Wedding Morning
The inn room door clatters open, and Remus jumps and dives for his wand.
"Calm down, it's only me," Tonks scoffs, "Code number 4627,"
Instead of asking each other security questions, they're in the habit of giving each other numbers to remember.
"2295," he replies. He shoves his wand into his pocket, and goes back to fiddling with his shirt collar.
"You scrub up alright," she says approvingly. She walks over over and hugs him from behind, pressing her forehead into his shoulder and looping her arms around his middle. He likes it when she does that. It feels like she's keeping him safe.
"How're you doing?" Tonks asks. In the mirror, Remus sees her jut her head onto his shoulder and meet his eyes.
"Hmmf," Remus grunts.
"That good, eh?" she says, "Don't worry. You'll be fine. We'll be fine,"
Dora cranes her neck to stamp a kiss on his shoulder (usually, she's quite a bit shorter than he is, though Remus supposes that that might not be her natural height), then lets him go and hurls herself onto his bed. He loves how at home she is everywhere. Remus constantly feels gangly and boxed in, whereas whatever room Dora's in she'll bounce through the door and kick her feet up on the furniture.
"I know it's bad luck to see the bride before the wedding, but I'm not in my dress," she shrugs, "Anyway, who cares about luck?"
Remus reckons that they're going to need cauldrons worth of luck, though he doesn't say so.
"I'm waiting 'til the last minute before I put the dress on. Don't wanna spill anything, Molly would murder me," Tonks explains. Considering that they're having a private, low-key wedding, she hadn't planned on buying a wedding dress. But Molly had been so thrilled when she heard that they were getting married that she immediately started adapting one of her old party frocks for Tonks to wear. Considering Andromeda's reaction to new of the wedding had been so negative, Remus was touched at how overjoyed the Weasleys were, and how much effort Molly went to in making Tonks a wedding dress.
Tonks is still prattling about clothes: "Where's you new whistle from?"
"Grimmauld Place," Remus answers.
"It's Sirius'?"
"Yes. Couldn't get married in one of my tatty old suits, could I?"
When Remus returned from Greyback's werewolf colony a three months ago, he was in dire need of new attire. Remus was used to wearing threadbare, tattered and moth-eaten clothes, but by the time he came home from the colony in Keswick the few sets of clothes he's taken with had become ripped, bloodied, begrimed, and impossible to get properly dry. Sturgis had returned the clothes Remus hadn't taken to Keswick to him, and donated some of his own cast-offs. Kingsley visited Remus in his safehouse and left a bag of clothes which he had bought for him. Molly knitted him a couple of jumpers. Their kindness was astonishing. Visiting one afternoon, Hestia suggested that Remus take some of Sirius' clothes from Grimauld Place. Remus had refused at first, believing that it would be inappropriate to raid Padfoot's wardrobe. Hestia didn't nag about issues like that, so she had left it. But the more Remus considered, the more he realised that Sirius would despise the idea of his clothes getting dusty and dilapidated in the house he hated. Sirius would be offended by that and, Remus knew, he'd be frustrated at Remus turning down the chance to make himself more warm and comfortable. So he'd gone to Grimmauld Place and took home most of the clothes in Padfoot's wardrobe. The suit he's wearing for the wedding is one he took but didn't expect to ever actually wear. It's black with blue piping, and made of a suede-y corduroy type of material. The shirt Remus is wearing with it is blue with a Sirus-style wide collar. It feels funny- in both senses of the word- to be wearing Padfoot's suit. Funnier still to be getting married in it.
"I wouldn't have minded," Dora says softly, "The tatty old suits are you,"
"Sirius would want to be here," Remus replies. He knows that Tonks will understand what he isn't adding: wearing Padfoot's clothes is a way to keep him close. He should be here. Who else would Remus have chosen as his best man?
"I know," Dora whispers quietly, and Remus can tell that she means a lot more by it. Sometimes she has the subtlety of a brick, sometimes she needles him about being evasive- and sometimes she knows exactly what to say to make him feel secure and understood. Remus gazes at her fondly through the mirror. He's going to marry her. The loss of Padfoot weights on him constantly, and he's still reeling from Snape's betrayal and murder of Dumbledore. Remus is used to being accompanied by the shadowy figure of misery, although today's one of the days when the figure's standing further off. That's generous of it, Remus reckons. How kind of his shady companion to get out of his way on the day of his wedding. He smiles again when he thinks of the word "wedding". Marriage had never, ever been on his radar until this brash, puckish Auror stumbled into his world. Remus manages a few moments of unnoticed observation before Tonks' Plain-Site-Hiding training kicks in, and she glances up.
"What are you looking at? Have I got something on my face?"
Remus steps across the room, kneels down, takes her face in his hands and is kisses her hard. Dora returns it hungrily (she never hesitates or seems surprised. She always wants his touch and his kisses), draping her arms around his neck and pressing herself close against him. Tonks grins against his mouth- he loves feeling her smile like that. He loves her, he loves her, he loves her.
"That was nice," she sighs dreamily when he pulls away.
"I'm so pleased I'm marrying you," Remus breathes.
"Me too,"
She presses another kiss to his mouth. "We're going to totally rock this marriage lark,"
Remus beams at her, stands up, and turns back to the mirror to fix his tie. After a couple of minutes, Tonks groans.
"I'd better go back," she huffs, "Don't want Mum and Dad to fuss,"
Tonks' parents, unsurprisingly, are far from content with her choice of husband. Remus went to their house for dinner the other day- Ted made an effort to be welcoming, though Andromeda glared and sniped at him. Remus didn't blame her.
"I guess I'll see you up there," Tonks says, and it doesn't escape Remus' notice that she sounds jittery, "Looking forward to it,"
She gives him a swift, tight hug, pecks the corner of his mouth and hums contentedly. Then she boots the room's door open.
"Yes," nods Remus as Tonks exits the room, "I can't wait".
