Author's Note: I'm currently re-reading the books and overthinking about the characters. Remus is one of my favorite characters, but I thought it was kinda strange that he ended up with Tonks, because they didn't seem to have much in common. Also, it seemed out of character to me that he would have ever left his pregnant wife, even to go fight Voldemort, because loyalty seemed very important to him. This is an explanation for why he ran away along with my version of how I think Tonks and Lupin might have worked as a couple. I think I just wrote it so that this part of the story would make more sense to me. I added more to this story and it became darker at parts, so I changed it from K+ to T just to be safe. I hope you enjoy! Reviews are always welcome :)


When Remus had woken up that morning, he first noticed the empty space next to him in bed. He walked down the hall to see his wife already awake in the kitchen, sipping on a cup of coffee while she read The Daily Prophet. She usually woke up before him. He was always needing to catch up on sleep.

"I made some coffee," she said, her voice drowsy.

"Thanks," he said as he poured himself a cup. "Reading anything good?"

She shrugged. "Same old. It doesn't seem like they know anything new."

He nodded, looking at her in her dressing gown, eyes still sleepy, brown hair still messy. She never changed her appearance these days, which he silently preferred. He liked their quiet breakfasts. I'm going to miss this, he thought as he left a folded piece of parchment behind the coffee pot when she wasn't paying attention. She would be sure to find it when she poured herself a second cup later on. He wanted to memorize everything about the way she looked this morning, so he stared at her just a moment too long. She felt his gaze and looked up from her paper, a confused smile on her face. He smiled back, and he told her that he was going out for a bit.


Remus sat thinking about how his day had begun, but he was no longer in his apartment with his wife, he was in a pub in London, stewing over his fight with Harry, who wouldn't let him help in the search for horcruxes. And Harry had been right, of course, which made it all so much worse.

But Harry was just a child, really, and had no idea what the responsibilities of fatherhood entail, especially for the father of a werewolf. Remus's childhood had been miserable. He had no memory of what his life had been like before being bitten. All he knew was constantly moving, not being allowed to play with other children, painful transformations, endless guilt. Every time he thought about being a father, he thought about the off-chance that Dora might go into labor on a full moon, and he wouldn't be there for her while she gave birth. He kept picturing his baby transforming into a werewolf. Remus wouldn't have to watch this, of course, but his wife would, and she would have to see her infant screaming and writhing in pain, and she would be helpless to do anything. The thought made him sick to his stomach.

In a moment of desperate hope, he briefly wondered if it might actually make it better for them to transform together. Some werewolves form packs, making it easier on each other, Remus knew that, and he wondered whether he and his child could make each other's full moons more bearable. Then he remembered something he had heard another werewolf say years ago. Remus had been about nineteen, and he had been talking to an older woman who had spent her entire adult life traveling between werewolf packs, and she was telling him how much better it is with other people. "I wish I had known other werewolves when I was a kid," he had said, thinking about his transformations before the other Marauders had become Animagi. But she shook her head. "No, we never let kids into our packs." Werewolves weren't dangerous to each other when they were all fully grown, she told him, because they were evenly matched, but young werewolves were weaker. "I know people who have tried it before, but the young ones never survive a full moon in a pack," she said solemnly. Remus remembered this and realized that, given the opportunity, he could easily end up murdering his own child.

Remus looked around. He had worked in this pub about ten years ago. Remus had tended bars all over the country. He was never much of a drinker himself, but it was generally an easy job to pick up, and practically every town had a bar. They were almost always Muggle establishments. Muggles were even less apt to notice any pattern in why he requested one day off every month, and if they noticed anything at all, they always made the same assumption. Remus would walk into work the day after a full moon looking exhausted and haggard, and they would guess that he had spent the previous night out on a bender. He had learned to have a sense of humor about it, thinking back to a time in this very pub when a coworker had asked him, "What did you do last night?" and he had laughed, telling her, "I honestly don't even remember."

The owner recognized him and told the bartender on duty that Remus drank here for free, and Remus thanked him, pretending to be surprised by this generosity. In truth he had been counting on it. That was why he had chosen this pub, since he had no money on him. After two beers he stepped outside and began walking aimlessly, taking random turns as he saw fit. Every neon sign he passed was far too bright, like they had all conspired to shine a spotlight on him wherever he went. He felt accusatory eyes on him as he walked, even when he found himself on streets where there was no one else to look at him. Time inched by. He walked past a bank with an electronic sign displaying the date and time and saw that it was only 11:27 at night. Remus couldn't believe that it was still the same day, that it was only this morning when everything had been alright, before he had decided to ruin his own life. He couldn't help but think back on their relationship and all that he had just given up.


Remus remembered meeting her very clearly. It was the summer immediately after Voldemort had returned, and the Order was convening at Grimmauld Place for the first time in fourteen years. She was one of the only people there he didn't already know, she was clearly too young to have been in the Order last time, and he was certain he had never met her before. He would have remembered her midnight blue hair.

"Tonks," she had said with a smile, stretching out her hand. He shook it, responding with his own name. Molly popped in from the kitchen a moment later.

"Nymphadora, could you please give me a hand in the kitchen?"

"I go by Tonks," she said, and though she wasn't rude, she had spoken with a finality that made Molly blush with embarrassment.

"Sorry, dear," Molly replied, clearly worried she had offended Tonks. "I thought your name was-"

"Oh, you thought right," she said with a smile. Molly seemed to relax then. "My name is Nymphadora, I just don't like it. And I'm happy to give you a hand, but I don't know how much help I'll be. I'm a bit clumsy."

"I'm not," Remus had said, following them into the kitchen. "I can help."


He had assumed that day that Tonks simply claimed to be clumsy to get out of doing housework, but it didn't take him much longer to realize that she was telling the truth. He told her that once, years later, and it made her laugh. "Did you fall in love with me right away?" she had asked. They were lying in bed together, and she had her arms wrapped around him. It was summer, so this made him a little too warm, but he thought he had never been more comfortable in his life.

"No," he said. "But I know I thought you were interesting. I wanted to find out more about you."

"Hmm... I think I thought the same about you," she said. "I thought you seemed... mysterious, I guess. And maybe a bit brooding."

"Brooding? Oh, please don't say that. That makes me sound like an angsty teenager."

She laughed softly. "Well, sometimes you can be a bit immature. Just a little moody and sulking at times."

"Really?" he thought about this for a moment. "Yeah, I guess that's fair."

She took his hand in hers and squeezed it. He liked when she did this, and he made a mental note to tell her that. "It's not a bad thing," she said. "And it's gotten better, because now when you do get that way, you talk about how you're feeling, not like when I first met you."

"Well, back then I wasn't exactly used to having someone around to talk to."


His tone was lighthearted, but she didn't laugh, leaving it silent between them. This didn't bother him, though. He was fascinated by the moments when she didn't talk. Sometimes he felt like she talked constantly. There were days she would bombard him questions about his past, wanting to know how he got along with his parents, what he had wanted to be when he grew up, who was his first crush. Other days she would ask him about his future, whether he wanted a big family, where he wanted to live, what he wanted to do. These questions were more difficult for him, since he had only ever taken his life day by day. His future plans had always mainly involved ensuring that he would have some way to manage his transformations every month. Strangest of all was when she would ask him about his present. She had asked him once why he didn't visit his family more often. She would ask if he needed more alone time, saying she didn't want to smother him. The first time she had spent the night with him at his place, she asked him if he liked the way she touched him. It all seemed so awkward to talk about. He had seen his friends fall in love before, and everything between those couples had appeared effortless. He didn't know what he liked, and he didn't know what he wanted. This frustrated her. She told him that they had to communicate; every couple does. Outsiders don't always see it, but that's always part of a relationship.

Even her silences spoke volumes, but in a good way. They made it clear to him that she understood him. Once, around the time when they were first getting serious, she had been asking him more about his transformations: how he felt when he was transformed, and how much he remembered after he transformed back. He told her that when he transformed back, he remembered almost everything from the night before. "Everything?" she had asked. "Pretty much," he confirmed. That had surprised her. Then he told her that during the full moon, he felt overwhelmed with rage, and his only thought was to kill anything that crossed his path. "But not humans, right? I thought werewolves will only bite humans, never kill them." He hadn't known how to respond. Neither of them had said anything for a moment, and then he simply told her no, that that wasn't always the case. He dreaded the next question that she was going to ask him, but she never did. He loved her for not making him say it.


Many of their quiet moments were when they talked about his lonely years. He supposed that these conversations naturally produced more silence simply because there was not much to say. She could tell he became embarrassed when she asked him about his past with other women, so she didn't push the topic. He worried that she might think that his silence was evidence that he had some old flame that he had never gotten over, because he was older and she sometimes assumed he was more experienced than she was, but he didn't know how to tell her that the opposite was true, that despite his age he knew nothing at all about relationships, that she was the only girl he had ever loved.

He thought back to the night he knew he loved her. Remus had been evicted from his latest apartment, so he asked Sirius if he could stay at Grimmauld Place for a few weeks. He hated imposing on his friend, but Sirius was ecstatic to have company. "This is perfect, and my cousin Tonks is stopping by tomorrow night!" he had said. "You two have done a few missions for the Order together, right?"

Remus told him yes, they had worked together and they were friends, and Sirius was pleased. "Good, so everyone will get along. There was one day a while back where there was just me, Molly, and Mundungus here for lunch. I've never had a more awkward meal in my life."

As nervous anticipation grew within him throughout the next day, it occurred to Remus that he hadn't realized how strong his feelings were until it was too late. He felt like a teenager with a crush. He never liked to let himself dwell on things that couldn't be, but he knew that he looked forward to seeing Tonks more than anyone else in the Order, even more than Sirius, who was supposed to be his best friend.

This made him uncomfortable to think about. Sirius had changed since spending twelve years in Azkaban, no one could blame him for that, but it was often hard to be around him. Remus loved Sirius for his sense of humor, but Sirius was no longer the person to lighten the mood. In fact, he tended to weigh down conversations, leaving Remus at a loss for something to say. They got along best when they talked about their school days, aging backwards as they reminisced on their teenage years. "I still can't believe how much got away with," Remus had said. Sirius smiled sadly. "I don't know if I'd say we got away with much, mate. If you ask me, we've payed for our sins and then some."

Remus cooked dinner that night. He liked feeling useful, even though Sirius felt bad for not helping, but both men agreed that they didn't like the idea of Kreacher coming anywhere near their food. When Tonks came into the kitchen, her face lit up with a smile. "Are you making gnocchi?"

Remus blushed. "Yes, I remember you mentioning it's your favorite." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sirius suppress a smile. That was the moment Remus knew. He knew because Sirius knew.

During dinner, Tonks complained about a coworker insisting on calling her 'Nymphadora,' claiming that it felt impersonal and unprofessional to call her by her surname. "I'd think it's more unprofessional to refuse to call someone by the name they prefer," she said.

Remus immediately agreed, but Sirius challenged her. "What if you get married?" he said. "Will you take your husband's name? Even if you don't, it might be strange for him to call you 'Tonks.' Will he be allowed to say your first name?" As Sirius spoke, Remus steadfastly avoided looking at him, knowing that Sirius was trying to make him feel self-conscious.

Tonks had thought about it a moment and then shrugged. "I don't know whether I'd take my husband's name. Honestly, I don't know if I'll ever get married at all," she said with a small smile. "But I guess I see what you mean. Maybe if I ever do have a husband, he can just call me Dora."


Now as he wandered the streets of London with nothing on him but his wand, he knew there was only one place to go, but he was dreading it. Remus didn't often see much good in himself, but he had always been a pretty nice guy, and he tried to act with other's interests in mind. He wasn't the type who would walk out on his pregnant wife, right? He kept running through it all in his mind, analyzing every thought process that led him here. The more he thought it over, the harder it was to justify what he had done. It was too much to face. He longed to see his wife again, but going back to her would mean admitting that he had left her to avoid facing their future together. That had been the goal when he tried to join Harry, Ron, and Hermione, if he was being honest with himself, and there was no point in being anything else now. If he kept running, if he joined those kids and did something heroic, helping them defeat You-Know-Who, no one would think of him as a man who had left his family behind, right? Wouldn't they just say he was devoted to the fight, that he cared about the cause? That might be true, he thought. People might say that about him, but they'd be wrong. The truth was that he left because he was afraid. He walked around the block until he made it back to the bank again, the sign now saying that it was 11:46. He closed his eyes, sighed, and Disapparated.

He knew Dora wouldn't have stayed at their apartment after she saw his note, and this was the only place she would have gone. She was close to her parents and she came here often, usually just to stop in, say hello, and have lunch, or maybe once or twice when she wanted space from Remus after a spat, but never over anything serious. Everything looked so normal outside his mother-in-law's house, and for a wild moment he thought he could walk in and pretend that everything was normal, that nothing had happened, that he had simply gone out for some errands and was back to bring his wife home.

He knocked on the door and it opened a crack, with a pair of judgmental eyes looking at him silently.

"Hi Andromeda, I-I'm just here to…" he trailed off as he caught her glare, and suddenly he forgot how to speak. He started again. "I'm sorry to bother you this late. Is Dora here?"

She nodded, opening the door and gesturing for him to come inside. All things considered, the Tonkses had been incredibly welcoming to Remus ever since he started seeing their daughter. They never mentioned his condition, at least never in a derogatory way, and they never bothered him about his lack of work. He knew that couldn't have been easy for them. He could hardly fault Andromeda for not being warm to him now.

She led Remus into the kitchen where Dora sat at the table. There were two cups of tea, and Remus knew immediately that they had been sitting up late, talking about him and what a horrible husband he was. Dora looked up at the two of them and asked her mother to give them a minute, and Andromeda fled up the stairs without a backwards glance.

Remus stepped towards her. "Dora—"

"Back so soon?" she asked.

"Dora I'm so sorry, I don't know what I was thinking, I—"

"Oh, I know what you were thinking," she said. "You wrote it all out in your note."

He looked at the ground. "Honey, if we just—"

"Don't you dare 'honey' me," she said through gritted teeth. "I'm your wife. And you left me with a note. And now you think you can just come back here and say sorry?" He sputtered, but she went on, undeterred. "You think you're noble?" She began to talk louder but the sound of footsteps upstairs reminded her that they weren't alone in the house. She went on in a shouted whisper. "You-you think you were being a good man, leaving me and our baby to fend for ourselves? Because that's what you made it sound like in your note," she spat out the last word like it was a curse while digging into her pockets, pulling out what Remus was dreading, the fatal piece of parchment.

He hurriedly took the seat across from her, and she stood up just as quickly, unfolding the paper. He couldn't listen to this, he pleaded, "Dora, if we could just go back to our place, I think we—"

"'I couldn't bear to make outcasts of you and our child,'" she read. Her voice was growing quieter and colder, which only made Remus more nervous. "Oh that's rich. You're playing the martyr here, as if you're saving us, even though we both knew what we were getting into when we got married, and you said you wanted children—"

"I didn't know it would happen so soon!"

"So? So if I had gotten pregnant in three years, would we be having this same conversation, just three years in the future?"

"Of course not, but if—"

"Then what difference does it make that it happened so soon? I've known you were a werewolf the entire time I've known you, and I've lived with you for six months now, that's six full moons, and none of that has, how did you put it?" she opened the note again and scoffed. "Right. It hasn't 'shattered any hope for my future,' or whatever."

He paused, trying to steady himself. "Listen, if our child is a- if it's like me, I mean, then there's little hope that they'll ever have a normal life, especially since we don't know how things will—I mean, after the war—what it'll be like, for people like me. Or like us, I guess," he added, gesturing to her stomach.

"Right. So you thought the only honorable thing to do would be to leave me to deal with it on my own."

"I wasn't thinking clearly, that's what I'm trying to tell you. I was just thinking about me." He hadn't realized how true this last sentence was until he said it out loud, and saying it brought a wave of shame over him, causing his eyes to fill with tears.

Dora took her seat again, her shoulders slumping inward, and she suddenly seemed so small, like she had shrunk right there in front of him.

"Was it me?" she whispered. Remus stared at her without understanding. She avoided his eyes. "You made it sound like it was because of your condition, but was it really because of me? Do you not love me anymore?"

These words put Remus in a state of shock. He didn't even know how to respond to something so unthinkable, but his silence did nothing to comfort Dora, who now had tears running down her face.

"That's it, isn't it? Was I, I don't know, too… needy?"

"What? Of course not," he said incredulously.

"Then was I not enough? Did I do something wrong, something to… something to make you think I wouldn't be a good mom?"

"What are you—? No, it was nothing like that, that's the furthest…" Remus exhaled. "I love you, Dora. And you'll be a perfect mom. I know you will. That has nothing to do with it, don't you see? You and I have been together for six months, and I was alone for thirty-six years before that, and now in six months, I've had to learn how to be a boyfriend, and then a husband, and now a father. All I've ever known is how to be alone and take care of myself. I never thought that I'd be raising a family, and I thought… I thought we might have a little more time, that's all, and I'm glad—Look, I want this baby, I'm happy to be a father, but can't you understand what this has been like for me? I mean, you are my first girlfriend, my first kiss—" he mumbled the last word, he had never admitted that out loud before, "—and I never thought I'd have any of this in my life at all. Don't you see? I just don't know how to… I just don't know what I'm doing."

They sat in silence for a minute, Remus with his forehead resting on his hand, Dora with her arms crossed.

"Do you think I know what I'm doing, Remus?" she said coolly. "I'm twenty-four years old. I didn't think I'd be married this young, and definitely never thought I'd be having a baby by now, but that's the way it happened, and we're supposed to be figuring it out together, not running away. And we need to talk about it with each other. Not leave each other notes."

"I know. I'm sorry."

She took a sip of her cup of tea, adding quietly, "I didn't know that I was your first kiss."

Remus shrugged, his face going scarlet.

She tried to hold back a grin. "Was I good?"

"No, very bad," he said immediately, and they both laughed. "Well, don't ask a stupid question," he said with a small smile.

She wiped the tears from her face. "I'm still angry."

"Yeah, I figured," he sighed. "I really am sorry."

She nodded. "I know." She finished her tea. "I have a bag of things upstairs. I'm going to grab it and say goodbye to Mum before we go back to our place."

He nodded and got up to stand by the front door. When Dora came back down, he saw his mother-in-law at the top of the stairs, and said "Goodbye Andromeda, thank you," and she nodded in return, saying, "Good night Remus," and then in a snap he and his wife were back in their apartment.

They didn't say much when they got back. Remus slept on the couch. Dora liked space when she was angry, and he knew that she just needed time to be upset. That didn't bother him, though. It felt like weeks had passed since this morning. He was simply glad to be home.


The next morning, the smell of coffee woke Remus up. He walked into the kitchen to see Dora at the table in her dressing gown, a mug in one hand.

"I made a pot of coffee," she said, glancing up from the most recent Daily Prophet.

"Thanks," he said, pouring himself a cup.

He took the chair next to her. She had the paper laying on the kitchen table as she read, with one hand holding her coffee mug, the other resting on the table. He looked at her sleepy eyes and messy hair, and he let his gaze rest on her stomach, which was just beginning to grow. Thinking of her and their baby, he realized that this was the first time in his life that he knew exactly what he wanted from his future. He had her memorized, of course, he had had her memorized probably before they had even gotten married, but it gave him peace to know that he wouldn't have to refer to his memory of her, because he was still here with her. She looked up at him, smiled slightly, and reached her hand across the table, resting hers on his. She turned her attention back to her newspaper as they both sipped their coffee, and their quiet breakfast continued.