I'm stunned and extremely touched by the reaction to the previous two chapters. Thank you all very much. The next couple of chapters will be a two-parter and will contain swearing, abortion chat, and implied mental health problems.
Antecedently
She looks resplendent. She's wearing a knee-length yellow dress and had changed her hair into a blonde bob. Remus has always been attracted and beguiled by the way Tonks calls herself by her surname and stomps around in Timberlands and grubby oversized t-shirts, yet she also loves wearing tight dresses and short skirts, and owns enough hair product to flood the Severn. She acts gently towards him and nurturingly towards Ginny, and she isn't ashamed to cry or giggle. Yet Tonks is also businesslike and tough as nails. Remus knows that she doesn't think about sliding between those femininity and tomboyishness. It's normal, comfortable for Tonks, even though Remus knows she's been asked all sorts of invasive questions about that kind of thing. Being a Metamorphmagus invites intrusiveness, but Dora refuses to be riled by it. She maintains that her powers are cool and special. Being able to shift shape makes her at home in her body, in combats or dresses, and in Ministry offices or in scruffy flats. Remus feels baffled and envious by that. Although he changes form too, the obtrusive questions are the only similarity between his transformations and hers. While Tonks is comfortable in her skin, Remus often feels as if he wants to crawl out of his.
Today, she's gone fully girly for the wedding. Tonks is kneeling on the floor in front of her full-length mirror, her make-up purse spilling open on the floor beside her while she begins smearing mascara onto her eyelashes
"Grow up. Put it in a box for today," she snaps.
"It's not that simple," Remus explains. He's sitting glumly on her bed, dressed for the wedding and dreading the wedding.
"Yes it is. And I'd know because I've had two years of being in the Order of the Phoenix while being an Auror, and they weren't pals for a while in case you hadn't heard. And I had to keep most of it secret from my family and my mates, and I had everything with you going on at the same time. Oh, and now there's the baby, and my aunt who's trying to kill me, and Mad-Eye's dead. And d'you know what I do, Remus?" Dora huffs, ramming the lid back on the mascara and shaking it violently, "I separate it all so that I can crack on. And it's bloody hard sometimes, but that's what I need to work my job and have friends and be your wife and be in the- ugh, bollocks- Order. So I'm asking you, for one single day, to compartmentalise like I have to. Okay?"
She pulls her wand out from behind her ear to clear up the mascara spillage on the floor.
Of course Dora can compartmentalise. She's tenacious and formidable. She knows how to handle things. Right now Remus doesn't feel like he can handle the next ten minutes.
"See how much we're fighting because of the baby," he murmurs.
"Right, 'cos we never had a single argument before," Tonks scoffs. She adjusts her hair,, squinting at the mirror, and Remus averts his eyes. He doesn't deserve to look at her.
Then she says, "You're going to have to stop feeling sorry for yourself, slap on a smile like the rest of us do, and enjoy this wedding,"
He wishes there was no wedding. Bill and Fleur wanted a big do, and that's only going to make Remus think about how paltry their wedding was in comparison. Yet another thing he couldn't give her. He can't compartmentalise because he isn't strong like she is. Everything spills out inside his brain, like Dora's make-up on the bedroom floor. He never told Dumbledore about Sirius being an animagi because he couldn't separate his friends' schoolboy antics from the shame he knew he'd feel if Dumbledore found he'd been lying. When Sirius was imprisoned at Grimmauld Place for a year, Remus should have been sterner with his old friend. His love for Sirius meant he indulged him too much, sympathised too openly. He'd tried to be diplomatic, but he should have stuck to Dumbledore's dictations and told Sirius to stop whingeing. And he couldn't detach his feelings for Tonks from his job in the Order. The only way he could cope was to ask Dumbledore to send him away. He couldn't face being near her. He's pathetic.
"Remus?"
"Hmm?" he blinks. Has she been talking to him?
"I said we've got to get a shift on,"
"Oh,"
He doesn't want to get a shift on. He doesn't want to go. What he wants is to lock them both in this room and exhort to Tonks that they cannot have this baby, that this child will be a werewolf, and that she must take a Termination Libation as soon as she can. And what Remus actually wants is to lie on the sofa with his head in her lap, like they did before the last full moon. He wants his wife to talk to him, read him a book, stroke his hair and hold his hand, and rub circles on his chest and shoulders with her palm. For the first time before a full moon, he'd felt relaxed and secure. And then of course the night came and he had to leave her, and when he came back he realised how idiotic he'd been. He's a sentimental old fool. His failure to compartmentalise was the reason he caved in and married her. It was a selfish, immature, notion. Tonks shouldn't have to take care of him like this forever.
"Remus!"
"Sorry," he mutters, reaching down to put his shoes on. He can feel Dora's gaze on him and ignores it, settling into the uncomfortable silence.
"You look absolute knock-out, by the way," she says eventually.
She's grinning, though Remus can tell it isn't genuine, which is about right given that he's wearing a second-hand suit, and that today he looks even unhealthier than usual. Remus hadn't minded his pallid and shabby appearance until he met her. Now he finds it mortifying. Even if none of Bill and Fleur's guests recognise his face and remember he's a werewolf, they're going to be flummoxed. A bright, vivacious woman in her twenties, holding court (she is, after all, a Black) and asking questions and making people laugh. And beside a sullen, sickly old man, staring at his feet because he doesn't want to speak to anybody.
"That tie brings out your eyes," continues Dora. She comes over to sit on the bed beside him and slings her arm around his shoulder.
"It's Sirius'," Remus explains automatically.
"Ah. A man of impeccable taste. I bet he was fun at weddings, wasn't he?"
"I suppose so,"
"I wouldn't trust him around Fleur's French cousins. We'll raise a Firewhiskey to him today, shall we? Oh shit, I can't drink. I'll raise a pumpkin juice and you can have my Firewhiskey," Dora decides, pecking Remus' cheek.
"Perhaps," he shrugs. French cousins. Boys with pretty features and seductive accents. Exotic and sexy. She'll look at them, intrigued, then back at him, deflated. And then repulsed when she remembers that she isn't just married to him, she's growing his child. That, Remus emphasises to himself, is the most important thing. It doesn't matter who Tonks gets distracted by at the party. It doesn't matter that they've argued or that he isn't in the mood for a wedding. What matters is Dora taking a Termination Libation as soon as she can.
"Have you got your invitation?" she checks, "Arthur says they'll be checking them properly,"
Remus taps his pocket. He and Dora received separate wedding invitations, because they weren't together when the invitations were sent. Back, weeks ago, when Remus was being sensible and generous, before he wrapped himself in self-centeredness and narcissism. Before he got her pregnant and wrecked her life.
"Can you try to enjoy it? I know there's loads else happening, but I want you to enjoy this party. Forget last night, forget the Ministry, forget about the baby for today. Let's have a lovely day together, yeah?" she says, scuffing her lipstick off his face with her thumb, "Just us. Well, us and all the other buggers invited, but you know what I mean,"
"Mmm,"
Remus sees her face fall. He lets her down. Every time, he lets her down. Their marriage can still be measured in days and already it's cataclysmic. All he's made her is unhappy and unsafe. All he's ever given her is upset and inconvenience. Why does she even want him around?
"Okay. Let's get going," Tonks announces.
There's less enthusiasm in her voice now. Remus knows that this will continue. He'll wear away at Dora's sharpness and sparkle until they're gone, leaving her dull and grey. Like he is. He knows precisely what it is to be so miserable you have to scrape around for reasons not to be numb, yet he has knowingly consigned Dora, somebody he claims to love, to the same fate. It happened most of this last year, except he was too much of a coward to be there for it. Now he'll make it happen again, and this time there will be no way back.
Dora's tone is accepting, too. Resigned. If she insists on keeping the baby, and if by some miracle they survive long enough to have a life together (both of these make Remus feel sick again), will she accept that? Will the morose and empty Tonks shrug and sigh and resign herself to being an outcast? He will ruin how she lives and he will ruin who she is.
But, Remus reminds himself, he isn't supposed to be thinking about that. See how he lets himself be overcome by emotion and impulse? He should focus on getting hold of a Termination Libation. Perhaps at the wedding he can fob Dora off to gossip with Ginny or dance with a French cousin. Then Remus can sneak to Diagon Alley to pick up a potion. Plus, the wedding will be safer overall if he slips away. It'll be better for everybody if he's out of the way.
It'll be better for her if he disappears.
