Birthday Girl

Tonks was sitting on top of the fridge trying to balance a bowl of cereal on her stomach. She wasn't enjoying the bloating stage of pregnancy, so had decided to make the best of it by seeing how many useful objects her bump could carry. So far it was a pretty short list, although Remus suspected that was more to do with his wife's lack of co-ordination than the bump. The bowl was stationary for a moment, then wobbled and clattered onto the counter. Cereal splashed out, and the spoon dropped to the floor.

"Bollocks," Tonks growled under her breath, and as she glanced up she caught Remus' eye, "Wotcher. Morning,"

"Morning," he croaked, stomach twisting pleasurably as he observed her. She was beautiful. Brave. Funny. Silly. Sexy. There was so much of her now, thickening thighs and swelling breasts and stomach which was getting bigger and rounder as their baby grew. Tonks got frustrated at it, but Remus didn't think he'd ever found her more attractive. He watched her for a second longer, admiring the contrast of her dark skin on the white bowl, then couldn't resist darting across the kitchen and catching her mouth with his. Remus rested one hand gently on the bump and kissed her hard. Her lips tasted of cereal and of home, and he couldn't get enough of her. He'd never get enough of her.

And then Dora was pushing him away, pressing down gently on Remus' shoulders and detaching her lips from his.

"Not right now," she mumbled, wiping her mouth on her sleeve.

"Sorry,"

Once, the rebuff would have left Remus feeling guilty and mortified, but now he just shrugged- she'd asked him to stop and he had.

"I have no idea why you're so into me all of a sudden," said Tonks, "You know most blokes go off their wives when they start getting huge,"

"Most blokes don't have wives like mine,"

She rolled her eyes but couldn't help but grin a little at his flattery.

"One day we'll be in sync, yeah?" she promised.

She'd gone off intimacy lately. Sometimes she didn't even want to be touched; she complained that her body felt too sensitive or too warm, which was daft because it was only January. Over the last few weeks Remus had become increasingly relieved that Tonks shared a bed with her mother instead of with him, partly so he didn't have to put up with her kicking the covers on and off all night, and partly because he couldn't bear the thought of being in bed next to her and not being able to touch or kiss her. The irony that they'd swapped places regarding wanting sex wasn't lost on either of them, and Remus was thankful that his wife had a sense of humour about it.

"You should have put that in your wedding vows," he said. He waved his wand to send the bowl and spoon into the sink, then reached into the cupboard to take out two mugs of tea. Being around together in the mornings, alone, was something to get used to too. They'd both found jobs for a few months in the Autumn but had agreed to resign at Christmas. Tonks didn't want anybody to know she was pregnant, while Remus's monthly absences were becoming suspicious, even though his Muggle employer was unlikely to work out that his illness co-incided with the full moon. Being at home meant they both had more time to deal with Order work, and more time to make lists of baby names, items to buy and plans to organise. Yesterday, the time they went to bed the living room carpet was half-covered with notes about the hierarchy of the giant clans, and half with pictures of cots cut out from magazines.

Remus made two cups of tea. As he was handing one to her, Tonks blurted, "It's Harry's mum's birthday today, isn't it?"

He stopped. "How do you know that?"

"Sirius told me,"

"And you remembered? You never remember dates,"

"I knew this one was important to you. You were friends,"

Remus' heart swelled. Oh, his dear sweet Dora. She was the loveliest, kindest girl, and she cared for him so much.

Tonks sipped her tea. "Tell me about her. Sirius told me she liked you before you liked any of the rest of them,"

Remus leaned against the kitchen counter beside her. "Process of elimination," he clarified, "Lily couldn't stand James and Sirius for ages, or at least she pretended she couldn't,"

"What do you mean, she couldn't stand them?" Dora demanded, "I know they were pricks, but I thought Harry's mum saw through that, like you did,"

"For me I'd call it overlooking, not seeing through. And it took me about an hour, whereas it took Lily seven years,"

"To overlook it?"

"No, for her it was seeing through. Seeing the real them underneath,"

"Underneath the prickishness?"

"Exactly. When we got to seventh year and the war got more serious, Lily saw what James was really like. He'd take a curse to the heart for a stranger without thinking about it,"

"Mad-Eye wouldn't approve of that," Tonks pointed out.

"Yes, he wasn't like you. Or me, or Sirius. You know how Sirius was. You were on his side or you could hang. James was the opposite. Everybody was on his side, apart from specific people who could hang," Remus explained, "He had instant loyalty. He'd do anything for anybody, no questions asked. Lily valued that,"

"Sounds like Harry," Tonks noted.

Of course it did. Harry's courage, virtue and steadfastness. Recklessness. Kindness. Hot-headedness- that was very Lily. His handwriting was like hers, and his eyes, and it was those similarities like that which had both elated and stung Remus when he first met the boy.

"Yes," he acknowledged thoughtfully, "I see them in him all the time,"

Falling in love with Nymphadora Tonks had been exhausting and embarrassing and painful, and Merlin's beard it had been stressful. And every moment was worth it for times like this. Being able to speak about his friends and knowing that she wanted to hear, because she cared about him, and therefore about them and his memories of them. Knowing that he could say anything to her because she would always keep his words safe. Talking about James and Lily wouldn't bring them back, but it proved that they were here. The simple act of saying their names out loud and telling Dora what they were like, meant more to him than he could describe.

"But Lily always liked you?" Tonks prompted.

"We got on. She frequently told me off for being friends with them, but she was rarely cross with me. Perhaps she should have been," Remus pondered aloud. He wanted to kiss Tonks again, or at least reach over and run his fingers down her arm. He put his hands in his pockets.

"Did you ever fancy her?" she interrogated, "Or vice-versa?"

His wife had always been convinced that he secretly had a colourful love life at school. Remus grinned in amused exasperation.

"Definitely not vice-versa. And I don't remember ever being particularly attracted to her, although she was very pretty,"

"He says, cagily," Tonks observed, then added, "She was a redhead, right? But not Weasley level ginger,"

"No. Auburn,"

There was a pause, while Tonks slurped her tea and kicked her heels against the fridge door, knocking the magnets onto the floor tiles.

Then she asked tentatively, "Remus?"

"Mmm?"

"D'you think she would have liked me?"

He looked at her. When their eyes met he saw that his wife's were earnest and tinged with concern. A thought juddered into his head: Lily's approval was important to her. Even if Remus' friends were all dead, their blessing meant something to his wife. This was why telling her about them made the loss easier, because she talked about them like they were real and like they mattered.

Remus put his mug down and leant towards her. "She would have loved you,"

In some ways Lily and Dora were opposites, and in others they were almost exactly the same. They would have find each other fascinating, he knew that. They would have been irritated and exasperated and perplexed and amused by one another.

Tonks beamed at him, and Remus knew that it was because she knew that he wouldn't lie about things like that. Then he added, "Once she'd got over the shock of me marrying someone thirteen years younger,"

"Twelve," Tonks corrected. She'd turned twenty-five over Christmas, and Remus' birthday wasn't until the Spring.

"Alright, twelve. James would have thought it was hilarious, like Sirius did. And I think Lily would have been really pleased,"

"Good. Cos I'm really pleased too,"

Dora squeezed his elbow, then asked, "Would her and me gone on girly brunches or shoe-shopping together?"

"I think you had different taste in shoes," Remus deadpanned. The concept of Tonks and Lily existing at the same time was difficult to contemplate, like imagining humans and dinosaurs together. If the two of them met now, Remus guessed that on first impression Dora would have thought Lily was a square, and would have disapproved of her living off James' parents' money. Lily would have thought Tonks was cocky and attention-seeking, which Remus conceded wasn't entirely inaccurate. But once they'd got past that, Remus was sure that the pair of them would have been thick as thieves. If he thought hard enough, he could imagine them sharing Order stories, cackling hysterically together, taking the piss of him and James (and Sirius, who wasn't as difficult to mentally insert into this picture), and bickering about stupid subjects.

"Be funny, wouldn't it, you lot and then me, and then Harry," Dora persisted, "D'you reckon that would have been odd?"

"In what way?"

"You and all your mates, and then me. 'Cos I'm not much older than Harry, who's their kid. Theoretically we could end up on a triple date with you and me, Harry and Ginny, Lily and James. That'd be crazy, wouldn't it? And awkward,"

Often, Remus thought he loved his wife most when she was prattling like this. He loved watching her perhaps more than he loved listening to her; the way expressions danced across her face, and the gesticulations she made with her hands. And he loved too that what she was saying was baffling and rather bonkers.

He picked up his mug again and cocked an eyebrow at her. "Now whose being weird about the age thing?"

"Shut up," Tonks retorted, jabbing him with her foot, "Tell me more about Lily. What else would we have done if I hung out with her?"

Remus realised with another jolt that Dora was now four years older than Lily was when she died. When he first got to know her, back at Grimmauld Place a couple of years ago, he'd been acutely aware that Tonks was older than he was when he lost everything. Although by now it had been a while since he'd thought about that in relation to Lily. Lily seemed mature and efficient, not dissimilar to Hermione Granger. Dora, on the other hand, always seemed noticeably youthful and different to him, despite the fact that he no longer felt guilty about their age-gap.

"She wouldn't get enough of you being an Auror. That'd be terrific to her, she'd have wanted to know every detail," Remus told her. During the First War, all the Aurors were at least ten years older than Remus and his friends. Lily would have been thrilled to meet someone who'd started Auror training straight out of school- and a woman at that. Lily loved anything to do with women's achievements, she was always enthusing about the Suffragettes or Maria the Measly.

"What kind of music did she like?" Dora interrogated.

"You know I don't remember that sort of thing," Remus dismissed. He paused, then added as he thought of it, "She was very good at Potions,"

Tonks folded her arms smugly over the bump, and asked, "But did she get an O at NEWT from Snape?"

"Nobody has ever got an O in Potions NEWT from Snape," Remus answered exaggeratedly, because it was Tonks' favourite topic. It wouldn't surprise him if she wanted to name their child O-In-NEWT-From-Snape Lupin.

"Actually, I think she sat next to him in Potions," he remembered.

"Maybe that explains why she was good," Tonks pointed out.

"No, she sat next to Mulciber in Potions, she must have sat next to Snape in transfiguration," Remus corrected, realising that the room he'd been picturing was Transfiguration, not Potions, "Sorry, this is boring,"

"Slightly," Dora admitted, then poked him with her toe again, "Tell me a story about Lily. Most stories you tell that she's in, she's just there. Tell me one where she's the heroine,"

Remus tried to remember one, but before he could, his wife cut in: "Hang on, did she know about you?"

"Did she know I'm a werewolf? Not until she and James were engaged. I made him swear not to tell unless they were a hundred per cent serious,"

When he was younger, Remus was happy to let a lot of things slide when it came to his friends, things he probably shouldn't have. But the one thing he'd never rest on was on keeping his secret safe.

"And what did she say?" Tonks pressed. Her tone was sharp, and it irked and touched Remus in equal measure that she was so ready to defend him from the reaction of a dead woman.

"I wasn't there when James told her, and I didn't ask him what she said," Remus shrugged, "I'd hazard a guess she didn't believe it at first, especially as it was coming from James. And then she'd have the inevitable horror,"

"But she got over it," said Tonks. It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes," Remus confirmed, "She got over it,"

"Have you ever talked to Harry about her?"

The mentioned of Harry's name made Remus' eyes drop to the floor in shame. Almost every day he thought of Harry and the argument they'd had. How Hermione had been almost crying. How Harry had said that he was ashamed of him. How Remus had intentionally hurt Harry with that jinx. A loss of control and a dreadful thing to do to his best friends' son, a boy who had already experienced so much betrayal. Remus re-lived the memory all the time, but he didn't like to speak about it, not even to Dora.

"A bit," he muttered.

"You should more, you know," Tonks prompted, "When he's home,"

Remus took a long gulp of tea. "Perhaps,"

He could feel her eyes studying him, and he didn't look back.

"Would he even know that it's her birthday today?" Tonks asked softly. She pushed him like that on occasion, asking Remus questions which she knew he didn't want to answer. Sometimes she'd do it frustratedly, and other times she'd press him like this, with tenderness and care.

"I don't know," Remus murmured.

"He should,"

"Sirius may have told him. He talked to Sirius more about Lily and James, I believe,"

They were skating dangerously close to discussing the Pensieve Incident, which for Harry's sake Remus had vowed to himself never to mention to anybody.

"Why not to you?" Dora demanded, "Not even when you were his teacher?"

"I suppose so," Remus allowed, "But that was before he had Sirius. This is personal to Harry, it isn't our place to speculate on it,"

Sirius and Harry's relationship was separate and special. If Remus was more sentimental, he might have described it as sacred. The two of them were much more similar than Remus and Harry, and they both needed each other as a link to James. That wasn't always the healthiest connection, but it was theirs, and Remus was never jealous of the bond Harry and Padfoot shared.

Tonks rolled her eyes but allowed the change of subject. "Okay, now tell me a story about her,"

There were many anecdotes in which Lily was the hero, he supposed. But he chose a silly one, the time in second-year when Jess Greengrass ate blancmange even though everyone knew she was allergic. Jess became a copywriter for wizarding medical journals eventually, but at twelve she was a was a rather dopey girl. It was the third time she'd ate something she shouldn't and made herself poorly, and to spare her Madam Pomfrey's ire, Lily made all the girls in their dormitory pretend to have a stomach bug. Even the Marauders joined in, and the deception proved so convincing that all of the second-year Gryffindors were permitted to have a day off lessons. The victory was ruined by James organising a pillow-fight for them all in the boys' dormitory, and Professor McGonagall having to be called and seeing instantly that none of them were ill.

"That's a good example of what they were both like," Remus concluded, smiling at their childish silliness, and their childish seriousness about the detention which followed.

He could feel Tonks studying him again. "Do you miss her?" she asked eventually.

"Yes. But I'm used to it. I miss them differently to how I miss Sirius, for instance,"

"I understand that,"

"It's been so long I don't expect them to be there," Remus elaborated, hoping that this didn't sound flippant.

He could still sense her eyes on him. "Would they have been excited about Spudge?" Tonks asked. That her was nickname for the baby.

"They'd have been thrilled. Lily might have been even more excited than Molly is,"

"Wow,"

"Less hysterical though," Remus assured her, "She wasn't practical with her hands like Molly and your mum are. She'd have kept all the books from when Harry was a baby though, she'd want to give us all of them and tell us every detail about what to expect,"

The Weasley twins were still giving him mock-impressed ribbing about getting his wife pregnant barely a fortnight after their wedding (in truth, Dora reckoned it happened before they were married, although Remus didn't want to go around telling people that, least of all Fred and George). Remus supposed James would have done the same. Lily would have chastised her husband and promised Remus that she was delighted for him. She would probably have squeezed his hands and told him seriously that he was going to be a terrific father. The thought of that made Remus blush. Lily would have also been checking up on hi and Tonks to make sure that they were prepared.

"S'funny, isn't it, that Harry could be being an ordinary kid telling his Mum not to embarrass him with stuff like that, but instead he's disappeared on some mysterious mission," Dora sighed.

Remus nodded abstractly and didn't respond. One of the ways his wife was unlike him was that she loved "what if"s about the War. Remus didn't. James and Lily did die, and Harry had gone away, and the best they could do was try to help him and the Order as much as they could. Hoping that the situation would change, would not change the situation.

Neither of them said anything for almost a minute. They drank their tea in silence. Then Dora whispered, "Where d'you think he is, Remus?"

She asked that a lot, and every time he gave the same answer: "I don't know,"

"You'll see him again," Tonks promised, "You can tell him you're sorry. You know he'll forgive you,"

Remus felt himself tense. He didn't feel like discussing it, and he didn't like empty promises. There was a possibility that they might never see Harry Potter again. "Hmm,"

He knew that Dora could tell he was uneasy, because she let it go. After a pause, she announced, "I propose a toast,"

She pointed her wand at the kettle and it flew over to refill both their mugs, and then she did the same with the milk.

She raised her mug. "To Lily. Remus misses you loads and I miss you too, so happy birthday,"

Remus observed her for a moment, then clinked his mug against hers. He thought of Lily. And he smiled.

"Happy birthday," he said.