Ash Wednesday

Remus filed out of church with the rest of the congregation. The weather outside was crisp and bright- Winter, but not impossible to see Spring approaching. Remus was on nodding terms with some of the churchgoers, and he could see Mrs Daniels waving, and the youngest Oleywo boy smiling at him from over the biggest brother's shoulder. Remus smiled back, waved at Mrs Daniels, then walked through the gate and onto Coley Road. He'd always enjoyed going to church. As a child he'd enjoyed the singing and stories, although his family never stayed in one place long enough to join the choir or Sunday school. He read the children's Bible at home instead. It was comforting to know that God was out there somewhere and everywhere, looking after him. God helped him feel safer and braver when the wolf came at full moon. God stopped him hurting anybody and stopped anyone from finding out. God made him be a good boy. God helped Mammy and Daddy take care of him, and He looked after the poor and the sick and the lonely. And when an old, bearded man appeared one day and told Remus he could come to Hogwarts, Remus thought for a moment that He had come down from Heaven to make his prayers come true.

Remus hadn't liked to talk about his faith at school. He prayed under the covers in bed, not on his knees beside it, and kept his Bible hidden at the bottom of his trunk. Sirius, however, had wheedled the truth out of him after the Christmas holidays of their first year. Remus was embarrassed, but knew it was far from the worst secret he had to hide from his new friends. James' family were vaguely religious too, but he hadn't gone to church and didn't really believe. Sirius was fascinated with it all- "sacred" pureblood families were scathing towards religion, so Sirius' Christmases and Easters had always been secular affairs. He pestered Remus for Bible stories and explanations of Christian traditions: "Feeding five thousand? He must have been using an engorgement charm," "So what does this Crucifixion thing have to do with chocolate eggs?" "I can't wait until they teach us that water into wine spell!". Realising that James, Peter and Remus all had a Bible character as a first or middle name, he flicked through Remus' Bible for inspiration and tried to rebrand himself as Tilgathpilnesser Black. It didn't catch on. Remus didn't mind Sirius' curiosity, but it made him uncomfortable when Sirius would question him seriously, "Do you actually believe all this? I mean really?"

"Well, yes," Remus murmured.

"Fascinating," marvelled Sirius, "Amazing".

It was a very different Sirius Black whom Remus had made pancakes for last night at Grimmauld Place. Padfoot was in a mopey, moany mood, and clingy too. When Remus was mixing the pancake batter Sirius had come up behind him and wordlessly put his head on Remus' shoulder.

"You're not putting doxy droppings in my pocket, are you?" Remus asked.

Sirius sighed. "No,"

Remus put the whisk down and poured the batter into the frying pan. "You flip first," he offered.

"I'm good at tossing," said Padfoot seriously, then grinned. Crass humour always cheered him up.

They made four pancakes each, slathered them in jam and chocolate spread and ate them at the kitchen table.

"What's pancake day in aid of?" Sirius asked through a mouthful of strawberry jam (sometimes his table manners were awful. Remus suspected that it was a reaction to being back in the house; a continued effort to annoy his family).

"You use up your butter and milk in time for Lent,"

"What's Lent?"

"It's when Jesus went into the wilderness. You're supposed to give something up. Chocolate or alcohol or such,"

"You're not giving up chocolate and I'm not giving up booze," Padfoot declared. Remus shrugged, but Sirius pressed on, "Are you giving something up, then?"

"Haven't thought," Remus lied. He'd given it a lot of consideration, but he couldn't say it out loud to Sirius. What Remus had decided to give up, was Tonks. From now on he wasn't not going to think about her in the way he had been for the past few weeks. It had reached a stage now where she was always somewhere in his mind. Whenever something strange or funny happened, Remus wanted to tell her about it. He wanted to make her laugh. He imagined Tonks' laugh a lot but he still found himself wanting to hear it for real. He wondered what it was like inside her head. She came out with the most ludicrous things and Remus was intrigued to know how her brain thought of them. She didn't stop talking, which had irritated Remus at first, but now he wanted to listen to her all the time. He wanted to know all about her, hear everything she had to say. Remus wasn't sure when or how this had started, but he was putting a stop to it before he got in any further (he was too far in already) or did anything stupid to upset her or humiliate himself. The trouble was that although Remus knew that this infatuation was wrong, it didn't feel wrong. It felt good. Thinking about Tonks made his insides squirm with pleasure, and spending time with her made his heart skip and his brain whirr excitedly. She was so exciting.

He kept imagining what it would feel like to kiss her. Hold her. Do more with her. That was even more bewildering because thinking about it felt good, but the goodness was also guilty and dirty. Wanting her like that was the wolf in him taking control. At first Remus had tried to think of those unclean thoughts more, to allow the guilt to remind himself how wrong his attraction to Tonks was- but then he was back to enjoying thinking about her. It had made him dizzy, so he'd scrapped that idea and tried to stick to safer reasons why thinking about Tonks in that way was wrong: She was younger than him (she'd turned twenty-three over Christmas. Remus would be thirty-six in a couple of weeks. Fancying her was borderline creepy, especially since Sirius seemed convinced that Remus knew her when she was a child), she had her whole future in front of her (it was hardly a secret that Mad-Eye was priming Tonks to head up the Auror office one day), she was probably seeing someone else (there was definitely a boyfriend, or perhaps girlfriend, over the Summer, because Sirius teased her about it. Remus wasn't sure if that romance was still going). Tonks wouldn't in a million years be interested in an older, penniless, boring werewolf.

But. But. She hung out (her phrase) with him on the back porch a few times a week. More often than somebody who simply pitied him would. She laughed at his jokes. Sometimes Remus snuck glances at Tonks to find her looking back, and when she glanced away embarrassedly a mad part of him had started to reckon that wasn't because she was ashamed that he'd caught her watching him and thinking about the monster he turned into. The mad bit of Remus' brain reckoned that Tonks was looking away because she was flustered that he'd caught her gazing at him. Eyeing him up- and then Remus was half amused, half-irritated at himself for being so presumptuous, and for daring to entertain the idea that there might be anything about him at all to eye up.

Sitting in his pew in church the past few weeks, Remus had tried to pray it away. Please God, stop me thinking about Tonks like this. Stop my heart hammering so loud for her. Please let her meet somebody sensible and fun and kind, and let her go out with them so I get the message. And please God, please keep her safe. And then the vicar started the Lord's prayer and Remus realised that hadn't spent any of the time for quiet personal prayers praying for the poor or the sick or the lonely, or for Sirius or Harry or any of his friends. He'd spent the whole time praying about Tonks.

Last Sunday Remus realised that God wasn't going to sort this out for him. He'd have to do it himself, and Ash Wednesday was the day to put a stop to this nonsense. He'd still be polite to Tonks, of course, but their chats on the Grimmauld Place back porch were a thing of the past. With enough determination and concentration, this infatuation would burn out. Come Easter he'd have forgotten all about this childishness. Remus walked down Coley Road and, having checked to see that nobody was watching, apparated home to his cottage. As he hung his coat up he noticed a letter on the doormat. The handwriting was Kingsley's. Remus ripped the envelope open quickly in case the news was urgent.

R- Change of plans for next week. Podmore on guard duty and you and Tonks on observation at the Averys. Hope convenient. K.

He should have expected this. When Christ was in the wilderness, resisting temptation was hard.

Remus groaned.