Chapter Text
Chapter 2
When his feet hit solid earth again, Remus pressed his fingers to his lips, trying to hold in the fleeting kiss he had just left. A strangled sob escaped them, but no tears came now. Now was not a time for weakness. He had to be strong, the complete essence of leadership, if he were to survive this mission, if he were to convert werewolves away from Fenrir Greyback. If he were to make it back to-
No. He thought, lowering his hand now and clenching and unclenching it in internal struggle. He should not have held her. He certainly shouldn’t have kissed her. He knew that it was safest for her to forget about him; but he needed her. Her friendship, and then her… even warmer friendship… had meant everything to him over the last year. He had once again found himself with someone who accepted all of him- he was sure that he would never happen again; unsure why he had been blessed so many times.
These feeling for Nymphadora weren’t a blessing, he told himself, ignoring how his stomach felt when he thought her name so dilberatly. These feelings were a curse. They were weakness and they needed to be squashed immediately. He was too old for her. He was too poor.
And he was far, far too dangerous.
If these werewolves knew how they had been growing so close…
If Greyback knew... Fleeting memories of soft touches and lips on skin turned into teeth and blood. He shook the idea out of his mind, and started building a wall.
Remus knew that the best way to love and adore her, like he so badly desired to do, was to leave her. If you love something, let them go, that’s what the muggles said. It was a phrase that Remus had all but lived by all throughout his youth. He was not an un-passionate man, but he learned quickly that most people don’t want to be associated with his brand of monster. That thought process bled; seeping into all of his relationships. Certainly James and Sirius had done their absolute best to pull him out of that mind-set. He was human, they told him. He was brave and strong. His friends had loved him fiercely- enough to undergo highly illegal magic so that they could safely accompany him every full moon.
And Nymphadora-
The memories of the two of them sipping tea after meetings, the look of her when she was being serious, how she more than did her part in the order despite her young age… How she had tripped right into his lap…
Clench. White knuckles. Unclench.
He shouldn’t have kissed her.
Remus Lupin made to wipe his mouth, make his lips forget all about her taste and her feel, but he stopped again and pressed his hand instead to his heart. Why did it ache like this? He hadn’t splinched himself since his 7th year at Hogwarts; so why did it feel like he had left it behind?
Abandoning his kissed lips and pulling his knapsack back over his shoulder from where it had slipped, he started marching through the forest, trying not to remember how sad Nymphadora had looked when she pleaded with him to stay.
“Nymphadora” the name slipped from his lips and was released to the breeze. He would not get the chance to say her name again for a long time. He would keep it under lock and key in his splinched-heart until he saw her again.
Nymphadora Tonks stood in the darkened alley, her fingers still outstretched to the place where Remus Lupin had been not seconds before.
It had taken a moment for her eyes to adjust, but she knew he had gone when she heard the pop that meant someone had apparated.
Closing her hand, she lowered it and sniffed sadly. She was angry. Angry that he gave her no notice. How dare he just- How could he leave? What if she hadn’t been at the meeting? Would he have left without saying goodbye? And what the bloody hell did he think he was going to achieve? Risking his own life like that- didn’t he know that there were people who counted on him?
She pushed her hands through her hair, trying to erase his touch.
She didn’t want to remember.
Hurt and irate, Tonks stomped back to the front door of number 12 Grimmauld Place, entering and closing the door soundly behind her.
What a bloody idiot.
Quietly, or at least her best attempt at quietly, Tonks resurfaced at the meeting, and was surprised to see that no one stopped to ask about her outburst. No one even looked at her. She sat in the chair at Moody’s right had that someone had righted for her during her absence, and made to be the most attentive Order member present. She was a serious member. She was an Auror. She didn’t need protecting from anyone.
Albus was addressing the table, and everyone was pointedly not mentioning Remus’s goodbye.
And another thing, she found herself not focusing at all, but thinking entirely on the scene that had transpired in the alley, what the hell, Dumbledore? Why would you ask him to do a suicide mission like this? Of course that idiot would accept. Of course he had to act all noble. What are the odds that this mission will be a success at all? What if you just signed his death sentence?
It wasn’t until the conclusion of the meeting, when people started leaving the table that Tonks’ resolve broke. Why had she so quickly erased Remus’s last touches? Why had she acted so foolish in her anger? Why hadn’t she pushed harder, clung tighter to his robes? Breathed him in longer? Tonks didn’t cry, didn’t yell- didn’t do anything. But she deflated. Spine now rounded, she found herself staring blankly at the back of her hands on the table. She wasn’t sure how long she stayed like that, but when Moody clapped a hand to her shoulder, she realized that most of the Order members had dispersed.
“Come on, girl, we have a job to do.” He said. She stood obediently. He didn’t ask, maybe he didn’t want to know. Maybe the best way for him to help was to keep her moving.
“Take some turkey for the journey, love,” came the voice of Molly Weasely, shoving a box of the extra dinner into her very empty hands.
Remus had just been there. In her hands. In her grasp. And now he was gone and she didn’t know if-- She didn’t know a lot of things.
“Thank you, Molly…” Tonks’s voice cracked unwillingly. Her father used to say that a cracking voice reflected a cracking heart, but she had never had the time for those sort of girly ideas of romance. Not until- well… not any more.
Molly wrapped the young Auror up in her arms. Tonks had a sudden appreciation for the mother. She thought that in another life, Molly Weasley would have made a good Healer after a little training; the pure aura of this woman could bring anyone back from the dead.
“He’ll be alright,” Molly murmured to her, and suddenly Tonks’s grip on the package filled with Turkey and leftovers slipped, and the whole box clattered to the floor.