Fic: Happily Ever After
Author/Artist: shimotsuki
Title: Happily Ever After
Rating & Warnings: PG, mild profanity and original characters; postwar AU
Word Count: 4690
Prompts:
Notes: Thanks to everyone for writing, creating art, and reading/viewing for this event! This is a stand-alone story, but for anyone keeping track at home, it’s set in the Warp and Weft AU ficverse (between A Matter of Opportunity and Support). The OCs Matthias and Bess are from Kaleidoscope, but knowing their backstory isn’t necessary here.
Happily Ever After
Late May, 1998
You-Know-Who-Voldemort-had been dead for nearly three weeks. The last of the fighting was over, even if the cleanup and the rebuilding would take months, or years, yet.
They had won.
This was the happily-ever-after part now, Tonks thought, rubbing her eyes in the first grey light of morning.
She winced when the stillness was shattered by another strident wail, just like the one that had jerked her out of a sound sleep. But at least Remus hadn’t stirred, so that was all right. Tonks was all in favor of the kind of co-parenting where the sleep deprivation was shared. But that would be for later, once Remus had finally recovered from the injuries that had so nearly killed him in the fighting at Hogwarts, and from the full moon that had come too soon afterward. Right now, it was still her turn to wake up.
She fought her way free from the duvet and managed to get both feet on the floor and pointing in the same direction. With a yawn wide enough to pop her jaw, she shuffled blearily down the hall toward the nursery, whose occupant was most emphatically announcing that he was too hungry to sleep for one second longer.
Teddy hiccoughed once when she picked him up. The piercing wails subsided to whimpers. The baby’s warm soft weight filled her arms, and she felt her own heartbeat slow.
Happily-ever-after was being alive to stumble, half-asleep, into the nursery and hold her son when he cried.
There was a wide, comfortable rocking chair in the corner of the nursery, by a window that looked out over the pond. It had been her own mother’s, and it was piled high with soft pillows and a striped baby blanket, courtesy of Molly Weasley. Tonks sat there with Teddy quite often, but not now, not even with the pond shining lemon and rose in the soft spring dawn. Right now, she wanted more of her happily-ever-after.
And so she padded back to the bedroom, jiggling the baby a little against her shoulder to keep him from starting to fuss again. She plumped up her pillow, crawled back in under the rumpled duvet and half-sat against the headboard so that Teddy could nurse.
Remus muttered something in his sleep and rolled over so that he was pressed all along her side. His arm wrapped around her waist. She balanced Teddy in one arm and slid the other hand along the curve of her husband’s back, and he sighed a little, nestling even closer.
Tonks sighed too, letting her eyes drift closed. This part was, no question, every inch the happily-ever-after that she had dreamed of, all the long months of the war.
Even though there were other things, in this new world of theirs, that she wasn’t so sure about.
~ * ~
When Tonks woke again, the sun was a little higher in the sky, and she felt a little less like she’d been trampled by elephants.
Teddy giggled, somewhere behind her.
She grinned, stretched, and rolled over. Now Remus was the one propped half-sitting against the headboard, pulling faces and tickling the baby’s nose. Teddy’s hair had gone the exact pale-blue shade of Remus’s pyjamas.
Her stomach growled.
“Time to get up?” Remus’s own grin was entirely Marauderish.
“No,” she mumbled, resting her head on his shoulder. “Not yet.”
The last year had been so hard in so many ways-hiding, waiting, trying to undermine the Death Eaters and the Muggle-born Registration Commission despite the odds piled so high against them. And Dad had left home, and then-well.
But that last year had changed Remus, changed him so much-from a haunted man, afraid to believe in his own happiness, into the sure, quiet anchor at the centre of the odd little family they had built. Merlin, the blaze of joy that lit his face when he looked at Teddy, when he looked at her-
-but what if that was special for wartime?
They’d been isolated from everyone except the Order, swathed in their little cocoon. Remus, with his illegal Muggle taxi, had actually been the breadwinner of the household. But the end of the war had tossed them arse-over-teakettle back into the real world, where werewolves were not welcome in polite society. Where she and Mum had got their jobs back, but Remus was legally unemployable, and there was no war and no desperate family to feed that would justify him breaking the Non-Magical Employment laws any longer.
Happily-ever-after was wonderful. But Tonks wasn’t so sure she was ready for back-to-normal. Not if it was going to send her husband spiralling down into his old poisonous self-loathing, all over again.
“Come on,” he said, poking her gently in the shoulder, “you’re hungry. Budge up. I’ll do eggs and sausages for breakfast.”
At least-for now-there was nothing lurking in his eyes beyond affectionate amusement, and the kiss he stole before he heaved himself stiffly out of bed was sweet and firm and unhesitating.
~ * ~
The clock above the living-room fireplace chimed nine as they made their way down the stairs-Mum must have left for work a good hour before. Tonks hadn’t heard a thing.
She fed Teddy again and settled him into his basket. Remus busied himself cracking eggs and making toast, pouring pumpkin juice and steeping tea.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, floating two plates of scrambled egg over to the table with a tidy little wand-flick. “I’d like to go out to the wood today and talk with Matthias. And with Bess, if she’ll spare me the time of day.”
Tonks dropped a spoonful of jam over the side of her plate and only just missed knocking her teacup over when she made to clean up the mess.
“You must be feeling better, then,” was all she said, but she looked sideways at the grey smudges under his eyes and the sharp lines of his cheekbones.
“No worse than I’d feel the day after the moon.” His smile was wry. “I just don’t want to waste any more time-you saw the piles of documents Kingsley’s sent over. I’d like to get Matthias on the project as soon as possible.” He stopped, contemplating the sausages still sizzling in Dad’s favourite skillet before dividing them between their plates. “Assuming, of course, he’ll want to be involved.”
“Do you think it’s safe?” Tonks concentrated on the bottle of brown sauce she was shaking over her sausages. “To go back, I mean.”
“I do,” he said. She looked up to find him watching her with solemn eyes. “There’s no danger now that Greyback and his thugs are out of the picture. Bess may not think much of me, but she’s a good leader and has no interest in attacking innocent people. In fact-” He drew a careful breath. “I’d like you to come along, and bring Teddy. If you’re willing.”
She blinked. “You want us to go with you?” Tonks had had almost nothing to do with the werewolf pack, that long year that Remus had spent with them (and, most emphatically, not with her).
“Yes.” Remus smiled a little. “I want to show them, beyond a doubt, that I trust them.” His eyes searched hers. “I really do, you know. We’ll take precautions in case something unexpected happens, but there’s no one in the camp who would deliberately hurt Teddy, or you-”
She nodded. “I trust your judgement.” Besides, she was curious to see the camp up close instead of from under an Invisibility Cloak at a distance, and eager to meet the werewolves she knew only from the stories that Remus had finally begun to tell her.
He cleared his throat. “There’s-another reason, too.”
Tonks watched his mouth press into a straight line, and his head duck so that his face was hidden.
She swallowed. She hadn’t seen him do that in months.
Back-to-normal, indeed.
Except-then he looked back at her, a little sideways, and she saw that the corners of his mouth were trying to turn up.
“I can’t help it,” he said. The grin broke free, even though his gaze had gone sheepish. “I want to show the both of you off.”
~ * ~
Tonks had wanted to Apparate. She was trained to manage Side-Along safely with a full-grown wizard who was struggling and resisting arrest, for Merlin’s sake; an infant, even a wriggly one, ought to be easy. But Remus insisted that Apparition was an unnecessary risk. And Tonks had to admit she might be a bit out of condition, after having the baby and being injured in the bloody battle and all. In the end, they decided to use one of the Weasley twins’ Confundus Portkeys, left over from the war.
They arrived just inside the scraggly wood, close to the three derelict houses that squatted along the river. The air was soft and mild-a true spring day.
Tonks stumbled a little on landing, of course, but Remus’s hand caught her elbow and kept her steady.
“You hold the Portkey,” he murmured, pressing the faded beer mat into her hand. “If there’s someone here we don’t expect, or if something goes wrong, take Teddy straight home. I’ll meet you there.”
She watched him look around. He was alert, but not particularly tense. Still, she tugged her cloak forward so that it fell over her shoulder and covered Teddy where he slept, snuggled against her side in his sling.
They emerged from the wood and began to approach the first of the houses. A tall man, young and werewolf-gaunt, was hoeing vigorously in the middle of a good-sized garden plot.
“Malkin!” Remus called.
Matthias Malkin drove the hoe into the ground and looked up, breaking into a wide grin. “Lupin! And Tonks-hullo!”
A woman with unruly grey hair in short curls had been squatting over a campfire, feeding it twigs. She stood and turned to face them as they approached, giving first Remus and then Tonks a coolly assessing look from behind plain round spectacles.
“Lupin,” she said. “Never thought I’d see you again.”
“Yes,” said Remus, quietly. “I know.” He took a few steps closer and stopped, still outside the circle of logs-benches-that ringed the campfire. “I owe you an apology. I lied to you, and to the others, and I lived among you under false pretenses.” His lips pressed tightly together. “But I must admit that I would do exactly the same again, given the choice. It was necessary for me to do anything I could to keep the Death Eaters from taking over the pack. Voldemort had to be stopped.” He sighed. “Still-I am sorry that I couldn’t be honest with you.”
The woman (this was Bess; Tonks recognised the spectacles) held Remus’s gaze for a long moment, and then she nodded once, sharply. “I’m not best pleased that you were lying the whole time, but we’re certainly better off without Fenrir here, never mind those Death Eater friends of his. And you started the garden-” she nodded again in Matthias’s direction, where the pale green leaves of radishes were just beginning to push through the soil-“and you taught us how to chew aconite before the moon.” She tilted her head. “And you stole these spectacles for me.” Then her eyes narrowed. “Or did you really steal them? Was that a lie, too?”
The corner of Remus’s mouth quirked, just a little, but he didn’t take the bait. “Allow me to introduce my wife, Nymphadora Tonks Lupin. Dora, this is Elizabeth Ogilvie.”
“Bess,” said the woman firmly.
“Tonks,” said Tonks, in exactly the same tone, and then somehow the two of them were sharing a tentative grin.
“Tonks-I remember now. Ted was your father,” said Bess, unexpectedly. “He told us Lupin had married his daughter.” She frowned. “I liked him. I’m sorry.”
Tonks had to blink, hard, for a moment, and she was grateful for the sudden warmth of Remus’s hand, solid and firm against the small of her back. “Thanks.”
“Sit,” said Bess, taking a seat herself on one of the long logs. Remus nodded his thanks and lowered himself carefully to perch on another. Tonks sat beside him, rearranging the bundle under her cloak, which was starting to squirm a little again.
“You look rough, Lupin.” Matthias brushed the garden soil from his hands and sat down on Remus’s other side. “Bad moon?”
Tonks snorted. “Would have been a damn sight better if he hadn’t been recovering from life-threatening battle wounds at the time.”
“Now, Dora,” said Remus, mildly. His hand found the small of her back again. “It wasn’t that bad.”
Tonks raised an eyebrow, but she held her tongue. They weren’t here to discuss the Battle of Hogwarts.
“It looks like it was pretty bad.” Bess fixed Remus with her penetrating bespectacled stare once more. “Why were you in such a hurry to come back here? Your war has only just ended.”
“I wanted to apologize to you,” said Remus, simply. “I wanted to ask Malkin here a favour. And-” He took a deep breath. “I wanted to let you all know that things are changing. The man who has become Minister for Magic is a friend of ours, Dora’s and mine-someone we fought with against Voldemort. He has pledged to overturn the unfair anti-Dark creature laws. Not just the recent ones, but even the ancient ones. Things are going to start getting better for werewolves, and other kinds of creatures too.” He looked around at his audience; while he had been speaking, two more people had wandered over to take a seat around the fire. “If any of you want to try a different kind of life, in London or Hogsmeade or anywhere at all, I’ll do my best to help you find it, the same way you took me in when I came here and said I had nowhere else to go.”
Those last words made Tonks slip her arm around Remus’s waist, even though she knew he’d known they weren’t true when he’d said them.
Bess and Matthias were silent for a moment. The two other people-one older man and one very young woman-also said nothing.
“I thank you,” said Bess at last, rather formally. “But I’ve lived here since I was a child-I was here before Fenrir came-and this is the life that I know.”
“I understand,” said Remus. “But if you ever change you mind, I’ll be happy to do what I can.”
The two new listeners still said nothing. The young woman leaned closer to Bess, who patted her on the shoulder.
“I’m in no hurry to go back,” said Matthias. Bitterness twisted his smile, which should have been handsome. “I’ll believe things are changing for werewolves when I see it.”
“Ah,” said Remus, lightly. “But that’s the very favour that I wanted to ask of you. I want you to come back and help me change things.”
“What?” Matthias stared.
“The Ministry is all a bit overwhelmed now, cleaning up after everything that happened last year. And so, Minister Shacklebolt has put me in charge of combing through the legal archives and finding all the unfair laws. It’s quite a lot of work, but the faster we find things, the faster we’ll see progress. If you come along and help me, it will go faster still.”
“This is a job offer, from the Ministry for Magic, to a werewolf?” asked Matthias, still with a hint of a sneer.
“Yes and no,” said Remus. His own smile was rather wry. “It’s still illegal to employ a werewolf, so this is strictly a volunteer position at the moment. But once the laws start to change, it will be a job.” He tilted his head, and his smile went a bit Marauderish. “How about it? Want to come and help me change the world?”
“No,” said Matthias shortly.
Tonks, still with her arm around Remus’s waist, felt him stiffen.
“I’m sorry, Lupin. You’re a good friend, and I’d do a lot for you.” Matthias sighed. “But when I was bitten, my family disowned me. They threw me out.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his shabby anorak and stared at the ground. “I’m not going back to a society where I’m not welcome.”
“You could stay with us,” Tonks blurted. “Until you’ve got a place of your own.”
Remus turned to face her, his eyebrows so high they were entirely hidden by his fringe.
“He could,” she insisted. “Mum liked him, and she’s grateful, because of Dad-”
“Thank you, Tonks.” Matthias was smiling a little now. “That’s kind of you. But I wouldn’t dream of intruding on your family. Especially not on your family.” He shook his head. “I’m never going back. I have no reason to go.”
“Not even to be part of something new and better?” Remus asked.
Silence.
“All right,” said Remus, quietly. “All right.” He squared his shoulders. “Anyone else interested in exploring some new opportunities?”
There were six or seven people within earshot, by now, but still no one said a word.
Tonks felt a particularly vigorous wriggle from the sling, and then she heard a hiccough.
“There’s one more reason we wanted to come and see you lot,” she said, carefully, into the tense silence. Shaking her cloak back, she pulled Teddy out of his warm nest and handed him, wriggling and blinking, to Remus.
“Oh,” said Bess, leaning forward for a better look.
“Allow me to present-Teddy Remus Lupin,” said Remus. “Our son.”
He passed Teddy on to Bess, who froze for an instant before shifting her arms to cradle the baby securely. The others leaned closer as well, pulling silly faces and cooing.
Tonks found that she had quite a lump in her throat.
I want to show the both of you off, Remus had said. But what she’d heard in his voice just now wasn’t anything like pride of ownership. It was the same gentle awe that she saw in his eyes when he was holding Teddy, or when she woke suddenly and caught him watching her sleep. Look, it seemed to say. Isn’t this a miracle?
~ * ~
The owl surprised them, the following morning. The letter that it carried bore the Ministry seal.
They had just finished breakfast, and were enjoying a second cup of tea, passing sections of the Daily Prophet back and forth. The stern-looking bird perched on the back of a chair and held itself rather haughtily aloof, until Remus fed it a few bits of bacon that were left in the pan. But that treat seemed to win the owl over straight away. It fluffed its feathers and held out its leg, almost patiently.
Remus detached the letter and opened it.
“Well,” he said.
“Is anything wrong?” Tonks still hadn’t quite got used to the fact that the Ministry was safe to trust again-possibly more than it had ever been in her lifetime.
Remus looked up from the letter with a small thoughtful frown. “It’s from Kingsley. He’s decided to hold a press conference to clear up what he’s calling ‘misinformation’ about the end of the war. We’re-invited.”
Tonks snorted. “Probably not optional, yeah? When is it? Do you think you’ll be well enough to go?”
“It’s in two days’ time.” Remus quirked an eyebrow. “If our gallivanting round the wood yesterday didn’t wear me out, I’m sure I can manage to stand behind a mob of witches and wizards long enough to wait for reporters to finish asking their inane questions.”
“I’m not so sure you’ll be in the back of the mob,” said Tonks. “As the only werewolf who fought against the Death Eaters, you’re bound to attract some attention.”
“I suppose so.” Remus looked a bit daunted at the thought. “But then, this could strike something of a public relations blow against the most restrictive of the anti-werewolf laws. I’d better make the most of it.”
“In that case-” Tonks braced herself-“maybe we should go shopping for some new dress robes?”
Remus stiffened at once. “Dora, you know I can’t afford to waste gold on something nonessential like dress robes.” The letter from the Ministry crumpled in his hand. “I’ll wear the best robes I have, and that will simply have to be good enough.”
Tonks realised she had been pushing her fork around her empty plate. She forced herself to set it back down on the table, and took a deep breath.
“I’ve been reinstated as an Auror, remember?” She kept her voice as mild as she could, even though gentle really wasn’t her thing. “This family has enough gold for you to buy a new set of dress robes.” She reached over and covered his hand with hers. “You should make a splash at the press conference. Make the reporters notice you. Remind everyone that it’s unfair for a war hero to be treated as a second-class citizen.”
Remus stared at their joined hands, and then over at Teddy, sleeping in his basket.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll go shopping.”
~ * ~
“Oh, no,” said Tonks, laughing. “Not those.”
Remus looked up, bemused, from the rack of plain, serviceable, boring brown dress robes that languished in the back corner of Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions. “Whyever not?”
“Because,” said Tonks cheekily, “I’d like to see you try something in blue. Here-try these.”
She held up a set of simply cut dress robes in the deep clear blue of twilight, with just the tiniest bit of silver trim at the collar and cuffs.
Remus looked dubious, but he slipped out of the thoroughly mended brown robes he’d been wearing over a pair of shabby trousers and a slightly frayed shirt, and pulled the blue dress robes on, tugging them straight across his shoulders and doing up the buttons with a flick of his wand.
Tonks caught her breath. “Yeah, I thought so.” She grinned. “Go on, look in the mirror.”
Remus turned to face the full-length mirror that hung on the wall of the shop. The fine soft fabric swirled around his ankles.
“Ooh,” the mirror gushed. “That’s a good look for you, dearie.”
Balancing Teddy on one hip, Tonks came up behind Remus and watched his reflection over his shoulder. The deep blue did amazing things to the warm brown of his eyes, and the trace of silver embroidery at the collar picked out the silver at his temples and made him look distinguished rather than careworn.
His eyes went wide with surprise. They found hers in the mirror.
“Nice, eh?” Tonks rested her chin on his shoulder. “I think these are the ones.”
“How much are they?” The lines between his eyebrows deepened. “I really don’t need new dress robes.”
“When was the last time you had new dress robes?” Tonks poked him in the arm. “I mean, new ones, from a shop.”
“I-” Remus looked away. “I never needed new ones. I had an old pair of my father’s to wear to James and Lily’s wedding-”
“These aren’t particularly expensive,” said Tonks, quietly. She straightened his collar in the back. “They’ll last you for years, you know.”
And if Remus never learned that he deserved to have things just as much as she and Mum and Teddy did, even though he would be keeping house rather than working at a job-at least at first-then it was only a matter of time before he started to slide back into the bitter, caustic self-loathing that had ended once before in his deciding that their child would be better off without a father at all-
“Are you finding everything you need?” came a bright voice.
They turned to find the shop’s proprietor bustling toward them.
“Oh, those robes suit you very nicely, sir,” she said, sounding pleased. “They may be a bit loose, but if you don’t mind me saying, it looks like you’ve been ill-I think when you’re back in good health, they’ll be just right.”
Remus went quite still. “Madam Malkin,” he said, coolly.
“Yes, that’s right,” she said, still smiling. “I don’t know that I’ve had the pleasure-”
“I am,” said Remus, “quite well acquainted with your nephew.”
“I see.” The smile vanished, and Madam Malkin drew herself up. “I know that people talk, and they’ll say what they like. But I’ll tell anyone who listens that I do not approve of my nephew.”
“So I had gathered,” said Remus, frostily. He shrugged out of the blue dress robes. Tonks took them from him, swallowing her disappointment; Remus had a point. They could always try Gladrags.
“Archibald was never technically a Death Eater,” Madam Malkin went on, irritation clear in her voice, “but he was part of all the goings-on at the Ministry last year. I did not approve of all that anti-Muggle-born nonsense, and now that the war is over, I can say so out loud. Muggle-born witches and wizards have always been fine customers from the day they get their Hogwarts letters.”
Remus stared. “I didn’t mean Archibald,” he said.
Madam Malkin went as white as her own lace collar.
“Matthias?” she whispered. She actually clutched at Remus’s arm. “Do you know where he is? Is he all right?” She blinked back tears. “My idiot brother said some rather horrid things to him, after-that is-and Matthias ran off before I had any idea what had happened. I would have taken him in-he always was my favourite-I have a second flat above the shop, and I haven’t been able to make myself let it to anyone, in case Matthias came back-”
“I do know where he is,” said Remus, smiling a little now at the torrent of unmistakeably heartfelt words. “He’s fine. And I think he’d be happy to hear that you’d like him to come home.”
~ * ~
They hung the dress robes in the wardrobe in their bedroom, with their winter cloaks and Tonks’s Auror robes and several sets of everyday robes, black and purple and green ones for Tonks, and brown and black ones (well-used) for Remus.
“Thank you,” said Remus, fingering the soft blue fabric once more before shutting the wardrobe door.
“Don’t-” Tonks squeezed her eyes shut.
“Dora?” Warm fingers stroked along her cheek. “What’s wrong?”
“I wish you wouldn’t feel you had to be so grateful all the time,” she whispered, frightened again. Gratitude could so easily turn into obligation, and then resentment-
“Of course I’m grateful,” said Remus, low and fierce.
Her eyes snapped open. She had never heard that tone from him before.
His gaze held hers. It was as intense as she had ever seen it, but it was warm, and entirely unguarded.
“I almost lost this, thanks to Dolohov,” he rasped. “You-Teddy-a chance at a home and a future.” He rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. “I will never stop being grateful. I will never forget how lucky I am.” He looked at her again, and a slow grin warmed his face.
She couldn’t help grinning back.
“My next job,” he said, tracing a finger along her eyebrow, “is to do the very best I can to look after our son. And maybe-” he shrugged, a little-“see what I can do about making the world a little bit more fair, before he has to make his own way in it.”
That would be a lot of work. On both counts.
And so, Tonks decided-pulling Remus close for a very thorough kiss-it boded well for their very own happily-ever-after that they were both so bloody stubborn.
~ fin ~
.
Title: Happily Ever After
Rating & Warnings: PG, mild profanity and original characters; postwar AU
Word Count: 4690
Prompts:
- (Time/place) gilpin25: Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions
- (Miscellaneous) arctic_comet: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt, This is My Story
Notes: Thanks to everyone for writing, creating art, and reading/viewing for this event! This is a stand-alone story, but for anyone keeping track at home, it’s set in the Warp and Weft AU ficverse (between A Matter of Opportunity and Support). The OCs Matthias and Bess are from Kaleidoscope, but knowing their backstory isn’t necessary here.
Happily Ever After
Late May, 1998
You-Know-Who-Voldemort-had been dead for nearly three weeks. The last of the fighting was over, even if the cleanup and the rebuilding would take months, or years, yet.
They had won.
This was the happily-ever-after part now, Tonks thought, rubbing her eyes in the first grey light of morning.
She winced when the stillness was shattered by another strident wail, just like the one that had jerked her out of a sound sleep. But at least Remus hadn’t stirred, so that was all right. Tonks was all in favor of the kind of co-parenting where the sleep deprivation was shared. But that would be for later, once Remus had finally recovered from the injuries that had so nearly killed him in the fighting at Hogwarts, and from the full moon that had come too soon afterward. Right now, it was still her turn to wake up.
She fought her way free from the duvet and managed to get both feet on the floor and pointing in the same direction. With a yawn wide enough to pop her jaw, she shuffled blearily down the hall toward the nursery, whose occupant was most emphatically announcing that he was too hungry to sleep for one second longer.
Teddy hiccoughed once when she picked him up. The piercing wails subsided to whimpers. The baby’s warm soft weight filled her arms, and she felt her own heartbeat slow.
Happily-ever-after was being alive to stumble, half-asleep, into the nursery and hold her son when he cried.
There was a wide, comfortable rocking chair in the corner of the nursery, by a window that looked out over the pond. It had been her own mother’s, and it was piled high with soft pillows and a striped baby blanket, courtesy of Molly Weasley. Tonks sat there with Teddy quite often, but not now, not even with the pond shining lemon and rose in the soft spring dawn. Right now, she wanted more of her happily-ever-after.
And so she padded back to the bedroom, jiggling the baby a little against her shoulder to keep him from starting to fuss again. She plumped up her pillow, crawled back in under the rumpled duvet and half-sat against the headboard so that Teddy could nurse.
Remus muttered something in his sleep and rolled over so that he was pressed all along her side. His arm wrapped around her waist. She balanced Teddy in one arm and slid the other hand along the curve of her husband’s back, and he sighed a little, nestling even closer.
Tonks sighed too, letting her eyes drift closed. This part was, no question, every inch the happily-ever-after that she had dreamed of, all the long months of the war.
Even though there were other things, in this new world of theirs, that she wasn’t so sure about.
~ * ~
When Tonks woke again, the sun was a little higher in the sky, and she felt a little less like she’d been trampled by elephants.
Teddy giggled, somewhere behind her.
She grinned, stretched, and rolled over. Now Remus was the one propped half-sitting against the headboard, pulling faces and tickling the baby’s nose. Teddy’s hair had gone the exact pale-blue shade of Remus’s pyjamas.
Her stomach growled.
“Time to get up?” Remus’s own grin was entirely Marauderish.
“No,” she mumbled, resting her head on his shoulder. “Not yet.”
The last year had been so hard in so many ways-hiding, waiting, trying to undermine the Death Eaters and the Muggle-born Registration Commission despite the odds piled so high against them. And Dad had left home, and then-well.
But that last year had changed Remus, changed him so much-from a haunted man, afraid to believe in his own happiness, into the sure, quiet anchor at the centre of the odd little family they had built. Merlin, the blaze of joy that lit his face when he looked at Teddy, when he looked at her-
-but what if that was special for wartime?
They’d been isolated from everyone except the Order, swathed in their little cocoon. Remus, with his illegal Muggle taxi, had actually been the breadwinner of the household. But the end of the war had tossed them arse-over-teakettle back into the real world, where werewolves were not welcome in polite society. Where she and Mum had got their jobs back, but Remus was legally unemployable, and there was no war and no desperate family to feed that would justify him breaking the Non-Magical Employment laws any longer.
Happily-ever-after was wonderful. But Tonks wasn’t so sure she was ready for back-to-normal. Not if it was going to send her husband spiralling down into his old poisonous self-loathing, all over again.
“Come on,” he said, poking her gently in the shoulder, “you’re hungry. Budge up. I’ll do eggs and sausages for breakfast.”
At least-for now-there was nothing lurking in his eyes beyond affectionate amusement, and the kiss he stole before he heaved himself stiffly out of bed was sweet and firm and unhesitating.
~ * ~
The clock above the living-room fireplace chimed nine as they made their way down the stairs-Mum must have left for work a good hour before. Tonks hadn’t heard a thing.
She fed Teddy again and settled him into his basket. Remus busied himself cracking eggs and making toast, pouring pumpkin juice and steeping tea.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, floating two plates of scrambled egg over to the table with a tidy little wand-flick. “I’d like to go out to the wood today and talk with Matthias. And with Bess, if she’ll spare me the time of day.”
Tonks dropped a spoonful of jam over the side of her plate and only just missed knocking her teacup over when she made to clean up the mess.
“You must be feeling better, then,” was all she said, but she looked sideways at the grey smudges under his eyes and the sharp lines of his cheekbones.
“No worse than I’d feel the day after the moon.” His smile was wry. “I just don’t want to waste any more time-you saw the piles of documents Kingsley’s sent over. I’d like to get Matthias on the project as soon as possible.” He stopped, contemplating the sausages still sizzling in Dad’s favourite skillet before dividing them between their plates. “Assuming, of course, he’ll want to be involved.”
“Do you think it’s safe?” Tonks concentrated on the bottle of brown sauce she was shaking over her sausages. “To go back, I mean.”
“I do,” he said. She looked up to find him watching her with solemn eyes. “There’s no danger now that Greyback and his thugs are out of the picture. Bess may not think much of me, but she’s a good leader and has no interest in attacking innocent people. In fact-” He drew a careful breath. “I’d like you to come along, and bring Teddy. If you’re willing.”
She blinked. “You want us to go with you?” Tonks had had almost nothing to do with the werewolf pack, that long year that Remus had spent with them (and, most emphatically, not with her).
“Yes.” Remus smiled a little. “I want to show them, beyond a doubt, that I trust them.” His eyes searched hers. “I really do, you know. We’ll take precautions in case something unexpected happens, but there’s no one in the camp who would deliberately hurt Teddy, or you-”
She nodded. “I trust your judgement.” Besides, she was curious to see the camp up close instead of from under an Invisibility Cloak at a distance, and eager to meet the werewolves she knew only from the stories that Remus had finally begun to tell her.
He cleared his throat. “There’s-another reason, too.”
Tonks watched his mouth press into a straight line, and his head duck so that his face was hidden.
She swallowed. She hadn’t seen him do that in months.
Back-to-normal, indeed.
Except-then he looked back at her, a little sideways, and she saw that the corners of his mouth were trying to turn up.
“I can’t help it,” he said. The grin broke free, even though his gaze had gone sheepish. “I want to show the both of you off.”
~ * ~
Tonks had wanted to Apparate. She was trained to manage Side-Along safely with a full-grown wizard who was struggling and resisting arrest, for Merlin’s sake; an infant, even a wriggly one, ought to be easy. But Remus insisted that Apparition was an unnecessary risk. And Tonks had to admit she might be a bit out of condition, after having the baby and being injured in the bloody battle and all. In the end, they decided to use one of the Weasley twins’ Confundus Portkeys, left over from the war.
They arrived just inside the scraggly wood, close to the three derelict houses that squatted along the river. The air was soft and mild-a true spring day.
Tonks stumbled a little on landing, of course, but Remus’s hand caught her elbow and kept her steady.
“You hold the Portkey,” he murmured, pressing the faded beer mat into her hand. “If there’s someone here we don’t expect, or if something goes wrong, take Teddy straight home. I’ll meet you there.”
She watched him look around. He was alert, but not particularly tense. Still, she tugged her cloak forward so that it fell over her shoulder and covered Teddy where he slept, snuggled against her side in his sling.
They emerged from the wood and began to approach the first of the houses. A tall man, young and werewolf-gaunt, was hoeing vigorously in the middle of a good-sized garden plot.
“Malkin!” Remus called.
Matthias Malkin drove the hoe into the ground and looked up, breaking into a wide grin. “Lupin! And Tonks-hullo!”
A woman with unruly grey hair in short curls had been squatting over a campfire, feeding it twigs. She stood and turned to face them as they approached, giving first Remus and then Tonks a coolly assessing look from behind plain round spectacles.
“Lupin,” she said. “Never thought I’d see you again.”
“Yes,” said Remus, quietly. “I know.” He took a few steps closer and stopped, still outside the circle of logs-benches-that ringed the campfire. “I owe you an apology. I lied to you, and to the others, and I lived among you under false pretenses.” His lips pressed tightly together. “But I must admit that I would do exactly the same again, given the choice. It was necessary for me to do anything I could to keep the Death Eaters from taking over the pack. Voldemort had to be stopped.” He sighed. “Still-I am sorry that I couldn’t be honest with you.”
The woman (this was Bess; Tonks recognised the spectacles) held Remus’s gaze for a long moment, and then she nodded once, sharply. “I’m not best pleased that you were lying the whole time, but we’re certainly better off without Fenrir here, never mind those Death Eater friends of his. And you started the garden-” she nodded again in Matthias’s direction, where the pale green leaves of radishes were just beginning to push through the soil-“and you taught us how to chew aconite before the moon.” She tilted her head. “And you stole these spectacles for me.” Then her eyes narrowed. “Or did you really steal them? Was that a lie, too?”
The corner of Remus’s mouth quirked, just a little, but he didn’t take the bait. “Allow me to introduce my wife, Nymphadora Tonks Lupin. Dora, this is Elizabeth Ogilvie.”
“Bess,” said the woman firmly.
“Tonks,” said Tonks, in exactly the same tone, and then somehow the two of them were sharing a tentative grin.
“Tonks-I remember now. Ted was your father,” said Bess, unexpectedly. “He told us Lupin had married his daughter.” She frowned. “I liked him. I’m sorry.”
Tonks had to blink, hard, for a moment, and she was grateful for the sudden warmth of Remus’s hand, solid and firm against the small of her back. “Thanks.”
“Sit,” said Bess, taking a seat herself on one of the long logs. Remus nodded his thanks and lowered himself carefully to perch on another. Tonks sat beside him, rearranging the bundle under her cloak, which was starting to squirm a little again.
“You look rough, Lupin.” Matthias brushed the garden soil from his hands and sat down on Remus’s other side. “Bad moon?”
Tonks snorted. “Would have been a damn sight better if he hadn’t been recovering from life-threatening battle wounds at the time.”
“Now, Dora,” said Remus, mildly. His hand found the small of her back again. “It wasn’t that bad.”
Tonks raised an eyebrow, but she held her tongue. They weren’t here to discuss the Battle of Hogwarts.
“It looks like it was pretty bad.” Bess fixed Remus with her penetrating bespectacled stare once more. “Why were you in such a hurry to come back here? Your war has only just ended.”
“I wanted to apologize to you,” said Remus, simply. “I wanted to ask Malkin here a favour. And-” He took a deep breath. “I wanted to let you all know that things are changing. The man who has become Minister for Magic is a friend of ours, Dora’s and mine-someone we fought with against Voldemort. He has pledged to overturn the unfair anti-Dark creature laws. Not just the recent ones, but even the ancient ones. Things are going to start getting better for werewolves, and other kinds of creatures too.” He looked around at his audience; while he had been speaking, two more people had wandered over to take a seat around the fire. “If any of you want to try a different kind of life, in London or Hogsmeade or anywhere at all, I’ll do my best to help you find it, the same way you took me in when I came here and said I had nowhere else to go.”
Those last words made Tonks slip her arm around Remus’s waist, even though she knew he’d known they weren’t true when he’d said them.
Bess and Matthias were silent for a moment. The two other people-one older man and one very young woman-also said nothing.
“I thank you,” said Bess at last, rather formally. “But I’ve lived here since I was a child-I was here before Fenrir came-and this is the life that I know.”
“I understand,” said Remus. “But if you ever change you mind, I’ll be happy to do what I can.”
The two new listeners still said nothing. The young woman leaned closer to Bess, who patted her on the shoulder.
“I’m in no hurry to go back,” said Matthias. Bitterness twisted his smile, which should have been handsome. “I’ll believe things are changing for werewolves when I see it.”
“Ah,” said Remus, lightly. “But that’s the very favour that I wanted to ask of you. I want you to come back and help me change things.”
“What?” Matthias stared.
“The Ministry is all a bit overwhelmed now, cleaning up after everything that happened last year. And so, Minister Shacklebolt has put me in charge of combing through the legal archives and finding all the unfair laws. It’s quite a lot of work, but the faster we find things, the faster we’ll see progress. If you come along and help me, it will go faster still.”
“This is a job offer, from the Ministry for Magic, to a werewolf?” asked Matthias, still with a hint of a sneer.
“Yes and no,” said Remus. His own smile was rather wry. “It’s still illegal to employ a werewolf, so this is strictly a volunteer position at the moment. But once the laws start to change, it will be a job.” He tilted his head, and his smile went a bit Marauderish. “How about it? Want to come and help me change the world?”
“No,” said Matthias shortly.
Tonks, still with her arm around Remus’s waist, felt him stiffen.
“I’m sorry, Lupin. You’re a good friend, and I’d do a lot for you.” Matthias sighed. “But when I was bitten, my family disowned me. They threw me out.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his shabby anorak and stared at the ground. “I’m not going back to a society where I’m not welcome.”
“You could stay with us,” Tonks blurted. “Until you’ve got a place of your own.”
Remus turned to face her, his eyebrows so high they were entirely hidden by his fringe.
“He could,” she insisted. “Mum liked him, and she’s grateful, because of Dad-”
“Thank you, Tonks.” Matthias was smiling a little now. “That’s kind of you. But I wouldn’t dream of intruding on your family. Especially not on your family.” He shook his head. “I’m never going back. I have no reason to go.”
“Not even to be part of something new and better?” Remus asked.
Silence.
“All right,” said Remus, quietly. “All right.” He squared his shoulders. “Anyone else interested in exploring some new opportunities?”
There were six or seven people within earshot, by now, but still no one said a word.
Tonks felt a particularly vigorous wriggle from the sling, and then she heard a hiccough.
“There’s one more reason we wanted to come and see you lot,” she said, carefully, into the tense silence. Shaking her cloak back, she pulled Teddy out of his warm nest and handed him, wriggling and blinking, to Remus.
“Oh,” said Bess, leaning forward for a better look.
“Allow me to present-Teddy Remus Lupin,” said Remus. “Our son.”
He passed Teddy on to Bess, who froze for an instant before shifting her arms to cradle the baby securely. The others leaned closer as well, pulling silly faces and cooing.
Tonks found that she had quite a lump in her throat.
I want to show the both of you off, Remus had said. But what she’d heard in his voice just now wasn’t anything like pride of ownership. It was the same gentle awe that she saw in his eyes when he was holding Teddy, or when she woke suddenly and caught him watching her sleep. Look, it seemed to say. Isn’t this a miracle?
~ * ~
The owl surprised them, the following morning. The letter that it carried bore the Ministry seal.
They had just finished breakfast, and were enjoying a second cup of tea, passing sections of the Daily Prophet back and forth. The stern-looking bird perched on the back of a chair and held itself rather haughtily aloof, until Remus fed it a few bits of bacon that were left in the pan. But that treat seemed to win the owl over straight away. It fluffed its feathers and held out its leg, almost patiently.
Remus detached the letter and opened it.
“Well,” he said.
“Is anything wrong?” Tonks still hadn’t quite got used to the fact that the Ministry was safe to trust again-possibly more than it had ever been in her lifetime.
Remus looked up from the letter with a small thoughtful frown. “It’s from Kingsley. He’s decided to hold a press conference to clear up what he’s calling ‘misinformation’ about the end of the war. We’re-invited.”
Tonks snorted. “Probably not optional, yeah? When is it? Do you think you’ll be well enough to go?”
“It’s in two days’ time.” Remus quirked an eyebrow. “If our gallivanting round the wood yesterday didn’t wear me out, I’m sure I can manage to stand behind a mob of witches and wizards long enough to wait for reporters to finish asking their inane questions.”
“I’m not so sure you’ll be in the back of the mob,” said Tonks. “As the only werewolf who fought against the Death Eaters, you’re bound to attract some attention.”
“I suppose so.” Remus looked a bit daunted at the thought. “But then, this could strike something of a public relations blow against the most restrictive of the anti-werewolf laws. I’d better make the most of it.”
“In that case-” Tonks braced herself-“maybe we should go shopping for some new dress robes?”
Remus stiffened at once. “Dora, you know I can’t afford to waste gold on something nonessential like dress robes.” The letter from the Ministry crumpled in his hand. “I’ll wear the best robes I have, and that will simply have to be good enough.”
Tonks realised she had been pushing her fork around her empty plate. She forced herself to set it back down on the table, and took a deep breath.
“I’ve been reinstated as an Auror, remember?” She kept her voice as mild as she could, even though gentle really wasn’t her thing. “This family has enough gold for you to buy a new set of dress robes.” She reached over and covered his hand with hers. “You should make a splash at the press conference. Make the reporters notice you. Remind everyone that it’s unfair for a war hero to be treated as a second-class citizen.”
Remus stared at their joined hands, and then over at Teddy, sleeping in his basket.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll go shopping.”
~ * ~
“Oh, no,” said Tonks, laughing. “Not those.”
Remus looked up, bemused, from the rack of plain, serviceable, boring brown dress robes that languished in the back corner of Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions. “Whyever not?”
“Because,” said Tonks cheekily, “I’d like to see you try something in blue. Here-try these.”
She held up a set of simply cut dress robes in the deep clear blue of twilight, with just the tiniest bit of silver trim at the collar and cuffs.
Remus looked dubious, but he slipped out of the thoroughly mended brown robes he’d been wearing over a pair of shabby trousers and a slightly frayed shirt, and pulled the blue dress robes on, tugging them straight across his shoulders and doing up the buttons with a flick of his wand.
Tonks caught her breath. “Yeah, I thought so.” She grinned. “Go on, look in the mirror.”
Remus turned to face the full-length mirror that hung on the wall of the shop. The fine soft fabric swirled around his ankles.
“Ooh,” the mirror gushed. “That’s a good look for you, dearie.”
Balancing Teddy on one hip, Tonks came up behind Remus and watched his reflection over his shoulder. The deep blue did amazing things to the warm brown of his eyes, and the trace of silver embroidery at the collar picked out the silver at his temples and made him look distinguished rather than careworn.
His eyes went wide with surprise. They found hers in the mirror.
“Nice, eh?” Tonks rested her chin on his shoulder. “I think these are the ones.”
“How much are they?” The lines between his eyebrows deepened. “I really don’t need new dress robes.”
“When was the last time you had new dress robes?” Tonks poked him in the arm. “I mean, new ones, from a shop.”
“I-” Remus looked away. “I never needed new ones. I had an old pair of my father’s to wear to James and Lily’s wedding-”
“These aren’t particularly expensive,” said Tonks, quietly. She straightened his collar in the back. “They’ll last you for years, you know.”
And if Remus never learned that he deserved to have things just as much as she and Mum and Teddy did, even though he would be keeping house rather than working at a job-at least at first-then it was only a matter of time before he started to slide back into the bitter, caustic self-loathing that had ended once before in his deciding that their child would be better off without a father at all-
“Are you finding everything you need?” came a bright voice.
They turned to find the shop’s proprietor bustling toward them.
“Oh, those robes suit you very nicely, sir,” she said, sounding pleased. “They may be a bit loose, but if you don’t mind me saying, it looks like you’ve been ill-I think when you’re back in good health, they’ll be just right.”
Remus went quite still. “Madam Malkin,” he said, coolly.
“Yes, that’s right,” she said, still smiling. “I don’t know that I’ve had the pleasure-”
“I am,” said Remus, “quite well acquainted with your nephew.”
“I see.” The smile vanished, and Madam Malkin drew herself up. “I know that people talk, and they’ll say what they like. But I’ll tell anyone who listens that I do not approve of my nephew.”
“So I had gathered,” said Remus, frostily. He shrugged out of the blue dress robes. Tonks took them from him, swallowing her disappointment; Remus had a point. They could always try Gladrags.
“Archibald was never technically a Death Eater,” Madam Malkin went on, irritation clear in her voice, “but he was part of all the goings-on at the Ministry last year. I did not approve of all that anti-Muggle-born nonsense, and now that the war is over, I can say so out loud. Muggle-born witches and wizards have always been fine customers from the day they get their Hogwarts letters.”
Remus stared. “I didn’t mean Archibald,” he said.
Madam Malkin went as white as her own lace collar.
“Matthias?” she whispered. She actually clutched at Remus’s arm. “Do you know where he is? Is he all right?” She blinked back tears. “My idiot brother said some rather horrid things to him, after-that is-and Matthias ran off before I had any idea what had happened. I would have taken him in-he always was my favourite-I have a second flat above the shop, and I haven’t been able to make myself let it to anyone, in case Matthias came back-”
“I do know where he is,” said Remus, smiling a little now at the torrent of unmistakeably heartfelt words. “He’s fine. And I think he’d be happy to hear that you’d like him to come home.”
~ * ~
They hung the dress robes in the wardrobe in their bedroom, with their winter cloaks and Tonks’s Auror robes and several sets of everyday robes, black and purple and green ones for Tonks, and brown and black ones (well-used) for Remus.
“Thank you,” said Remus, fingering the soft blue fabric once more before shutting the wardrobe door.
“Don’t-” Tonks squeezed her eyes shut.
“Dora?” Warm fingers stroked along her cheek. “What’s wrong?”
“I wish you wouldn’t feel you had to be so grateful all the time,” she whispered, frightened again. Gratitude could so easily turn into obligation, and then resentment-
“Of course I’m grateful,” said Remus, low and fierce.
Her eyes snapped open. She had never heard that tone from him before.
His gaze held hers. It was as intense as she had ever seen it, but it was warm, and entirely unguarded.
“I almost lost this, thanks to Dolohov,” he rasped. “You-Teddy-a chance at a home and a future.” He rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. “I will never stop being grateful. I will never forget how lucky I am.” He looked at her again, and a slow grin warmed his face.
She couldn’t help grinning back.
“My next job,” he said, tracing a finger along her eyebrow, “is to do the very best I can to look after our son. And maybe-” he shrugged, a little-“see what I can do about making the world a little bit more fair, before he has to make his own way in it.”
That would be a lot of work. On both counts.
And so, Tonks decided-pulling Remus close for a very thorough kiss-it boded well for their very own happily-ever-after that they were both so bloody stubborn.
~ fin ~
.