This story follows A Game of Chessin the Transfigured Hearts series and is set before and during chapter twenty-nine of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Yes -- chapter twenty-nine is the one with the infamous Hospital Scene.
Many thanks to Godricgal for letting me ramble to her about these ideas, for supporting me through the writing, and for her stellar beta work. As always, concrit is much appreciated.
Part One
His tailbone was numb from sitting so still for so long on the hard wood floor, but that did nothing to quell the pain of the iron bedstead pressing into his spine. His discomfort was exacerbated by the tension he created in his own body. It focused in his bent neck and rounded shoulders, and extended down his arms to end in his white-knuckled fingers; they were locked together, clutching his legs to his chest as he restrained himself from emptying the contents of the room to protect it from the wolf that soon would tread its floorboards.
That protection wasn't necessary. At Hogwarts he'd never done anything of the sort, had never given a second thought to spending the night in his office. He needn't worry about transforming in one of Grimmauld Place's spare rooms. Last month's rage in the Shrieking Shack had not been the wolf, but the wizard.
The human wizard whose reflection stared back at him from the mirror.
The skinny, grey-haired, blue-eyed, completely unremarkable looking man who soon would become an enormous, shaggy beast with fangs, claws, and amber eyes.
From moonrise to moonset he would have a wolf's body, but he would keep his own mind. Any actions would be motivated by Remus Lupin's emotions and performed with Remus Lupin's conscious thoughts.
Tonks had seen to it.
She would not see him, but she had not given up on him, not even after witnessing the aftermath of his rage last month. No one had done, even though his negative traits were all human.
Even though the ill he'd done this year seemed to outweigh the good.
Why had they not given up?
Relax, she'd told him before the last full moon.
He was trying to take her advice tonight. He hadn't thought to bring a book for distraction. He probably didn't have the concentration for reading anyway. He'd tried listening to a comedy programme on the WWN, but the words whispering through his mind -- Tonks' desperate tones, Arthur's calm reasoning -- created a cacophony with the voices crackling over the wireless, and he'd had to switch it off.
All week his conversation with Arthur had replayed in his mind and preoccupied him.
There is a Potion, and there is the Order. Why talk as if there weren't?
Why, indeed? Hadn't Remus himself once told Harry Potter that the Potion made him a harmless wolf? He'd known then that he would not keep his Hogwarts post forever. That was why he'd hoarded his salary, so he could obtain the Potion and continue being harmless for as long as possible. And now Tonks was brewing it…
Everything had changed. Not circumstances. Him. He had allowed himself to change, by all accounts.
They seemed to believe he could change back.
Throbbing temples brought Remus to the realisation that he was gritting his teeth. His shoulders ached, and his neck was stiff, as though he'd slept on it awkwardly; the bedstead was probably bruising him. He hurt all over, and he hadn't even changed yet. Morning would be agony if he was already like this. He would pace, he wouldn't sleep. Like that full moon last year, when he'd anticipated Tonks' first morning visit.
Just let me help you relax.
His feet slid forward, the chipped varnish of the floorboards scratching slightly against the soles, as he unlocked his arms from around his knees and stretched out his legs. He sat up straight, away from the footboard, shoulders back and loose, and rolled his neck in slow circles.
What would have happened if he'd taken Tonks' advice before the last transformation? What would have happened if he'd let her stay to continue their daft, but effectively distracting, conversation about Dementor terminology?
Would he still have raged against himself?
Would she still be waiting for him to make the next move?
What would his move be? He had to make one -- this state of limbo was agony.
The trouble was, no matter what he chose, the problems would not change.
Last year it had been easy to forget, he'd told Arthur. To forget he was so much older, that he was unemployed, that the wolf could be a monster. You make me forget, he'd told Tonks -- no, accused her -- the night he ended it. I can't forget. I've got to be careful and alert, or people could get hurt. You could get hurt. Letting you go is the one human thing I can do.
He'd tried so very hard not to be selfish, only ever out of the desire to give her everything. Yet everyone seemed to see the act of letting her go as an imposition of himself on her. And Remus could not deny -- he had only to look at her and see that he had not only failed to give her everything -- he had taken everything instead.
We trust her to know what's best for her.
But did she know? Was he so wrong to question? This was, after all, the same Tonks who'd made him fall just a little bit in love with her because of her wide-eyed naiveté: "Very clean, aren't they, these Muggles? I suppose it varies, just like with wizards?"
Tonks was bright and intelligent, but could she know what it might mean to bind herself to a Dark Creature?
Remus studied his reflection again, noting that the angles of collarbones, ribs, and hips, usually thrown into sharp relief by the flickering lamplight, were softening into the lean, but healthy, frame he'd had before the mission. The lines of his face were still pronounced, and he was so very peaky -- but then, minutes before moonrise was hardly the time to try and decide whether he'd aged this year.
His own face faded as Tonks' loomed in his mind's eye. Thin. Colourless. Unsmiling. If he went back to her, would shechange back? Would her vivid youth return?
You might hurt Tonks, if you're with her.
Would this be Tonks again in ten years, working herself into a shadow of a woman in order to support him…their children…? Would she go grey before her time, and have a face etched with lines she could not morph away?
Would she look at him with sad, dull eyes that said: I see now what you meant. Why couldn't you have gone on being a noble prat?
Or worse: Why did you let me fall in love with you at all?
Her eyes might say that now, for all he knew. She still had not come to see him; tonight's Potion had come by owl. Arthur could be wrong about her leaving any decision about the way forward to him.
All this wavering…this hope Remus had allowed to spark and not snuffed out, could be for nothing.
His temples pounded again, and at the same moment he realised that he'd drawn up his legs again and was running his fingers over the set of irregular indentations just above the back of his knee.
The bite.
His cursed wound.
Had Tonks seen it? They'd not been intimate, but she'd found him naked after more than one bad transformation. Surely her curious eyes would have wandered, searching for the scar.
She should have seen it. They'd discussed marriage. For all intents and purposes, they'd been engaged. He ought to have shown her. He ought to have shown her everything. Every doubt, every fear.
His head fell back, crown pressed against the iron behind him. He needed to talk to her. They were more than overdue. If they had talked before they'd dreamed of a life together, their own sense might have awakened them before the war had -- and more gently.
Or it might have spared them. If only he'd been sure she knew what she was getting into, then maybe…
He'd been so afraid of burdening her that he'd never considered the alternative. Surely the weight of not knowing was just as great for her, if not greater. Certainly he understood that now. His shoulders slumped as though pressed down by a physical force.
Relax.
He stood and stretched, and drew deep breaths as he turned away from the mirror.
Out the window, a beam of white light broke over the roof next-door.
The full moon was rising.
Remus' body went rigid as the first onset of transformation ripped through him.
It was a strange sensation to know that his bones and muscles were breaking and tearing, to have every inch of his body tense with the recollection of how excruciating the pain was without the Potion, yet not to feel anything now except his heart pulsating wildly with the effort of pumping blood through his changing body, and the intense strain of expectation.
When the ruddy light in the room faded to dull yellows and greys, and the neighbourhood scene beyond the window to muted blues, he knew he was peering through lupine eyes. Yet the transformation had only just begun.
He blinked as a wisp of cloud swirled suddenly and swooped downward toward the rooftops. It shimmered as it spiralled into a distinct shape, headed straight for his window.
Oh dear Merlin -- not a cloud.
A Patronus.
Not tonight…He couldn't be needed tonight…Didn't they know he was useless tonight?
He opened his mouth in a curse, but his throat was no longer formed to produce human sounds, and his teeth were the wrong shape for speech. His ears rang with a raw sound of frustration. He raised his hands -- disfigured and less dexterous now, with thickening nails -- and awkwardly balled them into fists, with the urge to beating them against windowpane.
Before he could, the messenger passed through the glass as though no barrier were there. Remus' arms fell to his sides as the Patronus hovered nose-to-nose with him. Or rather, snout to snout; out the corners of his eyes, he could see his own nose and chin protruding as his face shifted into a mirror image of the great canine visage before him.
His pounding heart stood still.
The werewolf Patronus opened its mouth, baring opalescent fangs.
"Relax, Remus."
Tonks' voice was soft, a warm breath on his face, with the effects of a Draught of Peace.
"Don't fight it."
Remus' contorting body obeyed, though his habit was to remain standing -- a defiant man -- until the transformation was complete. But now, with the werewolf spirit nuzzling him, blessing him with tranquillity, Remus bent to touch his useless fingers to the floor as they fused into the shorter toes of a paw.
He did not watch the course grey fur protrude from his skin, but instead his keen eyes followed the Patronus as it loped and bounded -- elegant, beautiful, always shimmering. It wagged its tail, emanating a happy serenity that took Remus back to long ago full moons, romping with Padfoot in the Forbidden Forest. Something behind him quivered, and flicked against his hind leg. He glanced back, neck long and flexible now, and saw a grey tail wagging in response. Laughter welled up inside, and he released it as a short bark.
The silver wolf pounced toward him, nuzzling again as Remus circled with it.
"I love you, Remus Lupin," came Tonks' voice.
He found himself before the mirror, staring at himself in wolf form, the transformation complete.
He thought back to last month, when the most vicious hatred he had ever felt had filled him with a wholly human instinct to destroy. Now he felt no such rage.
There was no monster in the spare bedroom of number twelve, Grimmauld Place. There was only a wolf.
A harmless wolf, with the docile mind of a human being.
The glass reflected the spirit messenger leaping through the window. Remus whipped his head around, and he howled as he watched the shimmering werewolf figure swirl into the starry sky, disappearing against the bright white light of the risen full moon.
He looked back at the mirror, and touched a paw to the glass. He was Remus Lupin.
Nymphadora Tonks loved him.
He dropped onto his belly and rested his head on his paws. He meant only to lie quietly and think.
Instead, suddenly exhausted, but deeply calm, he slept.
A/N: Not much time since the last update, but I wanted to get this penultimate installment of the Transfigured Hearts series posted before the Half-Moon Rising Fic Jumble kicks into high gear at MetamorFicMoon. I'll post the conclusion to this by the middle of next week.
To ensure Remus continues to rethink the value of a noble prat, everyone who reviews this chapter will have the opportunity to send Remus a full moon message via Patronus. What will yours say?