Chapter Eight
Six months later
There was something oddly appealing about the cheap, run-down tavern in Knockturn Alley, that didn't try to disguise the clientele that it catered to; those who wanted to get drunk on the cheapest, nastiest thing available, and couples that rented rooms by the hour.
"You just like it 'cos it's novel," Lupin said dryly when Ginny pointed this out. "Get used to it, and I assure you the appeal will wear off. You'd miss your own bed."
Ginny made a face. She didn't like to think about how Lupin knew this. Instead, she curled up close to him. He'd had to make a trip into Knockturn Alley to get supplies for his class, and when he'd informed Ginny of this, she'd jumped at the chance to meet up with him for a few hours. A few hours between the sheets of a cheap, run-down tavern.
She was already wishing it was more.
"Did you find my wedding ring?" Lupin asked, reluctantly bringing up an awkward question. He had taken off his wedding ring the last time he'd been over, as he usually did, and at some point had misplaced it. To his shame when he thought about it, he was less concerned about losing his wedding ring than the fact it had been his father's – or that someone else might stumble upon it before it was located again.
"Sorry, I didn't look," Ginny said apologetically. Her lover's missing wedding ring came under the category of 'Don't Want to Think About the Fact He's Married'.
"Could you, please? A basic locating spell should do it," Lupin said. "God forbid someone else should find it."
"It's not anywhere obvious, I would have found it by now," Ginny said. "But I'll find it tonight if it's that important to you."
"It is. Thankyou. Which reminds me – what time is Neville coming over?" It was Augusta's birthday, and since formal, pureblood things had never been something Luna was comfortable at – only now she had a damn good excuse in the form of a tiring pregnancy in its final month – so Ginny was always his date to them.
"Half past five."
Lupin looked at the clock. "That's fifteen minutes away."
"Half past five Neville's time," Ginny corrected. "He's so late these days, he never wants to leave Luna."
"Can't exactly blame the guy," Lupin said; when Tonks had been nine months pregnant, he'd hovered around like an obsessive-compulsive hummingbird until Andromeda had threatened to kick him out. "And you don't want to be getting in after him."
"Remus, don't nag me," Ginny said shortly.
"Then don't question Neville's intelligence. You think his curiosity won't be piqued if he catches you wearing what you are?" He had given Ginny specific instructions to wear something dark and concealing, and quite frankly, she had looked like what she was – a kept woman. Even if Neville didn't make the somewhat long stretch between that and the fact that Ginny was his mistress, he would still be curious as to why she was dressed like someone who didn't want to be recognised. "I want you to go, Gin."
She pouted, although she recognised the tone in Lupin's voice; the I-know-better-about-these-things voice. "Fine," she said, a little sullenly.
"C'mon, Gin, don't be like this. I just don't want Neville asking questions that don't need to be asked. You knew we only had a few hours together."
She heard the beseeching tone in his voice, and softened. "I know. I just wish we had more time together."She bit her lip so she wouldn't say what was next on her mind: I hate that I only got to see you for a few hours. If she said it, Lupin would only remind her that that was the way things had to be, and that she was better off without him.
She most emphatically was not better off without him.
She left the room via the Floo network and made it back to her flat before Neville. She wrote him a quick note in case he got here before she was finished getting ready and hopped into the shower.
Gin, sorry I'm late," Neville called through the flat when he got there, late as usual. He wasn't very good at being punctual – not since he had found out about Luna's pregnancy and he'd wanted to spend every minute with her. She got tired easily and it didn't help but those pesky first years clamoured for her attention and she didn't have the heart to tell them she needed rest. What was with the youth of today, anyway? He wouldn't have clamoured for the attention of his Professor's pregnant wife when he had been in first year. He would have respected he need to rest and be nurtured and not be bombarded by pesky first years in need of attention –
Neville grinned to himself. He was overprotective of Luna, he knew, and he needed to snap out of it. He didn't know how much more slack McGonagall was willing to cut him – or Sprout, for that matter, given that she was grooming him to take over as sole Professor of Herbology. But it was so hard when he was so in love with his wife and just as in love with the idea of being a dad. Me, a dad!
He heard the shower running and spotted the note left on the table. Sorry, Neville, running late, it read. (Least I'm not the only one, Neville thought.) Help yourself to a drink. XXOO Ginny.
Neville was comfortable enough round Ginny to do just that, retrieving a butterbeer from her fridge. He sat down at the table and started to drink when out of the corner or his eye, something shiny caught his attention.
It was a small metallic object that had rolled under the counter in that small space where the bottom of the cupboards didn't quite meet the floor. She'd no doubt misplaced an earring at some point, although why she hadn't bothered with a basic locating spell to find it, he didn't know. He bent down to retrieve it, and his blood went cold to see what it was, because he had seen it enough times on his colleague's hand to know exactly what it was.
He turned it over between his thumb and forefinger to check the inscription, hoping that it might actually be another wedding ring with a red-gold-and-black braided design to symbolise a union between a Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. John & Sarah 1/4/1952. The inscription faded into a second one; the ring was an heirloom that had been charmed to display both wedding dates. RJL & NAT 6/7/1997.
This was Lupin's wedding ring. In Ginny's flat. Which didn't make sense, because Lupin had been wearing his wedding ring as of at least this morning; was the one he had been wearing a fake, a hurried copy so as not to draw attention to the fact that he had lost his wedding ring? Why would he bother with a fake when he had lost his ring, unless he had lost it under circumstances that he didn't care to explain? Like being with his mistress.
His heart feeling very heavy all of a sudden, a physical weight in his chest, Neville did a quick tour of the flat, taking in all the things that had piqued his interest in the past nine months because they hadn't seemed like very Ginny things to have, but which he had dismissed because they had been easily explainable individually. The weekend editions of The Bucharest Times; books on dark, dangerous and magical creatures that Ginny would have no interest in.
And that time at Christmas when he had run into Ginny leaving Lupin's room. He had taken her excuse that she had been upset about Harry at face value at the time because it had been perfectly plausible (and the kind of lie that Lupin was perfectly capable of thinking up on the spot for her to pass on) but when you strung all those things together, she had far more of a connection with Lupin than she ought to given they were, what, siblings-in-law at best?
He heard the bedroom door open and he shoved the ring into his pocket and did his best to look perfectly natural, despite the earth-shattering news he had just discovered. "Sorry, Neville," Ginny said cheerfully. "I was out and lost track of time."
He tried his best not to look suspicious when he was in fact eying her suspiciously. It was one more thing that he would have accepted at face value a few minutes ago, but now... had she been out with Lupin? He knew that Lupin was in Knockturn Alley that afternoon – or at least, he had said he would be in Knockturn Alley. Maybe he had, in fact, left this flat just before Neville had gotten here.
"Neville? You alright?" Ginny asked gaily when she saw the look of deep concentration on her friend's face.
Neville smiled as calmly as he could. "Fine," he said. "Just worried about Luna. I don't like leaving her alone this close to her delivery date."
Ginny smiled gaily at that. "She's not exactly alone," she pointed out. "She's surrounded by the biggest concentration of powerful witches and wizards outside the Ministry."
At three in the morning, Luna Longbottom had finally had enough of her husband's obvious restlessness. "Neville, what's up?" she complained. "You're fidgeting worse than Alice."
Once she had found out they were having a girl, Luna had taken to calling her Alice Penelope after their mothers. A combination of indulgence and pleasure had made Neville let her have it, and now he thought of his unborn daughter as Alice almost as thoroughly as Luna did.
"Nothing," Neville said, not wanting to worry Luna. He turned onto his side, away from Luna so his fidgeting wouldn't keep her awake.
Luna moved onto her side and awkwardly attempted to spoon him, her arms barely getting around her stomach and him. Knowing that she wasn't going to let it go now – and he couldn't blame her, after he had kept her awake tossing and turning for three hours – he flipped onto his side. "I think Remus and Ginny are having an affair," he blurted out.
Luna's grey eyes went wide with disbelief. Neville had already shared the belief that Lupin was having an affair – a belief since confirmed by Lupin himself – but he'd never pressed for the woman's identity. Ginny? she thought wildly. "Ginny?" she asked. "Ginny Weasley? My friend, my bridesmaid?"
"That's the one."
"But – how – why on earth – " for one of the few times in her life, she struggled to understand the situation. She liked both Ginny and Lupin and in different circumstances would have thought her dear friend of indefatigable love and loyalty was perfect for the lonely werewolf who was hung-up on his shortcomings, but... Lupin was married. Technically, maybe, but still married. "What, she just told you this?"
"I found his wedding ring at her flat," Neville said. He struggled into a sitting position and, waving his wand to turn on the lights, retrieved the ring. "See? The design is a combination of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff's colours. It was his dad's – you can see the two sets of wedding dates inside. Why would he leave something like that in her flat? Why would he be in her flat in the first place? And why would be bother dummying up a fake, if he had lost it why didn't he just admit to it – unless he didn't want to admit to the circumstances that he lost it in? And it's not just that," he continued, his suspicions gaining momentum now that he had someone to confide in. "I've noticed a few times that she's got books and newspapers and stuff which I thought were a big too heavy-going for her tastes... but they're exactly what Remus would read. And – I'm sorry I didn't tell you at the this, you were feeling so awful and I didn't like much of it, but I ran into her coming out of his room Christmas night. I didn't think much of it because she said she was upset about the attention Harry was paying her, but now, in light of everything else – "
Luna nodded, a frown of worry crossing her otherwise-serene face. "I shouldn't have told you," Neville said miserably, because he hated upsetting his wife even more than he hated to think of Ginny and Lupin having an affair.
"No, I'm glad you told me." She thought about it for a long time, then, "You should talk to McGonagall." She was still unable to break the habit of referring to her husband's boss by her last, rather than first name. "She has the authority to check his Floo. You can charm them into revealing when it was used and where to."
Of course, Neville thought; if he hadn't been so fretful, he would have come to that conclusion himself. But still, the idea of dobbing in his friend and colleague to their boss – and for indiscretion that was, at best, one hell of an indiscretion and not a crime per se – made him feel sick to his stomach. He disliked disloyalty, which was exactly what dobbing in a mate felt like, regardless of the good intentions.
"You have to say something," Luna interrupted his thoughts, seeming to read them in that way that she did. "You may not have wanted to know, it might have been easier for everyone had you not known, but now that you do, you have to say something."
"Neville, you look sick. The last time you looked so sick you were trying to tell me about Harry, Ron and Hermione being out of bed."
Neville flustered, because that was exactly how he felt; like a man dobbing in a good friend, someone he greatly admired, over what felt life a life-or-death situation. Of course, a bunch of first years being out of bed was hardly in the same league as Lupin having an affair with a pureblood from a good family who was young enough to be his daughter, but it still brought on that stomach-wrenching anxiety, that feeling of guilt that literally felt like it was poisoning his blood. "Well, spit it out," McGonagall pressed. She wondered if Neville was about to ask for yet more time off regarding Luna's pregnancy. She was extremely happy for him, but it wasn't like she was without family and friends who could accommodate her, and getting so close to the end of the school year, she couldn't keep allowing him time off.
"I – I found this," Neville blurted out, fishing the ring out of his pocket and sliding it across McGonagall's desk. "In Ginny Weasley's flat."
McGonagall took the ring, although she already recognised the design and had a sinking feeling as to what it was – coupled with the fact that Neville wouldn't have come to see her, and looked so distressed about it, if it was about something other than what she thought it was about. She thumbed the ring to check the inscription; there were those two dates. "Is there any way it could have gotten there by accident?" she asked, knowing the answer was no.
"He never takes it off," Neville said flatly. "At least not unless – " he fumbled, unable to bring himself to say not unless he was about to commit infidelity. "And – " he stopped abruptly.
"And?" McGonagall pressed. "Spit it out, Neville. You've come to me with a valid concern, you may as well tell me what you know."
Neville swallowed and looked McGonagall in the eye. May as well face this head-on. "She has stuff in her flat – books, newspapers – that didn't seem like the kind of thing she'd bother with – too heavy for her. And at Christmas I caught her coming out of his room. She had a perfectly good reason for it so I didn't think anything of it at the time, but..."
"Now you're rethinking everything you didn't think anything of at the time," McGonagall offered to a helpless Neville. "You did the right thing in coming to me, you needn't feel guilty about it."
"They're not doing anything illegal..." Neville said plaintively, knowing how weak his argument sounded even as he was making it. "You let him have Sarah Callahan."
"And I'm sorry I did, if he's allowed it to go this far," McGonagall said, aware that she had allowed Lupin a far greater indiscretion in his affair with Sarah Callahan than his current one with Ginny Weasley – if he was involved with the girl – because Sarah was muggle-born, self-absorbed trash whereas Ginny was a pureblood from one of the magical community's most highly-esteemed families. Being involved with Sarah wouldn't hurt her reputation – her current employment was testimony to that – but if anyone found out that he was involved with Ginny... "I'll look into it," McGonagall promised. "As I said, you did the right thing by coming to me. Go back to that wife of yours, this isn't the time to be using your free time running around without her. I'll speak to Pomona and see if you can have some more time off," she said, desperate to offer him something that would wipe that anguished look off his face. "Merlin knows, we raised enough children, but you, Remus and Ted were the only ones I can remember who actually had them."
A few days later, McGonagall knocked on Lupin's door late in the evening, after Teddy was asleep. "Something wrong?" he asked casually, because his rooms were hardly in close proximity to her offices – more like the other side of the castle – but he couldn't think of anything that would warrant a personal visit when she just as easily could have said something at dinner.
"There's something we need to discuss, and it's better we do it in private," McGonagall said, and Lupin tensed immediately.
"Sounds ominous," he said. "Do you want a drink?" The last time a woman he half-feared and half-admired needed to discuss something with him was Andromeda, and he had been grateful for the firewhisky he'd had before she'd told him about Frank and Alice.
"No, thankyou, but don't let me stop you," McGonagall said, and Lupin took that to mean he shouldn't.
"What's this about?" he asked, settling down at the table.
"Neville found this when he met Ginny Weasley at her flat," McGonagall said, retrieving the ring from a pocket of her robes and sliding it across the table. Lupin visibly paled, and McGonagall knew that to be the proof that they were, indeed, having an affair. Still, she wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. "You have any explanation as to how it got there?"
"I told her to find it," Lupin said to himself.
McGonagall's eyebrows raised. "That's your defence? You told her to find it? Remus, you shouldn't have been in a position to lose it in the first place! How long has it been going on for? And if I think you're lying, I'll go and interrogate Miss Weasley. She's far more susceptible to Legilimency than you are."
The threat of Legilimency was enough for Lupin to tell McGonagall everything she wanted to know; it wasn't a pleasant thing to go through, and unpleasant experiences was something Lupin had plenty of person experience on. "Nine months," he admitted. "Well, since last summer, really. I ran into her in Paris and she was determined to go visiting places a girl like her shouldn't go alone and – well, that doesn't matter. I tried to call it off at the end of summer, but I saw her again at the wedding, and..." he shrugged helplessly. So easy to have gone along with it at the time; so hard to look McGonagall in the eyes as he was trying to explain it.
"Speaking of Mr. Longbottom, do you remember a bit of advice you gave him when he first started seeing Luna?" McGonagall asked. Lupin squirmed, because he did remember, and he stood by it, because it was good advice... and he had damned himself with it. "Well?" McGonagall pressed, and it was clear that she expected him to repeat it.
"I told him that if he wanted to sleep with her, he should make sure he loved her, because if he got her pregnant, he'd be expected to marry her," Lupin said, drawing the words out reluctantly, because he knew they were about to bite him on the ass.
"You can't marry her," McGonagall said. "You can't even get an annulment if Nymphodora was in a position to consent to one. Merlin, Remus, what were you thinking? I understand that you need an outlet, but did you think about what this will do to her if it gets out? And it will get out," she added. They may have been lucky in that Neville had been the first to find out, and discreet enough to go to McGonagall, but eventually, they wouldn't be that lucky. "You'll ruin her. You know why your wife went through – and she had the respectability of being your wife. You'll ruin Ginny if this gets out – no other man will be interested in her."
"I know that," Lupin said in a small voice.
"Then why – "
"Because she makes me happy!" Lupin yelled. "Because I have something with her than I had with Dora – God forbid, better than I had with Dora – and I didn't want to give it up."
McGonagall felt a deep surge of pity for Lupin. She knew what a difficult position he was in, and how difficult it had been for him to find love – so much so that he had refused to let Tonks in for the longest time. She believed that he loved Ginny – held him and his principles in too high regard to think he would have gotten involved with her over casual feelings – but that didn't change the fact that he wasn't in a position to marry her, and that he would ruin her should their relationship become public knowledge. If Neville had managed to find out, then it was only a matter of time that someone less loyal and discreet did. After all, if they had been indiscreet enough to get together over Christmas with all her family and his mother-in-law meters away... "You have to end it," she said bluntly. Lupin looked anguished at this – even more anguished than Neville had when he had come to McGonagall with his suspicions. "If you don't end it, I'll fire you," she said, even more bluntly, and while she didn't doubt that Ginny meant more to him than teaching did, neither did she doubt that Teddy meant more to him than Ginny, therefor, his ability to provide for his son would be a serious factor.
He looked pale. "You wouldn't," he said, although he knew perfectly well that she could – and would. "You were fine with Sarah, and she was my student. "
"And I'm regretting that now," McGonagall said sternly. "I won't have such a blatant adulterer teaching here," she said firmly. "I'm sorry, Remus, I know she makes you happy and if there was a way you could be with her freely, you know you'd have my full support. But it has to end. Or you can find another job."
Lupin held McGonagall's eyes for a few seconds before realising that she meant every word. Not only was there the practicality of supporting Teddy, but she had forced all his guilty to the fore. He would ruin Ginny. She did deserve better. Their relationship couldn't go anywhere. "I'll break it off with her," he said resignedly.
"You couldn't keep your hands off her for ten days when you had all your family around," McGonagall scoffed. "I will talk to her. You can talk to your mother-in-law," she directed him.
Lupin paled at that. "I can't," he said.
"You have to. You know she has a way of finding out about these things. It will be far, far worse for you if she finds out from someone else."
"Professor McGonagall," Ginny said in surprise.
McGonagall smiled thinly. She was used to her former students inability to refer to her by her first name; Luna still hadn't managed it, and she had lived at Hogwarts and been married to one of its professors for nine months. "You were expecting someone else?" she asked. "Remus, perhaps?"
Ginny looked like a deer trapped in headlights. "I – I have no idea what you're talking about," she blustered, knowing that McGonagall wouldn't say something like that without incontrovertible belief that she was correct.
"While I disagree with him in many regards, Remus was right about one thing. You should have found his wedding ring before someone else did. You were just lucky that that someone was Neville."
Neville. She had thought he had acted funny that night of his grandmother's birthday; she had chalked it up to pre-fatherhood nerves. "We haven't done anything wrong," Ginny said with a bravado she didn't feel, because she had always been intimidated by the stern House Head – and then Headmistress – and deep down, she knew she was doing something wrong. If nothing else, she was sleeping with another woman's wife... a woman who loved her husband deeply and had fought hard to get him to acknowledge their love, and would be devastated if she found out he was carrying on with someone else.
"No? I think his wife would disagree," McGonagall said with such moral authority that Ginny stepped back as if she'd been struck. "I'm here to tell you that's it's over between you and Remus. You are not to try and contact him again."
"You can't keep us apart!" Ginny yelled louder than she had meant to, a shrill tone entering her voice as such an unexpected bombshell being dropped on her. She struggled to comprehend it; it was over, and she wasn't even hearing it from him.
"I'm not keeping anyone from anyone," McGonagall said. "But I won't have him on my staff if he continues to see you, and while he may not care much about himself, he does care about supporting Teddy... and you," she added when she saw the anguish on Ginny's face, because it was doubly clear now that she had seen the reactions of both of them that they cared about each other greatly – maybe even loved one another. "Ginny, it won't go anywhere – it can't go anywhere. If Nymphodora wakes up, he will go back to her. And if she doesn't – well, you know how long Neville waited."
Ginny was crying now as the realisation sunk in that it was over and she couldn't even say goodbye to him. She understood why – they hardly had a track record of being able to keep their hands off each other, even when it was vitally important that they do so – but that didn't make it hurt any less. "We love each other."
"He should never have allowed it to go this far," McGonagall said, not unsympathetically.
"He didn't! I insisted!"
Now, why does that not surprise me? McGonagall wondered. Her brother's pursuit of Tess Green was well-known, as was the fact that he had persevered and ground her down until she had conceded their mutual attraction. It didn't seem much of a stretch that Ginny possessed the same perseverance – not to mention complete lack of concern about his disability. McGonagall felt another surge of pity for the pair. Lupin had been an idiot in allowing things to progress as far as they did, but she didn't doubt that Ginny had instigated the relationship. "I'm sorry, Ginny," she said, completely kindly this time."I wish there was an easier way, but there isn't. If I catch u two together again, I will fire him. If you love him like you say you do, you won't make him choose."
"You bastard! You couldn't keep it in your pants, could you?" Andromeda jeered. "You just had to have another affair. You disgust me. You never deserved her. You're a lying, cheating piece of shit." She held her wand over his heart, her hand shaking with rage, her eyes spitting fury.
Lupin closed his eyes. "Kill me, then," he said flatly. The last two days he had felt like a zombie. He had no idea how he'd gotten through his classes. He had known deep down that things with Ginny couldn't continue, but now that it was over, there was this massive ache in his heart that he couldn't believe hurt so much, made him feel so empty. If it was possibly, he felt even worse than he had when Tonks had fallen. "I don't care. Just make it quick."
He opened his eyes a few seconds later when nothing happened. Andromeda still had the tip of her wand against his heart, but her eyes were huge in surprise. "What do you mean, you don't care?" she asked. She had expected him to be defensive or indignant like he had when she had found out about his affair with Sarah Callahan; instead he looked, well, like he didn't care if he lived or died... even that he'd prefer death.
"I just gave up the best thing in my life after Teddy. I don't particularly care if you kill me." Lupin's tone was flat, dead, and Andromeda could only stare at him. She had never seen her son-in-law like this, so lost, so bereft, so emotionally drowning. She had seen him in a funk when he felt sorry for himself over his lycanthropy, seen him in a fury, both lycanthropy-induced and human, she had seen him distraught over his wife, her daughter... but she had never seen him so at loss without someone.
Like she had been – still was, she felt sometimes – over Ted. Like he hadn't been over Tonks.
For a moment, she was so startled by the realisation that he truly did love Ginny Weasley and he was completely at lost without her, to a point that he didn't particularly care if he died. For the first time, she truly understood her son-in-law – more so than she had bothered to do even when they had been friends, before their relationship had been soured by his marriage and her daughter's vegetative state. She understood his grief and loss – because she knew it oh-too-well.
And as much as she empathised with him, she hated him because he had those feelings... over his mistress. He had never felt that way about his wife, but he could feel that way about the child that he was cheating on her with.
Her hand shaking, she lowered her want. "Get out of my sight," she snarled, unable to strike out at a man whose grief so mirrored her own... and unable to feel anything but contempt for anyone who could fall in love with someone else while they were married... especially when that someone was married to her daughter.
"I'm going out," Ginny declared rebelliously.
"No, you're not," Bill said fiercely, the two Weasley tempers about to clash... and Bill was older and wiser. "I want you where I can see you." He had decided that for the time being, it was best for Ginny to stay at Shell Cottage where he could keep an eye on her. The funny thing was, he trusted completely that the relationship was over... because he trusted Lupin when he said it was over and to keep Ginny at arm's length. He didn't trust Ginny and her youthful passion one iota.
"You can't stop me."
"You leave my sight and Merlin help me, I'll make Andromeda's exile from her family look harmonious," Bill promised. There was a blazing flash of defiance in Ginny's eyes before it died, the threat of losing her family after losing Lupin too much for her and she sat down none-too-gracefully on the couch. "Thankyou," Bill said coolly, in no mood to mollycoddle his kid sister. "It's for the best," he said finally, at a loss with what to do with her. "He's too old for you," he started, and knew as soon as the words were out of his mouth that it was the wrong tack to take.
"You and Charlie are both married to women a lot younger than you," Ginny countered.
"Yes, married. Like Remus is. Merlin, Ginny, what the hell did you think would happen? You know there's no annulment when a child is involved, and that he wouldn't leave her for you even if he could. He gave you up to keep his job – to keep his means of supporting Teddy," Bill said. He could feel the cutting abruptness in his voice, and he hated hurting Ginny like this, but... Merlin, what had the girl been thinking? "You would have ruined yourself had this gotten out. You could have ruined all of us."
"So touching to see you thinking so selflessly," Ginny said sarcastically. "You're just like Ron! You don't want to see me with anyone!"
Bill shot her a withering look. "You know I'd support you if he were free to marry you," he said, an uncertain tone in his voice, but he decided that while it would be hard, he could do it... if Lupin were free to marry her. He supposed it made the decision easier knowing that the older man wasn't. "But his mistress? Merlin, Ginny, I thought you were raised better than that. Thankgod Minerva managed to make Remus see reason... though Merlin knows if we can ever do the same for you."
He wished Charlie were here; he could do with his oldest brother's advice right now.
"Where are you going?" Charlie asked coolly, because he knew exactly where his wife was going.
"Hogwarts," Tess said, just as coolly. "Remus needs me. He's devastated."
"He's... devastated?" Charlie asked, flabbergasted. "You've got to be kidding me. He seduced my sister!"
"He fell in love with her," Tess fired back. "And if Ginny's anything like you, she pursued him until it was easier to give in than hold out."
"You cannot seriously be comparing us!" Charlie said indignantly, remembering how doggedly he had pursued Tess and knowing that his sister – that all six of them – possessed the same intense passion and determination to pursue what or whoever they were passionate about. Bill had sent him a short, terse note by owl; saying that Lupin and Ginny had been conducting an affair since the summer, with a brief separation between the beginning of the school year and the Longbottom wedding. He wasn't sure exactly how Ginny had found herself in the position to be keeping Lupin company over the summer, but he could sort of see how, once in that position, she would quickly become enamoured with such an intelligent, wise tutor.
This didn't excuse Lupin for acting on her advances, if she had indeed made them. Charlie still liked to think of it as him making the advances. It didn't bear thinking that his kid sister had done something so reckless entirely of her own volition.
Which naturally caused a division between him and his wife.
"He needs me," Tess repeated stubbornly. He had been there for her when she had first been turned, keeping her on the path of humanity when every fibre of her werewolf being had cried out to bite, to kill; she had to be there for him when he was so devastated and alone. She had, of course, been disappointed to learn that he had been conducting an affair with a girl young enough to be his daughter. But that didn't make him any less her brother – it didn't make his devastation and loneliness any less significant.
"You're my wife, Tess. You're part of my family now," Charlie insisted. "Your place is with me. If you walk out on me – "
It was the wrong choice of words. Tess's eyes flared at the inference that he was issuing her an ultimatum; him or her brother. "Fine," she snapped. "Have it your way then."
"Tess, I didn't mean – " Charlie started, but it was too late. Tess was gone.
"OK, so what did he actually say?" Lupin asked patiently, putting aside his own grief to work through Tess's relationship problems. It made him feel better, to distract himself from his own insurmountable relationship problems. Tess's, by comparison, seemed perfectly workable.
"He said he'd leave me if I went to you, so I left him first," Tess sniffled.
"Tess..." Lupin said, good-naturedly chiding her. He didn't believe that Charlie had made such a threat, even in the heat of anger.
"OK, he said I was part of his family and that my place was with him," Tess admitted. "But it amounts to the same thing!" she said indignantly. "He said you seduced her – and I know you didn't," she added loyalty.
"Your faith in me in touching," Lupin said dryly, although he supposed he should be thankful – even touched – that so many people – McGonagall, Neville, the rest of the Weasleys – had enough faith in him to believe that it had been Ginny, with all her Weasley passion, who had instigated the affair... even if he ought to be hung out to dry for allowing it to happen.
"He can't exactly talk," Tess continued with a mix of loyalty and indignation. "He didn't give me a moment's peace until I agreed to go out with him."
From Lupin's memory, Charlie had actually been very considerate of Tess's need for space until she was emotionally strong enough to handle being alone with him. "Neither of you were married," he reminded her, his tone deceptively mild as he thought of Ginny. "And you're not young enough to be his daughter."
"Whose side are you on?"
"Yours, Tess. I don't want to see you walk out of your marriage out of some misguided sense of loyalty to me – and it is misguided, love. I appreciate that you care – I really do – but the fact is, I've brought it upon myself. I should never have allowed her to accompany me. I should have read the signs as we became close. I fell in love with her knowing that I could never give her what she deserved, knowing that I would be dragging her down to the no better than a prostitute, and did it anyway. I was selfish."
"Selfish! Remus, you're the least selfish person I know! You can't help who you fall in love with."
"No... but I ought to be able to help what I do about it," he corrected. "She could be with anyone she wanted. It wasn't fair of me to ask her to take such much less... to even go along with it when she wanted it. Don't you remember how you felt about Charlie? That you weren't good enough for him? Well, you're only seven years younger than him... and you were both free to marry. I brought this upon myself, Tess, and I don't want to see you ruin your marriage out of some misguided loyalty to me."
Tess opened her mouth to argue with him, when there was a knock on the door. She bolted up, and Lupin's lips curved up in a smile of amusement at the fact that despite herself, she clearly hoped it was Charlie. "Go, get it," he encouraged her. It was charming to see how hopeful she was – and how badly she hid it.
It was Neville.
Tess's hopeful smile turned into a scowl and Neville blanched at the animal fury on her face, directed at the person she considered responsible for all this. "Go away," she spat.
"I – I – " Neville stammered. He'd always been a little intimidated by Tess's stunning beauty, and when she looked at him like that... he swallowed, and wondered if she was here to offer sympathy for her brother, or because her marriage was in trouble, or both.
"Go – " Tess started to say again, but hearing Neville's voice, Lupin interrupted her.
"Tess, let him in," Lupin directed. Tess grudgingly stepped aside – it was amazing how, like Andromeda, such a slight woman could have such an imposing presence – to let Neville in.
"I – I – I came to see how you were," Neville stammered.
"Fine, thankyou, given my heart's broken," Lupin snarled in a way that had made Tess's tone look positively friendly. He saw the way Neville blanched, and for one of the few times in his life, took malicious delight in seeing someone in distress – and by his own words, too. Intellectually, he knew Neville wasn't to blame, but he was too heartbroken and Neville to easy a target of blame for him to pass up the opportunity to lash out at someone.
"I – I – I didn't mean..." Neville said, trailing off helplessly.
"Yes, funny how pure-bloods never mean to do anything but nonetheless someone still manage to ruin lives with their self-righteousness," Lupin snapped.
"Hey! I'm not the one who was having an affair with someone young enough to be my daughter!" Neville yelped in false bravado, terrified of the two werewolves and heartbroken himself that a friend he so admired had cut him off, but determined to say something in defence.
Lupin stood up and slammed his palm down on the table hard enough to create a crack in the wood. "That's exactly what I mean," he said, his voice icily cold and far more frightening than if he'd yelled. "The worst you ever experienced was trying to work out if Luna returned your feelings or not, which didn't exactly turn out badly for you. You have no idea what it's been like to be me. That was the first time I've been happy since – since – " he faltered, and Neville flinched. There had been no denying that Lupin had been happy these last nine months. Neville squirmed to remember that he had been happy for his friend and colleague... until he had found out who his mistress was.
"I'm sorry," he said weakly, because he didn't see what else he could have done. He couldn't have just let it die once he had found out about it. He wished he'd never found out about it. Lupin hated him, and he had no doubt that Ginny harboured similar feelings. He'd lost two people he held very dear... but he couldn't think of what else he could have done.
"Get out, Neville," Lupin said harshly. "I have to work with you. I don't have to be your friend." And he sent Neville such a hateful look that Neville felt as if his mortal life was in danger.
"Neville..." Luna said, trying not to sound reproachful that her sleep was disrupted yet again.
"Go back to sleep," Neville directed his wife hoarsely.
He was crying again, and trying to hide it from her, and doing a bad job. He'd taken Lupin's harsh and abrupt termination of their friendship badly. He referred to Neville only as 'Professor Longbottom' and refused to answer to anything but 'Professor Lupin' in turn. The whole student body was buzzing about it, although no-one could work out the cause for the termination of their friendship.
Luna knew how keenly Neville had taken the absence of his parents growing up, and that Lupin had perfectly fitted his need for a father figure – wise, supportive, encouraging. The two men had suited each other perfectly for that matter, because Lupin had never intended in having children and Neville had filled that void perfectly – intelligent, open-minded, loyal. They had been as close as father and son – closer, in fact, than most fathers and sons – which was testimony to how heartbroken Lupin had been over the end of his relationship with Ginny... and how tempting a target Neville had been for a scapegoat. Too tempting.
"He'll come to his senses eventually," Luna said loyally. "He's too smart to kid himself that you did anything wrong."
Neville flipped violently onto his back. "You didn't see the look on his face, sweetheart," he said. "He's devastated. He was so happy – and I took that away from him." Not to mention Tess and Charlie's strained marriage as a consequence of Neville's actions; just one more thing for Lupin to hold against him.
"You didn't take anything from him. It was his own fault for getting involved with her in the first place."
Neville kissed her forehead gently. He appreciated Luna's loyalty and comforting words, he truly did, but Lupin's words resonated with him. The worst you ever experienced was trying to work out if Luna returned your feelings or not. That wasn't exactly true, but Neville still felt an uncomfortable truth to them. For all his awkward childhood, he'd had a lot of privileges, too – his pure-bloodedness, his purebreed status. If it hadn't been Luna – and he thanked Merlin every day that it had been – someone else would have come along that he would have been compatible with, happy with.
Lupin didn't have those kinds of options. He was trapped between two worlds – that of the Dark Creatures like himself and the intelligent, civilised full-humans that he had been raised to be like. As a result, he didn't really fit in either place, and much of both populations distrusted, even feared him. Tonks and Ginny had both fallen in love with him in spite of that – perhaps, even, because of that, because overcoming his base nature had taken high courage and intelligence – but they had been very much the exception and not the rule. Luna might be the love of his life, but there could have been others... for Lupin, there wouldn't be.
He had taken away the only thing that made Lupin truly happy, other than Teddy.
He finally fell asleep feeling like the worst friend in the world.
Charlie returned from a long walk along the beach to his older brother looking rather concerned. "What?" he asked, thinking things couldn't possibly get worse. Ginny alternated between tears and surliness. And Laya was returning all his parchments to Tess; in fact, the owl was starting to look mighty put out that she was expected to make all these returns to Hogwarts for no point.
He missed her desperately. He was sorry he had tried to make Tess choose between him and Lupin – should have known that if it came down to it, her loyalty would always first be to the man who had fought so hard to keep her humanity in tact – but regrets didn't count for much when you were dealing with a werewolf's temperament.
"These came," Bill said, sliding official-looking Ministry documents in Charlie's direction. "She's filed for annulment."
Feeling numb, Charlie took the documents. "She can't," he said weakly, knowing full well that if there was a way, Tess had the intelligence and determination to find it – not to mention the sheer, wilful pride of beating him to the post. Not that he'd had any intention – any desire – for annulment, but it was just like Tess to be so quick to get things started rather than allow him the honour of getting in first. "You can't get an annulment without both people consenting," he said.
"You can in England," Bill reminded Charlie, reminding him as well that England's laws regarding Dark Creature were less favourable than those in almost every other country in Europe. A Dark Creature marriage was exempt from an annulment requiring both consents; intended to protect the human in the marriage should they decide they wanted out, Tess had used it to her advantage.
"She can't," Charlie said weakly. The thought of Tess not in his life – the way she smiled at him when they were alone – the feel of her weight in his lap, even that deceptive strength in such a petite body that had broken more than a few bones of his as she got used to her power – the sense of belonging that he got from being around her – for a second he forgot how to breathe as he contemplated the thought of Tess not in his life.
She couldn't do this. He wouldn't allow her to.
"Charlie?" Bill asked warily, because he recognised that look in his eyes – the look he saw in Ginny's eyes whenever Lupin came up – the look that must have been in his own when he had fought with his mum over Fleur – that Weasley passion, wilfulness, determination to have what they had set their hearts on... "What are you doing? Where are you going?"
"Hogwarts."
"You can't seriously – " Bill started to object, but Charlie was already gone.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," Tess said irritably, having been working from the fractured sleep she had just slipped into. She wasn't sleeping well – hadn't been sleeping well since she had left her husband. Not sleeping well? Try not sleeping at all. So she was extra irritable at being woken up. "Neville, I swear to God if this is you, again, I'll..." she threatened.
She stopped dead in her tracks, the threat dying on her lips when she saw her husband. Estranged husband. Soon-to-be ex husband. Or was that former husband? Never-was husband? Tess didn't know exactly how these things worked, only that in the muggle world an annulment would have not been an option after five years of marriage... but it was in the magical community, at least England's, because she was a Dark Creature and therefor her husband was thought to have the right to end the marriage whenever he saw fit.
Well, she would walk away from the marriage before Charlie had a chance to.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" she asked, trying to mimic her brother's icy tone that had made Neville flinch, hoping it would hide the way her heart lurched to see him.
She couldn't do it as well as Charlie wasn't as easily intimidated as Neville was. "What the fuck is this?" he demanded, pushing his way into the room, waving the parchment around furiously. "Is there someone else?" he demanded.
Her eyes flashed furiously. "How – dare – you!" she screamed at him. God, he looked gorgeous. He had never been conventionally attractive, but he had never seen him solely for his looks, not even in those first days when they had first met. And as the days, months and years passed, when she look at him she saw less his physical looks and more the way he smiled at her when they were alone, the strength in his arms around her that was both physical and emotional, the comfort, love and security she took from being around him and the way he made her feel like whatever she was getting from him, she was giving back just as much...
Damn him.
"How dare you!" she repeated.
"Well, your brother isn't exactly known for taking his marriage vows seriously, why should I expect any more of you?" Charlie jeered at her before he'd had time to think about what he was saying. When she was looking at him with such hate, he wanted to lash out at her, hurt her as much as she was hurting him.
Tess's reply was a wild swing at his face, which, while not particularly well-aimed, was well and truly compensated for in brute force. It had been a while since she had broken one of his bones, and in the past, it had always been by accident, as she had become more confident and adventurous in bed at the same time that she was discovering the bounds of her strength. This time, she had struck out to hurt him intentionally.
He backhanded her as hard as he could.
Tess reeled back; she was injured and hurt as easily as any human, she just healed fasted, and Charlie was strong and struck out powerfully. He'd never hurt her intentionally before in the past, and she was shocked to find that he was capable of it.
As shocked as she was to find out that she was capable of breaking her husband's nose as she lashed out in hurt at being accused of cheating on him.
As shocked as she was to find out how much it hurt to be accused of cheating on him. She loved him, did that not mean anything to him? Apparently not. But then, he had already expected her to take his side over her brother's, so it really shouldn't come as any surprise that her love didn't mean anything to him, that she had been something dark and exotic for him to play with, like his dragons, but, unlike his dragons, obedience was expected of her...
Charlie saw something in her eyes that he didn't quite understand. Fury. Love. Fury that that love should be so easily discarded... or so she thought.
He kissed her. Their sex life had always had a rough element to it, but this was something else entirely. He felt a drive he had never known before, animal emotions of possession and lust that made him forget about everything else but his wife and his determination to have her...
He was kissing her passionately, forcefully, in a way that he'd never kissed her in five years of passionate marriage. She pushed him away. He wrapped his arms tightly around her waist. If she wanted him off her, she'd have to break every bone in his body. "I won't give you up," he growled. "You want out of this marriage, you'll have to kill me." There was a dark, desperate tone in his voice that made her believe he was serious, and she shivered in spite of herself.
Charlie responded by wrapping his arms tighter around her. To hell if he left bruises. His nose hurt, but the pain receded into something tolerable as Tess became the only thing that mattered. He dropped one hand to her right hip, where she kept a pure silver blade securely sheathed. Silver was generally too soft a metal to be used in fighting utensils - except in the case of those who had supernatural allergies to it – but Tess kept the blade sharp enough to do some serious damage. He unsheathed the blade and, swiftly unbuttoning his shirt, placed it against his chest. The blade truly was sharp; he could feel the edge of it piercing his skin ever-so-slightly. "You want out of this marriage?" he asked darkly.
She stared heatedly at him for a second, then kissed him. He dropped the knife and it fell to the floor with a clatter. Neither of them noticed; they were too busy with each other. Charlie crushed her into his embrace, his arm tightly around her waist. She responded by wrapping her arms around his neck and raking her fingers through his hair. "Charlie..." she moaned huskily.
He picked her up and instinctively knew where her bedroom was, dumping her on the bed with very little grace. He climbed on top of her, kissing her forcefully. She wrapped her arms around his waist and he could feel the pressure on his ribs, but he didn't care. He returned her force with as much force of his own as he could muster, tearing at her shirt, kissing her breasts. He worked his way back up to her neck, pulling hard on her hair to yank her head to one side, driven to leave a mark on her because she was his and he was hers and he wouldn't let anything change that. "Tess," he growled. "Mine. Mine."
They pulled frantically at each other's clothes and he thrust his knee between her thighs when they were naked. "Tell me you want me," he grunted.
"I want you," she whispered. His fingers were inside her, probing her, having her at his mercy, shocked at the force of will Charlie was able to demonstrate.
"Louder," he grunted. He remembered how he had chased her in those early months, how for the longest time he had been far more upfront about his feelings, and that now he wanted her to admit that he meant everything to her, like she meant everything to him. He twisted his fingers around the way she liked and she groaned. "Say it!" he screamed.
"I want you!" she screamed back at him. "I want you – I love you – please, Charlie..." She dug her nails into his forearms desperately.
He felt a surge of perverse triumph at her admission – more so at the desperate way she dug her fingers into his skin. And at the fact she'd screamed that she loved him – without his urging. He kissed her hard and thrust deep inside her, shuddering as her warm, wet womanhood embraced him, feeling like he was a horny teenager and discovering sex for the first time, only on a more intense level... "Oh, sweet Merlin, Tess, I love you..." he grunted.
The sex was fierce, rough. He felt her nails in his flesh, her legs tangled up with his, fighting and embracing him at the same time. They were kissing each other hungrily, hands all over each other, grinding like animals, forgetting about everything and anyone else but each other...
Charlie shuddered and buried his head in Tess's shoulder as he climaxed. He felt her rake her nails down his back, then clench her fingers into his shoulder blades as she spasmed against him and orgasmed with a cry. He felt both bones crack and barely cared to feel her orgasm violently under him. She loved him! He had already known that, but someone, the violent, possessive nature of their lovemaking had confirmed that in a way that six years of marriage hadn't...
"No more talk of annulment?" he asked her when he moved off her, marvelling at the fair beauty of his wife – made perversely all the more exciting by the scratches and bruises that were already marking her sleep.
Tess, who had barely slept since walking out on her husband, was sound asleep, a peaceful smile on her lips.
Charlie kissed her gently – as gently as he had possessed her roughly moments before. He knew that something had changed in those last few minutes – their marriage, bound by love, attraction and a need, both physical and emotional, for one another, had been confirmed in a way that words and laws never could... nor could they part them or deny that connection. Tess, who, while she had always been a little insecure over her half-breed status, was fundamentally honest about herself... she couldn't lie about what she and Charlie shared. Not now.
He slid out of bed, his body howling in complaint at every movement. He had broken bones before – more than one at a time – a hazard of being a champion Quidditch player as well as certified Dragon trainer – but not like that. She had broken his nose – fractured, if not broken, both shoulder blades – and done some damage to his ribs, too.
And he didn't particularly care; it didn't mean much next to the fact that Tess was crazy about him.
"I must admit, you've outdone yourself," Madam Poppy Pomfrey conceded a few minutes later when Charlie made his way to the Hospital wing of Hogwarts, a place Charlie still knew where it was, despite not having been to Hogwarts for over ten years. Given how many times he had fallen off his broomstick performing – and often choreographing – flying stunts, it was quite something that in the seven years he had been at Hogwarts, he had never presented with so many breaks. And both shoulder blades! One of the strongest muscles in the body! It didn't take a genius to work out that he'd come to blows with his werewolf wife. "May I inquire as to what you look so happy about?"
"She loves me," Charlie said happily.
"I can see," Pomfrey said dryly. "You're lucky she didn't kill you."
"She wouldn't have," Charlie said calmly. I gave her that option, he added silently.
Pomfrey looked disbelieving but nonetheless healed Charlie's various breaks and fractures – no less than eight, not counting bruises and scratches. Well, he could keep those; the discomfort might remind him to think twice before he went charging in to confront his Dark Creature wife... at least for a day or two. "If it makes you feel better, I got in a few blows of my own," Charlie said cheerfully.
Pomfrey gave him a withering look. Trust Charlie Weasley to go and marry a Dark Creature... and then think it was funny when they beat each other up.
"You look like you got in a fight with a werewolf," Lupin said dryly when he opened the door a few minutes later to see his brother-in-law, somewhat more beaten up than the last time he had seen him. He had returned to his room to find Tess's knife discarded on the floor – something that was highly irresponsible of her, both should Teddy come across it and should either of them come across it, pure silver in any form capable of burning them, let alone silver sharpened to a point that it could penetrate regularly human flesh – and Tess herself sound asleep after her singular inability to do so since she had sought refuge with him at Hogwarts. With bruises across her face and no doubt plenty of other places on her body. And Charlie returning looking somewhat worse for wear – and extremely happy about it – filled in the blanks. "Tell me you at least got in a few of your own. I'd hate to think you were completely defenceless."
Charlie couldn't help but grin, despite the fact he was supposed to be disgusted by the way Lupin had behaved with his sister. "She didn't come out completely unscathed," he said. "And she loved it."
Lupin made a face. "That's more than I needed to know." The two men looked at each other for a few seconds, an awkward silence descending, before he said, "do you want a drink?"
"I'd love one."
Lupin fixed themselves both firewhisky; no point in going for the weak stuff at this point. There was a long silence before Charlie finally blurted out, "Do you love her? Ginny, I mean."
Lupin nodded slightly. "Yeah, I do." He started to say something about knowing how much that must disgust Charlie, but something stopped him, sensing that Charlie had already formed his thoughts and needed time to find the right words.
"Then you'll stay away from her?" Charlie asked. "At least until Tonks dies."
At least until Tonks dies. Lupin had always known that that was the only way he would be free to pursue a public relationship with Ginny, but hearing as much said out loud made him shudder with horror. "Yeah," he agreed softly, not so much because that was the only right thing to do but because the thought was so horrific that he didn't care to dwell on it.
"And you won't try to interfere if she meets someone else?" Charlie added.
"Charlie, I tried to make her meet other people," Lupin protested. "It's what I wanted. I didn't want her to be saddled with a married man old enough to be her father."
"Yeah, I know," Charlie said softly.
Lupin was surprised. "You do?" he asked.
"I've thought about nothing but Tess since she left," Charlie admitted. "About how, when I first met her, she held me at arm's length and protested til she was blue in the fact that I deserved someone older and whole and I didn't care – I only wanted her. And when I got the annulment papers, I stormed over here, determined to get her back or be killed in the process – because the alternative – living without her – was no alternative at all." He took a long swig of his firewhisky. "I think I've been crazy about her from the day I first met her. I didn't care about anything else – when I wasn't with her, she was all I thought about, and she was all I thought about when I was with her – when I found out about the annulment – it's like there's this driving force here – " he thumped his fist against his heart, " – that makes me feel the way I do about her and makes me willing to fight the world for my right to be with her. You know I came to blows with mum over her?" he asked.
Lupin's eyes went wide with surprise. The seven Weasleys had always been a little afraid of Molly, who could bring them into line with a withering glance or a Howler... but at the same time a part of him wasn't surprised. He understood that driving force that Charlie was talking about. "You did?" he asked.
"Yeah. She was going on about Dark Creatures not being able to have children and me denying her being a grandmother. I called her a bigot, so she hit me, and I hit her back, I was so angry," he admitted. "And you know what? I'm not even sorry I did it. I mean, I'm sorry now that there was so much bad blood between us when she died, but I'm not sorry that I defended my right to be with Tess. I hit my mum over my wife and I'm not sorry I did," Charlie admitted frankly. "And when I was with her just then – she broke my nose and I didn't care because I was with her." He took another swig of firewhisky – a longer one this time – fortifying himself for what was on his mine. "We – the six of us – have this driving passion. We always have. Even Percy, though you don't see it much. Mum and dad were like that too. You saw it in the way mum was about all of us, the way dad was about muggle things..." Charlie trailed off wistfully, thinking about times gone by when the six of them had been the nine of them. Lupin waited until his brother-in-law was done with his trip down memory lane.
After a long pause, he started again. "My point is... I know what that driving force feels like. I know that when we want something, we go after it. I knew Tess liked me and was attracted to me, so I pursued her until I ground her down and she couldn't be bothered arguing with me anymore. I offered her love and companionship until it was too tempting for her to turn down. And while it's easy to think of Gin as my kid sister, she's twenty-two and just as capable of that drive as any of us. Don't get me wrong, you shouldn't have put her in a situation where feeling developed, but I understand that, having developed... what I'm trying to say..." he fumbled. It wasn't easy to admit that he understood the driving passion that had possessed Ginny to pursue Lupin in the same way he had pursued Tess; it wasn't something he cared to think about when it came to his sister. "If you were free to marry her, I'd support it," he finally finished. "But you're not. So I want you to stay away from her. I want your word, Remus. Ginny has all the passion of a Weasley and romanticism of youth – I should know. She'd be here in a heartbeat if she thought there was any hope."
"You have it," Lupin said. "You're right. I should never have gotten involved with her – I should never have allowed us to become as close as we did for it to happen." He was lost in his thoughts for a moment, thinking about how much deeper his loneliness ran now, wore even than those first days when Tonks had first fallen before his sense of loss had dulled to a point he could muddle through with the rest of his life. It's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all? Who had ever invented such twaddle? He wished he'd never met Ginny, let alone gotten involved with her.
He wished he could be with her again.
Lupin's thoughts were so clear that he may as well have been projecting them straight onto Charlie using Legilimency. "Woah," he said. "You really love her."
"I thought we established that," Lupin said painfully. "She's... like you, I guess. Like the lot of you. She looks at me... the way you look at Tess. Like my age and lycanthropy matter about as much as if they didn't exist. We had this thing... when I was with her, nothing else mattered. I always felt guilty as sin afterwards, though," he added ruefully.
Charlie was silent for a few seconds; it was exactly how he felt about Tess... except minus the feeling-guilty-afterwards part. "What about Tonks?" Charlie asked.
"I have to go back to her," Lupin said simply. "There's no annulment, and even if there was... she's the mother of my son. I wouldn't leave her even if I could. But it wouldn't be the same between us. I didn't realise how incompatible we were until I was with Ginny," he admitted.
Charlie smiled ruefully at that. "I never understood why you guys were together," he admitted. "She never liked sex much."
At least not the way I like it, Lupin thought, but didn't say out loud, because by extension that meant the way Ginny likes it. "Which she didn't tell me until after we were married," Lupin said. "It became this compromise between what she could tolerate and how far I could restrain myself. After I found that out, I couldn't fathom why she had been so obsessed with me... especially when I found out about your reputation." Charlie had founded a reputation at Hogwarts – which he had no doubt cemented in the years between graduating and marrying – of being as enthusiastic and aggressive in bed as he was on the Quidditch pitch. Given Tonks hadn't much liked sex with Charlie for precisely that reason, her puppy-like devotion to a werewolf – who, as a breed, were known for their high sex drives and aggressive sexuality – was, indeed strange. "It made me question even further what she saw in me."
"You always sell yourself so short – you and Tess both," Charlie said, remarkably supportive for someone who only days ago had been raging about Lupin as a child-molesting seducer of his baby sister. "I didn't get why she was so besotted with you because she never seemed very sexual, but I can see what she saw it you as a human being. Your students love you. Teddy loves you. You've always had this massive capacity for love and support. Who else but you would have gone to the lengths you did to help Tess?"
"That was after – "
Charlie waved his hand dismissively – and somewhat drunkenly. As hard-living as he was, he still couldn't keep up with the werewolf constitution of his brother-in-law. "I know Tess was bitten after you married," he said. "But you still came charging to the rescue, determined to keep her from biting. People don't just wake up one morning, having had a complete personality change, and go do something like that. They do it because their ability to be compassionate and supportive was already there. Tonks would have seen that – you should give yourself more credit."
Lupin raised his eyebrows. "You've changed your tune," he said dryly.
"Look, I doubt I'll ever be able to convince anyone else – " by that, he meant his brothers, "but... I trust you when you say it's over. And... I understand where you're coming from."
"I appreciate that," Lupin said quietly.
The two men talked long into the night. "Charlie?" Tess's voice came in the early hours of the morning. She walked out of her bedroom, a simple, earthly beauty about her in her dressing down, her long blond hair hanging loosely around her face. "Remus?"
"In here, babe," Charlie called.
Tess padded into the living room. Charlie held out his arm unsteadily, and Tess sat in his lap. "Don't you know by now not to try and out-drink Remus?" she asked, but it was affectionate teasing, Lupin noted pleasedly. While he had appreciated that Tess had come charging to his side, he'd been deeply aggrieved that it had caused such a rift between her and her husband.
"It's fine, babe," Charlie said, thinking that maybe he shouldn't have had that last glass of firewhisky. It was just that it was so hard to refuse, a matter of pride really, when he had such a reputation for holding his liquor and yet he wasn't able to keep up with his weedy-looking brother-in-law.
"Not fighting anymore?"
"I was never fighting with him," Charlie pointed out. "I was fighting with you – ouch!" he winced when Tess wrapped her arm around his chest and squeezed playfully.
"Careful, you broke a dozen bones," Lupin said. He couldn't help but grinning; only Charlie could have a dozen bones broken by his own wife and barely register.
Tess obligingly started to slide off Charlie's lap, but Charlie held her firm. "It's fine," he said. "It was worth it to have you with me."
"Are you right to get him into bed?" Lupin asked.
Tess nodded and helped a drunk, sore Charlie back to her bedroom. Momentarily, he turned back to his brother-in-law, a thought just occurring to him. "Remus?" he asked. "Please tell me that Ginny didn't let you get away with the crap that Tonks did."
Lupin chuckled, remembering. "God, no. She once almost took a chunk out of my neck for failing to forewarn her about the new wing at St. Mungo's." And he rubbed his neck where she'd bitten him, remembering that that had been the day he'd told her he loved her.
"Good," Charlie said approvingly, pleased that his kid sister showed far more spirit than Tonks ever had.
Tess led him into her room, lay him on his back and carefully moved to the other side of the bed to give him and his sore body time to recuperate. "Hey," Charlie said indignantly, drawing her awkwardly into his arms. "I'm not so sore that I can't hold my wife." In my arms, where she belongs.
Tess obligingly curled up to him, her face against his chest, and he was careful not to let the ache chow, because Tess would move away from him against if it did, and he'd rather have Tess in his arms than less strain on his sore body – although his wife might disagree. "I missed you," he murmured softly into her silky hair.
"I missed you, too," she admitted. "What did you and Remus talk about?" she asked.
"Tess, do you remember the first time we met?" he asked.
She frowned in confusion. "What's that got to do with anything?" she asked.
"Just go along with me, will you?"
"Shell cottage. Just after my first full moon," she said, and shuddered to remember those first few months when she was a new werewolf with all the cravings of her kind and Wolfsbane hadn't yet made leaps in effectiveness and quality control. Lupin had looked after her as best as he was capable of, but he'd sent her to Shell Cottage for the full moon, because Bill had some understanding of what it was like to be a werewolf without being out of commission for those pivotal nights.
Charlie hugged her to feel her shudder. While he'd been there for a lot of it, he couldn't imagine what it was like to go through what she did every month. "You looked so beautiful," he said softly. "Not just physically – although that's a given – but you had this aura, this presence... you were so battered and vulnerable but strong and determined at the same time, like you were determined to fight this thing or die trying, because you couldn't give into the dark side." She had actually reminded him a little of his mother, but he didn't dare say that to her. "I was so drawn to you, I had to be with you. Bill warned me that you'd turn me down flat and avoid me if I came onto you, so I settled for being your friend until you let me be alone with you, and then you let me hold you, until you were comfortable enough around me and I meant enough to you that you wouldn't cut off all ties with me for making a pass at you. I'd never felt that way about anyone until I met you." He grabbed her left hand and twisted her wedding ring around her finger. "I never saw myself being married until I met you. When I was apart from you, although I could think of was how to engineer another meeting with you."
Tess squirmed pleasantly in his arms, to know the effort Charlie had put in to be part of her life, to gradually chip away at her defences. How many men, having realised that a relationship was out of the question for the time being, would have patiently worked at being her friend until he could aim for something more? "That's all very nice, but – "
"Stop interrupting, I'm getting to that. I felt this drive, like I had to grind down your defences, or – well, I don't know what the alternative was, really, I just knew that all other women paled compared to you. And when I was with you earlier, I didn't care about my nose or anything else – and I've fallen off my broom enough times, I know how painful a broken bone is. Everything paled next to this need to be with you. And it forced me to think... I can't deny Ginny those feelings without belittling her. I know the effort I went to to get you – I know how much you meant to me that it was all worth it. And I know we all have that determination when we want something. I'm not excusing him for allowing things to get where they did that feelings developed – he should never have spent that much time alone with a single woman – but... I don't think he seduced her. I think they do love each other. And I have his word that he won't contact her again."
She propped herself up on one elbow, scarcely believing what her husband was saying. "Really?" she asked. "What about the others?"
"I can't speak for anyone else," Charlie said. "Though I think I can get Bill around to be thinking. Mum didn't like Fleur, either."
Tess giggled. "Really? Did she like anyone?"
"Loved Hermione. And Harry. I suspect she would have adopted them if she could." He thought about how she would react to learn about Ginny and Lupin, and was glad that, for that at least, she was dead.
"I have his word, Bill, and I trust him," Charlie said with quiet dignity, silently pleading with his brother not to push it, because, after all, Ginny had been an adult who had made an informed decision, and any friction within the family over it was affecting his marriage.
"Trust him?" Bill asked incredulously. "You've got to be kidding me. He seduced out kid sister."
"Oh, come off it, Bill," Charlie scoffed. "Did Fleur seduce you? Did Tess seduce me?" And both their wives were creatures known for their sexual prowess.
"That's different. We're – "
"Married, I know, and that does make it different," Charlie said. "But that doesn't mean they love each other any less... or that Ginny was any less... er... enthusiastic in pursuing him than we were. He says he didn't mean for it to happen and I believe him. We both know how persistent she can be when she wants something. Hell, you saw how persistent I was with Tess. He gave me his word that he won't approach her, and I believe him."
"He shouldn't have started it in the first place," Bill said coolly. He wanted to say more, but checked himself, reminding himself of the position that Charlie was in. "He'll stay away from her?" he asked.
"Minerva threatened him with his job. No matter how much he loves Ginny, he loves Teddy more. He won't jeapordise his means of providing for him. And that's not even taking into account his basic human decency – and he has a lot of that, Bill, you can't deny that." It was just that they both felt better knowing that first and foremost, Lupin would take Teddy's welfare into account before his own desires.
Bill nodded slightly. He didn't like it, but it was the best of a bad situation.
In his rooms, Lupin was surprised at just how quiet it was without Tess. He hadn't realised how good his sister was at distracting him from his loneliness – or maybe they had both been determined to distract each other from their heartache.
Except now that Tess and Charlie were reconciled, and the place seemed so empty. He hadn't realised how much she had taken his mind of Ginny.
It was funny. He hadn't thought he couldn't possibly feel any worse than he had when Tonks had fallen. The guilt, the loss, the loneliness, the sheer emotional exhaustion of being a single parent – it wasn't something he would have wished on anyone... well, maybe the aunt who was responsible for Tonks being in her situation, if Bellatrix was capable of such human emotions as guilt and loneliness. Those first months had been horrendous on his soul.
But they were nothing on the guilt, the loss, the loneliness he was feeling now. Guilt – for cheating on his wife. Loss – that he was never going to be with Ginny again, never hold her, never see that smile that was just for him, in private, never wake up next to her. Loneliness – that deep sense of loneliness to know that he loved two women and couldn't be with either of them.
He'd never felt so lonely in his life.