Chapter Three

1988

"Merry Christmas, Remus."

Lupin smiled at Tonks, who looked truly Tonks, in mis-matching red-and-green clothes. She had a penchant for collecting a random assortment of muggle clothes and putting them together in even more random combinations. Right now she was wearing a spangly red tube top with a long, layered green skirt. "I would have thought someone with a muggle-born dad would know better than to make such a big deal out of Christmas."

Tonks shrugged. Christmas to her was like all the other holidays that the wizarding world had commandeered from the muggle world that was just an excuse for a party. Besides, the muggles had stolen Halloween from an older muggle reign, hadn't they? "Well, it's good you came, anyway," she said.

She was fifteen now, and with every opportunity she had to interact with Lupin, the more attractive she found him. She didn't know why exactly. He was almost twice her age and would always have those issues with his lycanthropy and there was always a veil of sadness wrapped around him from the loss of James, Peter and Sirius. But despite that there was something magnetic about him. She always wanted to be there when he dropped by, and frequently made excuses to get away from Hogwarts for the weekend if she knew Lupin was there.

She thought about Charlie Weasley. He was a nice enough boy, kind of sweet really, and didn't pursue her doggedly like some of the other boys in their year. He seemed to like her for herself, which, she was beginning to realise, was unusual when it came to a metamophmagus. She supposed she should appreciate the no-pressure attention Charlie showed, but it only made her think that Lupin had always treated her like that... and he was far more knowledgeable.

She looked at Lupin and he took her breath away. She knew people wouldn't understand – wasn't sure if she entirely understood it herself – but she couldn't stop thinking about him. She knew people would say it was just a silly infatuation, an adolescent witch desiring g an older man, but she knew it was more than that. She knew she liked him because he was Lupin and not because he was an older man for her to have a crush on.

She was staring at him, and it was making him nervous, and making him want to stare back at her. Despite her weird get-up, she had an energy about her that was captivating and made her seem far older than fifteen. No wonder she was bored with the kids at school. He turned to go, thinking it was better if he wasn't alone with her right now.

Impulsive, she rushed up to him and kissed him, planting her mouth firmly on his, snaking her tongue into his mouth, searching out for his. She was glad she had permitted Charlie kiss her a few times after a Quiddich game, so now she had some idea of what to do.

Lupin was first shocked that the little minx would do something like this – he was almost twice her age – and then shocked that he kissed her back. Her mouth felt warm and inviting, her tongue something he wanted to feel twisted up with his own... something in the back of his mind registered that she wasn't exactly new to this, and he felt a pang of jealousy as to who it might be. Charlie Weasley, perhaps? He felt jealousy towards this unnamed man – boy – who had been kissing her even though he was almost twice her age and had no claim to her and –

He pushed her away. "Nymphodora – " he began.

Tonks started to tell him not to call her that, then she decided to concentrate on the fact that he had definitely kissed her back. She had never instigated a kiss before – with Charlie it was always going along with something he wanted to do – but she still recognised it when someone kissed her back. Undeterred by his pushing her away, she went to kiss him again and, God help him, for a few seconds he responded again.

With Herculean effort, Lupin pushed her away again when the thought of shoving her against the wall to get better leverage entered his head. "Nymphodora, stop," he said. "We can't do this."

Her eyes narrowed. "Why not?" she asked, genuinely confused because he had kissed her back, so why didn't he want to kiss her some more? "Don't you like me?"

"Of course I like you," he said. "I think I like you a little more than is appropriate, that's the problem. I'm thirty, Nymphodora," he reminded her.

"Twenty-eight," she corrected him.

"Fine, twenty-eight. That's still far too old for you."

To his horror, her face scrunched up in threatened tears. "But all the boys at school are so boring!" she cried. "They only care about stupid Quidditch and they only like me 'cos I'm a metamophmagus. You're the only person who likes me for myself."

"I'm sure that's not true," Lupin said.

"It is," she insisted tearfully. "And even if it wasn't – I wouldn't want any of them, anyway. I want you. And you kissed me back," she added, slightly accusingly. "You can't say you don't want me, too."

He sighed, thinking that kissing her back was the single stupidest thing he had done in his life. Well, maybe after trusting Sirius. "I shouldn't have," he said quietly. "Nymphodora, I know this isn't what you want to hear, but you're just a kid. I should have known better."

She was crying now in earnest. "I should have known you wouldn't be interested in a kid," she sobbed.

Way to go, Remus, he thought. Feeling guilty as sin, he recalled dozens of instances when he had let Tonks sit closer to him than maybe was appropriate, where maybe he had encouraged her to think it would be acceptable for something other than a sort of pseudo uncle-niece relationship to happen between them. He struggled to think of a way to let her down easy, and hit on a brilliant thought. "Weather I'm interested in you or not is beside the point," he said quietly. "I shouldn't have kissed you back because it's against the law. You should know that. I definitely should have."

"Against the law?" she asked, thoroughly confused.

He should have known that someone like Tonks was ignorant of the laws and regulations pertaining to underage relationships. They were similar to the statutory rape laws that muggles had in place, only much stricter, because there was much greater scope for corruption and manipulation. "You're underage," he reminded her. "And no matter how wise and mature you might be for fifteen, you're still underage and if I get involved with you which is in any way questionable – " Merlin's beard, he thought. I think I already have, or she wouldn't have kissed me – "the Ministry will come down on me hard. And with you being a Black – "

Tonks's eyes flashed at that. "I am not – " she started to say.

"You and your mum can argue that til then end of time, you still have all the prestige of a Black, even an exiled one. How do you think the Ministry will react to a werewolf getting involved with an underaged Black?"

"I didn't think of that," Tonks said in a small voice. "I don't want to get you into trouble."

It was easier than he had thought; he'd been worried she would be too caught up in what she wanted that very minute to think of the long-term consequences. (Or even the short-term consequences, should Andromeda or Ted walk in on him kissing their only daughter.) "Then give it some time," he suggested. "If you're still interested in me, come and see me when you're seventeen." That was eighteen months from now, Lupin knew, eighteen months for her to mingle with kids her own age. It may very well be that the reason she was bored with kids her own age was that the hormones hadn't yet kicked in. Give it a few months – even a few weeks – and he was sure Tonks would meet someone her own age and in eighteen months time, if she thought of him at all, it would be to laugh at herself for ever being interested in someone who was too old, too poor and too dangerous for her.

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