As Long As There's Hope

It was a far from silent night.

There were festivities everywhere, people celebrating.

In a little suburb, just outside London, eight-year-old Nymphadora Tonks didn't quite understand the meaning yet. What she knew was that every witch and wizard in Britain had a reason to be happy tonight. Her parents themselves had been invited by neighbours to celebrate.

Nymphadora had wandered away from the feast, being the youngest there and therefore quite bored.

It was a mild evening, at least for the beginning of November and the little girl – quite a bit too short for her age yet – was strolling towards the old playground, constantly pulling at the sleeve of her sweatshirt, which was a number too big for her. Her other hand was buried deep in the pocket of her jeans and her trainers kept kicking an empty coke bin ahead of her.

She reached the playground and went straight to the swings, which she liked best. The playground was deserted, it seemed even the kids were celebrating with their families.

Nymphadora swung back and forth, higher each time, her two long, bubblegum pink plaits swooshing around her head.

The sun was just vanishing behind the nearest tree tops and everything was bathed in soft gold and orange colours.

And then Nymphadora noticed the gold-brown shimmering spot out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head to get a better look and saw that a person sat in the shadows of the trees on the right side of the playground.

Nymphadora knew there was an old rusty bench there.

Curious as she was, the girl jumped off the swing, landing gracefully in the soft grass beneath.

She screwes up her eyes to make out the posture. The person seemed to be male. He was lean and sat bent over, with his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees.

His shoulders were shaking.

The pink-haired girl took two steps towards the figure and stumbled over a small stone. She stood up again and dusted off her knees, looked around but the person hadn't moved an inch.

Nymphadora walked slowly towards the bench, noticing as she did so, that the person wore wizards' robes. Dark brown, patched wizards' robes. And he had light brown hair, a part of which fell over his hands covering his face.

The last glow of the setting sun reflected off the wizards' head, creating two small golden dots in the girls' eyes, which were fixed upon his head.

Nymphadora was approaching slowly, not wanting to scare the stranger off, but wanting to give him time and the chance to back off if he wished.

But the man didn't budge.

The pink-haired girl stopped right before the man.

She observed him for a minute. Though she couldn't see his face, his body language told her that he was sad, maybe even desperate.

She reached a hand out to him, intending to touch his hands with hers.

But then she froze. Maybe he didn't want to be touched. She withdrew her hand and instead cleared her throat quietly.

"Excuse me," she began, her childs' voice high and clear. "May I take this seat?"

She waited for the stranger to react. He rose his head slowly and the girl held her breath.

He seemed quite young, just over twenty, with rich brown eyes, and he had fine lines around his eyes, too.

But most prominent were three matching scars running from beneath his right eye all the way down to his throat where they disappeared into the collar of his crumpled shirt.

His eyes were blood-shot.

But he smiled weakly, creating a funny tingling feeling in the girl's body.

"Go ahead," he croaked. He had a very nice, gentle voice, she thought as she sat down on the bench beside him. Though it seemed as though he was a bit hoarse.

The young man took several deep breaths – still hunched forward – and rubbed his eyes with his right sleeve.

Nymphadora studied him carefully. He seemed nice enough so she carefully sorted out the dozen questions he evoked in her and quickly chose the most pressing one.

"What makes you so sad?"

The stranger shot her a brief look and then he blinked and turned back and really looked at her. He took in her bright pink hair and then his gaze locked on her big dark eyes.

The sun had disappeared, meanwhile, and Nymphadora had to strain her eyes to see his face.

The young man opened his left hand, revealing a merrily burning, light blue flame, which cast soft hues of purple on his face.

And probably hers, too, she thought.

"What makes you so sad?" the girl repeated in a whisper, easily holding his gaze.

He averted his eyes, looking reminiscently into the flame in his palm. His eyes clouded over with pain, making her hurt, too. For him.

"Tonight everyone is celebrating," he began slowly, "but I have lost my only friends last night."

Nymphadora's eyes drew together in sympathy.

"How did you lose them?" she whispered, somehow not daring to speak aloud.

The man closed his eyes for a moment, trying to hold back the hot tears that wanted to escape.

"Three of them died. One turned a traitor. He was sent to prison," he explained, equally quiet.

"To Azkaban?" Her eyes went wide.

The young man looked at her, searching her face, nodding slowly. He seemed to have come to a conclusion.

"You are a witch, aren't you?" he asked, now sounding a bit curious.

"Well, I guess, yes. But I can't do magic yet, I'm too young," she pouted briefly.

He smiled at her.

"How did you do that? With your hair right now?"

"What…?" Nymphadora stared at him, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. She slowly reached over her shoulder and pulled one of her plaits into her vision. Her hair was brown. A rich brown, almost the same shade as the man's eyes.

"Are you… are you a metamorphmagus?" he asked with interest.

"Oh. Yes." She looked rather guarded. "But I'm still earning to sontrol it. I can't do it for long, it always slips when I don't concentrate."

He listened with interest, she noted, not with the exhausting and painful scientologic necessity the healers at St. Mungo's always did. He seemed just as curious as she was.

"I… I'm Nymphadora Tonks, by the way," she introduced herself. "What's your name?"

"Remus. Remus Lupin."

"Where did you get those scars, Remus?"

Remus allowed himself a smile. He had never been able to resist answering a question. He loved to share his knowledge, and even a personal question like this he was tempted to answer.

It did have something to do with the girls' eyes.

"When I was five years old," he began, watching every inch of her face for signs of fear or repulsion, "I was bitten by a werewolf."

Nymphadora's eyes widened. Remus had expected her to scream and run, she was from a wizard's family, after all.

But the cute little girl just stared at him with curious, intelligent eyes, her feet dangling from the bench.

Endearing.

Pity he would never get the chance of being a father. It hurt. It made him think of Harry Potter. A lump raised and settled in his throat, new tears threatening his already blood-shot eyes.

Nymphadora's dace contorted into an expression of concern.

"Hey, don't cry," she said. "everything will be okay."

She felt rather stupid for saying something like this to a stranger who had just lost all his friends. But it was what her mother always told her whenever she cried.

She reached out and took his hand – the other one still held the blue flame – and squeezed, in what she hoped, an affectionate gesture.

Remus looked at his hand, and at the much smaller, pale, smooth fingers now curled around his.

He smiled softly, and, allowing himself a moment of selfishness, he squeezed the young witch's hand back.


Sixteen years later, two people sat on exactly that same bench.

The female had short, brown hair and wore crimson robes.

The man wore patched robes, his brown hair flecked with grey.

They were lost in a slow, meaningful kiss.

When they pulled apart, Remus looked down at his hand, and at the smaller pale, smooth one curled around his.

Nymphadora touched her forehead against his. She smiled at him, through her lashes, choking on tears, because she knew she was the reason for his happiness that made him look so much younger.

His eyes rose to hers, smiling back, rose a bit more and he suddenly captured her in another heart-stopping kiss.

This time she drew back after some time.

"What was that for?" she gasped, breathing hard, her heart pounding out of control, matching his.

"That, my love," he said, "was for the pink hair."

And sure enough, when she captured a lock of her hair between her fingers, she was it was finally back to the bubblegum pink she loved.

"That is all yours." She whispered reminiscently.

"Nymphadora," Remus called her in a low voice.

"Don't-" she was about to scold him for using her loathed first name, but one look into his eyes made her catch her breath and the words left her head altogether.

Remus looked at her with such a mixture of seriousness, determination and love, that he thought for a moment her heart would stop.

Nymphadora just stared back, blinking.

His next words took her completely off guard, but after approximately five seconds she gladly accepted and threw herself into his waiting arms.

His next word were:

"Nymphadora… marry me."

End.