Disclaimer: (keep forgetting) Own nothing, blah blah, yes yes.

A/N 1: This chapter I'm rating 'M'…just…to be safe…however, it's not at all –too- bad, and I suspect this story is bordering on M at some parts, anyways, so if you're fine with the rest of it, you should be fine with this chapter :)

A/N 2: Apparently, ff dot net has been having a few technical errors, as the first time I posted this readers were unable to access it … also, I couldn't reply to reviews. Hopefully, now it's working fine, and you'll all be able to read this.

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Chapter Thirteen: Oh, Dear, Oh, Dear, Miss Molly Please

"So," her hands were folded primly in her lap, and she leaned forward, her red curls bobbing at her shoulders as her eyes glowed with interest, "tell me exactly what happened. Right from the start."

I stirred my tea distractedly with my wand, and then put it down, remembering generally when I was depressed I tended to blow things up. "It's embarrassingly, Molly …" I sighed.

"Nonsense!" she shushed, flapping her hands around. "Tell me everything, dear."

"I – " My voice died in my throat, and I clasped my teacup so tight it shattered to pieces in my lap. Swearing, I grabbed my wand, but Molly grasped my hand tight, whispering 'Reparo' harshly. "Sorry," I muttered, mopping up my steaming lap. "Look, Molly, it was just a terrible, terrible, awful, cringe-worthy mistake. I don't need to talk about it."

"If you didn't need to talk about it, you wouldn't have come," she said gently, trying her best not to be patronizing. Her best wasn't very good. I sighed, loudly and dramatically. She was right, after all.

"He was just looking at me, you know?" The older witch gave me a look that very plainly said she did not know. "In … in that way. Like … like he liked me, or something, and not in a friendly way. It made me feel … warm, and then I just lost it." I sighed, listening dully to my own pathetic words.

"Go on," she smiled.

I stared down at my feet. "I didn't mean for it to happen, really. And after it was over, well, and it didn't last very long at all…"

---

Lupin's hand was held disastrously tight on my hips, and his breathing was ragged. Matching mine, I noticed.

Sharply inhaling, I pulled away, feeling my body lose all sense of warmth.

"I'm sorry," he gushed immediately, red.

"Stop it." I snapped quickly, then pulled even farther away from him, my head spinning in circles, unattached to the rest of my body. "I mean, no, no. This … I'm sorry, this isn't supposed to … damn it!"

"It's my fault," said Lupin, not listening to me in the least. "I-I'm sure that I –"

"Shut up!" I cried, clasping my robe tight over my chest, suddenly feeling white-hot with embarrassment and self-conscious. And believe you me, I had never felt self-conscious before. "It's not your fault, Lupin, I kissed you. You take every little thing out on yourself. Dammit, the world isn't your fault!" I know I had made my point, and anything more could most possibly be too much, but I couldn't stop. It was like I had this high, exuberant, unstoppable energy inside me, and I couldn't control what or what I didn't do anymore. I, of course, blame Lupin. "You sulk when anything goes wrong, and even if something is completely not your fault, you have to take the burden of it. I mean, who do you think you are? God? Mother Theresa? Gandhi?" I sucked in a long breath, and for once, felt myself only growing stronger and bolder under Lupin's crushing gaze. "You can't do that to yourself. Forget the price being sacrificial takes to just being able to live your life, think about your health! No one can do that and not be emotionally and physically stressed and weakened! It's a toll no one can pay, especially not you! You're not as strong as you look!"

My last words struck silence into the air. A sinking feeling fluttering around in my stomach, I knew I had gone too far. Lupin's eyes had shifted to the floor, and he looked pensive. Guilt swelled up inside of me. I am idiot. Oh, my God. I am. I actually am. I am an IDIOT! A lump rose in my throat, and I turned away quickly, looking up desperately at the blackness that was supposed to be the ceiling. God, let me out …

"Tonks." His voice was strong, firm, just like how his arms had been on my shoulders, right before I kissed him. I turned back around, tears forgotten. I knew what was going to happen next, I knew. And I let it.

He grabbed my face, gently, and more roughly pressed his lips to mine. The kiss was soft at first, uneasy, but my mind went painfully blank all the same. All I could think was more, more, more. With a small moan, I grasped the back of his head and pulled him closer, opening my mouth slightly and allowing my eyelids to flutter pleasantly and he forcefully returned my urgency with a bit of delightful help from the French. My chest pounding, I suddenly closed my mouth, biting slightly on his lip. His slight noise caused a jump inside of me. The feeling of dread began to work in overtime as my mind suddenly came back and I realized, with fright that I was making out with Remus Lupin.

And, worse, he still didn't even know who I was.

"I have to go," I slurred, as my mind screamed, Fuck! I scrambled for my wand, lying abandoned on the floor, trying to shake off the feeling of arousal still fluttering around inside me.

Lupin started for me, "Tonks…" I branded my wand at him, shaking it like a madwoman.

"Stay away!" I screeched. I think, for once, he got the message.

"Is everything okay?" Sirius was suddenly, miraculously awake, wide-eyed and … satisfied?

Feelings of confusing burned away by the ongoing feelings of complete crappiness, I swished my wand desperately, just wanting, wishing … hoping …

And suddenly I was gone. The room changed from blackness back into the library, I observed from above, before I landed back down, painfully on my side. I could Lupin and Sirius sprawled beside me and, not wishing to talk, explain, or figure out how the hell I had just done this, I bolted.

I didn't stop until I was panting, and leaning against the frame of my door. Pain was shooting through my body which I wasn't entirely sure was from the running (I was quite out of shape) or the total awfulness of everything that had occurred.

My room had an eerie emptiness about it, and I felt as though I was looking at it, as I never had before. The bed seemed indefinitely was looming, and the red bedspread seemed a lot darker and more Satanic than it ever appeared before. The windows seemed longer, the walls seemed taller, and the empty corners seemed desperately emptier. The warmness and comfort that I had always enjoyed before seemed to have disappeared, and only a chilling coldness remained. It was as though it had changed to fit the rest of this creepy Black house.

Or perhaps said a little voice in my head, the one that anyone and everybody seem to have, and dislike with a terrible passion, you're just seeing everything as it is for the first time.

Maybe I had been deluded. Maybe I was horribly naïve. Maybe I had seen everything before as I had wanted to see it. Maybe I just didn't have the strength to keep it up anymore. Maybe I was just tired. Maybe I didn't want anything to look happy anymore. Maybe it was because I didn't want to feel happy anymore.

I collapsed against the ground, my eyes wide and my thoughts racing. I didn't want to be happy anymore. I had done a horrible, horrible thing to not tell Lupin about everything. He forgot, and he would hate me because of it. We were disoriented, we were drunk. And I was just being someone I had long thought I deserted.

My eyes flitted to the windows as a lone bluebird passed by, chirping as though the world was as right as ever.

Maybe the person I despised being wasn't as gone as I liked to believe.

---

Black curls, blue eyes, and drop-dead beautiful, I waltzed around the room, twirling around in my lovely new revealing black skirt, while also looking idly around the room for my fake ID. I was really quite the multi-tasker.

I looked up as I heard a light tapping at the window. I groaned at the old, brown owl at my window, pecking impatiently. Damn Charlie Weasley.

"Hello, lovely, you wonderful little owl you." With a giggle, I let it in, watching it happily flapping around in my bedroom.

I opened the letter with no haste, having spotted my fake ID, and was busying myself with checking the picture, making sure I matched up.

'Dearest Nymphadora, (don't you dare beat me up for saying that this time, you deserve it, you mad woman!)

Are you absolutely crazy? Yes? No? I suppose it doesn't really matter if you answer that, because I already know. YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY INSANE! You are not doing this, Tonks, you hear me?'

Yawning, I picked a bit of lettuce out of my teeth.

'I can't believe you did it the first, and, hell, even the second and third time I let it slide. But, Merlin's beard! I think ten times is quite enough! You are not doing this again, Nymphadora … do not roll your eyes again, hear me?'

I paused in mid-roll.

'I know you've disregarded my last seven letters, and all my pleasurable little visits, but this time you WILL LISTEN! Now, SHRED UP YOUR FAKE ID AND STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING! Don't you dare even think about going out! Never mind basic SAFETY, but you could catch an STD!'

Trust Charlie Weasley to totally disregard personal boundaries.

'You are not doing another horny old bat again.'

I knew then I was truly loved.

'That last picture you showed me … really, Tonks, I mean I know you have a fetish for old guys, but God … too far, too far. You are really missing out on this wonderful generation of men, you know. We are really devastatingly charming and sexy. You should know that by hanging around me so much, by now.'

Eloquently put, Charlie. I really did misinterpret your charm and beauty.

'Anyways, don't even TRY to distract me another minute. I am FURIOUS with you, young missy! And no, I don't sound like your mother, she's much more easygoing, you take advantage, you little brat. And I'm not sorry for saying that. Hah! Just … don't hit me, again … please? Er, yes. So don't even TRY to get out. I will find out. You will be punished. I AM NOT KIDDING! NYMPHA –'

With a sigh, I crumpled the letter to bits and threw it neatly into the trashcan.

The aging owl hooted, and I smiled. "Like it?" I grinned, twirling. I think it rolled its eyes.

"Oh? Trying to patronize me, eh? Out with you then!" I opened the window and shooed it. It merely blinked at me. "Out!" It seemed to sigh, before elegantly lifting off the floor. "And tell Charlie," I yelled after it, "he will be eating a pile of Flubberworm dung for breakfast next morning!"

Snatching my purse, I gave myself one last once-over in the mirror. With my nose fixed, my eyes more slanted, and my lips larger, I really was beautiful. I looked almost like a mixture of my two aunts, Narcissa and Bellatrix, so alike my plain mother, whose looks I just had to inherit. At least my father had a nice, sharp, captivating face. Mine was just round … and boring.

Trying to ignore the bitterness, I adjusted my strip, faking a pretty smile and flipping my hair back. Charlie was wrong. He would probably know that, too, if he'd seen how I'd changed my face. I never do that. It's too…drastic. I lose sense of self. But even he most likely wouldn't understand why tonight was different. No one would. No one understood.

Graduation was tomorrow. The day where I would be remembered by basically as the girl who slept around. I supposed I had known that all along, even when this had all started, when I had gotten that feeling of desire, of power when Daniel Hutchings had looked at me in third year with That Look. I supposed I had thought I wouldn't care – I hadn't when I was doing it, so why would I now? Expect…I did. I was so, so much more than that, at least I thought I was. At least Charlie Weasley thought I was. I couldn't even remember the feeling I had gotten my first time. All I remembered was it had been good. I needed it again, and when I was roughly dumped the next day, I found myself needing it even more. Desperately, it seemed. But the second time hadn't been the same. Nor the third. Nor the fourth. Nor any of the others to come. It didn't feel the same, and I couldn't figure out why. I needed that feeling back, and the more I needed it, the more it disappeared. Why when I most needed to feel happy, had I been the saddest? And now I couldn't remember it at all. Just a faded memory, a broken feeling. And I thought everyone was supposed to remember their first time perfectly.

"I should go." I said out loud, to no one, except, I suppose, but myself. It probably a good sign, talking to myself. My dangerous thoughts were bad enough.

Grabbing my purse, I raced down the street, looking for a nightclub, a bar, anything. An escape.

I turned the corner at almost a run, discovering the fastest I went, the less I was tortured with anything annoying, mainly thoughts.

However, thoughts come in handy before you turn around a corner at a fast speed.

The body I sped into was tall and lanky, obviously not someone of full health. I was almost tempted to feel just how prominent the ribs were, before deciding I should probably draw the line somewhere.

I looked up at my human pillow, my face automatically turning into a faux, stretched smile. A fringe of tawny-colored hair clouded most of the man's face. His face was lined, as though he was extremely tired, and his mouth was pulled into an apologetic smile.

"I'm sorry," he said with a nice sort of raspy voice.

"Oh, no, it was my fault," I replied, watching his eyes carefully. He looked distracted, distraught; perhaps even a bit drunk.

He returned my smile without a somewhat exhausted quality, and something inside me shifted.

Perhaps I wouldn't have to find a bar tonight, after all.

---

Molly watched me quietly as I kept on rambling, my mouth on an all-expenses paid for shopping spree.

When I finally stopped, I was quite out of breath, and she looked quite calm. Damn Weasley's and their impenetrable unashamed-ness!

"You have to talk to him, dear," she said. What? What? I blinked at her, astonished. I had just spent five hours telling her what must be the deepest darkest secret of my life (Pathetic? Yes, indeed).

"That's…all?" I asked, trying to keep my voice from complete annoyance.

"You'll be surprise how well that works," she told me, eyes twinkling. Dumbledore must have an apprentice.

"Oh, whatever," I drawled, arms crossed.

"Well, one thing is certain," she said firmly, giving me some hope.

"Yes?"

"Sirius Black is most definitely guilty of something," she said, curiosity burning in her light brown eyes.

Oh, give me a break.

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A/N: Thank you ALL for the reviews! Glad to know you haven't deserted me yet ;)

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