3. Leave Thy Father and Thy Mother
"All done, then?" asked Tonks' dad, who'd been watching out the sitting room window as she and Remus cast security wards over her parents' house, and met them at the door.
"All done," Tonks replied. "No one but the Order of the Phoenix--" She tripped over the threshold as she tried to walk and wipe her muddy shoes on the welcome mat at the same time.
"Or people you and Tonks' mother personally escort..." Remus added, catching her elbow to keep her from falling into the delicate foyer table and knocking over the aspidistra. Which she'd done Merlin knew how many times in her life, maiming it beyond recognition more than once; it really was nothing short of miraculous that she hadn't killed it, and that her mum's skills at Herbology surpassed the destructive force of Tonks' two left feet and faulty equilibrium.
"--can get within a hundred yards of the house in any direction," Tonks finished, looking over her shoulder to smile her thanks at Remus; her grin widened at the affection shining in his eyes as he looked down at her with a wink.
Just like when you first met.
For the first time, she was a little bit thankful for her clumsy streak, as it somehow did as much as anything in the past few weeks to reassure her that she and Remus really could get back what the past year had worked so hard to steal from them. Which was a good thing to be reassured of, really, considering that they were here not just to make her parents' house a safe one, but to invite them to a wedding on very short notice.
"Jolly good," said Ted, shutting the door behind them. But when he turned, he wore a frown and scratched his head as he hmmed.
"What?" Tonks asked.
"Well...Only Father Christmas'll have a hell of a time getting to the chimney."
Tonks snorted and rolled her eyes at her dad, who was laughing heartily at his own joke. She felt rather than heard Remus' quiet chuckle as he stood very close behind her, one arm around her waist, his hand resting lightly on her middle.
"I don't think you'll have to worry about Father Christmas, Ted," said Andromeda, appearing in the kitchen doorway. As she took off her starched, spotless apron and hung it on a hook on the other side of the wall, she said, "He's probably just put you on his naughtylist for swearing."
Ted's chortle rang out louder, his big belly jiggling, while Andromeda smirked and rolled her eyes.
"Sometimes I swear I was adopted," Tonks muttered.
"On the contrary." Remus dipped his head to speak in her ear, his breath tickling her neck. "I was just thinking how suddenly you make perfect sense."
Though Tonks felt distinctly mushy inside that Remus, who had guarded the secrecy of their relationship so jealously, and for so long, was being this openly affectionate in front of her parents, she muttered, "Git," and reached behind to tweak his side; he squirmed, and she sniggered.
Andromeda's crisp tones carried over Ted's noisy laughter, and her grey eyes locking on Tonks silenced her. "Thank you, Nymphadora, Remus. I already feel a great deal more secure."
Shuffling awkwardly around Remus and Tonks, Ted stood beside his wife and draped a beefy arm around her proudly erect shoulders.
"See, 'Dromeda?" He squeezed her, and stooped to drop a kiss on her soft brown hair. "I told you one day we'd be glad to have an Auror in the family."
"I never said we wouldn't. And don't call me 'Dromeda."
"Yes, dear," said Ted, but he chuckled, earning himself another eye-roll.
Against her back, Tonks felt Remus' body quiver with another barely held-back laugh. She started to give him another pinch, but her mum's eyes, flicking briefly downward to Tonks' hand, arrested her.
But then Andromeda smiled her warm, gracious smile at them. "Do sit down, please."
With a light touch on their backs, she ushered them to the cluster of chairs and sofa, grouped for conversation around a coffee table which was polished to a high gloss.
"Would either of you care for tea? Pumpkin juice? It was awfully warm out."
In two bloody days, Tonks, you're going to be the lady of the house. Reckon you can come remotely close to achieving your mum's level of hospitality?
Thinking she'd settle for not tripping over the side tables, Tonks half-fell onto the sofa and blushed under her mother's gaze that clearly said she thought that the heavy, un-ladylike boots were as much the problem as balance issues.
But as Remus seated himself next to Tonks, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to pull her close against his side, where they fit so perfectly together, she relaxed. Remus was much easier to please than her mother -- and, honestly, the only person she cared to please. He wouldn't expect great householdy feats from her. Nor, she thought as she looked around her parents' living room and pictured the comfortably cluttered, mismatched sitting room of the New Forest cottage (our house, she thought, her heart beating quicker), would their guests expect anything other than Remus' casual, effortless manners that made anybody feel welcome and at ease and free to be themselves. She imagined having Kingsley over, for an evening, or the Weasleys; maybe the Order would have a Christmas party at the Lupins'. Merlin, she couldn't wait!
"I'm fine, Mum" she said, "though if you've got any champagne, I reckon that'd be appropriate."
"Champagne?" Ted was settling himself into his favourite leather armchair by the fireplace (which he and Andromeda had battled over for years) and looked at Tonks exactly as he had the time she'd asked for the Bertie's Bonanza ice cream at Fortescue's, which claimed to contain every flavour of the Every Flavour Beans. "What do you want champagne for?"
Andromeda perched at the edge of a floral-print wing-backed chair, her posture erect as Minerva McGonagall's, and her slender ankles crossed elegantly. Eyebrows arched, she addressed Tonks with a faint smile: "I take it you've something to celebrate?"
It was that look and tone Tonks had come to know so well over the years: she wasn't fooling her mother.
Well done, Tonks. So much for letting Remus take the lead like he asked. Why can't you ever bloody think before you run your stupid mouth?
She looked up at him in apology, but he gave her a smile and a shoulder squeeze.
"I certainly am in a celebratory mood," he said.
For just a second, as Remus removed his arm from around Tonks to sit forward on the sofa, her heart gave irregular half-beats as panic gripped her. He took her hand, though, and as he laced their fingers tightly together, giving her another reassuring squeeze, her optimism returned. Her parents knew as little of Remus as Des did, but had never expressed anything at all like Des' opinions; in fact, they'd had very little to say about him at all.
Not that you exactly went out of your way to discuss him...
That her parents had always supported her decisions, including her Order work for which they'd offered their home as a safe house, boded well for their ability to see her as an adult and respect her choice of husband.
As for how Remus felt...He hadn't talked much about what he anticipated; but his touch conveyed that quiet confidence (whether in the Tonkses' reaction, or in his decision, she wasn't sure) that had first attracted her to him.
"Mr. and Mrs. Tonks," Remus began. "I--"
"Mister Tonks?" Ted interrupted loudly, looking as if Remus had spoken to him in Gobbledegook. "On second thought," he said with a snort, "maybe I do need a nip of champagne. Or Firewhisky."
"What he means, Remus," Andromeda's gentle tones broke in, "is that there's no need to be formal."
"What I mean," said Ted, "is that you and I may not've been at school together, mate, but I don't think the generation gap's quite worthy of Mister, do you?"
Oh. dear. Merlin.
Tonks' heart hung still and heavy in her chest.
Your dad did not just make a stupid, sarky comment that'll sure as hell get "too old" rattling around in that noble and most thick skull of Remus' after you've worked so hard to beat it out of him. The universe could not possibly be that cruel to you, could it?
Remus' palm and fingers felt clammy and limp against her own.
Yes. The universe could be that cruel.
Or was that her sweating?
A glance down at her turquoise skirt, which she'd apparently been twisting in her free, fisted hand into a damp, wrinkled ball, revealed that she was.
She glanced hopefully up at Remus.
His head was ducked slightly, fringe falling over his brow, and pink tinged his cheeks. Thank Merlin! Remus only blushed when he was mildly embarrassed. Sheepish. By some miracle, her dad hadn't humiliated him. Maybe Fate would be kind to her, after all; maybe it had decided that she, and Remus, too, had been refined enough by fire, and deserved a bit of chance to revel in the golden future presented by their decision to marry. Remus seemed to be doing so, at any rate: his lips curved in a boyish half-grin, and at once she noticed his shoulders trembling faintly with his softly rasping chuckle.
Tonks' fingers gripped Remus' hand firmly, and she reached her other hand around to hold his forearm. Bared to the elbow by his rolled-up shirtsleeve, his soft skin radiated the same warmth that seemed to shine from his eyes as he glanced briefly down at her before turning his twinkling gaze on her dad.
"No, Ted, I suppose not. Only I wasn't using Mr. and Mrs. so much to venerate you as to tell you, in the most respectful way I could, that I have asked your daughter to marry me."
Tonks had lain awake half the night imagining how Remus might announce their engagement to her parents. She'd come up with nothing but the conclusion that Remus was the most unpredictable man ever to live so couldn't even begin to guess. So, at the most basic of levels, she felt her tense shoulders relax out of sheer relief at fulfilled curiosity.
Her primary reaction, however, was her face splitting in an ear-to-ear grin at the sheer perfection of it. Of course Remus would be casual and cool and clever talking about something as life-altering and serious as marriage. This was the Remus she'd met and fallen in love with. This was the Remus she'd hoped had not been lost underground with the feral werewolves.
You were right not to give up on him.
His spontaneous proposal two nights ago could not have brought her more reassurance of what he wanted to have with her; his announcement drove away the last of the self-doubts that clung to her heart with icy, tenacious fingers.
You make him happy. You are enough for him.
Also, she knew her dad well enough, and was enough like him herself, that she recognised intentional obtuse tweaking when she saw it. Hell -- she'd played that game often enough herself with a handful of professors (and in particular, Snape) and most often in the Auror office, Dawlish Of the Perpetually Twisted Knickers. It was a game that lost its charming amusement factor when it was your father playing it with your fiancé. So Remus' cheeky response was even more perfect, in that it came with the added bonus of making Ted's multiple chins more prominent as his mouth fell open, speechless.
Only...after the humour of his stunned reaction wore off, Tonks found her dad's silence a bit unnerving. Normally Ted -- very much like her -- got over having the piss taken out of him and laughed at himself.
Thing is, you're like him because you're his daughter. And he's never had the piss taken out of him about you getting married. You haven't got a bloody clue what's normal for your dad under these circumstances.
Even so, why the hell wasn't he bloody saying anything?
For that matter, why wasn't her mum?
Andromeda, prim and proper as she was, wasn't devoid of a sense of humour. She'd never have married Ted -- or stayed married to him -- if she didn't.
In fact, Tonks realised, Andromeda's brand of humour wasn't at all unlike Remus', and more than once Tonks had seen her mum actually smirk when someone took the piss out of Ted. Remus' brand of perfectly blended manners and wit ought to be enough to put him in Andromeda's good books for life.
Tonks glanced surreptitiously over her shoulder to check Andromeda's reaction. She could practically feel her mother's--
Damn it!
Andromeda wore a faint smile, but it didn't qualify as a smirk, and probably didn't even indicate amusement, either, if her misty eyes were any indication.
One of which caught Tonks' gaze.
Once again, foiled by stealth and tracking.
"I said yes," Tonks blurted.
Remus squeezed her hand, and she looked up to find him smiling down at her.
"Yes. She said yes."
He raised their joined hands and covered them with his other, his fingers running over her knuckles to delicately touch the ring he'd placed on her hand last night. The same look of wonderment he'd worn then glowed in his blue eyes now; if his gaze had not darted sideways to her parents, Tonks would have forgotten there was anyone but him and her in the room.
"At risk of sounding totally clichéd," Remus said, "that one little yes made me the happiest wizard in the world."
Clichéd, perhaps; and maybe cheesy and even just a bit cloying; but Tonks didn't give a damn. She felt too good inside, as if her heart had been a Snidget in a cage that was now free to stretch its wings and soar to joyous heights, without a care for the world below that would try to bind them again.
"Me, too," she said, finding she wasn't too far removed from the earth to cringe slightly at the wispy, dreamy quality to her voice. Or to blush in realisation at Remus' chuckle. "The happiest witch, I mean. I swear, Remus, you've got the maturity of a--"
"I'm very happy you're the happiest witch in the world, Nymphadora,"
Andromeda interrupted, approaching them with a barely restrained smirk, "but to stay that way, you'll need to avoid name-calling until after your first anniversary."
"That's seems a sound bit of marital advice," Remus said, and Andromeda smiled at him over Tonks' shoulder as they embrace, and then released her to hug Remus, too -- albeit more gingerly.
"You'll give us your blessing, then?" Tonks asked, laughing and feeling rather dizzy with delight. "And I don't mean by finally stopping calling me Nymphadora, though that'd be good as well. We're to be bonded the day after tomorrow, and--"
"I don't know if I can do that."
It was Ted who'd interrupted, his voice pinched and strange-sounding instead of the deep, projecting tones that suited his barrel build.
Tonks turned to him and, despite how his stance -- one hand picking at the nail head trim of the chair instead of shaking the hand of his would-be son-in-law -- killed her laughter, she joked.
"You never call me Nymphadora anyway, so--"
"Has he really, Dora?" Ted spoke over her. "Has he really made you the happiest witch in the world? Only up until a few weeks ago, you didn't seem very happy at all. Des Flooed us, worried sick about you -- said you couldn't even morph."
"I was worried sick!" Tonks felt rather that way again now. The sick part, at least. "Remus was away, doing really dangerous work for the Order--"
"And still managing to give you a pretty crap time of it, so I gathered from Des." Ted's eyes, normally warm and kind, were wild-looking, locked over her shoulder on Remus. "Stringing you along, usingyou when it was convenient, throwing you away when it wasn't--"
"No!" Tonks cried. "It wasn't like that! Des didn't have the full story, Dad, you don't--"
"Did you break it off with Dora?" Ted demanded, face tomato red, strong thick fingers that years ago had wielded a Beater's bat flexing open and closed.
"Yes," Remus replied, his quiet voice coming from just beside Tonks.
It wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth, either. He offered no excuses, nor any explanation of what had happened between them. He simply slipped his hand into hers.
At least he's standing with you, Tonks, and not running away or enumerating on his sins against you. That's something.
And there was nothing, really, for Remus to say. It wouldn't do, and it wasn't his style, to launch into their whole history, to reveal why he'd done the things he'd done. He was far too private for that, and anyway, contrary to what Tonks had just said to her dad, Remus' simple honesty probably would go farther with Ted than any speech.
In time.
The problem was, Tonks couldn't bear for her dad to think ill of him, unnecessarily, for any space.
She pressed Remus' hand, then let go and stepped toward her father. With less authority than she would like, as the damned coffee in her path escaped her notice until she'd rammed the side of her knee against the corner; she flailed one arm wildly for a second to keep from falling over it and getting a rug burn on her face.
"Dad, you don't understand."
"What's to understand?" Ted's eyes flicked briefly to Tonks, then back to Remus. "You're my only child, and from what I've seen of this bloke, I don't much like him."
"That's the point!" Tonks said. "You haven't seen very much of Remus at all. Not enough to know him."
Ted's muscular arms folded across his broad chest. "It might've helped if you'd brought him around."
His words struck her like a Bludger to the stomach, with an almost physical force that made her fall back into Remus. She felt his hand come to rest on her shoulder, as it had so many times; but now it brought no balance, did not steady her. She was reeling inside, as if she'd stepped out of a Floo but not stopped spinning...
You've never fought with Dad before. And Mum's on your side, congratulating you, and bloody hugging your fiancé. What the hell's going on?
Tonks thought of Des, all but refusing to come and visit her in her husband's home.
This can't be goodbye to Dad, as well...
"I should have thought," she hissed through her teeth, which were clenched as her fists were, her entire body trembling, "that with everything you went through to marry Mum, you'd be more supportive."
Ted's red face paled, and he almost stumbled backward, his hands catching the back of the chair.
"It's not the same!"
"Why?"
Calm down, Tonks...Don't say things you don't mean just because he's upset you...
But he'd hurt her. He wasn't being fair.
She'dhad this conversation before, too many times, with Remus. Damned if she was going to have it with her father, and damned if she was going to have it again with Remus because Ted reinforced every insecurity Remus had battled since that bastard Snape outed him!
"Why's it different, Dad? Because Remus is a werewolf?"
"Elphine," Remus whispered as her mother said, "Nymphadora!"
Ted sank heavily into his chair, mouth agape.
Andromeda's form glided from behind Tonks to stand beside her husband. Posture erect, looking cool and composed as if she'd stepped out of the most recent issue of Witch Weekly in the magazine rack, she cast a reproving look at Tonks.
"Don't put words in your father's mouth."
Her aristocratic hand with its tapered, manicured fingers, which Tonks had not inherited, found Ted's hunched shoulder.
"You know I don't think like that, Dora," he said, looking up at her.
Despite his pained look of having been falsely accused, and the pang it sent through Tonks, she said, "I'm not sure I do know how you think."
"Oh you don't, do you?"
The colour flooded once more into Ted's face as he got to his feet again. Tonks noticed two dark spots on the thighs of his grey trousers, where his hands had bunched and dampened the fabric with sweat, as she had done earlier to her skirt.
"All right then," he said, "I'll tell you exactly what I think about you marrying a werewolf."
He was pacing, great lumbering strides like an angry bear. Tonks wanted to Disapparate, to spare Remus from hearing this, to spare herself. But she seemed to be Petrified, and anyway you couldn't Dissapparate out of the house, not with the new security spells in place.
"I assume since you want to marry Dora you'll have some plan for keeping her safe at full moons?"
It wasn't what at all what Tonks had expected to hear; more relief came in the sound of Remus' calm voice.
"There is an old Muggle bomb shelter on my--" He caught himself, and glanced at Tonks with a slight smile before correcting the statement to, "--on our property."
Tonks grinned. He's thinking just like you are! He's excited, too!
"It is secured with powerful enchantments cast by my father when I was a boy, which even I cannot undo when I transform within the confines of the shelter."
Her dad gave a curt nod, and turned to pace back across the room. Tonks shut her eyes against the rising image of the first time she had gone to lift the enchantments to release Remus from that place. She'd found him chained there, naked and weakened by the Oak moon that had ravaged him, body, mind, and soul...
"What about the Potion?"
Tonks' eyes snapped open to stare at her mum, whose question echoed where her own train of thought had been turning.
"Wolfsbane Potion, isn't it?" Andromeda asked.
"Yeah--" Ted wheeled around. "Tames werewolves. You take that, don't you?"
"It..." Remus' hand went slack in Tonks'.
She looked up and watched his Adam's apple bob between the tips of his open collar. In the first sign of wavering confidence he'd exhibited this evening, he went on, hoarsely.
"The potion has not been readily available to me since my resignation from Hogwarts. Few wizards are up to brewing it, and the only person of my acquaintance who could was..."
His voice faltered, then fell silent entirely, as though pinched off. He blinked his eyes rapidly. As she had wanted so desperately to do that night in the Hogwarts hospital wing, when he'd crumbled, Tonks squeezed his hand, hoping to give him strength.
She opened her mouth to complete his thought for him, but before she could get a word out, Andromeda said, "Severus Snape."
Silence hung over them, as heavy as the atmosphere created by the villain's dark, brooding, greasy presence.
Until Ted's voice, almost jolly, though not precisely, broke it. "Dora's ace at Potions. Seems like a match made in heaven."
Tonks frowned, in part because she knew Ted didn't mean that like she wished he did, recalled his earlier suggestion that Remus had -- perhaps still was -- using her.
She also considered how Wolfsbane Potion had been a point of contention between her and Remus on more than one occasion.
It wasn't quite as simple as her dad made it out to be. Technically, Wolfsbane Potion did tame the werewolf. The weeklong regimen of doses enabled Remus to keep his mind -- but it did not banish the werewolf's mind. Awareness of that evil within him, stronger at some times of year than others, like the Oak Moon near the winter solstice, which pulled more fiercely at the wolf to seek human prey, terrified Remus.
When he'd first told her this, Tonks accepted it as a valid reason for not stretching his means, or relying upon the charity of others, which she knew he hated, to attain the Potion. But over time, especially in recent months -- last March -- it had seemed to Tonks that Remus was placing himself at too great a risk, too unnecessarily, by not being in control. She wondered if his only chance of overcoming the wolf within, since there was no cure for what he was, was to look it in the eyes and assert his dominance as a human man.
She looked intently up at him, and he looked back at her. Surely, in light of their impending marriage, he must see that he could not go on as he had been? She was to be his wife. Pride, a loathing of charity, were no longer valid excuses. He would have to rely on her as she relied on him.
"It is definitely something to consider," Remus said slowly, "when Dora is no longer pulling double duty for the Auror division and the Order."
Tonks was glad he was holding tightly to her hand, as she felt sure she could have been knocked right over with a fairy cake.
Memo to you: tell Remus he is not allowed to call you Dora like your dad, or have it engraved on his wedding band.
"'I'll bet 'Dromeda even could do it for you," said Ted. "Been a fair while since she took Potions, but she and Professor Slughorn still write. He wrote one of Dora's letters of recommendation for the Auror programme, you know, even though he never taught her. Andromeda Black's daughter had to be worth recommending, he thought."
Remus gave Tonks a bemused look, and she said, "The only person who thought I should be accepted because of the Black side of the family, instead of in spite of it. Thank Merlin, too, because Snape sure as hell wasn't going to write me any recommendations except to say I had an extraordinary knack for breaking everything in sight while trying to brew potions."
"It's not the werewolf thing." Ted's eyes drew Tonks', and he gave her a look that conveyed the you see? which he'd declined to say. "Well -- not directly."
Arms folding again, resting on his paunch, Ted approached Remus, who let go of Tonks and stepped slightly in front of her as he turned to face her father, man-to-man.
"Ministry's awfully anti-werewolf now," said Ted, "though I'm sure you don't need me telling you. While I don't think it's fair the way they've tied your lot's hands, I can't help but worry what'll happen to Dora if she marries you."
A million arguments with Remus replayed in Tonks' mind, every talk they'd had about marriage prior to two nights ago, when he'd proposed. The phrase too dangerous was a dizzying drone in her ears as her dad talked on:
"Giving you the benefit of the doubt that you keep it quiet till now for her protection, I can't work out why you'd throw it all away now, when it's more dangerous than ever for her to be associated with her. I mean, you're the ones that have passed along all those whisperings around the Ministry about Muggle-born registration. If they've got it out for full humans, you can bet your buttocks they'll be rounding up werewolves or worse."
Tonks' toes tingled in her boots to lunge at her dad; her fingers itched to draw her wand, and her vocal chords already felt stretched with the Silencio! she wanted desperately to bellow.
But, as if he somehow felt all these urges within her, Remus stepped sideways, more directly between her and her dad. As he did, she saw, bizarrely, that the wry grin was on his face again. His tired face.
Dad's getting to him...
But he's grinning. Wryly. Focus on that.
"Worse than werewolves?" Remus said. "Or worse than rounding them up?"
Andromeda laughed.
Hardly believing it -- but then, Tonks hardly believed she and her dad weren't seeing eye-to-eye -- she sank onto the sofa again, dragging a hand through her hair as she looked at her mother.
"Please tell me you're laughing because you agree with me that the biggest problem here is Dad's grammar."
Andromeda smiled, and sympathetically at that, but said, "Actually, I share some of your father's concerns."
Tonks started to sit up, mouth open with a protest on her tongue, which died with one look from her mother.
"My fears, however, have less to do with the Ministry than what my sister might do if word of your marriage reaches her. Which I think Frank and Alice Longbottom would tell you is worse than anything the Ministry is capable."
She gave Remus a wobbly smile, and he returned it, grimly. Tonks sensed something pass between them, something wholly empathetic.
Unfortunately, it didn't also have the power to relieve her frustration.
"We're not going to post an announcement in the Daily Bleeding Prophet!" she cried.
"The wedding will be very quiet, Andromeda," said Remus. "In fact, our entire guest list consists only of you and Ted, and Alastor Moody for security."
Andromeda's smile became relieved -- and, like Remus', wry. "I expect he'll want to inspect your wedding robes and shoes with that magical eye before you dress."
"And probably after, as well," added Remus, chuckling. "We must be constantly vigilant in fashion."
"I thought the Order didn't trust anyone in the Ministry," said Ted.
Tonks leapt to her feet, again catching her knee on the coffee table. "Did he say a word about the bloody Ministry?"
"Nymphadora..."
"You said you were to be bonded, so naturally I assumed the Ministry, as they're the only ones with the authority invested in them to do that."
"Actually," said Remus, "they're not."
Ted opened his mouth in the word who, but before he could get it out, Andromeda broke in, in her quietly authoritative way. "I just wonder if it wouldn't be better for you to wait. Two days is--"
"Wait?" Tonks stopped in her tracks, a slow laugh rippling out as she clutched at her hair. She felt deranged, and sounded it, and probably looked it, too, but she didn't care. "I know I'm a tad bit flighty when it comes to hair colour, but I'm an Auror, Mum. A little credit, please, that I've actually thought quite a lot about this. Remus and I've been talking about getting married for..."
She hesitated, her treacherous inner voice saying, Argued about getting married, don't you mean?
Catching her hand, Remus said, "For a year and a half, at least."
"Yeah. And we're not even eloping, like you and Dad."
Andromeda smiled patiently, and seated herself once more in the wing-backed chair, carefully smoothing her skirts in an almost physical representation of composing her thoughts.
Tonks darted her eyes sidelong at her dad and saw him watching her mum with an almost strained expression. She knew that look well; it meant he desperately wanted to say something, but wasn't about to say it with Andromeda poised to speak, even if she was taking her sweet time about it. Something in Tonks loosened, just slightly, toward him. She wished her mum would just bloody get on with it, too...
Thank Merlin, Andromeda did. "I don't doubt your certainty, Nymphadora, that this is the right path for you. Neither am I questioning your decision."
Finally, someone outside the Order who doesn't think you're barking!
Tonks could have hurdled the coffee table and kissed her mother, so good it was to hear trust expressed. She wasn't sure she ever had before. Not that Andromeda had never said she was proud of her daughter's career path.
But pride wasn't the same thing as faith.
Even so, Tonks remained where she was, her body tense. "But?"
"Not but, precisely," said Andromeda, "only -- someday you may look back and wish you'd waited, so you could savour your wedding."
Unexpectedly, a memory Tonks hadn't realised she'd held onto forced itself to the front of her mind: of coming home from the wedding of some family friend and asking her mum if she could try on her wedding robes and then, when informed her mother didn't have any wedding robes, asking to see pictures -- which also did not exist. Tonks couldn't recall ever having seen Andromeda look sadder -- not even when Bellatrix and Sirius were sent to Azkaban, because she'd just been angry then, at least as far as Tonks saw.
Tonks didn't know what to say.
She suspected what this really boiled down to was that Andromeda wanted to give her the proper wedding she hadn't been given by her own parents. Like Molly was, at this very moment, planning for Bill. Complete with a Daily Prophet announcement that the bride, given away in marriage by her father, had worn robes of ivory satin, and stubbornly insisted on the bubblegum pink hair that signified all the great sex she was going to have on her honeymoon.
It was all very touching, but...How could Tonks tell her mother she didn't care about any of that?
And it won't help your case to say you really can't afford to wait...
"In other words," said Ted, "don't jump the broom." His broad, shiny forehead beneath his receding blond hair smoothed with relief at having let his words out at last, though tension edged them. "Which is rather how this looks to me. You've shilly-shallied for more than a year. Again, I want to know why you've changed your mind now?"
He and Remus were now stood practically toe-to-toe. Ted, though actually the shorter of the pair, seemed taller because of his girth. Even so, Remus' stance imbued the inner power belied by his lined face and grey hair and slender build. He looked as Tonks had only seen him in battle mode: absolutely steady, undoubtedly sure, totally unafraid.
He's about to do battle for you.
Looking not at his opponent, but at her, he began to speak:
"If Dora had had her way, we would have married when times were better. The shilly-shallying was all me, because, like you, Ted, I feared what binding herself to me in marriage might mean. I kept away from her for a good deal of last year because I realised it was unfair to take the love she offered me without giving her what she truly wanted.
"Separation, however, was no good. Somehow, impossible as it must seem to you, as it honestly seems to me, Dora is as miserable without me as I am without her. She needs me as much as I need her. It is me she wants, not marriage -- but I cannot fully atone for the wrongs I have done her by offering her anything less than that permanent commitment."
His voice was so quiet -- the gentle rasp, as always -- but it resonated within Tonks, as if he'd amplified himself with a Sonorus Spell.
This was Remus...her protector...her Patronus, whose love cast out all fear.
"Dora wants to be my wife quite as much as I want to be her husband, and I swear to you Ted, Andromeda, even an Unbreakable Vow, should you ask me to, that I will not hurt her again. I shall do everything within my power to keep her happy and safe. As her husband."
He fell silent then, but his speech lingered in the air, almost a residual magic, which suspended time. Tonks could have remained in this moment forever; there was nothing at all now that she needed, having heard, seen, felt those words from Remus.
Of course, the moment did not go on forever. Hours...days...months...years might have passed...But it did end; broken, once again, by Ted.
Who, Tonks realised, had moved back from Remus, and seemed to have shrunk.
"Well," he said, with a tight smile. "You do know how to make a speech to a girl's dad."
He turned to Tonks, who wanted very much to throw her arms around him but held back because, as Ted approached...Blimey, he seemed old.
Or older, at any rate.
For the first time, she saw silver in his fair hair, noted fine lines on his face even though his extra weight kept signs of his age at bay. He would turn fifty this year. He ought to have a big party of all his friends and family, planned by his wife, daughter, and new son-in-law. Damn Voldemort and the Death Eaters and the sodding corrupt Ministry to hell!
With a squeeze, Remus released her hand and stepped back to stand just behind her so she could speak to her father; one hand, however, remained at the small of her back.
"I'm sorry, Dora," said Ted, his eyes watery; Tonks' stung as, for a horrible, awful moment, her heart hammered in dread.
Oh God...All that, and he's going to say, I'm sorry, but I still can't give you my blessing. It'll destroy Remus, not to mention devastate you that not even your own father--
"I haven't meant to hurt you," he said, "or the man you love. I just want you to be happy, and safe -- like Remus does," he added, the tiniest begrudging note in his voice. With a sigh, he said, "But none of us is safe these days, are we?"
Ted's face, and behind him, across the room beside her chair, Andromeda's, swam in Tonks' welling eyes. As if he could see her face, Remus' hand rubbed soothingly up her back, stopping at the base of her neck, his fingertips soft and warm on her skin.
"I've never been happier, Dad. In fact, I think I'm safer than most people."
She drew her wand, and thinking of Remus' most recent speech in defence of their marriage, said, "Expecto Patronum."
Both her parents' jaws dropped, and Remus' hand tightened on her shoulder as the huge, silver werewolf head emerged from the tip of her wand, muzzle tilted up toward the ceiling, maw open in a silent howl. That was, until the rest of his body emerged, at which point he turned and nuzzled her before bounding around the room on his long, lean legs, sniffing at Remus and Ted and Andromeda (who looked at it as if she'd never seen anything more beautiful or powerful in her life, and which filled Tonks with confidence that Remus could subdue the Dark Creature within).
Finally, the spirit glided out the open window to drive away the Dementors that no doubt had encroached upon the neighbourhood since Remus' and Tonks' arrival.
"Little pig's been blown away by the Big Good Wolf, then?" said Ted. He let out a low whistle. "Good Patronus -- only I did like that Oinkus thing the old one did."
"There's always Howlus," Andromeda suggested.
"True," Ted said. "A howling werewolf Patronus -- that'd scare Dementors and Death Eater bastards shit--" He caught Andromeda's eye and paled. "Er, gormless, I mean."
"And most probably a lot of non-Dementors and Death Eaters," said Remus, "so perhaps we ought to stick with something more along the lines of Woofus or Barkus?"
"Bow-wowus?" Tonks said.
Remus eyelids drooped in mock-annoyance under the straight line formed by his sandy eyebrows. "A little dignity, if you please, Nymphadora."
"Only if you don't call me Nymphadora."
"He'll have to call you Nymphadora when you're married, won't he?" said Andromeda, looking maddeningly smug.
Before another squabble could break out about what the hell Tonks was going to be called as a married witch, Ted became serious again.
"Right, then. Married."
Remus' arm slipped around Tonks' waist, pulling her close against him. His lips blessed her hair. The act of affection did not escape Ted's notice.
"I don't know you well," he said to Remus, "but it's obvious you love Dora. I won't make you swear an Unbreakable Vow not to hurt her, because you will, and she'll hurt you, it's just a fact of marriage...Between you making a damn good speech and me always saying she's got a good head under that crazy hair, even if she wasn't sorted into Ravenclaw like her old dad, I can hardly say anything but..." He trust out his hand, and went very red in the face. "Er, let's break out the champagne, shall we?"
He looked like he needed it; behind Tonks, Remus felt like it. He kept his arm around her as he reached the other out to shake Ted's, and Tonks suspected it had less to do with affection than with the fact that she probably could've knocked him over with a quill. Though she had a strange feeling that it wasn't down to surprise that Ted had given his blessing, even if not in so many words. It was some other, entirely different, reason. And Tonks didn't have a bloody clue what.
The drink revived them both, though, and laughter rang out again as hugs were exchanged all around, with a second round of champagne following Ted patting Remus awkwardly on the back. It worked such a wonder on Ted that Tonks almost wondered if her mum hadn't done a Cheering Charm on him when no one was watching.
"So!" he said, settling into his armchair, summoning an ottoman to put up his feet. "Just who's this implicitly trusted non-Ministry person who'll be marrying you, and when and where and how's he doing it?"
Tonks exchanged a glance with Remus, took a drink, then said, "Remember what you said, Dad, about not jumping the broom? Funny, that..."
To be continued...