A/N - Prompt: He doesn't realize it's love until it's too late. He doesn't understand the hold she has on him until he tries to let her go.

Or, the five times Remus tells Tonks 'I love you' without saying it, and the one time he does.


The first time Remus thinks he might be in love with her, it's because of a jar of raspberry jam.

He's working the till at a Tesco when he sees it. It's outrageously expensive—three quid for a jar the size of his fist—but the Muggle buying it declares she's only been able to find it in specialty shops and it's about time the market offer something decent.

It's pricey and normally out of his budget, but he could get it with his discount. That's why he took the menial job. It puts food on the table and an extra pound or two in his pocket. He saves, and saves, and saves, not knowing how this job will end—because it will end—and tries not to think about how he'd spend his meager savings if he didn't need them.

It's what he thinks of when he looks at her. Tonks is carefree and playful and the littlest things she says stick with him long after she says them.

Raspberry jam is my favorite, she'd once said, disappointed when the gloomy kitchen only had marmalade. An offhand comment, perhaps a meaningless remark, but her hair was berry red and he wanted nothing more than to get her what she desired.

It's why, at the end of his shift, he justifies buying the jar of raspberry jam with a 50p discount. It's why he wakes up early the next morning to wait for her to check-in before her shift at the Ministry.

"You shouldn't have," she tells him, with the smile that never fails to brighten his day. She takes a bite of her jam-laden toast, mmming contently, and brings it to his lips for him to try.

He takes a small bite. No one feeds him like this, and he's afraid there's a wrong way to do it, but the worry fades away when the sweetness fills his mouth.

"You got some here—" She points next to his mouth and he tries to wipe it away, but some must remain because she brushes her thumb on his skin and licks her finger clean. "—all better."

The ludicrous impulse to kiss her rises from a place he didn't know he had. He turns his face and seals the lid on the damning evidence of his affection for her.

He knows, then, it's not just friendly feelings he has.

He resolves to get rid of them.


He wants to tell her, he really does. If he tells her how he feels, she can reject him at once. He's ready to get his heart broken. It's the first step to getting over her—hearing she doesn't want him, that it's ridiculous he's interested in her, that he's revolting for harboring any feelings for her—that's what it'll take to get her out of his mind.

She'll tell him she's offended. She'll look at him with the disgust—no, hatred—that he so rightly deserves.

He'll nurse his broken heart in solitude. He'll manage, alone and hurting, as he always has.

The opportunity to tell her comes sooner than he thinks. In another act of stupidity, he invites her to his room to listen to a record with him. She says she's never heard it, and he's not sure if he believes her, but she sits next to him on the old bed and leans her head on his shoulder.

The music plays and she's close, so close he can see her long eyelashes, and he thinks "Cecilia" is as good a track as any to provide the backdrop for his soon-to-be-shattered heart.

Tell her, he thinks. Tell her you love her. End it now.

But if he tells her, she'll leave, and he wants to hold on just a little while longer.

So he keeps it to himself. It can wait for another day.


He's rehearsed it too many times to count.

The conversations he's built in his head go one of two ways. When he contemplates how he feels for her, in the moments after they've been on an overnight mission together, he can almost imagine that she feels the same way.

It fills him with a dizzying, almost manic joy when he imagines the impossible.

He'll lay in his bed, alone as ever, but in his mind's eye she's there with him, nestled into his side as she so often does when they're on missions together. He knows she gets cold easily and he runs hot, but when her body is next to his like that, he's tempted to wrap his arm around her and draw her even closer.

In these private fantasies, kept to the safe confines of his mind, she turns to face him.

"Tonks, there's something I need to say."

She'll look at him with those twinkling eyes, her lips curved in that mischievous smile he could look at forever.

"I love you."

Oh, he wonders what she'd do next. Would she kiss him? Tell him she loves him, too? Playfully suggest they return to her flat after their mission?

He tries to stop himself before he's undressing her in his mind but he isn't always successful.

It's easier to imagine the truth of how the conversation would go when he's waiting for the moon to rise.

He'll be nude, shivering, and itchy, and as his bones shake, he forms a different picture. He'll tell her he loves her and he'll watch the smile disappear from her face. She'll back away from him, no longer wanting his warmth or friendship.

"How dare you," she'd reply. "You monster!"

He'd try to defend himself—as a friend, Tonks—but the damage would be done. She'd storm away, forgetting about the mission, and demand he never speak to her again.

His bones snap and his snout grows. Then, the Tonks that runs away is captured by his jaws, and bleeds to death. When moon sets he'll find her bloodied corpse and beg for mercy he doesn't deserve.

"Remus, Remus!"

He's startled awake, unaware he was asleep. Tonks faces him, her hand on his arm, her eyes wide with fear.

"It's all right," she assures him softly. "You're in the library. You were waiting up for me, weren't you?"

He stays silent; the truth is too incriminating.

"You're too sweet." She pushes his hair back from his face and smiles. "You don't have to do this for me, but it's so sweet that you do."

Her hand rests on the side of his head. He opens his mouth, ready to let it spill out, but they get an urgent message to go to the Ministry and the moment is lost.


He chooses to tell her, but not with words.

Remus knows she wants to see him. He's aching to see her. Her absence is a gaping wound in his life. It festers, decays, and perplexingly, regrows. It won't die, despite his best efforts.

He's underground, running away from her and his feelings, but they pursue him wherever he goes.

This is the best way he can tell her how he loves her: he stays away from her, and gives her the chance to find someone better.

He had been happy—so bloody happy—when she told him how she felt. It was a true miracle, the happiest moment of his miserable life, when she said she'd fallen for him.

He'd understood then that all those little moments led to that point. The jam, the record, the nights spent with their bodies pressed against each other in tight spaces—how could he be so stupid?

He hopes she realizes that he wouldn't be doing this if he didn't love her. He wouldn't be trembling under a moldy blanket. He wouldn't be scavenging for food on a daily basis. He wouldn't be throwing himself in harm's way if he didn't love her with every fiber of his being.

When he's curled into a ball on the maggot-infested mattress he's been given, he imagines her soft, perfect body and reminds himself it's for her own good.

When he's choking down charred meat and forgets what real food tastes like, he remembers the sugary, tangy jam she's fond of and tells himself that a suitable partner will always be able to afford it for her.

When he's listening to the slurred, drunken attempts at music around the fire, he holds his ragged blanket and tries not to remember the way her head felt on his shoulders.

His silent, physical misery is a testament to his enduring love. He hopes it will be beaten out of him or that he'll die trying.

She writes to him. She begs him to come home, to come to his senses.

I love you, Remus.

The scrap of her writing is with him always. He knows she'll change her mind one day, but it's proof he was loved, once, and he loved her in return by giving her the life she deserved.


Too old means 'I love you.'

Too poor means 'I love you.'

Too dangerous means 'I love you.'

She doesn't understand.

He begs her to understand, but she refuses.


When he finally tells her he loves her, it's nothing like what he imagined.

He's followed her from the hospital wing to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. His tattered robes are covered in dust and he's reeling from Dumbledore's murder. He hasn't rehearsed this moment. He just knows, after being shouted at in the infirmary, that he's never loved anyone like he loves Nymphadora.

He loves her smile, offered to him even when he's a broken shell of a man and deserves to be cast away. He loves the way her nose and eyes scrunch up when she morphs, and the mesmerizing twinkle those eyes have no matter what color she makes them. He loves the little oofs and acks when she runs into something or trips over herself. They're the most precious noises in the world, and he wants to make them a permanent fixture in his life.

He longs to touch her, run his hands over her soft, smooth skin, and kiss her senseless. He's got so little practice but he knows what to do. He's spent an embarrassing amount of time studying, appreciating, salivating over her body and he wants to worship her every night, if she'll let him.

He doesn't understand why she wants him, but her want makes him want more. No one has ever made him feel so wanted, loved, and cherished. She wants him, all of him, and the thought is so bewildering he's sure it can't be right, but she's confessed it, repeated it, written it, and he wants to give in.

She sees the best in him when he can't see it for himself. She doesn't entertain his self-pity and isn't afraid to tell him what's on her mind. She makes him feel like he's on solid ground, like he can be normal, like he can have what everyone else has.

So he runs after her, his joints burning and aching after the battle, his heart pounding in his chest, his mind so set on finding her that he doesn't think of what he'll say.

"Tonks!" he shouts, as she goes around Hagrid's hut. "TONKS!"

"What?" she spits, turning to meet him, with her cheeks tearstained, her limp, mousy brown hair framing that beautiful, now grief-stricken face, of which he's memorized every dimple, line, and freckle that adorns it.

And then his lips are on hers, his hands gently cradling her face, his whole body lit with want, and mourning, and endless love he's held back for months, if not more. He kisses her, no longer caring what the others might think, because he's done with denying himself the love that makes him feel human.

It feels right, this love, those lips on his, the soft moans that her mouth makes when he runs his fingers through her hair. He kisses her like he's never kissed anyone before—and he hasn't kissed much, but he doesn't let that stop him from running his tongue along her lips and tasting the salty remains of her tears.

They break apart, and she's staring at him, looking unsure, and her hands squeeze his sides, as if he might disappear.

But he's done disappearing. He takes her into his arms, holds her head against his chest, and lets his lips fall down to her ear.

"I love you,"he breathes, the words foreign in his mouth. "Forgive me—take me—I'm yours, I've always been yours."

She extracts herself from his chest, her eyes glistening, her lips oh so pink from their kiss, her nose adorably pink too, and he isn't sure how someone could make him weak at the knees with a look alone.

"You were gone," she accuses. "You left me."

"I never stopped loving you."

She doesn't say anything. She looks at him with those long eyelashes and he fights the urge to crash his mouth against hers again.

"Please," he begs quietly. "Tell me I'm not too late. Please let me love you."

"You've never said that out loud."

He's afraid, for a moment, that his confession will lead her to come to her senses and refuse him. He's terrified, now that she's heard what she wants, she'll find him repulsive.

But his fears are pointless because she launches herself at him, and he kisses her. And when they break apart again, his lips whisper the words against her skin, telling her again and again that he loves her, sure he'll never tire of telling her she has him completely, forever.