Home felt tainted to me as I whiled away the remaining days of leave from Fenrir's group. There were too many memories of Tonks surrounding me. She touched every aspect of my life and I had set hers off-kilter. I began to reflect on decisions I made regarding love.
What was love anyways? The word filled my mouth with a bitter taste. I needed to clear my head after days on end alone with guilt and heartache. The moon was rough on me that month as it approached fullness. Between Tonks haunting my heart and the wolf taking over my head, I decided to go out on New Year's to avoid another excruciating night alone.
The Leaky Cauldron was full of people celebrating the New Year. I passed a man on the way in who caused my head to turn and stare. There wasn't anything about him physically that stood out and I was sure that I did not know him, but he smelled of Tonks. I narrowed my eyes as he bummed a smoke off another person outside. The wizard was close to Tonks' age, had quite a few tattoos, and dark stylish hair. Dismissing the smell as my own brain wanting to have contact with Nymphadora, I went inside and ordered a drink.
Firewhiskey – how good it tasted. I finished the first drink in a few moments and asked for another. With the second drink in hand, I made my way to the far side of the room to settle on a chair where I could watch the crowd's gyrations and collective movement.
My eyes darted around the room and caught a head of hair that looked much like the one I saw in the mirror before leaving home. I got up and drained the rest of the tasty drink down my gullet. Her scent hit my nose before my eyes locked onto her. Tonks. She was dancing exuberantly in the middle of the room. I almost pinched myself just to check it wasn't the wolf making me feel and see what I desired. A dreamlike stupor came over me as I reached out towards Tonks' flailing hand.
Almost incapable of sustained fluid movement, Tonks tripped and began to fall towards me. I made contact – she was real. The wolf took over my next move as I pulled her into my arms and we kissed. Rather, I kissed Tonks and she reacted as if I was a hungry bear mauling at a honey jar.
Pulling herself out of my arms, she looked at me with a combination of hurt, anger, and desire. Finding her voice, she said, "What kind of girl do you think I am? Some schoolgirl ready to jump at you just because I haven't seen you in a while?" Her words were harsh but I sensed a hint of longing behind them too.
The man I had passed on my way in approached us with drinks. His eyes darted between Tonks and me. "I got us drinks," he said as he sidled up to Tonks. It occurred to me that they were at the bar together, possibly on a date.
Undeterred and possibly motivated more by the wolf than sense, I put an arm around Tonks and whispered, "Come with me to my place."
I had tried for seductive but Tonks' response told me I missed the quidditch hoop. "Listen, Remus, I haven't seen or heard from you since last summer. You can't expect me to jump into bed with you at a moment's notice," she said in a low voice, apparently trying to keep the conversation from her companion. Once again removing herself from my arms, Tonks added, "I should get back to Brad."
Her words hadn't been cruel but I felt as if a graphorn had skewered my heart. I stood still for a few moments with a battle starting in my head. She moved on. It's what I told her to do. Still, the reality of Tonks being with another broke me in ways I didn't know were possible. My world was spinning and threatening to collapse on me in that moment. The rest of the night was lost on me as sounds of music and jubilation crashed down around me.
I returned to Leeds the next day. Hungover and heartbroken - I was just miserable enough to not care when the moon took me as I hid in my utility room. Recovering from the moon and my shattered heart was devastatingly hard that month. Whitmore noticed my delicate state and brought me a bowl of soup.
"I've seen you bounce back from the moon faster than anyone else here. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was your first month as a wolf," Whitmore said sitting next to me on the cold cement. "What's really eating at you?"
I wanted to tell him it was just a hard month and nothing more but the truth spilled from my mouth instead. "I saw her while I was gone." Whitmore knew who I meant and nodded. "She sent me this wonderfully delicious muggle treat for Christmas… S'mores," I let out a quiet chuckle. "The people I spent Christmas with only reminded me that I broke her heart into pieces and that she is devastated," I paused to take a sip of the hot soup I had. "Everything fell apart when I saw her New Year's Eve. She's moved on and…" My voice cracked and I could not complete the thought.
Whitmore turned to look at me. I hid my face from others by drinking broth straight from the bowl. "I saw my family out with another bloke before I came here," he said with a tone of deep sadness. "My own kids were treating that man like their own dad." Whitmore sighed deeply with his eyes fixed on a point in the distance. "It might be the cruelest part of our condition. Losing the ones we love."
When I first came to live with other werewolves, I had not expected to find people I could level with so honestly. Granted, I would not have opened up to Cooper or Smith this way – they were much more set in violence and emotional segregation to engage in a deep, personal conversation.
Fenrir was not one to miss my emotional state. "Who wounded you, pup?" he asked on my third day back. "Don't tell me the noble Remus Lupin has a broken heart." The sneer on his face was disgusting and full of sadistic delight.
"Don't talk of hearts, Greyback. Your only interest in them is how they feel in your mouth," I said in a cold voice.
I barely flinched as Fenrir's filthy hand came at my face, his nails digging into my neck as he shoved me against a wall. "Have you gone too soft to fight back, Lupin?" Fenrir's face was level with mine and mere inches away. "What makes you think anyone can talk to me like that?" he snarled narrowing his eyes.
Part of me didn't care if he ripped my throat out – what was the point in having a neck if Tonks wouldn't kiss it again? A tiny seed of hope, the promise of possibility to love her again caused me to wear a contrite face. "I forgot myself," I said quietly, averting my eyes away from his.
Digging his nails deeper into my skin, Fenrir said, "Best not forget again, pup. I might not be in such a forgiving mood next time." Greyback left me disheveled against the wall with a trickle of blood making its way down my neck. I closed my eyes and pictured Nymphadora dancing as she had not a week previous. I had to keep myself together for her.
As Fenrir became more agitated against wizards and his words spoke of tearing down society rather than building a better one. The mood among my peers became tense and tempers ran high. Violence was not uncommon in our once close community. Whitmore, McMann, and I were the only blokes out of the 25 or so there who did not seem to be stirred to new levels of vicious behavior. The three of us banded together and began to run our daily outings as a team rather than being randomly paired with our more animalistic compatriots.
We were sent out for clothes and blankets. Beating the winter chill was hard for the group. I made fires for people to keep close at night but that did not change the fact that we were under-clothed for the weather. Even Greyback was seen with the occasional jacket on over his bare chest. It wasn't just the cold biting at me as we set out that frosty February day. Tonks was weighing heavily on my mind and that fact did not escape notice from Whitmore and McMann.
"Lupin, are you with us?" McMann asked once we were out of range of the others. "Mentally that is," he added.
"I'm just worried," I confessed in a barely audible voice. "Worried and losing hope."
"What is it about this woman that keeps you so enthralled?" McMann asked crossing his arms looking dubious that any woman was worth the melancholy I was showing.
"Lay off, McMann. She's the only moon in his sky," Whitmore said on my behalf. For some reason, he had been quite interested in my relationship with Tonks. I guessed he was a romantic at heart.
"There's not much to explain," I started slowly. Explaining Tonks felt like explaining chocolate to a cat. There simply wasn't a simple way to summarize her – she needed to be experienced. "I've never known a person like her before." I felt my cheeks flush as I fumbled to explain Tonks to the men next to me. "I shouldn't really talk about her – I don't want the others to hear about her," I said hoping to change the topic.
"Where should we look for our list?" Whitmore asked casually. "We've picked through the closer areas."
McMann glanced around the neighborhood we had traipsed in previous trips for supplies. "There's a donation center not too far from here. About 10 streets west, I think. We could sneak in there for some high quality loot."
"Might need to use some magic to pull that off in the middle of the day," I said feeling weary of getting caught by the Ministry. "We could try a diversion," I suggested feeling that my years of rule-breaking at school had, if nothing else, made me good with diversions.
"What do you have in mind?" McMann asked with his mouth twitching into a smile.
While the diversion and heist involved a fair bit of magic, we did avoid performing spells on a muggle. That was, according to what I recalled of magical law, what the Ministry monitored more than any other type of magic done around muggles. It was the best selection of clothes and blankets we managed in several outings. I even managed to grab a few books to fill my mind with ideas other than Tonks and the miserable place I was calling home.
Making off with more than enough loot before lunch, we decided to shirk our duty for the afternoon. We found a trail a ways away from our encampment where we could comfortably lounge for a few hours before showing off our find. The area was relatively free of snow and ice and the sun made its way down through the surrounding trees.
"This is quite the hidden gem," I commented to the others while we enjoyed the peace of the small wooded area. Deciding to peruse one of the books I snatched, I hunkered down next to the base of a tree. As we were rushed when grabbing supplies, I didn't have the best pick of books that were available. One book was all about the motor of some model car. I made a note to bring that to Kingsley for Arthur next time I met him. Another was about a bloke named Fabio who didn't seem to own any shirts. The one I had in hand was poetry by Pablo Neruda.
Whitmore and McMann were engaged in a debate over the best seeker out of the top ranked quidditch teams while I tucked into a world of feelings and imagery quite disconnected with my own. The poems were full of life and real emotion. I read one, then five more – soon I it was getting dark and Whitmore and McMann were trying to get my attention.
"Remus, we should go back soon," Whitmore said with his hand on my shoulder. I looked up with a start. "It's just a book. Is it that good?" he asked raising an eyebrow. "Are there risqué pictures in that book?"
"It's poetry, Whitmore," I said dryly.
"Dirty poems?" he asked hopefully. I laughed feeling that he and Sirius would have made good friends. Standing up, I brushed the earth from my trousers hoping to shake off the reminder of my best friend. I tore a page out of the book to keep with me. The poem I was about to read before the others roused me was called Tonight I can Write the Saddest Lines. Just the title evoked a stirring of emotion that I could see myself staying up into the night to absorb more of this beautiful poetry.
On our way back, I let Whitmore browse the Neruda book. "Huh, I guess there aren't pictures. These are all love poems," he said handing the book back to me. "Why torture yourself?" Whitmore asked. "Either go back to her or forget her but don't do this," he said pointing to the book. "Why stay with us when you could have her?"
The truth, that I was here as a spy, while might be suspected by my two friends would not be tolerated if spoken out loud. I had to give them a different truth instead. "You said she's my moon earlier," I said with a sharp tone. Whitmore nodded and made to say something in defense but I cut him off. "I can no sooner let our love be true than a wolf can reach the moon. I could sooner stop loving her than a wolf could stop howling at the moon. Like the moon, she's meant to be my torment but not mine to hold and caress."
"How many of these poetry books have you been reading?" McMann asked with a sharp laugh. Whitmore laughed as well but he looked pensive and dropped the subject.
When I met Kingsley for my March allotment of wolfsbane, he looked grim. Taking a seat across from him at the bar, I asked if he was well. "I am but the whole damn world is falling apart," he said in a low rumble. "Nothing new or different even but it feels like we're losing this battle. At least we're not winning."
It wasn't like Kingsley to sound so glum or pessimistic. "Are you sure nothing has happened?" I asked worrying that someone had been hurt.
"Just small losses. A girl was cursed in Hogsmeade just before Christmas. An attack that close to Hogwarts does not bode well for – " he stopped at the look on my face. "Tonks was not involved," he said with a raised eyebrow.
I had seen Tonks recently enough to know she was not cursed or injured but the idea of that kind of danger lurking around her was almost overwhelming. "I know… I saw her after Christmas." The memories of my encounter with Tonks at the Leaky Cauldron made my heart sink lower yet.
"You did?" Kingsley asked with his eyebrows furrowed. "You weren't in Hogsmeade, were you?"
I debated telling Kingsley the story as the memory still felt raw and sore. Sighing, I decided on giving him most of the story. "I ran into her at the Leaky Cauldron – she was on a date," I said not meeting Kingsley's eyes. "I didn't know the bloke but they seemed to know one another."
The look on Kingsley's face was one of incredulity. "Did you expect she'd wait for you to decide you could love her back?" he asked with a bite to his voice. At last I was seeing the protective side of Kingsley I knew lay just under the surface when it came to Nymphadora. "I hoped you'd see sense for the last year but I'm happy she's trying to have fun."
I bristled at his words and the accusation they carried. "I'm happy for her too –"
"Hippogriff shit," he said with a hint of derision to his voice. "You're moping around Leeds like a boy who broke his toy broom."
"What if I still am in love with her? That doesn't matter now that she's moved on," I said with as much melancholy as I could muster.
The low chuckle that came from Kingsley told me he wasn't buying my pretense that she moved on. "You waited until she's shown the first interest in another person since you broke her heart and are calling it moving on? She's trying to survive, that's what she's doing."
Neither of us had much to say after that. We finished our drinks in an icy silence that followed me back to the pack of werewolves I was living with. Whitmore shot me a sideways glance when he passed me the bit of food we had for the night. I didn't quite meet his eyes but there was something strange about the way he looked at me.
It was a cold afternoon when Tonks' voice came to me like a song in a dream. Her low purr was intoxicating and yet slightly foreign to my ears. I slowly looked up wondering if I had imagined her voice entirely. My eyes locked onto her boots first, then – oh my – black tights that met a slinky red dress. The leather jacket, which I recognized from Sirius' motorcycle getup, finished the look quite nicely. I kept my voice even as I asked if she raided someone else's wardrobe before her trip.
Pulling Tonks close I asked, "What are you doing here?" She could not begin to understand the danger she was in close to so many werewolves with high tempers and so close to the full moon. Tonks had a story about me owing her money. No doubt she had fed that line to someone to find where I was. "Let's settle this in private," I said loudly incase others were listening in. My insides were bubbling with emotion as a conflict started between my head, heart, and the wolf. We all had a goal to achieve with Tonks so close. My head wanted to release her from my thrall forever while my heart wanted to take this as a sign we should be together. The wolf, well, he wanted what he always sought so close to the moon. I led Tonks to the room I used for transformation each month. It was little more than a utility room but there was heat and light.
"I had to explain," she said once we were inside. I held up a hand to quiet her as I locked the door and cast a silencing charm on the room. I didn't want others to hear our conversation.
"There's no need," I started once I felt convinced we could talk freely. "You moved on and…" I had to take a steadying breath, "I'm happy for you."
The tears in Tonks' eyes were enough to make my heart race with hope. "I'm not over you and I'm not dating anyone. I was out with a friend on New Year's and was quite the prat just because, well, you came across like a horny bugger who just wanted to shag…" her voice trailed off as she began to fidget with her sleeve.
It was my icy head that answered her vulnerability with, "What made you think otherwise?" I topped off my cool voice with a raised eyebrow. I hated myself at that moment.
I expected Tonks to fold and admit defeat when she said, "I ran into an unfortunate friend of yours. The twit followed me in Hogsmeade and I got information out of him."
I closed my eyes for a moment. Whitmore, that fool. He risked more than his life going to give Tonks cryptic messages. "You shouldn't have listed to John Thomas," I said flatly. "Listen, I found this poem the other day and, well, it put us into perspective." I read to her from Neruda's haunting poem. Each word hit me with the force of a bludger. Tears began to sting my eyes as I said, "I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.*"
Nympadora's face bore signs of confusion, hope, and sadness. Tears were soon marring her heart-shaped face. "What does that mean, Remus? That I should move on? I've tried. Merlin, how I've tried. You're the person who creeps into my heart when my I try to think of myself with someone else! Yours is the name my lips say in the darkest parts of the night." Tonks' voice was starting to rise. My heart hurt for her but my head was still in control of my reactions. "I can't move on, Remus. Do you think reading me some poem about a man who was able to move on will make our love go away?" Sobs were soon the only sound emanating from her.
My heart broke through my mind's iron grip and I hugged Tonks tightly. She felt like home and I knew poetry or callous behavior wouldn't change that fact. "Shh," I cooed softly, "it's okay." I gently stroked Tonks' hair as she calmed herself. "I'm such a fool, Nymphadora, and not the man you deserve, but, I do love you." It was as if the words caused a physical pain to lift and I was suddenly weightless.
I was recalled to reality what felt like moments later when I heard Cooper and Smith traipsing around outside calling for me. They couldn't find me like this with Tonks and they couldn't not find me – my absence would be most suspicious. I did the first thing that the wolf presented as a feasible reason to be locked away with a beautiful woman. "Lean against that wall – face first," I said in a low voice. I undid my pants but kept them on. With a wave of her wand, I lifted the silencing charm. "Moan," I whispered in Tonks' ear. Compliant, though unaware of my plan, Tonks let out a deep moan. Surely that was not part of her auror training.
"I heard something in here," Smith said, his voice getting louder as he approached. The handle jiggled and he said, "Lupin, you in there?"
I gave Tonks' arm a quick squeeze before opening the door. I tried my best to block her from view of the two leering men at the door. "Can't you tell I'm busy?" I asked jerking my head towards Tonks. The lust in that swam across each man's face made my stomach churn. I needed to get rid of them. "Is there anything you needed?" I asked briskly.
"Yeah…" Smith said licking his lips with his eyes trained on the bit of Tonks he could see around me. "Fenrir's having a meeting tomorrow. Say, Lupin, could we just-"
"No," I said asserting as much dominance as I dared with these two. "She's mine – came here to settle a score with me." I moved to close the door but Cooper stuck his foot in the ajar portion.
"Fenrir suspects a traitor," he said with a significant raise to his eyebrows. "Some sharing would help convince…"
The snarl in my voice came on its own as I said, "Greyback knows my loyalties but he might question those of two scavengers that don't respect another man's winning." Cooper and Smith raised their hands and backed away from the door. I shut the door as soon as they were a few steps away and relocked. Turning to Nymphadora, I could see her fingers trembling as she held her pose against the wall.
"Are they gone?" she asked in a whisper. At my reassurance that they were gone, Tonks turned towards me with a hard look in her eyes.
"I'm sorry you had to – you shouldn't have come here," I said sternly. "I couldn't bear it if something happened to you."
"Being away from you doesn't stop horrible things from happening to me," she said with a conviction that made me quite worried about what she experienced in my absence. "The only difference is that you're not there to help me out." Tonks made to step towards me but tripped and landed in my arms. "Sorry," she said with a huff. Regaining her footing, she began to look around the small room. "We could spend the night here," she suggested with a smile. "It is your birthday in a few hours."
I idly brushed hair out of Tonks' face and said, "Let's spend the night together." The smile on Tonks' face was worth the heartache I'd feel at her leaving in the morning. "Just one condition, you have to tell me about your life in Hogsmeade."
A shadow of doubt crossed Tonks' face before she agreed. Looking around the room, she drew her wand and transfigured bits of junk in the room into a comfortable bed. I wondered if she often had to make use of spare objects for bedding in her exuberant youth. I decided not to ask.
We were up most of the night talking and holding one another. Every moment she was in my arms added debt to the heartache I'd feel in her absence. I didn't care about what pain the future might hold as long as I had that evening, those moments where she was mine.
Dawn came too fast for me. I woke Tonks with a gentle kiss on the cheek and told her she'd have to leave before Fenrir started to round us up for the day. Hugging her goodbye felt like a dementor's kiss. "I love you," she said softly.
I closed my eyes wishing I had any answer but the one on my lips. "I love you – but I'm too old, too poor, too dangerous."
I heard the sigh leave Tonks with the words, "No, you're not." Then she was gone before I could think or say anything else. I leaned against the wall in the small room we had used as our sanctuary the previous night and buried my face in my hands. I had to pull my wolfish amour over my haggard heart.
No one commented on my visitor that day. I started to think I would get away with her visit until Fenrir corralled all of his followers to a meeting with an ominous, "We have a traitor in our midst," before shutting us into the crowded room.
A/N: Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines is property of Pablo Neruda. You should read it. For realz.