7 First Try
Remus wasn't in the Defense classroom the next day. Instead, Snape was acting as substitute teacher, which no one seemed happy about. Tonks strode right past on her rounds, looking for Sirius Black. Lupin wasn't in his office either. A note on the door apologized that he wouldn't be available for his usual office hours.
She finally spotted him creeping towards the teachers' quarters that evening. Not Sirius, the bloke she was supposed to be looking for, but Remus.
"What the hell, Remus?!"
He stopped and turned to face her. He looked awful, like he'd been crying too. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, you can't even begin to understand how sorry I am. I don't expect you to forgive me. And I'm sorry I made you waste that, that potion. I could pay you back for it. How much do those cost?" he babbled.
"We can't talk in the hall like this. Students might overhear." She slowly drew closer, causing him to back up to the door behind him. "Let's talk in your quarters."
He gulped, and drew his wand. Tonks heard Mad-Eye shouting "Constant vigilance!" in her head, and nearly drew her own, but no, Remus just used his wand to unlock his door, ushered her in, closed the door behind him, then sheathed it again.
The sitting room of his quarters was as free of personality as a hotel room. There were no personal effects, no art on the walls. "There's only the one chair," he apologized. "You may have it of course. I'll…" He seemed about to say he'd stand, but looked so unwell, that was a promise he couldn't keep. "I'll sit on the floor," he finally concluded, and did so.
"Geminio." The copy she made of his one chair was indistinguishable from the original. She put her wand away, hauled Remus up off the floor, and shoved him into the copy. "Don't be ridiculous. Are you a wizard or not?" She sat in the original chair he'd offered her.
He shrugged, and reached into his pocket for his wallet. "How much do I owe you for that potion I made you waste?"
"Oh, I didn't let it go to waste," she said, crossing her arms and staring at him intently.
"What?"
She let the tension build for a while, then said, "I knew that even if you didn't want me, someone would. So I went to the Three Broomsticks and looked around. I didn't find one man willing to have me. I found three. That's why they call it the Three Broomsticks. It's a tradition there. We got a room. I'm very tired today, but I assure you I got my money's worth out of that potion."
His expression was like an avalanche, any trace of composure collapsing. Finally he just buried his face in his hands and choked out, "I'm glad you had a nice time."
"Yeah, I can tell you're really happy for me."
"I am!" he insisted, with a shuddering sob.
"Not jealous at all, are you?"
He shook his head, face still buried in his hands.
Tonks knew she was being cruel. While he might deserve it, that wasn't the kind of person she was, really. Sort of. "I lied," she admitted. "I didn't go to the Three Broomsticks last night."
He exhumed his face from his hands and looked at her hopefully.
How gullible was Remus, anyway? "There was no need," she said airily, "with Snape right there."
He looked completely shocked. "You, and, and, Snape? Last night?"
Don't laugh, that would spoil it. "Believe it or not, he didn't have a date already. I know he looks like a bat in those robes, but underneath he's just a man like any other."
Remus's shocked expression was changing to a completely different expression she didn't understand. "You saw Snape naked?"
"Yes. He's kind of cute, in that sallow and skinny way. And you know what they say about men with big noses." She didn't think this lie was very convincing, but Remus didn't seem to care.
Remus caught his breath. "You're telling me you saw the Dark Mark on his arm and you slept with him anyway? You didn't hold it against him? You're such a Hufflepuff that you could forgive a man even that?"
Snape was a Death Eater? She'd just, in trying to make a cruel joke, admitted to sleeping with a Death Eater? Bloody Helga.
Remus's expression didn't make any sense. Shock was there, of course, but where was the disgust? The horror? The anger? Why did he look hopeful? Cautiously happy? Puzzle pieces snapped into place.
"You knew he was a Death Eater?" she said, stalling for time. "How long have you known?"
"He joined in our seventh year, when we were students. I fought him in the First Wizarding War."
"And you didn't turn him in when the war was over?" she said accusingly.
"He switched sides," said Remus. "After he got the Dark Mark. That's what Dumbledore says, anyway. Later in the war, he was actually working for the Order, spying on the Death Eaters. Not that the Ministry would understand that. They'd lock him up in Azkaban if they knew about that tattoo, and the things he did before he switched sides. Even some of the things he had to do to keep his cover after he switched sides. But you didn't turn him in. You're an Auror, and you saw that tattoo but didn't turn him in." There was no mistaking the hope, the joy, in Remus's eyes.
Tonks suddenly grabbed Remus's left hand and yanked his sleeve up his arm. There was no tattoo there. Damn. She'd been so sure. It had made so much sense.
Remus laughed. "Good guess, but no. I don't have any tattoos. But if I did? You could accept even that? How about something even worse, in the eyes of the law?"
Never mind that. "What the hell happened to your arm?" It was a tangle of scars, of the sort that could only be left by Dark magic.
"You can forgive a man for having been a Death Eater," insisted Remus, ignoring her question. "And not turn him in to the Ministry. How about if someone is, is, someone didn't just break a law in the past and then regret it and reform, but if someone is currently breaking a law and intends to keep doing so? A law that you've sworn to uphold? What about a hypothetical situation like that?"
She let go of his arm and sleeve. "How can you of all people ask me that? You let Sirius go free, and he later betrayed the Order. You know that forgiveness can be a mistake."
She'd crushed him again. He pulled his sleeve down over his arm. "Thank you," he said eventually. "For not saying yes, just so I'd trust you and tell you so you could turn me in. Thank you for that. So this is goodbye then. Please don't contact me again. I couldn't bear it."
"Remus... Even if we never speak again, at least you should know I didn't sleep with Snape. I was just making a bad joke."
"What?"
"I had no idea he'd been a Death Eater until you told me. You're careful with your own secrets, but sloppy with other people's."
"Good Godric. I didn't mean to betray him like that, I thought you knew. I wouldn't have—"
"You're awfully gullible, Remus. Honest people often are. I've never had an opportunity to see if Snape has any tattoos, and I have absolutely no desire to. I mean, yuk. I have some standards you know."
"You kissed me. Your standards must be pretty low."
"Stop with the self-deprecating thing already. Here's all that happened. I argued with Snape for a while, demanding to know what was going on with you, and he said that unless this had something to do with the Sirius Black investigation he had no reason to talk to me. So I went home and cried. If I weren't a metamorphmagus my eyes would be as puffy as yours."
"Snape didn't tell you anything?"
"No."
"And I just blabbed his secret to you. He's a better man than I, I can tell you that much."
"He was a Death Eater!"
"I'm worse."
"There is nothing worse! Death Eaters get a life sentence in the lowest level of Azkaban! That's the worst punishment the Ministry has! It's impossible for you to be worse than that!"
Remus just shook his head at her. "Please pretend I never said anything. Snape's a good man now. He's reformed. Don't punish him for mistakes he made in his youth. Ask Dumbledore if you want any more details. Dumbledore trusts him enough to make him an Order member. The Order has to stick together. Loyalty to the Order is more important than the Ministry's laws."
"Does Dumbledore know about you?"
"Of course he does."
Tonks sat back and crossed her arms. "So I could have saved myself a lot of trouble and just asked Dumbledore your secret first."
"If he felt like telling you."
"May I ask him?"
Remus shrugged. "I have no authority over you or him. You're free to ask him whatever you like."
"I think I will. Wait a minute. So Dumbledore figured out your secret."
"Yes. I don't know exactly how. He has an extensive spy network of course."
"So you and Dumbledore…" she couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence.
Remus stared at her for a while before bursting into laughter. "Dumbledore?! You thought Dumbledore and I… Oh Merlin, no. I mean, not to slight him, but…"
"He never married, did he? And I've never heard of him even having a girlfriend."
"Whatever his preferences, he is not my type."
"You're sure?" Tonks turned her hair white, grew a long beard to match, made her nose longer and crooked. "Don't you find me sexy like this?"
Remus choked on his laughter.
"I mean, if this is what it takes to turn you on, I'm not proud."
Remus eventually recovered. "When I said someone figured it out, I meant independently. Dumbledore got the information through his spy network. There are several people who know. More than I'd prefer."
"And one of them is Dumbledore."
Remus nodded.
Tonks stood. "Well then. I'm off. You'll want to get out of that copied chair soon before it drops you on your arse."
"Thank you." He did so, shakily. "You might want to lose the beard. Or maybe Dumbledore will be flattered, I don't know."
"Right." She morphed back to her usual form on the way to the headmaster's tower. "Lion Bar," she said to the gargoyle, which stepped aside, clearing her path to the moving stone staircase.
Once she entered Dumbledore's office, memories of being called here for stern lectures about her pranks on Slytherins weakened her resolve slightly, but Dumbledore, thank Merlin, was all business. "Good evening, Auror Tonks. Have a seat." She sat on the chair in front of his desk, familiar from the times Professor Sprout had thrown her hands up in frustration and sent her to the headmaster's office. "How goes the hunt for Black?"
"Oh. I'm afraid I have nothing new to report. Well, reports of sightings keep trickling in from all over the country, but they all turn out to be cases of mistaken identity."
"Then what brings you to my office?"
"It's about Remus. He's hiding something."
"You suspect him of helping Black, because of their former friendship?"
"No! I didn't mean that at all. But he's hiding something else. I don't know what, but it's big. At least he thinks it is."
"Oh, that." Dumbledore sat back, relieved. His collection of ticking, whirring knickknacks filled the silence for a little while. "Let me set your mind at ease, Tonks. I assure you that I already know about that, and I am not concerned."
"But what is it?"
"I told you when you joined the Order that we share information only on a need-to-know basis."
"But…"
"I'm not opposed to him telling you, should he decide to. Feel free to ask him."
Tonks slammed her fist down on the arm of her chair in frustration. She'd forgotten to return her strength to normal after hauling Remus up off the floor, so she heard an ominous crack in the arm of the chair. "Whoops. Reparo." Good as new. "I already tried that."
Damn Dumbledore's twinkling eyes. "Then he has made his decision. I assure you that Remus's secret has no bearing on the search for Black. Care for a chocolate before you go? The effect of these Dementors stationed around the school seems to penetrate even my office."
Tonks accepted a bonbon. "Thanks."
Down the moving staircase, more fruitless patrolling of Hogwarts, and then her shift was over. She met Auror Proudfoot by the winged boar statues as he started his shift, exchanged minimal pleasantries, confirmed his identity (a jerk), let him through the wards, then turned on the spot to apparate to the Ministry. She rushed to the Auror Department, and caught Mad-Eye just as he was leaving his fortress of a cubicle. "Got a minute?" she panted.
Mad-Eye looked her over with both eyes. "For you, yes." He unlocked his cubicle, ushered her in, closed the door, and refreshed his silencing spells. They sat on the chipped wooden chairs.
"What did Remus Lupin do in the war?" Tonks asked, since she knew Mad-Eye had no patience for pleasantries.
"I don't know most of it. That's how the Order worked, information was shared only on a need-to-know basis. I knew I could count on him if we were on the same mission, but he did most of his work solo. Missed a lot of meetings. Whenever Dumbledore called for a volunteer for some crazy dangerous mission, he'd wave his hand, 'Pick me!'"
"That sounds like him. Dumbledore knew he could count on him for the Defense professorship."
"They don't all die by the end of the school year."
"But in my time at Hogwarts, I had seven Defense teachers, and none of them—"
"I know. I wonder, if I took the job, if I could figure out… But we're talking about Remus." Mad-Eye paused. "I'm man enough to admit my mistakes. You know when we arrested Sirius Black? That bastard wasn't just bragging, 'I killed James and Lily!' Shouting it over and over. That's just the quote that got to the paper. He was also bragging, 'I convinced you all that Remus was the spy!' We hushed that up, there was no need to publicly name an Order member. It was true, though. Near the end, Sirius must have been afraid he was about to be found out, because you know what that bastard did? He convinced us Remus was the traitor. We knew someone must be, our secrets were leaking out somehow, and it would have made sense for it to be Remus. The Death Eaters were actually coddling him, so he wasn't really in danger from them. The only other explanation was that Remus really was as good at dueling and tracking and surveillance and all that as he seemed to be, and frankly his skills were hard to believe. Brilliant piece of espionage by the Death Eaters, really. Sirius deflected suspicion from himself and effectively neutralized our best agent in one move. He told us that any plans Remus knew about were probably compromised, so we should change them without telling Remus."
"Did it work?" asked Tonks.
"Of course it worked. We were all so busy looking for clues that Remus was the traitor, we didn't pay enough attention to Sirius."
"No, I mean did Sirius convince the Potters to change their plans without telling Remus?"
Mad-Eye thought. "If they did, they didn't tell me. They didn't tell anyone." He took a deep breath through his mutilated nose. "Afterwards, I apologized to Remus for thinking he was the traitor. I'd bought Sirius's story, spread it around." He shook his head ruefully. "Remus took it hard of course. He'd thought Sirius was his friend. He'd thought the Order trusted him. I lost track of him after that. We all did, I suppose. Kind of awkward saying sorry to someone you believed was a traitor. Hard to renew a friendship after that." His human eye was thoughtful, while his magical eye whirled suspiciously as usual. "He seemed to want to wash his hands of us. I helped him move out of the flat he shared with Sirius. He got a muggle flatmate. Seemed to want to live as a muggle for a change. Can't blame him. We all just gave him space."
"They lived together?" Remus and her traitorous cousin?
"Not officially. I don't know if Remus even had his own place. He was always out of town doing who-knows-what for Dumbledore. But when he was in town, he lived with Sirius, yes."
"They were so close," said Tonks. "Remus and Sirius."
"Don't you go suspecting Remus too!" barked Mad-Eye. "He had enough of that in the last war. Sirius's betrayal hit him hardest of all. I'm a paranoid old coot but even I don't think Remus was a traitor."
"No! I'm not saying Remus was a traitor like Sirius, I just mean, if Remus was so good at all this Order work, how could he miss this traitor right under his nose? Wouldn't he have noticed something?"
Mad-Eye shrugged. "People have blind spots. They're too trusting. Let this be a lesson. Learn from his mistakes and don't trust anyone."
"But it just doesn't make sense that two close friends would live together, and one was a traitor while the other wasn't. I mean, the simple explanation is that they were both traitors, or—" She stood. "I need to talk to Remus."
"Isn't your shift over?"
She didn't have time to respond to that, just rushed out of the Ministry and apparated back to Hogwarts. She got her lookie-talkie out of her pocket, opened it, and spoke into the mirror. "Auror Proudfoot?"
His face appeared in the mirror shortly. "Auror Tonks? What are you doing back?"
"Let me through the wards. I'm at the winged boar statues." By a damned Dementor.
"But—"
"Quickly."
It probably didn't take all that long for him to arrive, but it was long enough for the Dementor to dredge up the memory of Charlie saying he couldn't ask her to do a long-distance relationship while he was in Romania, and her saying that she really didn't mind, and international portkeys weren't all that expensive anyway, and him saying no, she didn't understand, he just really didn't want her to suffer through a long-distance relationship when she had her choice of wizards here in Britain, any one of whom could make her happier than he could. That bastard hadn't even had the decency to dump her honestly—-
"Need some chocolate?" asked Paul. She hadn't noticed him arrive.
"Thanks." She snapped off some squares of the industrial-sized bar he was offering. "I should have cast a patronus while I waited."
"What are you doing back? You forgot something?"
"Realized something. I need to question Professor Lupin. I think he knows something about Black."
"Should I do it? What—"
"It's complicated. I need to do it myself. Let me through the wards."
He looked her up and down. "I need to confirm your identity first."
She couldn't complain about standard procedure, annoying as it was. Tonks morphed her appearance to match Paul's. "Black isn't a metamorphmagus," she told him in his own voice.
He whistled appreciatively. "You've been paying close attention to my body, I see."
"Give it a rest." She improved her look with a black eye and busted lip.
"Ouch. You're Tonks all right." He let her through the ward. She rushed to Lupin's office, morphing to her usual look on the way, tripping only twice.
She pounded on the door of Lupin's quarters. He answered eventually. He was clad in a threadbare dressing gown and slippers, and was not happy to see her. "What do you want?"
"May I come in? Please?"
"Why?"
"I'm not here to talk about you, or us, or anything like that. I just want to know, how do you know that Sirius was really guilty?"
"I think you've hit upon the one subject that's more painful to discuss than us."
"Let me in."
"No."
"This is part of the Black investigation. I have the authority to search all of Hogwarts—"
"Couldn't the Auror Department send a Dementor instead?"
"Remus!"
"Oh all right." He let her in and closed the door behind them.
Tonks got straight to business. "Was Black the Potters' secret-keeper?"
"Yes."
"How do you know that?"
"He told me."
"The traitor told you, so it must be true."
"What? No, well, I get what you mean. But James and Lily told me too. They definitely chose him."
"If they had changed their plan, would they have told you?"
Remus thought. "Well, we tried to minimize the spread of secrets. We didn't want one captured Order member to be able to spill everything, so we didn't put all our eggs in one basket. But James and Lily and I, we were friends. There were no secrets between us."
"Except for your usual one of course," said Tonks with an eye roll.
"No," said Remus seriously. "We were true friends. They knew, and they had complete faith in me anyway."
Tonks hated having to do this, but her cousin's future was at stake. "Are you sure? You trusted them with your secret, but did they trust you with theirs?"
"Damnit Tonks, of course they did! That was the one time in my life I was part of something! People believed in me! They counted on me! They trusted me!"
"Even near the end? They didn't stop talking when you entered a room, stop inviting you to things, stop including you in their plans?"
Remus thought. An expression of horror slowly formed on his face.
"Mad-Eye didn't trust you," said Tonks. "He told me. He thought you were the traitor. Sirius told him and he believed it. I think the Potters didn't trust you either. Not as an Order member, and not as friends. Sirius turned them against you."
"You're a cruel woman," Remus said. "My future is bleak enough. Must you destroy my past as well?"
"But don't you see?"
"Yes, I see. Sirius succeeded in creating strife and distrust within the Order. That must have been part of his plan. I couldn't save my friends' lives because they didn't trust me."
"But what if it wasn't part of some evil plan to betray the Order? What if Sirius just honestly didn't trust you, and wanted to save his friends by warning them about you?"
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"You knew the plan to make Sirius the secret-keeper, so they couldn't use that plan anymore. They had to change it without telling you. Sirius wasn't actually the secret-keeper! Who do you think the real secret-keeper was? It had to be someone they trusted more than you. The real secret-keeper must have been the real traitor."
Remus shook his head. His eyes were closed. He wasn't even listening. "I killed James and Lily," he said.
Tonks stared at him. "What, you?"
"It's all my fault. I should have known not to trust Sirius. I should have warned them."
"That's ridiculous. You had no way of knowing—"
"I killed James and Lily."
"That's called survivor guilt, Remus. You're not to blame."
"I killed James and Lily."
She saw that he was beyond the reach of reason, of words. There was nothing to do but hug him. He was stiff and awkward at first, then seemed to melt in her arms. She steadied him as he shook with sobs.
As warm as his body felt, she still felt a chill when she realized that no one had hugged her cousin when he'd cried the exact same thing.
—-
Lupin got rid of Tonks eventually, terrible sympathy and all. He was fine as long as he didn't think about Sirius. Tonks was brilliantly cruel to have brought him up, and as for the idea that Sirius was innocent, well, Lupin had to admire her creativity.
He was busy. He had classes to teach, essays to grade, halls to patrol after hours. Harry wandering about after curfew! James had done the same, but James hadn't had a murderer after him, at the age of thirteen, at least.
Lupin looked at the old parchment he'd confiscated from Harry. Perhaps Harry had stolen it from Filch's office himself. Perhaps it had been stolen immediately after the Marauders lost it, and passed down like a treasured heirloom from student to student for these sixteen years, facilitating countless pranks. Lupin didn't really want to know how Harry had gotten it, since then he'd feel obligated to do his professorial duty and punish whatever chain of students had conveyed it to him.
Beautiful swirls of old-fashioned calligraphy appeared on it. "Mr. Padfoot wonders what pranks Moony is planning."
Lupin nearly fell backwards out of his chair. The map still worked. It recognized him as one of its creators. This shouldn't be surprising of course, but that handwriting hit him hard.
Sirius's doodles filled the border of the parchment with a sort of Greek frieze of cartoonish dicks.
"Stop that," said Lupin.
The doodles faded. Then, "Mr. Padfoot is bored, waiting for tonight's prank. Almost all the Marauders are here. But where's Prongs?"
"Mr. Prongs reporting for duty," said James's blocky handwriting, so familiar Remus felt his heart break.
"Mr. Padfoot meant the real Prongs, you silly flower-muncher," said Sirius's calligraphy. "Everyone else is here."
"What do you mean, everyone else is here?" asked Lupin.
"See for yourself, you boring old man," said Lupin's own cramped handwriting, and then the parchment went blank.
Lupin drew his wand and tapped the parchment. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
—-
Another job gone. It was for the best, of course. It had been sheer madness for Dumbledore to hire a werewolf to work with children. Lupin had been mad to accept the job.
He accidentally caught a glimpse of himself in a dusty mirror. He hadn't shaved for a few days. He looked more like an animal than usual. He looked away. It wouldn't be right to destroy the mirrors, in case the owners of this abandoned house came back and wanted things as they had been, but he could at least cover them. That task seemed overwhelmingly huge right now. It could wait.
He sat on the musty couch. He should get a paper and look at muggle want ads. His Hogwarts salary had left him rich by his standards, but his savings wouldn't last forever.
He tasted blood, and found that he'd bitten his nail to the quick. He looked at his finger, the blood already clotting. His damn nails grew so fast, it was a constant struggle to prevent them from turning into claws like Greyback's. Some were sharp now, itching to rend flesh.
He should make himself presentable for job interviews. He should shave, but didn't feel like facing a mirror right now. Or a razor. A razor was definitely a bad idea just after losing another job. He found himself staring at his nails. One little scratch, that's all he'd allow himself. The claws of a Dark creature leave permanent scars, which wouldn't be noticed among all the rest. He pulled up his sleeve and looked for a spot that wasn't already crisscrossed with scars. He wanted the pain localized, contained in a physical wound. Not too deep, he reminded himself. Dittany's expensive. Just one little cut, no more. Remember, not too deep. But why not? There was only one way to ensure that he'd never attack a human again.
He froze when he heard someone bushwhacking along the overgrown path to the front door. It wasn't a convenient path for anyone, but this visitor seemed unusually noisy. When he heard the person tripping and falling, he knew who it was.
Should he apparate away? Would that count as resisting arrest and make things worse for him? No, such fine gradations of crimes were relevant only to human criminals. If they knew where he was hiding, why hadn't the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures sent the Werewolf Capture Unit? Why send just one Auror? Tonks was all he could hear, although it was possible she was there merely to distract him from the main force. They must have put an anti-disapparition ward up by now. There was no escape.
This was it. Lupin felt a wonderful lightness, an emptiness inside him. It was over. He could stop hiding, stop pretending to be human. The Werewolf Research Institute would even save him the trouble of killing himself. He opened the door.
Tonks slapped him, hard. "Damn you to hell, Remus!"
For a beautiful moment, nothing existed but the sting in his cheek. Then came the confusion. Tonks wore a Weird Sisters t-shirt and jeans, not her Auror uniform, and held the Daily Prophet and a small box in her hand. This didn't seem like standard Auror procedure, or Werewolf Capture Unit procedure either. "Aren't I already here?" he asked.
Tonks charged into the house. "You didn't trust me! You didn't tell me!"
"Don't take it personally. I don't trust anyone. I've never told anyone."
"Why didn't you just tell me! You could have told me yourself, a year ago, instead of me having to find out from a fucking Rita Skeeter article in the Prophet." She waved the paper as if she was going to hit him with it, but worse, she read the headline. "'Werewolf Professor Attacks Hogwarts Students.' Bitch. I'm sure it didn't happen like that of course, but one part is true, right? Dumbledore sent you on all those werewolf missions, so you finally got bitten. That bastard, taking advantage of your grief, giving you all these dangerous assignments because he knew you were trying to follow your friends into death. You needed therapy after all you'd been though, not bloody assisted suicide. I'll kill him! Screw his stupid Order of the fucking Phoenix!"
"What, no, it wasn't like that at all! I've been a werewolf since I was four. Dumbledore had nothing to do with it. He's the one who gave me some semblance of a normal life, let me attend Hogwarts, let me join the Order, introduced me to you, even gave me a professorship. Everything good in my life's come through him."
"What? But... Anyway, he gave you a job with a fucking curse on it! Now you've got no job and your secret's out and your life is ruined!"
"Still, best job I ever had. And my life was ruined already."
"You're pathetic, Remus."
"I know."
She was crying now. Why was she the one who was crying? "If you won't let me be angry at Dumbledore, and I know it's not fair to be angry at you, who am I supposed to be angry at?"
"Senior Undersecretary Umbridge?" suggested Lupin. "She made it your job to capture me for euthanasia or a slower death at the Werewolf Research Institute. Minister Fudge for signing the law? The vast majority of the wizarding populace who support this law or want something even worse? Greyback for biting me in the first place?"
"Greyback was the one who did this to you? Why on earth didn't you kill him when you had the chance?"
"What chance?"
"I saw you duel him."
"Yes. That wasn't a fight, that was a contest to establish dominance, by werewolf rules. The goal was to make one's opponent yield. It wasn't a duel to the death."
"But you could have killed him if you'd just aimed that blasting curse differently."
"But I proposed the rules of the duel, so I had to honor them. Had I killed him, I would have lost."
"You don't have to keep your word to a monster. An honorable man would have just killed him, and rid the world of a menace."
"Then I suppose I'm not an honorable man. I'm an honorable werewolf."
"I... I think I should just stop talking now." She moved closer to him. "Will you finally let me kiss you? Now that I know? Unless, oh Merlin, you're not still hiding another secret besides? That was it, right?"
Lupin laughed. "No. I mean no more secrets. And before I answer your question, can I assume that you're not going to call the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures on me?"
"Remus! Of course I'm not! How can you accuse me of—"
"Of doing your job? You had no objection to the law until you read the paper this morning."
"Yes I did! I told Dumbledore—"
"That it's terrible to treat humans as badly as werewolves, yes."
She turned a delicate shade of pink. "I owe you an apology. For the slap, first. You were right not to trust me. If you were in the habit of trusting people like me, you'd have died long before I met you."
He nodded.
"And secondly, for being a, what can I say? An idiot? An anti-werewolf bigot?"
"A perfectly normal witch of this culture," he said. "I don't see how I can blame you for that, really."
"You must hate me," she said.
"What!? No! I don't hate you. The hate has to stop somewhere, so I'm having it stop with me. If I returned all the hate directed at me, I'd be as hateful as Greyback."
"So instead you just absorb it all. That can't be healthy."
He shrugged. "I'm used to it. I'll absorb all the hate I can while I live. Bury it with me when I die. The world might have a bit less hate in it then. I can't think of a better use for my life, really."
"Remus!"
"Tonks?"
She was crying too hard to say anything else. He transfigured her newspaper into a box of tissues, and she took one and blew her nose in it. "Best use for that Rita Skeeter article," she said.
He laughed.
"And there was nothing in the paper about Sirius being innocent," she complained. "Nothing about Pettigrew still being alive. We did this huge manhunt for an innocent man and nothing for the guilty one."
Remus shrugged. "About what I expected. That's life."
"Remus, I know it's hard to believe from your vantage point, but there's more to life than just suffering and hate. There's love, too. I love you, Remus."
"No."
"What do you mean, no? I'm not saying you have to love me, and I can certainly understand why you wouldn't, I'm just saying I love you and there's nothing you can do about it."
"But you can't! You know what I am now."
"I knew who you are before I read the paper today, and that's still who you are. Oh, I almost forgot. Here. As soon as I saw that article I knew you'd need it. Dumbledore agreed with me. He told me where I could find you." She held out a gift-wrapped box to him.
He looked at it. He could smell what it was. Honeydukes chocolate, the fancy kind.
"You came here to slap me and give me chocolate?"
"Well, the slap wasn't really planned. Sorry. Don't you ever just want to slap some sense into people?"
"Slap? No, not really. My urges to rip people's throats out are disturbingly frequent, however. I don't act on them."
"Of course you don't, Mr. Perfect Self Control. The chocolate was definitely planned though."
"You know my weakness," he said, taking it with trembling hands. He could barely open the box. He wanted to open it carefully, keeping the interlocking tabs of the cardboard Honeydukes gift box perfect. It would smell of chocolate for a long time, lasting like a memory.
"And your strength," she said. She watched him fumble with the box for a while. "Oh, let me do that," she said irritably, and she ripped the box open. "What? It's just a cardboard box, Remus. I'll buy you a box of chocolates every day if you let me. Why are you crying now?"
He hadn't done a very good job transfiguring the tissues, or perhaps his transfiguration was failing, as they were starting to feel like newsprint. "You can't— We're not— You won't be doing anything for me every day. You're an Auror, sworn to uphold the law, and my whole existence is illegal. I've got to skulk around in the shadows, and I love you too much to drag you down with—"
She shut him up with a kiss. The moon was waning, the wolf was present, but the man was stronger. He reveled in the taste of her, her smell, the feel of her soft body against his as he pulled her close, her soft gasps—
She suddenly pulled her mouth back from his, turned to whisper in his ear with her warm breath. "You're pretty presumptuous, thinking I want an actual relationship. How do you know I don't just want a one-night-stand, eh? 'Cause you're damn sexy. One fun night and then I leave you alone, never bother you again. I want to give you one happy memory to try to balance all those awful memories you've got. Deal? You got a bed in this place?"
"Um. It's not a very nice bed, really—"
She grabbed a chocolate truffle out of the ripped box and stuffed it in his mouth. "Take me there." She grabbed another chocolate for herself. They were very good chocolates.
He took her there. The narrow bed had been in this abandoned house when he'd arrived, and he'd cast a lot of spells on it in an attempt to get the mildewed smell out. Maybe a human nose wouldn't notice. Now all he could smell was chocolate and her anyway.
She pushed him down on the bed as soon as she saw it and started to unbutton his shirt, hurriedly kissing a line down his chest as she went. She made no comment on his scars, just made a beeline to impatiently undo his belt, his trousers. He screamed when her small hands freed him from his pants and she took him in her warm mouth. An involuntary spasm shook him, his body once again betraying him, as he found himself thrusting into her mouth, painfully bumping against her teeth. The pain triggered another thrust, and he heard her small whimper of protest horrifyingly choked off as he exploded in the depths of her throat. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean... I didn't want to hurt you. I'm sorry. Are you all right?"
She stayed still for a moment, then took her revenge with a swirl of her tongue, an unbearably intense sensation that shook him with aftershocks. He tried pulling her off him, but she released him only grudgingly, giving the impression that she was trying to suck out his soul like a confused Dementor. Once she was settled by his side, an arm and a leg flung over him, she complained, "You still owe me a one-night-stand, since that definitely didn't count. Are you sure you're not a virgin?"
"Are you all right?" he asked frantically. "I didn't want to hurt you, that's my worst nightmare."
"It's a good thing I'm a metamorphmagus," she said. "I'm fine. Really." She stroked his chest, tracing her hand along the muscles, not the scars. "That pressure's been building up for a while. I mean, I know you don't have a girlfriend, but don't you even wank?"
He stared at her.
"Come on Remus, work with me here. We can troubleshoot this. Next time will be better. Oh no, you don't have sexual hangups too, do you? Like you think sex is dirty and shameful and whatnot, so you can't even talk about it?"
"No! I don't think so. It's just, no one's ever asked me about that before."
"First time for everything," she said breezily. "So. When did you last wank?"
"I... I mean... I haven't recently. When I tried I couldn't help thinking about, well, about you, and it didn't seem right. It seemed disrespectful. So I've been getting by with cold showers."
She curled her upper body over him and stared down at him. "That's either the sweetest or the most pathetic thing I've ever heard, I can't even tell. Sorry, I've been disrespecting you nearly every day for the last year. Hope you don't mind, just being honest here. I've got to say, though, I've been imagining you as the master of self-control, but reality didn't quite live up to the fantasy, today at least. Or did you use up all your self-control not killing me when I slapped you? That must have taken a lot."
"No! No, not at all. I just don't think it transfers well from one situation to another. I really don't have much practice at this."
"Simple solution then," she said triumphantly. "More practice." She tried to take his shirt all the way off him. He barely had the energy to sit up in bed to permit this. He felt nearly as drained as he did after a transformation.
"You don't mean now?" he asked. Next she worked on getting his trousers all the way off his limp legs. It was clear where his energy had gone.
"Not right now, no," she conceded. "But I've never even seen you naked, so I haven't been disrespecting you properly. I don't know how you've been imagining me, but whatever you've imagined, you've been right since I'm a metamorphmagus." She'd succeeded in stripping him completely. "There! Gods, you're beautiful. Would you like a massage? I've been told I give good massages." She straddled him, sent her hands under his back, let him drip through her fingers as she pulled her hands up.
He moaned in unfamiliar pleasure, then realized what was wrong. "I haven't seen you naked," he said.
She smiled. "How would you like me to look? I can do any look you want you know."
"That's not my place to say, is it? I mean, it's your body. Just do whatever looks beautiful to you."
Her smile got mischievous. "Really? All right." She pulled her shirt over her head, transforming as she did so. Suddenly, the person straddling Remus's naked body wasn't a beautiful young woman, but an ugly old man, his skin netted with scars, his hair grey.
Remus screamed in horror, not pleasure this time, and heard Tonks's laughter from that scarred, lined face. "Well you are beautiful, to me at least," she said.
Remus closed his eyes. "I don't want to see an ugly old man on top of me."
"You're beautiful, Remus. And you're thirty-four. Don't be ridiculous."
"That was a damn good prank," he admitted. "But sorry, I'm not my type."
"Ooh, I've got a good one. You can open your eyes now," she said. "I've got a different look on. Don't you want to see?"
"No," he said. "You've traumatized me. I'm never opening my eyes again. I've cast a permanent sticking charm on my eyelids."
"But if you keep your eyes closed," she complained, "how will you maintain your... constant vigilance!"
Remus pressed his hands over his closed eyes for extra security. "I absolutely do not want to see Mad-Eye Moody with his shirt off. You are a cruel, evil woman, and I suppose I deserve you as punishment for being such a lousy lay. Wait. This isn't based on firsthand experience, is it? You haven't seen Mad-Eye with his shirt off, have you? No, don't answer that, I don't really want to know."
Tonks laughed her barking laugh. "I used to think he had the world's most impressive collection of scars, but you've got him beat."
"I really didn't need to know that."
He felt her get off him for a moment, heard clothes drop to the floor, then she got back on him, draping her completely naked body on his. She felt soft and smooth and feminine. "It's safe to open your eyes," she said.
It was. Her dark eyes looked at him from her familiar heart-shaped face, topped with its usual pink spikes. Her breasts pressed against his chest. He looked at those for quite a while. He wrapped his arms around her smooth, bare back and marveled that she was here, she was real. "Tonks," he said, saying her ridiculous name, stroking her ridiculous hair. "Tonks."
"Got any energy back?" she asked hopefully.
"Um. I don't think so, sorry."
"Too bad. It's your turn," she said. She slithered up his body until she straddle his face. He looked up at this amazing view. He admired the attention to detail that made all her hair pink.
"Um," he said apologetically. "I really don't know what to do here."
She told him. He was a quick study. She gave him feedback in the form of helpful suggestions, giggles, smiles, gasps, moans, shudders, and eventually screams.
He suddenly realized, in great shock, that the thing his instincts were telling him to do right now was, in fact, the right thing to do. He wriggled out from under her, pinned her to the bed, and thrust inside her, slowly at first, relishing every sensation, then pounding hard.
Her gasps were the sweetest sound he'd ever heard. He wanted to remember everything about this, the soft resilience of her body, the smell of her, everything. "Please come," she begged after a while. "I can't come any more."
But she was wrong. As he exploded once more inside her and collapsed on top of her, he felt her spasm around him.
After lying there for a while, it suddenly occurred to him. "I'm not crushing you, am I? Sorry, I'll get up."
She wrapped her arms and legs around him tightly. "You are and I like it. Don't go."
He looked in her beautiful dark eyes. "So. Was that a satisfactory one-night-stand?"
"No," she said.
He froze. It had seemed pretty good to him by the end there. How high were her standards?
"We'll try again tomorrow," she said as she hugged him even tighter. "We'll get it right eventually."