Characters: Nymphadora Tonks, Remus Lupin, Fred, George, Bill, Fleur, and Molly Weasley, and mentions of Rubeus Hagrid, Charlie and Arthur Weasley, and Andromeda Tonks
Pairings: Tonks and Lupin, Bill and Fleur
Summary: Just a bit of Tonks/Lupin fluff, really. Post second-war as...well, everyone's happy! Everyone but Tonks, that is, who's dealing with the trials and tribulations of impending motherhood.
Disclaimer: If I owned them, I'd be sitting in a huge beautiful house in Scotland and writing the seventh book of the Harry Potter series. Hint: I'm not.
Nymphadora Tonks (just Tonks, thanks) stood in front of the glass, peering at her reflection critically. How, she wondered to herself, was it possible for the human body to just...do that? It didn't seem possible, somehow. And she knew it wasn't just a magic thing, because Muggles gave birth all the time.
But there was her stomach, swollen to at least three times its normal size. She looked like she'd swallowed one of Hagrid's pumpkins. Her cheeks had gotten plumper as well, and her thighs...well, everything below her waist-what used to be a waist-had gotten distended. At least, she assumed they had. She hadn't been able to see them in weeks.
"I miss my toes," she commented to no one in particular. However, it wasn't as if no one could hear her. The mirror she was looking in was just off of the Weasley family's living room. Tonks had simply been walking by on her way to the kitchen to replenish her tea and...there she was. Looking like she belonged in some Muggle theme park as perhaps a sideshow attraction. Yes, that matched her new matronly look quite well.
"What?" Fred Weasley called out, trying to peer around the corner to see her.
His brother was seated closer to the wall and answered. "She said she misses her toes," George called back.
"But where did she lose zem?"
Tonks cringed at the reply. Nothing in the world could be worse than feeling fat and bloated. Nothing, that was, except sharing the time of her pregnancy with Fleur Weasley. Fleur. The name itself sounded nasal, more a sound than a word. And yet Tonks found she'd prefer even that to Nymphadora.
Bill, Fleur's husband, tucked an arm around his wife and chuckled. Of course he could chuckle. He wasn't the one married to a woman with a bludger in her stomach. How did Fleur do it? Their body types were similar. Tonks was even, if she did say so herself, more active as an adult than Fleur. And yet Fleur was carrying well, and the only part of her that had grown heavy at all was her abdomen.
"Under her adorable tummy," another voice replied, though it was much closer. Tonks almost sighed in relief as her husband came to her rescue. When Remus' arms slipped around her, she didn't feel as if he were hugging some fat woman. He was holding his wife and child.
Glancing up at him, she nestled her head under his chin. "It's not adorable," she replied, though with much less fire than she might have used had she been saying the words to the twins, or even Charlie.
"No, eet's not," Fleur replied, a twinge of sadness to her tone. Tonks tensed, and she felt the body behind her squeeze her reassuringly. "What would you know about it, you dumb bint," she whispered under her breath, and she heard Remus stifle a chuckle.
A hand drifted from her stomach to the back of her neck, rubbing gently. "Now ladies, I think the gentlemen in the room can honestly say you're both looking beautiful." Remus glanced over his shoulder to shoot a reassuring look at Fleur, who all but glowed and rubbed her stomach. But the woman in the mirror in front of him didn't look quite as comforted.
Instead of glowing, Tonks merely sighed, tilting her head skeptically to study her figure. "That," she countered, "would be a lie. I'm huge. There's two of me. I have tree trunks for legs and a bludger in my stomach and my stretch marks match my hair!" Which was, in fact, a pale purple that day, a sharp contrast from the redheads, the light blonde, and even the graying brunette that stood behind her.
Fleur gave a breathy giggle at that, and Tonks whirled around to face her menacingly. It was only the hold her husband had on her that kept her from yanking enough hairs out of that girl's head to make a thousand Veela wands. "Come with me," Remus said softly, dropping both hands to hers and pulling her to the door of the Burrow. "We'll be back," he called to no one in particular.
Tonks didn't speak as she was guided out the door and through Molly Weasley's garden. The garden's owner was actually standing in it at that moment, one hand on her hip, the other waggling a finger at a yard gnome-one who seemed determined to keep returning. The small creature wandered off, mumbling what were probably gnomeish obscenities under his breath.
"I've always said Arthur was too easy on the lot of you!" she yelled as the gnome hurried off. "Don't think I'm going to be so nice next time either! There's potions to be rid of you, I'll find one and use it I swear I-oh, hello, loves." Molly's demeanor changed almost instantly as she noticed the two new arrivals in the yard. Her face brightened, but then dropped almost immediately. "Is everything all right?" Her eyes dropped almost immediately to their entwined hands, and her relief was obvious.
Remus gave her a knowing smile and nodded. "Fine, Molly, we just needed a bit of air is all." His lavendar haired wife stood beside him, shooting everything around them an ill-tempered look. He only smiled, squeezing her hand a bit more firmly. Molly glanced between the two of them, then nodded slowly. She didn't speak again, only gave the couple another furtive glance before hurrying inside, the basket of vegetables she'd come out for floating behind her.
They walked a little further down the path, to the edge of the Weasleys' property and closer to the Lovegoods' before either of them spoke. "She really gets to you, doesn't she?" Remus asked, rubbing a thumb absently over the fingers in his hand.
She shrugged non-chalantly. "I guess." The truth was, it wasn't so much Fleur herself as her attitude toward Tonks. And, of course, the little fact that Fleur was gorgeous, and perfect, and part-Veela, and didn't look like she'd suffered the first day of morning sickness.
"How're you feeling?" he asked her, his voice hushed.
"Miserable," Tonks replied, hanging her head. "I'm fat. I'm sick all the time, my back is killing me..." She glanced up at him almost-shyly. "Not that you haven't been incredible, I mean."
Remus released her hand, and at first, Tonks felt a twinge of fear. Was he angry with her? Tired of her being so incredibly emotional? Had she just geared them directly towards a fight? But instead of stepping away from her, he tucked his arm around her and nestled her close. "Sweet girl, you're not fat. You're pregnant. You look amazing, you know that?"
Surprised, Tonks' mouth dropped open, until Remus leaned over, pushing up her chin with the tip of his index finger. "Why so surprised, love?" They'd automatically stopped walking and stood at a tiny fence at the edge of the yard.
"I look disgusting! And here you are, telling me how beautiful I am, and I'm not, I'm just not!"
"You can protest all you want to," Remus told her softly. "But I know what I'm looking at. And you're beautiful."
Heaving a sigh, Tonks went to lean against the fence, then growled in frustration as her added weight plus her usual clumsiness almost sent her through it. "I am not!" she protested again. "All I do is trip and fall over and get enormous and have stupid stupid breakdowns." At the last of her choked out words, she collapsed against him, even more frustrated than she'd been before by the fact that she couldn't even hug her husband properly due to the mound separating them. Desperately, she brushed her tears against the frayed fabric of his jumper.
But again, he surprised her. His arms went adoringly around her, holding her up, despite his own frail frame. Large hands gently rubbed at her back, and his cheek rested against the top of her head. "There now, love, really, is it worth all of this fuss?"
"Yes!" Tonks protested with a wail.
Remus smiled to himself, still holding her. "You're not fat-you're carrying our child. Our's, Tonks, do you hear that?" Pulling back slightly, he tilted her chin so she was looking up at him.
Even when her emotions were an absolute nightmare, she still couldn't stand anyone seeing her cry, and she wiped furiously at her cheeks. "Yeah," she admitted with a somewhat pitiful sniffle.
"It's a blessing, not a curse, you know." At least her condition only lasted nine months. But he wouldn't say anything of the sort. For one, the hormones she was fighting with might cause her to kill him. And secondly, she'd been alarmingly supportive over the three years they'd been together. He couldn't hold anything against her.
Giving another shaky sniff, Tonks nodded. "So you don't care that I'm twice the size of a normal human being?"
Chuckling under his breath, Remus shook his head. "You are not," he chided gently. "You look worthy of being painted. If I could paint. But you'd probably start sitting for the portrait and change your hair halfway through."
"Can I make a confession?" Tonks questioned, a hint of her usual smile returning.
Remus lifted an eyebrow but nodded. "Of course."
"I think the baby's choosing my hair colours."
Stifling an amused laugh-but then releasing it when he noticed she was grinning-he scoffed, "What?"
Tonks nodded, her eyes twinkling. Eyes, he noticed, that were gray that day. "I woke up this morning intending to be a redhead," she told him. "To match the Weasleys, yeah? It didn't exactly work that way."
"But how?" Remus questioned. "It's not genetic, is it? Being a metamorphmagus?"
Shrugging, Tonks grinned. "I don't know. I don't think so-no one in my family before me was one. It just happens. I'll think I'm one colour or style, and the next minute my nose is longer or my hair is curly or...it's weird! Half the time I don't even notice!"
Without saying a word, Remus began the walk back to the Burrow, tucking his arm around her as he walked. "Maybe she'll be just as brilliant as you," he commented lightly.
"Or maybe," she countered, "he'll be just as smart as you. In other words, our child's destined to be a genius."
"Have you thought of a name yet?"
Tonks' nose wrinkled in thought. "A couple," she admitted. Remus raised his eyebrows in waiting, and she glanced over at him and giggled. It was apparent why she'd fallen for him just then. Only minutes ago she'd been a blubbering lunatic. Because of him, she was smiling and laughing. "For a boy...well, I was wondering if you'd mind if we named him James."
Touched, Remus shook his head slowly. "No, not at all," he admitted, his arm tightening ever so slightly around her shoulders. "And for a girl?"
"I think I like Andrea for a girl."
"Andrea?" he questioned, tilting his head curiously. As far as he knew, he didn't know any other witches named Andrea.
A mischievous smile crossed his wife's face. "Mmm hmm," she replied easily. "I kind of want to name her after my mother. But there's no way on the face of this earth that I'm going to name a child Andromeda."
"And for that, I thank you. And knowing her mother, I fully believe our daughter will, too."