A/N: This section contains some lines from The Unknowable Room from HBP (you’ll know which ones they are when you get there) – they’re JK Rowling’s and not mine.

Dedicated to the wonderful ishandtwoforths, who’s been reading from almost the very start, and whose reviews always make me grin like a loon xx

Tonks stood in the pouring rain, waiting for Remus. The pines above swayed a warning, rattling in the gale, and the sweet scent of the bark whirling on the air had never been less welcome or comforting. In fact, it made her feel sick. Or maybe that was the speech that also drifted towards her on the wind, twisted words about a brat crying for his mother, the images of a child not really old enough to know what life was begging for his.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been there. Long enough that the sun had set and night had fallen around her, the glow of the fire throwing shapes inside the cave, alighting on faces drawn with hunger, but amused, excited, animated, like she’d never seen them before. There was a grimly captivating quality to it; she didn’t want to look, watch as they laughed, cruel and mindless, but couldn’t help it because she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

She knew what they were like, the feral werewolves. Remus had warned her – Moody had warned her, and Merlin knows Molly had warned her – that they weren’t like him, that they were different, animal, the very definition of the word wild, and yet she still stood agog, rain cascading down around her through the trees, unable to quite believe the scene in front of her. Thomas Montgomery was six years old and dead, and they were talking about it in the same tone they’d use to tell their friends about a boyhood adventure – laughing, cajoling details out of each other, asking for clarification about which way he’d run, had he stumbled. It was –

She felt beyond sick. She’d smelt the copper of blood on the air before, but there was a cavalier nature to this that took her breath away. They hadn’t just given into their animal instincts, they’d gone out of their way to cause harm, and then had enjoyed it, gave not a thought – not even now they were back in their usual forms – to the life they had wasted, to the grief of his family, to the thing they’d snatched away for no reason other than some belief that it would bring them some tiny modicum of gain.

She’d seen a lot of things before, things no person should ever really see, but this was a whole new level, and brought on a swirl of emotions – rage and indignation and disbelief and sorrow – that she wasn’t even sure there was a term for. Maybe it was because he was so young. Maybe it was because this boy was an echo of Remus, or because Mrs Montgomery really hadn’t known anything at all, or maybe it was because she’d spent the afternoon with her, torn apart by grief as vast as a starry galaxy. She couldn’t believe – didn’t want to – that they’d really done it, and yet she knew that they had.

Carried away, the healers had said. Happens sometimes when there’s more than one.

She pictured a tiny frame underneath a starched, hospital sheet. She wondered how they could do it, but was, in all honesty, thankful that she didn’t understand.

A fresh swell of laughter erupted from the cave as someone stoked the fire and embers leapt onto their foot causing them to yelp, and Tonks was glad she couldn’t quite make out the jokes they appeared to be making. In the centre, Greyback leered on his stone throne, surveying his minions, a smile – or smirk – pulled taut across his face, containing not one ounce of genuine warmth. Evidently he was pleased with the way things had gone, and there might have been more than one werewolf there when Thomas died, Tonks thought, but it was him who was utterly and ultimately responsible. Her fingers tightened on her wand. Her knuckles were already white – had been for ages, her hands frozen in position beneath the sleeve of Moody’s invisibility cloak. One clear shot, she thought, one clear shot and Greyback would be gone forever.

She knew how to do it. Standard training. Summoning the requisite hate, the requisite desire to kill was rumoured to be problematic – one of the reasons aurors had so many other weapons in their arsenal for bringing people in alive and kicking – but today? Today it wouldn’t be a problem, she thought. Today she’d think of Remus, think of Thomas Montgomery and the faceless, nameless others she now suspected existed, everyone who had had their lives torn to shreds by this man, and fire that spell with a numb conviction not that she was right to do it, but that she wasn’t wholly wrong, either.

In all honesty, it was only imagining her face twisted in bitterness and placeless rage like her dear aunt’s that stopped her from doing it.

The trees rattled as a fresh gust swept past, and the laughter from the cave was momentarily louder, then sank away again.

She wished they hadn’t been too late. All day she’d been seeing flashes of the last two weeks, trying to see where things had gone wrong, although they’d had it all figured out, in the end, been right in every guess they made. Just as they’d theorised, Greyback was using one of the abandoned buildings on the outskirts of Peebles to Floo – the Death Eaters had used their influence at the Ministry to get the place a connection, and it had been all too easy for him, she suspected. The Death Eaters did him a favour, provided the connection, he did one for them in return when called upon, threatened the Montgomerys. He and his inner circle had had a plan of their own of course, to snatch the child, bring him here, dump him in the forest and wait for the moon, but she didn’t imagine for a second that any of the Death Eaters would be crying about the loss of one child. They’d probably be pleased, in fact. It’d make the papers eventually, be a warning to everyone else, a great big neon sign that pointed directly to what resistance and opposition could cost you.

They’d tried every avenue to stop it, of course. She’d filed false reports at the Ministry, trying to get the Floo connection closed legitimately, and when that had failed, she’d come here the day before the full moon and she and Remus had tried to destroy it. It had been well protected – it had taken them the best part of the afternoon to pick through the various defensive spells but it was nothing a former Marauder and a top-notch trouble-maker couldn’t crack between them, and had it not have been for the fireplace leaping into life and them having to make a run for it as Death Eaters – five, six, seven of them – appeared, it probably would have worked.

She still had the scratches on her arms from the dash through the bracken to safety. She’d wanted to go back – had wanted to fight, actually, because seven to two was nothing with someone like Remus at her side – but he’d insisted, had said he’d go back alone when it was safe and do what he could.

The rain had started then, tumbling down like a portent, and he’d urged her to go, to be safe. He’d been desperate, utterly. More desperate than he had been two weeks ago, more desperate than he had been when Dumbledore had charged him with the mission, more desperate than he’d been when Sirius had died. She could barely think about the look in his eyes, concern so palpable it seemed to almost cause him pain. He hated her being there, and she loved him for it. She’d kissed him in the rain, hurriedly, her fingers gripping too hard and her lips too hungry to be sated, and he’d tasted of cold and desire and something –

She’d clung to him as if they were caught in a storm that went beyond rain and clouds and a spot of thunder, as if they were slipping away from each other, and before she’d known it, her back was against the rough bark of a tree and her hands were inside his coat, revelling in the feel of his body. Partly it was the moon, the pull of it, the way it affected him, and she knew that, but beneath that was that thing she knew they could both taste on each other’s breath – anguish, longing, desolation.

If it hadn’t been for the shout, she didn’t think they would have stopped. “It’s Isaiah,” he’d said, breathless. “I told him to mind the fort and come and get me if anything unusual happened.”

His eyes had held a world of regret beneath his fringe, plastered to his forehead by the rain, and though he clearly hadn’t wanted to, he’d moved away. At first, she’d wavered on going. “Maybe I should – ”

“No.”

His voice had been harsh, had startled her a little, and then he’d softened, his fingers on her arm as he told her to go, that he’d be fine, made a joke that didn’t really register in his tone or his eyes about not wanting her anywhere near a bunch of horny werewolves the night before the full moon. He’d kissed her quickly, then walked away through the trees, running his hands through his sopping hair, and that was the last she’d seen of him.

Tonks looked back at the cave, sighing. They’d had it all figured out, but it hadn’t helped. On the evening of the full moon, she’d been on duty in Hogsmeade, had tried to get out of it, swap with someone – anyone – had been on the verge of convincing Dawlish to pull a double –

If they hadn’t seen those flare-like shots of green lighting up the next road, she might have had him convinced, but as it was they’d raced to action, towards a house in the village that had quickly and unexpectedly become the target for a Death Eater raid. They were Muggleborns, of course, nothing else to set them apart – and when they got there it was nothing but blast and bombast, really, what Moody called a mischief raid, the younger recruits blowing off steam, perhaps – no intel to be gathered, just arrogance and disregard and prejudice at play, broken bones and ripped skin and daubs of green magic on the walls in a crude ‘we woz ere’.

At the time, as she fired shot after shot into the sunset after the retreating cloaked figures, she’d known it was a diversion, had felt it in her veins. She’d been too obvious, probably, sniffing around the Floo network division, asked too many questions, and without her helpful ability to change her face and cover her tracks –

She’d known that it was a diversion, but lives were lives, so she’d taken the injured Muggleborns – whose names she could, to her embarrassment, no longer remember – to St Mungo’s, had clung to the hope that Diggle and Moody would have taken the Montgomerys to safety, or Remus had managed to get to the Floo, and that the sinking feeling in her stomach was just that, a feeling, paranoia and fear, and nothing to do with reality.

She’d clung to that until Moody’s patronus had appeared for her in the toilets at the hospital, whispered in her ear that they’d been too late, that the boy had been snatched earlier in the day and Mrs Montgomery had been incapacitated, that they were mounting a search on the borders, but that volunteers to go anywhere near a feral werewolf camp when the moon was high in the sky were pretty thin on the ground.

She’d gone straight away, of course. They’d searched pretty much the whole forest, she and Moody, systematic, alert, scanning the ground and listening on the breeze for a tell-tale cry or the muffled sounds of fear. The trees had reared above them, bark twisted into frozen faces that were either angels or devils screaming in the moonlight, and they’d dodged bracken and detection spells, desperate –

She’d imagined Remus, somehow having avoided the pull of the moon, emerging from the trees with the boy safe in his arms. But of course that was nothing but a stupid fantasy.

Moody had been the one to spot the body. That magical eye of his.

Everybody said he gave the best wizarding first aid their world had ever seen, but still –

Happens sometimes, the healers had said, when there’s more than one of them and they get carried away.

Tonks closed her eyes for a second, trying to make the images stop, but she knew they were in her head for good now. She focused on the rain, listened to the soft thud of it on the forest floor, drew in a long, slow breath of musty, damp air. Exhaustion teased at her nerves, made her dizzy, almost, and in amongst everything she wished, plain and simple, for Remus to appear and take her home.

That was what it was like these days. She didn’t wish for fancy things anymore – no fantasies of rock stars and excitement or a life spent at break-neck pace, seeing everything the world had to show – just simple things, a sofa and a mug of tea and Remus beside her reading the paper.

Another laugh rippled round the cave, and Tonks looked up, took the faces in one by one as the firelight danced over them. Some were gaunt, taut, skulls with a paper-thin sheath of a face, others were craggy, skin bunched and yellow, but that wasn’t what she was looking for. She was hoping that she’d see somewhere a flicker of something –

Human.

The word, even imagined, stuck in her throat. She’d just done it, thought for the very first time of these werewolves – who she’d previously thought of as something to be pitied, something wretched and driven by hopelessness – as less than people.

A pulse of embarrassment and shame shot through her, but how could she not think that, after what she’d seen? Even those who weren’t there, who were running around the forest after rabbits or deer were culpable because they hadn’t tried to stop it. They sickened her almost as much, she thought, the ones who just condoned for an easy life.

She knew she was being unfair. She knew that the cave was less swollen with bodies than it had been the first time she’d been here and that there were probably dozens who didn’t condone, just cowered in fear because there was nothing else they felt they could do, but the thought of Remus, the lone sane voice in this place, the only one fighting against it...

She checked her watch, although she hardly needed to to know that Remus was woefully late. She hoped he was just too infuriated by this meeting – or whatever it was – to be here, that something hadn’t happened, although there was an iron fist in her stomach that said that something beyond the usual, beyond Greyback and his sickening sneer, was wrong. She hoped that was just a feeling too, just the product of too little sleep and too much adrenaline, although as the minutes ticked by to the soft thwack of the rain on the ground, that got harder and harder to believe.

Where was he?

The moon sat above, fat but no less malevolent-looking than usual, surrounded by plump, grey clouds that gambolled across the sky. The camp was quiet – eerily so, she thought, as if 

there was something unsavoury going on somewhere and she just couldn’t see it. The cave had emptied, people drifting off to their groups or doing whatever they did at night, and Greyback had disappeared completely, ducking into the trees at the side of the cave and almost evaporating on the breeze. Tonks checked her watch. 9.43, which put Remus at approximately four hours overdue.

She hadn’t wanted to move before now for fear of either drawing unwanted attention or missing him, but now it seemed that the only option available was to go and look for him. Not an option without its problems, because for one she had no idea where he might be, and for two, stealth and tracking really had never been her forte, and the thought of embarking upon such a mission within the confines of a werewolf camp – even when they were all distinctly post-lunal – didn’t fill her with anything even approaching glee.

The only other option, though, was to go back to the Hog’s Head for a no doubt sleepless night and come back tomorrow, only to be faced, she suspected, with the same less than appealing options. Briefly, she heard Moody in her head: the only stupid plan’s one that gets you killed, and battening down the impulse to either laugh or make a run for it, she flexed her fingers underneath the damp sleeve of her robes, pointed her wand towards the place she knew the boundary line lay, and broke the detection spell.

She waited a moment, a trick Moody had taught her: when you’re doing something reckless, never blunder in – give it a minute – and when nothing happened, she stepped forward, mindful of her footing on the wet leaves because she’d been standing still for so long she wasn’t entirely sure her feet would remember how to move.

Slowly, she made her way down the path that lead around the cave, picking out the slipperiest slate rocks in the moonlight as best she could. At least the wind had died down, and the pine trees that lined the way gave some protection from the breeze, although there wasn’t really anyone around to pick out the odd stray foot that appeared out of nowhere if she made a mistake. The voice in her head asked what on earth she thought she was doing – she didn’t know the area at all, had only been here a handful of times – told her that the chances of her finding Remus were almost negligible, but she ignored it and pressed on, because even this was better than doing nothing.

Soon she discovered that the camp was bigger, more sprawling, than she’d thought it was. Remus had described mini territories, and she could almost see where the demarcation lines lay as people clustered around their own small fires under the shelter of rocky outcrops or 

trees. She noiselessly passed several groups, none of whom were laughing as those who’d been in the cave had, just huddled together and slept or stared into space in a quite disconcerting fashion. She felt a slight stab of regret for the judgement she’d made in the forest. It wasn’t fair to judge them all by Greyback’s standards, as it wouldn’t be fair to judge wizarding kind by Voldemort’s, and the glassy eyes that stared into the darkness spoke of people who were lost, not evil.

She pressed on down the path, and heard them before she saw them, another group, their voices higher pitched but hushed, whispers carrying on the swell of the air. They sounded like –

Children.

She rounded a bend, and there they were, a whole bunch of them. They’d made their home – if you could call it that – in the ruins of a wooden hut, thick pine slats standing on two sides which they’d made into some kind of make-shift bivouac, and they had blankets inside, grey and torn but clutched protectively in their tiny hands. Some of them were sleeping, little bodies pressed together for warmth, but others were awake, talking of gossip and tomorrow and food, like some twisted version of an all-night pyjama party.

Her heart caught in her throat at the sight of them, skinny legs and jutting elbows, faces dirty and worn but older, too, than they should have been. Her insides twisted. There was so much wrong with the scene in front of her that she could barely comprehend it. Each one of them must have a story – had they been bitten for revenge, sins of their fathers and mothers foist upon them? Were they orphaned? Abandoned? Runaways who’d chosen this because they didn’t have anything else to choose? Any of those – well, there was no preferred option there, each one crushing and horrible in its own way.

She tried to focus, reminded herself that this was why she was here, why Remus was here, to put a stop to this, that responding emotionally ultimately wouldn’t do any of them any good. She looked around, skimming the sleeping and chattering faces, and her eyes picked out a familiar form, the boy with the will-power jeans. He was away from the others, sitting just beyond the edge of the tree-line, where a fallen oak’s root ball erupted from the broken earth and waved at the sky. The boy sat cradled against the trunk, roots and moss around him, like some kind of half-sheltering cocoon. She watched him for a moment, wondering what he was doing, why he wasn’t with the others, but every now and then his eyes would dart around the immediate area in a pattern she recognised – deliberate sweeping motions over the perimeter, a quick assessment, then back to check the edge of the forest, the trees opposite, the darkened spots behind the shack – all the danger points, the places someone could hide. It was all too apparent what he was up to. He was on guard duty.

The pang in Tonks’ chest at the thought was almost painful, so young to have such a responsibility, but she knew he was a chance – perhaps the best one she’d get – at finding Remus. She thought quickly – she could hardly just whip off her cloak and dash over there – if she didn’t frighten him to death she’d draw all the wrong kinds of attention and definitely not put him in a co-operative frame of mind. She pressed her lips together in thought: use what’s here, use the situation, use whatever’s available. There was a copse to her left – distinctly in his line of sight when he made another sweep – and so quietly, she made for it. She’d be obvious, she thought, but unthreatening, try and get him on side. And if all that failed, she’d just have to bribe him and then Obliviate him or something. She was too tired to think of anything more sophisticated.

She went just far enough into the cover of the trees to be out of sight, removed the cloak and slipped it into her pocket, tried to rearrange herself to look like she belonged. The hair, she supposed, would help. If she’d have been able to, she’d have morphed something along these lines anyway, she thought, something unobtrusive and limp and dowdy – it was the first time she’d really been glad that her appearance echoed what she felt.

She took a quick deep breath, stowed her wand in her pocket, thinking that at least her less than stellar stealth and tracking skills would be an advantage, then made her way back through the trees towards the boy. Purposefully, she trod on a twig, annoyed when it didn’t snap and wondering why she could only attract attention when she didn’t want it, and so she tried again with a more forceful placement of her foot, muttering ‘arse’ under her breath when all she did was skid on the leaves. It was an unconventional approach, perhaps, but it worked. Bright, would-be menacing eyes snapped up in an instant, and she met his gaze and smiled, tentative but friendly. She was taking a chance, she supposed, that he wouldn’t scream the place down and bring a whole bunch of irritated werewolves running, but Remus had trusted him – twice – and she trusted him, so...

The boy watched her carefully as she approached, and in her periphery she saw a couple of the others look up and watch her too, then look to the boy for a reaction, a lead. She ignored them – he was the one she needed – and as she drew closer, she offered him a ‘wotcher’, and got a nod in return. “Do you mind if I – ”

She gestured to the tree as if it were a sofa, and the boy nodded again, suspicious but trying not to show it. His muscles were too apparent beneath his skin, though, and even though he was slow, practiced at stealth – better than she would have been in his position – she could see his muscles tensing, his hand rest casually on the ground, forming a fist around a rock. She sank down on the wet bark of the fallen tree, pulling one of her knees up and clasping her hands around it in some show of ease, defencelessness. “It’s Isaiah, isn’t it?” she said, and he peered up at her, curious how she knew, suspicion pricking harder than ever in his huge blue eyes. “I’m friends with Remus. He pointed you out, said you were mates.”

“Right.”

His voice was a soft and indiscriminate Cockney, some amorphous orphan voice at once rough and ready and scared, and his eyes were alert, spooked but defiantly hard. “How long have you got left?” she said, trying to put him at ease. “On duty?”

“Dunno,” he said. “How long is it til sunrise?”

Tonks shot him a look she hoped he’d interpret as understanding, tried a smile as she glanced up at the dark sky. “A while, then.”

“Yeah.”

They sat in silence, and after a moment or two, some of the tension in Isaiah’s body released, and his grip on the rock loosened as he obviously decided that she wasn’t an immediate threat. Tonks picked at the sleeve of her jumper, feigning nonchalance about what she was about to say. “You don’t know where he is, do you? Remus?”

She’d expected surprise, for suspicion to return, perhaps, but Isaiah’s face took on an altogether unexpected expression, tight with disbelief to the point of almost amusement. “He’s gone, hasn’t he,” he said, and Tonks felt her eyes widen.

“Gone?”

“Yeah. Fought with Greyback’s cronies and then – ”

“Fought with – ”

His reply was so unexpected, she couldn’t even finish the sentence, just let the words fall from her mouth and hang there in the air between them. She traced Isaiah’s face for any hint that he was playing a joke, or testing her, but his amusement that this was news to her was far too convincing to be put on. “He’d have ‘ad em too, if there hadn’t been so many of ‘em,” he said, something like pride in his voice, as if Remus were his protégé. “Gave Cole a right limp and I think he broke that fat one’s nose, and a couple of the others were in a right state – saw them at the lake, trying to clean the blood off, cursing him – only they think his name’s Michael, for some daft reason – ”

“Remus was in a fight? An actual fight?”

“Where have you been?” Isaiah said, smiling in light mockery. “Everybody’s been talking about it all bleedin’ – ”

His words faltered, and he looked at her, his eyes roving, assessing. She tensed, wondering what he was thinking, half-planning an escape route through the forest in case he called for help – back the way she’d come was her best bet, even though it wasn’t the brightest idea, from a tactical standpoint. Maybe if she got enough of a head-start, she’d be able to put the cloak on again and hide –

Isaiah, though, smiled as if he’d just been let in on some private joke, and whatever his assessment of her was, he didn’t share it. Instead, he looked down at the grass, shaking his head, pulling up a couple of damp stalks with his fingers. Tonks swallowed. “What happened then?” she said, trying to force the panic in her chest back down again. “After the fight? Greyback doesn’t strike me as the type who’d take that lying down.”

“He don’t care ‘bout his sentries,” Isaiah said. “He don’t really care about anyone – s’just a game and they’re the pieces.” He turned to face her a little more, leaving his rock behind, enjoying his moment, she thought, of having information – knowledge – that she wanted. “There’s always more where they came from – they think they’re special because he lets them guard his cave but he just laughed at them, said it’d teach ‘em to duck.”

He sniggered with quiet derision, and all of a sudden Tonks could see why Remus liked him. His eyes were glittering – alive – fiercely intelligent, his voice holding plenty of disdain for Greyback and his lot, as if he could see through them and the whole situation with far more clarity and insight than some of those twice his age. “What about Remus?” she said, leaning in. Her voice was tight with concern, but she didn’t mind him hearing it.

“He went off into the woods,” Isaiah said. “I followed him – walked for ages. Thought I’d give him a minute cos he was shaking and stuff and then go and speak to him, but when I got close – he didn’t see me. He just disappeared – poof – like – well, you know – ”

“Like magic?”

Isaiah shrugged, looked away, as if unusual things weren’t unusual at all, and she wondered what he’d seen that had made him so inured. Something Remus had said drifted back to her, that what was there to fear when the worst had already happened and you were the monster in the woods, and she could see that now, some echo of it, in Isaiah’s face. She supposed there was nothing quite as unbelievable as werewolves being real, being one of them, living here. “When was this?” she said softly.

“This morning,” Isaiah said. “Don’t think a lot of people thought he had it in ‘im, but I always knew. He always gets fired up about anything to do with the kids – reckon it’s cos he was a teacher.”

Tonks smiled a little, even though his words pulled at her insides. Isaiah was no more than thirteen and yet already considered himself not a child, not one of the kids about whom Remus would get riled. She supposed he wasn’t. Here he was on guard duty, after all, a soldier, a professional, and compared to some of the children huddled in the shelter, he was positively ancient. Not that that made it right.

She looked up at the stars poking out between the clouds, her thoughts eventually winding their way to Remus. In a fight. With Greyback’s cronies. She wasn’t sure what the word was for what he’d done. Reckless? Stupid? Noble? All of those, she thought. She understood the impulse – had had it herself at the cave – but trying to foil a plot with the weight of the Order behind him was one thing, trying to pick off Greyback’s cronies right here in the heart of their territory was another entirely.

It gave her hope, though, that he still had it in him to fight, that somewhere inside the dejected and desperate man she’d seen the night before the full moon, there still beat the heart of a Marauder – someone who’d do what he thought was right, even if that was – or perhaps because it was – stupid and reckless and noble. “Did he – I don’t suppose he said where he was going? Do you think he’s coming back?”

“Didn’t say,” Isaiah said. He shrugged again, thin shoulders seeming to exaggerate the gesture, picked at some loose skin around his nails as if this was all too regular an occurrence, people leaving him. “But if he had anywhere else to go, wouldn’t he be there already?”

Tonks murmured a vague agreement, and sat for a moment, wondering what to do. Her head was a-buzz with thoughts and half-formed images – she wanted to do something for these children, help, take them away – but what could she do? Cram them all into her room at the Hog’s Head and lock them in the cellar with the goats come the night of the full moon?

That was the worst thing about this. There were never enough answers, never any solutions, just an unending struggle against forces that seemed insurmountable and gaining in strength all the time. Moody’s voice boomed in her head, telling her not to think like that, and – what was it he said? You can’t win all the battles in all the wars at once. Sometimes you’ve just got to pick the spot on the end of your nose. She’d always hoped he meant it less than literally, that sometimes, you just had to tackle what was right in front of you at any given moment, do what you could.

Tonks rooted in her pocket – she’d brought another fruitcake – Molly had been only too happy to oblige – more bread, and surreptitiously she re-sized them and held them out. “I brought these for him but you might as well have them,” she said, trying to be casual. “If anyone asks, you stole them from the bakery, OK?”

Isaiah eyed her a little warily for a moment, instincts clearly warring. His eyes kept darting to the cake, then back again to her as if weighing whether he dared, and she wondered if kindness was so scarce here he’d forgotten what it looked like. “I haven’t poisoned them,” she said quietly, jovially, hoping that was the correct approach. “I was going to give them to Remus and I like him a lot.”

Isaiah’s expression changed – evidently she’d said the right thing, and he took the loaf, settled it in his lap, and then the cake. It looked impossibly big in his bony hands. “What about Remus?”

“Don’t worry about him,” she said, “I’ll find him.” She forced a smile, trying to be convincing, not let the lie of ‘don’t worry’ show on her face when just below the surface she was nothing but that. “Anyway,” she said, swallowing. “I best be going – distracted you long enough.”

She eased herself up off the tree and with a faint smile and nod, turned away. She wished there was more she could do. This boy – didn’t he deserve a better chance than this? Didn’t he deserve –

“Are you the girl he showed the stars to?”

The words caught her like a snare, and in spite of everything, Tonks smiled as she looked back at him. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah I am.”

Isaiah frowned a little in some thought or other, then wrinkled his face up. “Thought you’d be prettier,” he said.

“Yeah well,” Tonks said, rolling her eyes, “it’s been a long day. Not exactly at my best, you know?”

“Sorry,” Isaiah muttered. “S’just – the way he talks – ” He stopped, swallowed, shifted a little in the hollow of his roots. “When you find him,” he said, “tell him – ” He faltered again, as if he’d forgotten something. “Dunno – just – he doesn’t really fit in here so if he has got somewhere else – ”

“You don’t think he fits in here?”

“I think it’s cos he’s not s’posed to.”

The words lingered for a moment, shimmering, almost, in the darkness. Tonks felt her cheek twitch into something approaching a genuine smile – the first one in weeks – because that was it exactly. There was nowhere Remus belonged as little as he did here. She felt a surge of affection for this boy and his will-power jeans, because he could see it too. “Between you and me,” Tonks said, “I don’t think he’s the only one who’s not supposed to be here.”

“Yeah well,” Isaiah said, a world-weary sigh falling from his lips, “if we had anywhere else to go, we’d already be there.”

“I know,” she said quietly. Thoughts collided in her head – anger that this situation existed, fantasies about making things better, but she was useless at this kind of thing at the best of times. “Just – don’t give up, ok?” she said. “Don’t be like them, Greyback and his lot.”

Somehow it sounded woefully inadequate out loud, because it was. She wanted to say something else, something about Remus having people who loved him and treated him as they would anyone else. She wanted to tell him about James Potter and Sirius Black – two of the greatest wizards of the age – being his mates, going to extraordinary lengths for him – she wanted to give him something to cling to, some kind of hope that the world wasn’t full of baseless hatred and stupid prejudice, but the words stuck in her chest and even there they made tears prick in her eyes. “I’ll be back if I can,” she said, instead.

Isaiah smiled, quickly and with only half-commitment, as if he appreciated the thought but knew it was a promise destined to be broken. “Thanks for the cake,” he said.

Tonks leant against the wall of The Poplars, mentally scratching another name off her list. In the last three days she’d been all over the country looking for Remus. She’d run the gauntlet of Moody’s household defences, been beaten by the wind as it whipped off the sea at Mrs Lupin’s, and after a sleepless night at the Hog’s Head, had tried Hestia’s, Kingsley’s, and now she could cross Remus’ windmill and this place off too. She was fast running out of ideas, places he might be, and even though she tried not to think about the whys of it, she couldn’t deny that it was stinging more and more that Remus had considered her to be far from his first port of call.

Moody had told her – insisted – that Remus had a lot of positive attributes but handling bad news well wasn’t one of them, that the death of the Montgomery boy had probably hit him hard and he just needed some time alone. Tonks knew he was, in all likelihood, right, because of course Remus would feel partly responsible, and guilty and –

She couldn’t quite make that sit right, though, because shouldn’t he trust her to help him, be there for him? She checked her watch. She only had twenty minutes before her next shift in Hogsmeade, and so with a sigh she pushed herself up off the wall and Apparated.

As she trudged up the rickety stairs in the Hog’s Head to change, she half-indulged in a fantasy, some kind of reunion, had the conversations in her head, tweaking and testing out the phrases she’d use when she got back to her room and there he was, leaning on her door, ragged and worn but hers and here.

It was a testament to how tired she was, she supposed, that she didn’t even feel any real, aching disappointment when he wasn’t there.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me. Tonks.”

The door opened a crack, and Molly peered out, beaming but trying not to show it. “What was the last thing I gave you to eat?”

“A large fruit cake with extra currents and no cherries,” Tonks replied, and Molly opened the door and beckoned her inside.

The Burrow was always a welcoming place, and today the smells of a roast dinner curled in the air, making Tonks at once long for a little slice of normality and feel guilty for wanting to wallow in the warmth when somewhere a whole bunch of children sat shivering in the cold, probably with nothing to eat but a tiny share of a large fruit cake with extra currents and no cherries. She shook the drizzle from her hair and brushed it off the shoulders of her cloak, sighing a little at the sight of Arthur alone at the table with the weekend papers. “Tonks,” he said, getting up halfway in welcome, then sitting down again, “this is a surprise. Not bad news, I hope?”

“No,” Tonks said. “Not really.”

“Cup of tea, dear?” Molly said, already pointing her wand at the kettle. “You look like you could do with one.”

Arthur folded the newspaper in half and set it on the table, gestured to a seat, and Tonks offered him a yawn she had to turn into a smile and stifle with her hand. She hadn’t slept again – her shift had ended at two, but after that all she’d done was stare at the ceiling, her head full of questions and lists, thoughts about Remus and everything that had happened whirling round and round in an endless maelstrom of white noise. She needed to find Remus soon for the sake of the bags under her eyes as well as her sanity, she thought. “Not really?” Arthur said, leaning in.

“It’s Remus,” Tonks said. “I was kind of hoping he was here, but evidently he’s not.”

“Remus? Why ever would he be here?” Molly said.

“Because he’s – well – he’s not exactly with the werewolves anymore.”

“Oh well I’m glad to hear it. About time Dumbledore saw sense, and after what happened to that poor boy – ”

“It’s not – it’s not quite like that,” Tonks said. She winced – she wasn’t entirely sure how Molly would take the news that Remus did something as rambunctious as fight, and she was skittish about werewolves at the best of times. But two pairs of eyes were eying her inquisitively, and Molly and Arthur were more at the heart of the Order than she was these days so they’d hear eventually, anyway. “Remus was in a fight with the ones who murdered Thomas Montgomery, and now he’s disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Arthur said.

“I mean – I can’t find him. I’ve been all the places I can think of except here and Hogwarts – ”

Tonks stopped as Molly’s eyes widened in horror. “You don’t think they’ve gone after him and – ”

“Now now, Molly,” Arthur said. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Molly nodded her agreement, looked away frowning, turning her attention to Summoning mugs from the dresser and making the tea, and Arthur said something or other – but Tonks sat, stone-still, at the table, not listening. She hadn’t even thought of that, that the werewolves might have gone after him. What if they’d found him – done something –

Isaiah had said that Greyback didn’t care, but he was just a child. She couldn’t trust his –

She was out of her chair again and reaching for her cloak before the thought had even fully formed. “Thanks for the offer, Molly, but I think I’d best be off.”

“Tonks – ”

“I’m sure there’s no need for – ”

She Apparated without waiting to hear what more they had to say.

Hogsmeade was deserted, and she made her way quickly across the damp cobbles, her heart pounding and her blood rushing in her ears. She’d thought about Apparating straight to the Hogwarts gates, but then she’d have to send a patronus inside, and the last time she’d tried that she’d ended up with Snape, something which, today, she wasn’t in the mood to risk. He was sure to have something to say about the werewolves, about Remus, had made some jibe the last time she’d seen him about how unusual it was for someone to pine so after a dog and not the other way around, and today – well, she couldn’t afford the distraction of smacking him in the face.

The only thought in her head was Dumbledore, that he’d know what to do. If the werewolves had taken Remus –

She couldn’t even contemplate the thought, but in her head she started going over everything she knew about the camp – where the boundary lines were, which spells you needed to break them, numbers, layout, possible good positions to mount an attack.

The door to the Hog’s Head slammed against the wall as she pushed it open too fast, and Aberforth dropped the glass he was polishing and startled the hag in the corner into sloshing gin all down her front. They both swore, and she waved some apology at them as she darted through the bar, making for the stairs, the plan getting clearer and clearer in her head. She’d go to Hogwarts, tell Dumbledore what she suspected, and then from there they’d summon some of the Order’s better fighters and Apparate to the camp. They’d start there, work their way out, take in the abandoned buildings too if they had to.

The portrait in the sitting room was easy enough to lift, and she slipped behind it quickly, letting it fall back and sealing herself in. The earthy smell of the passageway was quite reminiscent of the bar downstairs, almost making her gag, but she knew from experience that this was the quickest, easiest and most Snape-free way into the castle. It took all the willpower she possessed not to sprint, but she knew from several sprawls in the dirt when she’d used this passageway before that there were roots and other obstacles all too eager to trip her, and the last thing she needed was to have to stop and perform first aid on one of her own broken ankles.

Soon enough, though, she was in a familiar corridor at Hogwarts, her mouth completely dry and her heart hammering in her chest. She’d wasted so much time running around the country –

The walls seemed to blur and flex around her in time with her stuttering heartbeat, and she was glad she didn’t have to concentrate, could rely on her feet to take her to Dumbledore’s office without giving the actual journey much thought. She fixated on the details of the mission, working through them in her head. Ideally they’d need another Apparation point, something on the other side of the camp, but she’d never made it that far round. Maybe Moody had –

“Ouff!”

Tonks staggered a little, for a second too dazed to see what she’d walked into, and then two bright, annoyed eyes behind all-too-familiar spectacles glared at her. “Nymphadora,” 

Professor McGonagall said, adjusting her robes, brushing imaginary dust off them, “I’ll kindly remind you to watch where you’re going. Umbrella stands are one thing, people quite another.”

“Sorry,” she said quickly, and Professor McGonagall’s eyebrow raised in impressive chastisement, and she made a show of straightening her glasses on her nose, even though they weren’t the slightest bit crooked.

“Might I ask what the cause of such disregard for the health and wellbeing of those around you is? There’s not – something that requires immediate attention?” she said, leaning in, abruptly more Order member than teacher, the question about whether something was happening in the village, something that was a threat to Hogwarts, implicit. Tonks shook her head.

“It’s not that – I just need to see Dumbledore,” she said, the words coming in a rush, because under Professor McGonagall’s gaze, she felt fourteen again, less auror and more like she’d been caught out of bed late at night doing something stupid.

“I’m afraid the Headmaster’s not here at present,” Professor McGonagall said. She leant in closer, her fingers fastening on Tonks’ arm and drawing them towards the wall. “He’s not expected back for some time,” she added, her head dropping down so she could peer at Tonks over the top of her spectacles significantly. “Is there something I might be able to help you with?”

Tonks shot glances up and down the corridor, but apart from the statues and suits of armour, the place was deserted. “It’s Remus,” she said, quietly. “He’s – well – missing.”

“Missing?”

Professor McGonagall’s eyebrows leapt on her forehead, and Tonks quickly filled her in on what had happened at the camp, what she feared might have happened to Remus. “That’s why I need to see Dumbledore, so we can do something, get him back – ”

“Nymphadora, this all seems very – ”

“I’ve got a plan,” Tonks said. “If I could borrow a room here – just for – I don’t know half an hour? Just long enough to send word to people to meet me at the Hog’s Head. I’ve got a map, I think, and Mad-Eye might know of another safe place to Apparate, so – I mean we won’t have them surrounded, but maybe a two-pronged approach and we can take them by surprise, in and out before most of them have noticed – ”

“You plan to – to mount some kind of rescue mission?” Professor McGonagall said, eyes widening incredulously.

“I don’t see we’ve got any other choice, especially if Dumbledore’s away. I know he wanted Remus to be an envoy and this will definitely put pay to that, but – I think they must have followed him somehow when he left – I mean I don’t know how they did it, without magic, but – where else would he be? It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“Nymphadora,” Professor McGonagall said sternly. “Am I to understand that Remus left of his own free will, under no duress or suspicion whatsoever, that there hasn’t been the faintest whiff of a hint that something amiss has happened to him, and simply because he hasn’t made himself immediately available to you, you assume the very worst?”

Tonks swallowed. When she put it like that, it did sound a bit, well, barking. “But – ”

“Am I to further surmise that you want to drag half the Order to the borders with you and undo months of good work on the grounds of a baseless suspicion?”

Tonks tried to think of something to follow her ‘but’, but found herself a little too stunned by the force of Professor McGonagall’s rather flawless reasoning. “I understand your – concern,” Professor McGonagall said, “but – Remus is a grown man, someone who has been at the heart of something rather terrible, and surely it’s not stretching the bounds of possibility that he’s simply not ready to return to his former life yet?”

Tonks blinked. That did sound – well, reasonable, although she couldn’t say she found the idea as comforting as she thought she should. “You don’t think something’s happened to him, then?”

“If I thought that,” Professor McGonagall said, face softening a little, “I assure you I’d be leading the charge.”

“I still think – ”

“Were there evidence to support your theory,” Professor McGonagall said, “I might be inclined to a different conclusion, but as it is, is it not possible that a lack of sleep and your – friendship – with Remus has lead you to be more keen to act than is perhaps warranted on this particular occasion?”

Tonks bit her lip. There was no answer to that, or if there was, it was one she didn’t much care for. “I would suggest that a good night’s rest might be in order before you plan a daring rescue for a man who, in all likelihood, doesn’t need rescuing,” Professor McGonagall said. “Perhaps a patronus message would be a less drastic first step?”

Tonks felt a bristle of indignation, but somewhere not even especially deep inside she knew McGonagall was right. Even Mad-Eye, crown prince of paranoia, hadn’t suspected anything was amiss – she’d just leapt to conclusions. She hadn’t even thought of the idea of reprisals until Molly had put the idea in her head, and why? Because it was a panicked reaction, not one based on logic and evidence and reason. All the things she was trained in, all the things she should have listened to, rather than going with some knee-jerk response.

She ran a hand over her face, sighing in irritation at herself. Isaiah had said Greyback didn’t care – she’d seen Greyback herself, the epitome of not caring about his troops – and so why had she so quickly flown to believe something awful had happened the instant it was suggested?

Her stomach turned to ice as the thought flitted through her head that the answer was as obvious as it was mortifying: she’d rather believe Remus had been kidnapped by Death Eaters and werewolves than believe he was avoiding her. Even though he’d done it before. Even though Mad-Eye had said Remus didn’t respond well to bad news. Even though she knew it was the logical, reasonable, conclusion.

She rolled her eyes, partly at herself for being so –

She wasn’t even sure what the word was. Desperate? Yeah, that about covered it, she thought sheepishly. She ran a hand over her forehead, fingers shaking slightly as she pushed back her fringe. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Just – panicked, I suppose.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Professor McGonagall said, her gaze kind as she readjusted her glasses on her nose. “It was a terrible business – so very young – ”

She trailed off into a shudder, and abruptly Tonks felt not only ridiculous for thinking what she’d thought, but like she wanted to be absolutely anywhere else. Ideally, the Hog’s Head, in bed, getting some evidently much-needed rest to try and revitalise her brain. “Well, I’ve taken up enough of your time,” she said. Professor McGonagall opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, and then changed her mind, and so Tonks offered her a goodbye and went back the way she’d come.

One corridor blended into another as she walked, lost in thoughts that drifted rather aimlessly between hopeless despondency and embarrassment, and as she rounded a corner and found 

Peeves cackling over something or other, she found she couldn’t even drum up the enthusiasm to find out what he was up to. She should have known better, she thought. She could make all the excuses she wanted about being tired, on edge, that of course what she’d seen at the camp – both with Thomas and the other children – had her rattled, but really it was as simple as –

She stopped dead in the corridor as someone shouted ‘ouch!’, and the head of Harry Potter appeared in front of her, bobbing up and down on the spot as if he was – well, hopping. “Harry?”

He fell – evidently he was as startled to see her as she was to find bits of him floating down the corridor – then scrambled back to his feet, hastily rearranging his hair and pushing his glasses back up his nose, blushing rather furiously. “What are you doing here?” he said.

On any other day, Tonks might have found the display endearing, might have laughed, but as it was, she was too tired, too worried to muster the requisite cheer for anything other than a straight response. “I came to see Dumbledore,” she said.

“His office isn’t here,” Harry said, “it’s round the other side of the castle, behind the gargoyle – ”

“I know,” Tonks said, almost amused that Harry thought she’d never been sent there in her days as a student. “He’s not there. Apparently he’s gone away again.”

“Has he?” Something sparked in Harry’s eyes, and he leant in a little. “Hey, you don’t know where he goes, I suppose?”

“No,” Tonks said, because none of them did, not really. That was one of the most infuriating things – they were all of them fighting, but pieces of a puzzle they didn’t really understand. It was for their own – and everyone else’s – safety, she knew that, but she was no more pleased about it than Harry’s frown suggested he was.

“What did you want to see him about?” he said.

“Nothing in particular,” Tonks said, picking absentmindedly at her sleeve as she lied. “I just thought he might know what’s going on – I’ve heard rumours – people getting hurt – ”

“Yeah, I know, it’s been in all the papers,” Harry said. “That little kid trying to kill his – ”

“The Prophet’s often behind the times,” she said, half picturing the reactions when the news of what had happened to Thomas Montgomery broke. The magical world always had a particularly vehement response to werewolves – the same one she’d had initially, she supposed, that all were damned by the actions of a few. The Death Eaters certainly knew what they were doing. There could be few things most witches and wizards feared more than having a child taken from them like that.

Tonks was vaguely aware that Harry was staring at her inquisitively, and she shook the thought she’d been momentarily lost in away as another rather more pointed one took its place. “You haven’t had any letters from anyone in the Order recently?” she said. She didn’t want to be too obvious, mention his name, but it was worth a –

“No one from the Order writes to me anymore,” Harry said, “not since Sirius – ”

So that was it, then, she thought. Her last hope crumbled before it had even really had a chance to form, and before she knew it, there they were again, the tears that had been threatening all week, prickling in her eyes. She bit her lip, trying to force them back because what use were they? “I’m sorry,” Harry muttered. “I mean – I miss him, as well – ”

“What?” she said, absently, although she supposed she didn’t have a monopoly on missing Remus. That was what she’d meant to say to Isaiah, that yes Remus may be a werewolf, but there were plenty of people who cared – more than – about him. Not that he was here to see it. Her throat was abruptly tight again at the thought. Where was he? “Well – I’ll see you around, Harry,” she said, and turned and walked away before he could see her wiping the tears from her eyes.

Tonks navigated the corridors, trying to shake off her thoughts, telling herself to get a grip, and by the time she hit the cold air of the grounds, she’d mostly succeeded. Once outside the castle, she Apparated back to Hogsmeade, staggering a little as she appeared at the Hog’s Head, startling Aberforth as he tickled Marvin’s ears. “Wotcher,” she muttered, without much enthusiasm. “I’ll be in bed if anyone – ”

“Oy Tonks,” he said, his eyes bulging slightly. “There’s – ”

She waved whatever he was about to say aside – it was probably nothing more than some update on Marvin and his blood pressure situation – and headed up the wonky stairs, the thought of collapsing on her bed the only one in her head.

When she saw him, she gasped.

“Tonks – ”

His voice was hoarse, worn, and he stood, hunched impossibly low down into his overcoat. His face was almost grey, his clothes hung off him, and he eyed her warily from his position by the doorframe. She’d pictured this – it was one of the things that had kept her up the past – however many nights it had been – she’d thought of endless clever things to say, things filled with warmth and love and relief, but something about the way he was looking at her, the way he made no move towards her, made them dissolve like paint in water. The only thing she could think to say was, “Where the hell have you been?”

Remus ran a hand over his face, gestured to the door, and she moved past him down the corridor and opened it, stepping inside and flicking her wand at the curtains to open them, let in some light. Dust danced in the air and she watched it as he closed the door behind him, and there was a feeling in her chest, some tightness that furled and held. Partly she thought it was anger – anger that he’d done this again – abandoned her to her panicked thoughts and then just shown up, and partly it was the tears she could feel, building in her throat. The rest was fear, plain and simple, fear that he wasn’t the same man he had been, didn’t have the same feelings, that something was irrevocably changed, because nothing about him seemed even recognisable, let alone familiar.

She turned, looked at him, trying to reassure herself, to find some kind of comfort or solace, proof that she was leaping to ludicrous conclusions again, but he avoided her eyes, instead fixed his gaze on the desk, seemingly fascinated by the lamp. She waited, almost wanting to laugh because she’d done nothing but wait for him lately, and as the seconds ticked past unaccompanied, irritation took up residence in her head alongside her screaming thoughts. “Should I just guess?” she said, her tone harsher than she meant it to be, wanted it to be, because Merlin she was pleased to see him, to know he was safe, but – “I know you weren’t at home, or at your mum’s, or at the Burrow, or the pub because I’ve been there. And I know you weren’t with the werewolves because I was there too. Waiting for you to see how you were.”

Remus swallowed, shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his coat, and she wondered if she should be worried that he hadn’t taken it off. “I was at Godric’s Hollow,” he said, and curiosity battled with the urge to tell him – to shout at him – that she’d waited for him for hours in the rain.

“Godric’s Hollow?” she said, curiosity winning out. “Why on earth would you go there?”

“I needed to – er – think.”

“Do I get to hear what, or..?” She balled her fists as she looked at him, her ire rising as the silence lagged. “I think you owe me an explanation,” she said eventually. “Or an apology, at least. I was out of my mind with worry, imagining all sorts of things – I’ve just been to Hogwarts and made a fool of myself in front of McGonagall, and by now half the Order probably thinks I’ve lost it.”

He met her eye, frowning, and then his gaze flickered away again. “Tonks, I didn’t mean to – it’s just – ” He paused, looked down at the floor, and the silence seemed to stretch, deadly and endless. She wanted to tell him to go on, but at the same time, the trepidation about what he might say was paralysing. She’d imagined this – tested out what she’d say, filled in his lines, but –

There was something different about him, and she couldn’t quite think what, but it made her stomach shrink and cower. He looked up slowly, achingly slowly, caught her gaze. In his, there was something new, something infinite, something she suspected he’d always kept hidden before, and it took her a moment to recognise it for what it was: sorrow. Every muscle in her body clenched. She wanted to run over – hug him – tell him that everything would be all right, but something –

“I need to be on my own,” he said.

“I understand that – I mean it was horrible, what happened, but – ”

“No – ” he said, quickly. “I mean – I mean permanently.”

“Permanently?”

The word seemed too loud in the room, and all of a sudden, everything she’d previously felt dissipated, as if it had never existed, as if there was no other feeling, no other thought, than the one that pounded out a hollow, defunct warning simultaneously in her head and her chest. Permanently? On his own? He couldn’t mean – he wouldn’t – after everything – he couldn’t –

She blinked at him, trying to see some flicker on his face that would indicate he meant something other than what she thought he did, something other than the thing that made her hands shake and her chest feel tighter. “Remus – ”

“You’ve seen – you’ve seen what I’m capable of,” he said, his voice almost a plea.

“What? Throwing a couple of punches and breaking the noses of people who deserved it?”

“No,” he said, closing his eyes. “You’ve seen what werewolves are capable of, and I can’t allow – I shouldn’t have – ”

He sighed, resignation and anger turned in on himself mingling together, ran a hand over his face and then looked at her, his eyes half-hidden by their lids as if he was –

Ashamed.

It made her heart thunk, because how could he think that she thought he was in any way capable of the kind of thing that had happened to Thomas? She almost wanted to hit him. Instead she moved towards him, placing her fingers gingerly on his arm, pretending that she didn’t feel him flinch. “You’re nothing like them – you couldn’t be. It’s – it’s like saying I’m like the Death Eaters just because I’m a witch – ”

“No,” he said, moving away, out from underneath her touch, “it’s not. Death Eaters choose what they become, this is – different.”

He stalled, flinched again, as if from his own thoughts, and she wanted to say something, but couldn’t think quite what, because all of her brain was focused on watching him, looking for some hint that he didn’t really mean it, that he might be persuaded. But the more she looked at him, the more resolute he seemed. “I’ve always known what I am,” he said, “and for a while I let myself believe that I wasn’t truly like that, that I could have – offer you – a normal life, that being a werewolf and everything that went along with it was nothing more than an inconvenience. But – it’s a lie, Tonks and – what they did – that’s what I’m capable of, that’s who I am, and to say you’ll be better off without me is – well, the grandest and grossest of understatements.”

“Remus – ”

“I didn’t come here to argue about it,” he said quietly, and it was that, more than anything, that made all the protests she’d been about to make stall. “I’ve made my decision, and – I’ll try – I’ll try not to make things difficult for you – or more difficult than they need to be. I’ll request that we’re not assigned anywhere together and if you’d prefer I stayed away from meetings I will. I mean I can’t imagine I’ll be overly welcome anyway – ”

“So I don’t get a say in this?”

“Tonks,” he said, and her name fell from his lips so softly, so full of aching longing, it made her heart fracture. “You’re – ” He swallowed, heavily, looked away, his eyes tracing some 

pattern on the desk, across the window, up the curtains and back again. “There aren’t the words,” he said, “to explain what you – what your affection, has meant to me, but – ”

“Affection, Remus?” she said, aghast, and he clenched his fist so tight his skin turned white. “It’s not affection, it’s l– ”

“I said I’d try not to make things difficult for you,” he said, and his voice was so abrupt, it froze everything she might have been about to say on her lips. “I would appreciate it if you returned the favour.”

His gaze was steely – there was regret in it too, so much it made her knees feel shaky – but no doubt, and there was something else. His eyes were different. They were filled with things she’d only seen flickers of before, doleful sadness, shame – but the thing that really struck was what was missing. Normally, when she looked into his eyes, there was that glimmer, that spark, that thing she’d come to think of as something so intrinsically him it’d always be there. It was mischief and flirtation and promises and jokes, wry and warm by twist and turn –

It presented itself a myriad ways, but really what it was was hope. And now that was gone. The thought made her breath catch. “Remus, this is just – ”

Her voice sounded hollow, devoid of emotion, or full of too many – she wasn’t sure which – and she swallowed, trying to clear the tears that were lodged in her throat, put it all together in her head, figure out some way to convince him, something to say that would show him the insanity of this, how much she loved him, how much there was left to hope for in spite of everything that had happened.

But she’d been all over the country looking for him, had just told him, hadn’t she, that she’d been out of her mind with worry for him – and more than that, she was visibly utterly colourless without him. If actions were supposed to speak louder than words, hers had positively screamed, hadn’t they? And yet he couldn’t hear it.

She’d never felt so utterly defeated, and she supposed it showed, because Remus ran a hand through his shaggy hair, his face crumpled in on a frown. “I should go,” he said. His fingertips flitted over his eyelids, and then he made for the door, grasping at the handle as if he wasn’t quite sure where it was.

She told herself to say something before it was too late, to at least try, but –

There, at the door, he hesitated. “I have – ” He swallowed, looked back, and her heart was a cacophony in her chest. “I have loved you very greatly,” he said. He tried a smile, but it faltered before making it halfway, lost in the tightening of his jaw. “And – of everything I’ve ever done, I’ll – ” He stopped again, looked down, frowning ever deeper, his fingers flexing on the doorknob. “I just – I’m sorry,” he said, words little more than a whisper, “for the hurt I’ve caused you, and – I’ll always regret that, more than anything.”

Before she could think of anything to say, the door was open, and he was gone.

Tonks stood in the doorway, waiting for the tears.

They’d been right there in her throat – but to her immense surprise, that was where they stayed. She felt –

She wondered what the word was. She should be wailing on the floor like a banshee, feel like the fabric of her existence had just been ripped out from underneath her, or at the very least be tossing on an ocean of romance-novel heartbreak clichés, because Remus was everything to her. But the only thing she really felt was –

Inevitability.

She’d always known, hadn’t she, that he’d do something like this?

That was why she’d panicked – twice – when he disappeared, because from the outset, when he’d sat on the sofa at Grimmauld and outlined his shortcomings, asked if she was certain, it had always been there. This – tentative something, this sense that he was always unsure, because –

Sirius had said it, hadn’t he? His words rang now as loud and clear as if he was standing next to her: who he is, being a werewolf, it’s a big part of him, but how he deals with it is bigger.

For a second, she wasn’t quite sure why that was important, why it was suddenly the only thought in her head, but then, as she stared at the wall opposite, a portrait of goats playing Exploding Snap blinked at her, and pieces of the thing she couldn’t quite fathom started to slot together. Of course Remus was always going to do something like this, because –

Because that was who he was.

He was the kind of man who had an unerring, unshakable desire to protect people. It had always been there, in his stories, Sirius’, how he’d never let his friends see him anything other than coping. She’d seen it herself, in the way he’d been evasive, had never really answered her questions – he’d given her the impression of having been open and honest about how he felt about being a werewolf, because he knew that was what she wanted, but he never really had been. He’d always shielded them – all of them – from what he thought he was.

And what he thought he was had just become exponentially worse.

Suddenly, it all seemed so very blindingly, catastrophically, obvious. That’s what Sirius had meant. Being a werewolf was a massive part of him – but who he was, how he responded –

Remus was someone who always put himself at the bottom of the pile, was astounded when people liked him, did everything he could to protect those he cared about from simply knowing the realities of his life. And it was worse than that, because – well, she’d even thought it, hadn’t she, back at the camp? He was also someone who’d always do what he thought was right, even if that was – or perhaps because it was – stupid and reckless and noble.

And this was all of those things. Noble, because the idea that he was prepared to sacrifice his own happiness for some perceived benefit to her was nothing if not that, reckless, because only someone who’d made a decision like this quickly or working on half the facts could have come to the conclusion she’d be better off without him, and stupid because –

Because he was wrong. A whole whirling galaxy of wrong. Because who he thought he was wasn’t actually who he was at all. He’d said he was the same as the feral werewolves, that that was who he truly was, but it wasn’t. He was the man Dumbledore trusted to be strong 

enough to be an inspiration to those werewolves lost in the forest, and the boy Sirius and James had thought was worth going to extraordinary lengths for. He was pacing in worry, and knowing how she took her tea long before she told him – he was hyacinths and stories and star-gazing.

He and Greyback might share the same nature, but how they’d responded to it couldn’t be more different. And that – that was what counted. Remus might be a werewolf, but he was also the kind of man who’d go out of his way to protect people from himself – whether that meant locking himself in a cellar, taking a potion he hated, or – leaving them. The very fact of his actions discounted any similarities that existed between him and those who chose to do the very worst things their instincts told them to.

Tonks tried to force her fractured thoughts into some kind of whole, stitching together his words with how he’d acted, but that was it, wasn’t it? He was a stupid, reckless, wonderfully noble –

Disaster.

She almost wanted to laugh. Remus had left her for the very reasons she loved him – because he was fantastically selfless, and endlessly kind, and because he never had much of a thought in his head for himself. And he’d got it wrong – amazingly so, but –

There was a bit of her that loved him more for loving her enough to be prepared to do something like this.

She tried to muster her scattered thoughts, trying to see a flaw in her logic, but there wasn’t one – at least not one she could find. Of three things, she was reasonably certain. One, Remus loved her, greatly. Two, she loved him, just as much, and more than ever. Three, he was a werewolf, which apparently, he thought counted more than the other two –

But Tonks didn’t. Not by a long stretch. And it was just a matter of finding a way to show him, to prove that she was right. Because if she did anything else, then Greyback had won, hadn’t he? If she did anything else, it was like saying to Isaiah and all the others that there was nothing to hope for, that they had no other choices, that they were damned by what they 

were, and nothing they ever did counted for more than that. And she didn’t believe that. Wouldn’t believe that.

She wasn’t sure quite what she’d do, because Sirius had been right about Remus being a stubborn bastard too – but she wouldn’t give up. Never. Not until that thing, that thing she thought of as so intrinsically and wonderfully him was back in his eyes.

Remus Lupin was a disaster, she thought. But she’d make him hope again.

A/N: Been a while... I hope I haven’t forgotten how to do this ;). Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and for your patience. Anyone who leaves a word or two about this one gets a rainy snog with a werewolf of their choosing. Romantic Remus is all about kissing umbrella style, Mischievous Remus favours a spot of phone-box hiding and steaming up the windows, and Sexy Remus leaves you with grass in your hair and some explaining to do ;). I’m getting a lot of questions about how much more of this there is to go, and... I think one or two more chapters. Depending on how tough it is for me to let go, lol.