Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Remus, Tonks, Hogwarts, and anything else you recognize. I'm just the fan fiction writer playing puppet-master.
Remus Lupin left the hospital wing not long after Harry, Hagrid, and the Heads of House did. The Weasleys probably wanted some time to themselves, to grow into this latest development, and he really did not want to spend much more time in a room with Tonks. He was hurting them both by pushing her away, he knew, but . . . he didn't want to hurt her more later. He was too dangerous, and while she could deny the other two all she wanted and perhaps even convince him she was right, that one remained.
He was halfway down the corridor when someone came up behind him and wrapped her arms around him. Someone slightly shorter than him and with a fairly slim build. Remus hesitated. "Tonks," he mumbled, "I thought I said now wasn't the time."
She lay her head on his shoulder. "I know you did."
Remus bit his lip and stiffened automatically. He could feel her tears wetting his shoulder, and he desperately wanted to turn around and comfort her. At the same time, he knew if he turned around now he'd lost the battle with his more sensible side, the side that knew she was safer if he said no. Stubbornness would win out over sensibility. "Please don't do that. Dumbledore is dead, so it's definitely not the time."
"You heard what McGonagall said. He'd be happy to hear that you finally gave in," she whispered into his ear. "And besides, if now is not the time than there's never going to be a time. Especially with Dumbledore dead . . . Remus, the death toll is only going to increase. You'll always say now isn't the time."
"I know," he whispered. One hand strayed down to the hands interlocked at his waist. "I stand by what I said earlier."
Tonks mumbled something into the back of his neck. She was still crying, and the urge to turn around and wrap his arms around her was getting stronger and stronger. But so was the fear of what might follow if he did.
"Tonks. . . ." he said again, a little more desperately, a little more shakily.
"I stand by what I said, too," she mumbled into the back of his neck. "I. Don't. Care. You could turn into something a lot nastier once a month and I still wouldn't."
"Beauty and the Beast," Remus muttered under his breath. Unfortunately, that story didn't take place in the middle of a war, and at the end of it the Beast's curse was broken. Otherwise he would have given in long ago. But for his curse there was no cure.
"No we're not," Tonks muttered. "I'm certainly no beauty, and twenty-seven days a lunar month you're not hairy enough to be the Beast."
He chuckled humorlessly and ran his thumb over the knuckles on one hand. "Well, perhaps you're right about the latter. Now let go and let's be sensible."
One of her hands left his waist, to his intense relief, but she immediately grabbed his hand instead. "You keep talking about danger, Remus, but . . . but that's why I don't want to wait for you anymore. No matter what you think you're not the worst danger to me, right now or ever. And what if . . . what if. . . ."
Remus bit his lip. "What if you're the next to die and I never actually admitted I loved you?" he suggested.
"I was going to say what if you're next, but that works too," she mumbled.
"I can't do this anymore," Remus muttered. He let go of her hand. Tonks grabbed his waist again, clearly afraid he was going to run away, but he turned around and grabbed her shoulders instead. Suddenly her tears were subsiding, and the few that remained were falling onto his chest rather than his shoulder. "I've lost a lot of people in the last twenty years. Don't even make me think about losing you." One hand strayed up to her mousy hair, playing absently with it.
Her grip on his waist tightened. "Are you saying . . . ?"
"No, I'm definitely not saying that," Remus whispered, although he knew his resolve on that front was sliding away as he spoke. "I'm saying I can't stand the thought of you dead and I'd thank you not to ever bring it up again."
"Mmm," she murmured.
It was a moment before Remus could think of something to stay again. "Did . . . did your Patronus really change? I haven't seen it recently."
"Yes," she whispered.
"What did it change into?" Remus was half-hoping for and half-afraid to hear the answer. That in itself told him that he was about to give in, and that months of reminding her what he was had been wasted.
"A big wolf," she mumbled into his chest.
He smiled shakily. "A . . . a wolf? Do you have any idea why?"
"I suppose I knew what you just said, that you couldn't stand the thought of me dead," she answered, and he could hear the faint smile in her voice. She knew his resolve was slipping, too. "I knew that you'd protect me."
Remus hugged her as tightly as she was hugging him. "I'm trying to do that, Tonks. Really. . . ." He swallowed the lump in his throat. He really didn't want to repeat what had been hurting them for the last ten months, but it had to be said. "I'm scared for you."
Tonks looked up at him out of her big brown eyes for the first time in that conversation. She was no longer afraid, then, that he'd push her away, even though they still looked a bit teary. "But are you going to let us be scared for each other together?" she asked with a small smile.
He bit his lip and gave into impulse at last, kissing her briefly. "Maybe," he admitted. "Just maybe."
Author's Note: All right, that was my first shot at Remus/Tonks . . . or romance at all for that matter. The question is, of course, how bad was it? You know you want to tell me. . . . Cheers! --- Loki