A/N: Thank you so much for your kind words! Here's another update for the week. Once again, enjoy and leave your thoughts!


Tonight is the full moon, and for days and nights, and every opportunity she gets, Tonks is practicing to morph herself into a she-wolf in hopes to accompany Remus in his transformation tonight. But all of her attempts are in vain, and she would end up crying out in frustration or in pain as she cannot get past morphing a snout and a tail. She cannot morph her hands and feet to become paws, or even grow out fur.

"Dora, you don't have to force yourself to morph if it's hurting you. The last thing I want to happen is for you to get hurt." Remus had told her that two days prior when he heard her whimpering and crying inside her designated room in Grimmauld Place, for when she decides to crash there after late Order meetings, or snogging sessions with Remus. He had kissed her forehead and her temple to try to ease her pain.

"But I want to do this, I want to do this, Remus, please." she had told him, although she was still crying from pain in her head for forcing herself to focus on morphing into a full-form animal. He had said nothing afterwards, and just simply held her until she eventually fell asleep.

Inside her own flat in London, she attempts once again to morph. She scrunches her face, focusing on forming a snout, a pair of ears and a tail. She then begins to focus on growing a fur-white fur-she had decided, and morphing her hands and feet into paws. She winces and cries out as a sharp wave of pain hits her head, eventually losing her morphed features. She flops down on her couch and cries, her hair changing colors in the process.

That late afternoon, she apparates inside Twelve Grimmauld Place, where she finds Sirius and Remus in the kitchen table, silent as Sirius is reading The Quibbler, and Remus is helping himself with a cup of tea. Tonks walks into the kitchen and forces a smile, despite her splitting headache from all the attempted morphing. "Wotcher, you guys." she greets. Sirius drops The Quibbler on the table and Remus looks up and gives her a gentle smile, patting on the seat beside his where she can sit.

"What's gotten into you, cousin?" Sirius asks, as Remus wraps an arm around Tonks' shoulder, kissing her temple as a greeting. Tonks lay her head on Remus' shoulder and looks at Sirius.

"I wish I was an animagus just like you." she mumbles, enough for both Sirius and Remus to hear. The two Marauders exchange a look as Remus rubs her arm comfortingly.

"Oh come off at it, Nymphie, being a metamorphmagus way cooler than being an animagus," Sirius tells her. "I can only be Snuffles, while you can be anything or anyone."

"Except a she-wolf!" she cries. "I can be anything or anyone but a she-wolf."

"Dora, I already told you, do not force yourself if you can't. I don't want you hurting yourself just for...just for me." Remus tells her softly. Tonks shakes her head, furiously wiping the tears from her face.

"But I wanna be there, I wanna be with you so you don't have to keep telling everyone else that you're a lone werewolf. You are not a lone werewolf, Remus!" Tonks tells him, her voice raised just enough to let Remus know that she is upset.

Sirius sighs. "Look, Tonks, if it makes you feel better and if it means anything, on some full moons, Snuffles plays with Remus," he says. "So he's not exactly a lone wolf like how you or Remus puts it."

Tonks groans, and says nothing. Remus presses his lips on the top of her head. "In other news, Molly did drop by here to drop off some food for Moony. Maybe you'd want to feed him tomorrow, after moonrise and/or be in the same room until transformation?" Sirius offers, looking at Remus who nods, knowing very well that this is the only compromise either of them can come up with that can make Tonks feel slightly better. She nods and sighs as she lifts her head off of Remus' shoulder, finally giving him a proper kiss on the lips.

"Oh get a room, you two." Sirius scowls, but later smiles as the two roll her eyes at him.

"Jealous, Padfoot?" Remus asks, smirking. Tonks snickers, her eyes finally sparkling with mirth as she looks at her older cousin. Sirius leans back and narrows his eyes at Remus.

"I'll have you know, my old friend, that I have decided to become a full-pledged bachelor." Sirius announces, as Remus and Tonks begin to laugh.

"Please tell me you are just saying this so you can just decide to shag whoever you want without strings attached." Tonks tells him. Sirius points at his cousin and nods.

"You know me well, my dear cousin." Sirius replies, smiling and nodding at Tonks who shakes her head with a grin.

"Now that's just plain bollocks," Remus tells his best friend. "You've been out of Hogwarts for nearly almost two decades but some habits never seem to change."

"Twelve years in Azkaban, Moony," Sirius reminds him. "That'll make you wish you never grew up in the first place."

"Oh don't tell me you're attributing your fear of commitment to your lack of human interaction for twelve years," Tonks tells him. "But no actually...that does make sense."

"I knew you'd come around, cousin," Sirius smirks. "I like your girl, Moony, she thinks like me it's like we're family."

"But you are cousins!" Remus says, exasperated. Tonks laughs and kisses Remus' cheeks, which have now turned into scarlet due to exasperation and...well, feelings.

Before Sirius can say anything, an alarm goes off, and Remus sighs as he summons a goblet filled with Wolfsbane potion on the table. Tonks moves forward to look at it, and sees blue smoke coming from the goblet. She winces and looks at Remus who smiles sadly at her. Sirius summons two glasses and a bottle of firewhiskey. He pours it into the two glasses and slides one glass to Tonks who catches it without difficulty. Sirius raises his glass, and clinks it to Remus' goblet, and to Tonks' glass. Remus clinks his own goblet to Tonks' glass and smiles at her reassuredly.

The three downed their respective drinks, each scrunching their face from the burn of the firewhiskey for Sirius and Tonks, and for the unpleasant taste of the Wolfsbane for Remus.

"Moon's up in half an hour, I better go lie down. Dora?" Remus looks at Tonks, who nods as the trio stand up and climb the stairs to a spare bedroom across Remus'. Sirius lights the fireplace and sits on the couch beside it, closing his eyes. Tonks observes that this seems to be a routine for the two best friends, with Sirius resting before he transforms into Snuffles and Remus lying down on the bed before his painful transformation into a werewolf.

"Come lie with me?" Remus asks, patting on the spot of the bed beside where he is lying. Tonks crawls over it and cuddles herself beside Remus, burying her face in the crook of his neck, her arm wrapping over his stomach.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be with you tonight." she whispers against his cheek. He turns gently, feeling the pain tugging in his muscles and bones as the moonrise draws nearer by the minute, and removes fringes of her hair from her eyes. Her eyes are stormy-grey-her natural ones, and her hair is her natural mousy brown hair, not even attempting to morph anymore as she had grown tired of trying to morph into a she-wolf the whole day. He kisses her lips softly as she sighs against the kiss. She proceeds to kiss the tip of his nose, then his forehead, his cheeks and eventually back to his lips.

"As long as you'll be here waiting tomorrow morning, I'll be alright." Remus whispers against Tonks' ear. She shivers, feeling goosebumps all over her body as she rests her head on his shoulder, with Remus gently stroking her arm.

Another alarm comes off, signalling the last five minute before moonrise tonight. Remus begins to sit up, and Tonks rests her hand against his chest, planting a firm kiss on his lips. She says nothing as she stands up to gently wake Sirius, who startles and yawns as he looks at his best friend. Tonks smiles at the both of them before exiting the room and closing the door behind her. Sirius stands up and stretches as he looks at his best friend, who strips off his jumper and trousers. He grabs his blanket and wraps it around his lower body as he sits down and rests against the wall. His mind begins to drift off-where has Dora gone up to now? What is she thinking? Is she still trying to attempt to morph into a she-wolf?

"You can't blame her for trying, you know." Sirius tells him, as if he can read his best friend's thoughts. "She loves you. She'll try until she gets what she wants, and she wants to be a wolf when you become one."

Remus sighs, running his hand in his hair. "I just don't want her to hurt herself over me. I'm not worth all the pain and effort she's going through." Not worth all the pain and effort she will go through in the future, he thinks, but thought to himself this isn't the right time to think so.

"Well for her, you're pretty damn worth it, Moony," Sirius tells him, acquiring the ball Moony and Snuffles usually play during full moons. "You always were since the beginning, especially to us."

And Remus knows what it means. His friends, after all, did study to become animagi to accompany him on nights of full moon during their years in Hogwarts. What would be the difference if the woman he loves would also attempt to accompany him as an animal on nights of full moon?

Oh Merlin, he thought, did he just admit to himself that he loves her?

Remus watches the full moon rise, as he feels his nose transforming into a snout, and his bones enlarging, fur growing from his skin, and teeth growing bigger and sharper. He lets out a cry of pain, as Sirius watches before transforming into Snuffles, in case anything happens to him. Remus drops down on all fours, writhing in pain as his whole body transforms into a werewolf. Sirius slowly walks over to him, transforming himself into Snuffles in the process as Moony looks outside the window. He lets out a howl, and Snuffles joins him.


Tonks sits against the wall in her room in Grimmauld Place, deciding to stay there for the night of the full moon to be easily accessible to Remus the following morning. She pulls her knees to her chest as she watches the full moon in the sky. How can something so bright and beautiful bring so much damage to a person who means the world to her?

She thinks about it, and has come to a conclusion that the world is both cruel and unfair especially to the kind-hearted ones like Remus—her Remus. Her heart breaks as she hears his muffled cries of pain. Perhaps Sirius had forgotten to cast the Muffliato or Silencio charm in the room. She sighs as she listens, praying to Merlin that his pain would end sooner. She rests her head between her knees.

How did she arrive to this? She had promised herself years ago she would never fall in love with someone who is close to her. She had done that mistake with her best friend, Charlie Weasley, years before, eventually driving him away to Romania with the dragons. She remembers the dread of having to face Molly, Arthur, Bill, Fred, George, Ron and Ginny Weasley the moment she became an official member of the Order. Molly had expressed how bad she felt over her failed relationship with his second son. Fred and George had let her in to the twins' prank tactics, allowing her to form pranks of her own using their brilliant inventions-their dungbombs being her number one favorite. Ron and Ginny were far too young and innocent before to know anything about her and Charlie. Bill had tried to match up with her humor to make up for the fact that his brother had left her for dragons. She had thought of herself higher and more worthy than that of an ordinary magical creature. She's a rare metamorphmagus, for Merlin's sake! However, her Charlie had failed to see the rarity of his ex-lover.

She had figured that that was the biggest joke of her life.

She wonders if falling in love with a fellow Order member will be like treading dangerous waters. However, here she is, looking up and cursing at the full moon for hurting the man in the room across hers, the man who had kissed her two weeks ago in the middle of Muggle London, the man whose eyes have captivated her heart the moment they had met, the man she loves.

Merlin, she thought, she loves him.

Tonks groans as she rests her head against the wall, wishing that the full moon would just disappear so Remus can become human again; wishing that Dolores Umbridge will die from every magical curse known in the magical world for legislating an anti-werewolf order which prevents werewolves from living like everybody else; wishing, for the life of her, that Remus Lupin actually sincerely feels the same way that she does.

She hears silence from the other room, and instead hears two howls from across the room, figuring it would be Moony and Snuffles. She later hears soft thumps, and she chuckles, imagining Moony and Snuffles playing ball inside the room.

She stands up and sits on her bed as she tries, once again, to morph herself into a she-wolf. Come on, Tonks, come on. She feels her nose morphing into a wolf snout, ears turning furry and perking up, a tail forming from behind her, a little bit of fur coming from her body. She scrunches her face, concentrating harder in transforming her limbs into wolf legs and paws—

She cries out in frustration once she feels the familiar pain in her head, accompanied by an aching feeling in her limbs. She relaxes, her features becoming natural once again as she realizes something…

If her morphing into a she-wolf was painful, and her pain had reached that threshold wherein she cannot fully morph herself into becoming one, what kind of pain does Remus have to endure once every month for almost all his life when he transforms into a werewolf?

She feels her heart ache and her eyes well up with tears as she lies down, cursing the full moon for one last time before allowing herself to drift back to sleep.