Author's note: I'm afraid that things are going to get a bit angsty here (because it's not believable that Lupin's guilt and shame in book 6 come completely out of nowhere), but they'll cheer up a lot in the next chapter.

As always - as always - at the sight of her all his resolve fell away. The part of his brain which believed in miracles, the part which for so long he had thought was dead, was reactivated simply by her wink as she came in the door of Grimmauld Place, and the curve of her neck as she shrugged off her coat. She greeted Moody with an irreverent "Wotcher, Mad-Eye", and ruffled Sirius's hair affectionately, laughing delightedly as he wriggled away with a haughty "Not everyone can morph their hair immediately back to perfection, Nymphadora."

Her hair today took the form of a buttercup yellow bob. From the corner of the parlour Remus watched her emanating energy and good humour so strongly that it couldn't help but rub off on those near her. Except, of course, for Snape, who eyed her with the utmost distaste.

The full moon would be in four days, and with the increased tiredness and ragged nerves the returning conviction came to Lupin that he was truly a monster for giving way to his feelings for her. He marvelled that he'd ever dreamt of touching her, let alone repeatedly taking her to bed and only barely restraining himself from declaring undying love for her every time. He told himself at regular intervals throughout the meeting that followed that he had no business ever doing so again - and yet somehow the voice in his head saying so seemed to be coming from a very long way away.

As soon as a decent interval had passed after the meeting was over, whilst all the member of the order who hadn't had to rush off straight away were chatting over drinks and waiting for the delicious smells from the kitchen to materialise as one of Molly's feasts, he discreetly (or so he imagined) ushered Tonks into the library for a quiet word.

"Quiet word, is it?", she asked with a wink, sitting down comfortably on the writing desk and swinging her legs jauntily. The last time he had pulled her aside for a word, she had ended up spending the night in his bed. And the time before that, and the time before that...

"Tonks, I'm serious." He stayed standing up by the door, deliberately keeping several feet of distance between them, although it went against every instinct of his body.

"Funny that, you look much more like his old mucker Remus."

He ignored the quip, refusing to be deterred from his carefully prepared speech.

"I'm deeply, deeply sorry to have embroiled you in this situation, you of all people who have everything in the world going for you."

"If by "this situation" you mean this bloody conversation again then yeah, me too," Tonks replied, her forehead creasing with frustration.

"I mean the situation where you expend time and energy on someone who can never hope to give you even a fraction of the things that you deserve. Someone who can only ever make your life darker and more dangerous and who lov - who cares for you too much to allow himself to do it anymore."

If Tonks had registered what he had almost said, she didn't show it. Instead she said in a voice that was clearly trying to sound bored, "All right. Can we take all this stuff as read and move straight on to the part where we shag?"

He saw through the bravado, and despite himself he took three long strides across the room and took her small, capable hand in his. "You know that that's what I want. Look at me. It's taking everything I have not to have you here on this desk. I'm like a man possessed, but that's no excuse. I can't keep using that as an excuse."

"That's all right, isn't it, because there isn't anything that you need an excuse for."

Nothing they were saying was new. They had had several conversations over the past few weeks which were all variations on the same theme, to the point that it was beginning to feel like a perverse mating ritual. It had to end. This time he meant it. That was what Lupin told himself as he lifted her right hand to his lips and kissed the inside of her wrist. He was still saying it as he kissed up the inside of her arm, until he reached her elbow. She made no move to touch him - for all her talk, she wouldn't do that until he had abandoned any pretence of reluctance. But her eyes on his face burned like the heat of a lover's hand.

"You can't know what life with me is like," he said, only half hearing his own words as he stepped forward again. He was standing so close to her now that she had to open her jeans-clad legs to make room for him. Again, if she registered anything about his words she didn't show it. "But it won't be long - it wouldn't be long - until you -". He hardly noticed as he abandoned his speech and his resistance. As if it could ever have been anything like enough. He kissed her, and his body came alive with pleasure and honest delight. She shuffled into a standing position to lessen the gaps between their faces, and laced her fingers into his hair.

"I want you, Remus Lupin. I see you exactly as you are, and I want you," she said earnestly, and then she kissed him back.

The dying gasp of the last vestige of his resolve caused him to say, in a voice that was half a groan of desire as his hands encircled her waist, "I'm so sorry, Tonks. All this self-flagellation again and again, just to prevail upon you once again. It's unconscionable."

"Ugh. It's not fair when you start using professory words, Remus. You have an unfair advantage, what with me not even knowing what unconscionable means." She was grinning now as she kissed him, with relief that once again his demons had been chased into abeyance, and with sheer affection for him.

"On the contrary," he murmured into her neck between kisses, his actions proving the truth of his words as he fumbled feverishly with the buttons on her shirt, "it's you who has the advantage, either way. There's a distinctive pungency to your speech, a Tonkisan tone, if you will, which I'm unable to resist." The careful precision of his words contrasted wildly with the reckless longing in his eyes and in his movements as he pulled off her shirt and ran his hands over her back, taking in every muscle and every curve.

"Tonksian. Now you're just making shit up. Don't stop."

"I stand by "Tonksian". You deserve a new word to be coined in your honour." He was kissing her bare shoulder now, inhaling her warmth, softness, her alive-ness, as if it could save him. At times like this, he felt that maybe it could. "You deserve - oh, God - you deserve a whole new language just to sing your praises."

Tonks' stern words in reply might have carried more conviction if he hadn't been able to hear the affectionate grin in her voice, even around her gasps of pleasure. "When I said "don't stop", I meant what you were doing with your hands, not "don't stop talking", Remus. Shut up."

He shut up.