just left. She said after you visited her in the hospital, you took that awful mission joining Grayback and disappeared without telling her. Why didn't you tell her?"

Remus stared at the mug, his mind conjuring images of Tonks' hands spilling some of her tea. He put the mug down and mentally shook his head clear. Instead, he idly traced the grain of the unvarnished table, anything to keep them from clutching anything and breaking that object in the process.

That was easy to answer. For somebody like Molly, he expected her to be more direct to the point. Perhaps Tonks didn't tell her everything.

"According to Severus, it seemed opportune to join immediately. There was no time to tell Nymphadora or the rest of the Order for that matter what I was assigned to do. Now that she does know, I do not see the why this should still be an issue."

That's right. He couldn't see why Tonks and Molly were fretting over this. It was no big deal. It was really no big deal.

"Remus, she took offense that you didn't even tell her. You didn't even leave her a note saying that Dumbledore asked you to do this. She was worried. If you saw her, you'd understand. She's so pale and gaunt."

"There was no time to inform her, Molly. There was no way."

Molly tut tutted him. "So you let her find out the way the rest of the Order did. I would have thought that you, of all people, should know better how to treat a lady. And-" Molly raised her hand- "don't tell me that there is nothing between the two of you. Even Sirius- rest his soul- knew something was up."

He mentally coached himself from gripping the mug too hard, as he was wont to do in the past without noticing it until the fragile object broke. He had learned that the hard way, when he became aware of his strength for the first time.

Finally, he spoke. "There shouldn't be anything between us. I am a generation ahead of her. I cannot provide for her. And for Merlin's sake, I do not know how safe she will be if I had told her. You know Nymphadora, Molly. She'll barge in there with her wand out. And it isn't just Grayback. It's me. I'll never be safe enough!"

Molly looked a little surprised at his outburst and he felt surprised as well.

He needed to take back his control. It had been difficult for him to join the werewolves because it was about allowing himself to lose control.

So that was how Mad-Eye had found them, a shocked Molly and an apology sputtering Remus.

Remus and Molly slowly drifted to different parts of the house, until it was time for lunch. Then they surreptitiously took either end of the table.

Lunch at the Weasley house was pretty much the same, filled with stories and good-natured ribbing, the latter of which was mostly directed at Bill, who was oblivious and perfectly happy to stare into his fiancee's eyes.

Remus left early, passed by his small apartment and deposited all acquisitions that linked him to the Wizarding community, the Weasleys and the Order. The werewolves resented it when one of their kind bore any indication of trying to integrate himself into Wizarding Society.

He placed the leftovers on the counter, and covered it with a freezing charm.

He hid the Order plans Moody had given under the loose plank beneath his bookshelf.

Then he checked and double checked his wards before depositing his wand in his hiding place.

Devoid of his wand and money and unwilling to risk Apparating in front of irate werewolves, he walked the few kilometers from his apartment to Greyback's city lair. The entrance was hidden in a dark and narrow alleyway, flanked on both sides by concrete walls. The ground was wet and the air was damp and it filled Remus' nostrils with the pungent scent of human excrement and the musty smell of wet fur.

Near the full moon, the pack would usually move to the forest, but the rest of the time, Greyback houses them in the city. Remus was certain that that didn't please Greyback a bit, but it made the location more accessible for the other Death Eaters.

The entrance to the lair was a menacing steel door, two inches thick and painted a dull, rusty red. Remus wondered if that was meant to protect the people on which side of the door.

There was no need to announce his presence. The guard on the other side would have smelled him the moment he entered the alleyway.

True enough, the door swung open and a spike-haired kid, donning a leather jacket and more attitude than girth greeted him.

"Mr. Lupin."

The boy stepped deferentially out of his way before locking up behind Remus. Remus tried seeing him as one of the group, someone who would cold-bloodedly pursue Greyback's agenda, but all he saw was a child, barely twenty-one and eager to prove to the rest of the pack what he can do.

"Rey."

The younger man gave him a grin and directed him to the back of the room.

Around them, the other werewolves were lounged on rugs or on the floor, a multitude of empty bottles around them. Another group was sharpening their fingernails that had grown to talon length. They mostly ignored Remus, which was fine with him. The only werewolf to really pay him close attention was Greyback, to see if he really had given up the Wizarding World, and Rey.

The kid was an orphan and muggle to boot, and after he was bitten, Greyback's group seemed like the only way to belong to something. Remus' heart went out to him and had taken to looking out for him especially from the older and bulkier members of the group.

The younger man led him to an empty pallet and sat by him before pulling out a muggle coin.

"Learnta new tricksie." Rey said and proceeded to make the coin vanish with slight of hand. Only he didn't do it quite well, and his face turned red when the coin tumbled a few times out of his hand.

"It only needs a little more practice." Remus reassured him and willingly served as Rey's audience. "Just don't let Greyback catch you playing with muggle coins."

Rey shrugged, trying to look tough, but he moved to a more discreet corner, hiding his coins from prying eyes.

It was a strange thing really, this general hatred Greyback had with the rest of the world. While he despised wizards, he looked down on muggles because they were weak. Prey.

Remus wondered if it was the discrimination, the differences, that Greyback was really angry about. He tried to imagine how Greyback would be like if the entire world was inhabited by werewolves, a world where nobody was different. He didn't think that, given a level playing field- minus all of what made them different- Greyback would play the role of law abiding citizen well. Remus reckoned that Greyback held on to his anger, not because there was a great injustice against their kind, but rather because it gave him a reason to live.

Because they all needed reasons, didn't they. Even he needed one. And without the war, without the need to fight against Voldemort, what did he have? Where did that leave him?

It was a frightening thought.

It was a thought that had haunted him plenty of times, during the interim after Voldemort's fall that fateful Halloween night and his reappearance the night of the last task of the Triwizard Tournament. Until now, he still didn't have an answer.

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It took the stirrings of other werewolves for Remus to notice that Greyback had entered their temporary lair. The werewolf, even in his human form, appeared close to a wolf, and strode through the throngs as if on a hunt. Remus noticed that Rey slinked silently away.

"Lupin." Greyback stopped directly in front of him.

"Greyback." Remus greeted calmly.

Greyback sniffed the air around him for a moment. "Where have you been?" He snarled.

Remus was half tempted to answer: to London. To visit the queen. But he supposed prudence was the wiser move. "Business."

Greyback took another sniff then looked at him disdainfully. "The next time you vanish into Wizarding London to visit your little bird..."

Remus raised an eyebrow. "Do I smell anything like her?"

Once, he visited Diagon Alley and spent an afternoon following Tonks and deliberating whether to approach her to explain. After an hour of debating with himself, Remus decided that it was better to just leave it as it is. When he returned to the lair, Greyback was very precise with the details of his little excursion and was more precise about what he wanted to do with Tonks.

Greyback growled but didn't concede the point. "If I smell her on you, the next time, you better make sure she's a wolf when you return, or I'll enjoy doing it for you."

Remus kept his expression neutral and bowed deferentially, knowing that in this group, Greyback was alpha. But Greyback's words frightened him, and it wasn't the first time that Greyback made the threat.

It was one of the reasons why he could not go back and explain things better to Tonks. Certainly she deserved better than an aging, financially insecure, lycanthrope. Yet even if they were to try any kind of relationship, he could not put her into that kind of peril. Being an Auror placed her in enough danger as it is, and he could not add to that.

Molly's description of a gaunt, pale, worried Tonks combined with Greyback's threat stuck to his mind and gnawed at him endlessly. He didn't want to leave her that night in the hospital room. He didn't want her to find out about the mission to join Greyback in such a callous way. But it wasn't about what he wanted. It was about doing the right thing.

Which was why he left her, alone in that hospital room, before something else gave in and it would be too difficult for the both of them to walk away.

The day after he visited Tonks, Dumbledore had called him up to Hogwarts and had asked him to infiltrate Greyback's group. It was easy to avoid her after that. Running with a band of hunted werewolves didn't leave him with much free time to associate with anybody and his time was divided between being with the pack and looking for covert ways to send a message back to Dumbledore.

He hadn't expected that Tonks would be one of the Aurors assigned by the Ministry to track down the renegade werewolf gang headed by Greyback and didn't anticipate that there was a possibility that she might stumble upon him while undercover.

They had stood eye to eye, on the same side of the battle but for all appearances on the opposite side. She had kept her wand trained on him, a testimony to her Auror skills, but her eyes had asked for a simple explanation. And he denied her by turning away.

The Order could explain it to her.

Without saying a word, by not informing her of such an important decision, he had clearly conveyed his intention- no.

It was better that way. If there was anything he learned in the past, the human soul can endure an unlikely amount of suffering. It was better that she suffered now, briefly, than spend a lifetime full of regrets.

It was better that way.

AN2:

long reviewer responses you guys can skip this if you want. nycgirl asked so I've written an explanation for the use of the lilac in my profile page to keep this shorter, in case anybody else was wondering. kerichi: thank you for taking the time to explain that to me.Don't worry, they do get together in the end. ;)

To aztecgold882, hopeforthefuture, Jesus.lives, Kerichi, Letishia, LyraLupin, mercutio-rane, mucada, nycgirl, trevor-bruttenholm, sparklystuff, TrinityDD, xanya-forever: Thanks a million, for the lovely reviews and the encouragement.