He lied to Tonks.

He lied, and he loves her so much. So much, and he can't bear to do it -- he couldn't bear to do it, except that he had to. It was only because she couldn't bear to see it. If she believed it was the last time -- if she believed it would get better -- if she believed --

No, he thinks. It wouldn't change anything. I lied.

It wasn't a big lie. In retrospect, it was actually very small. They've been together for months... days and weeks and twisty, scraggly passages of time where they've discussed "too old, too poor, too dangerous" and "no one's Wolfsbane is good enough except Snape's" and "are you really okay" most of all. They talked.

And he was okay. Is, in fact.

So he tells himself.

It was a sunny, loud, Burrow afternoon. December. They were lying next to each other, heads leaning up against the bony part of each other's shoulders on the thick woolly sofa in the sitting room. Molly was clacking away with her knitting needles in an armchair a few yards away, a Ron-sized jumper knitting itself to her left, a set of Ginny-sized socks constructing themselves to her right.

He knew she was pretending not to watch them. Molly is always pretending not to watch people. But watching -- guarding -- is what she does best, and he suspects she knows it. Her vigil paves the way before the fights.

He watched her look up, peer at them through the corner of her eye, drop a stitch, and look down again. He watched Tonks deliberately ignoring the watching.

"Are you really okay," said Tonks, as she does, over and over again. She knows, Remus is aware, that the answer is no and always comes out yes. If he could bring himself to say no it would change everything. They would all begin to feel sorry for him -- pity him -- pity him more than they do.

He couldn't bear that. Can't bear that. Never could.

So he kissed her without answering and thought. He hasn't been okay for a long time. It's nothing to do with the physical aspects of what he is -- the moon wasn't due to rise full for another three weeks. But he knew, after years of it, after wondering when the choking feelings would stop. He knew.

You can't be okay -- can't be, not having seen what Remus has seen, not having been where Remus has been. There is no possibility of it.

*

Things change.

For a long time... for years, really, with James and Peter and Sirius, he was okay. He was perfectly okay. There was no question. He'd had nothing worse to compare it to, and what he was living was, in its entirety, better than anything he'd ever experienced -- friends, books, feasts, adventures...

The Wolf could even be ignored, nearly. It was always... it was always there, Remus had known, but not thought about much. It wasn't quite within him -- but sort of beside him, almost eating him up from the inside from three days before what he had always flippantly called FMN's -- full moon nights, precisely, and unfortunately on those days there was no ignoring to be had.

But they were there. His friends. And it was all right.

Even after that it was still all right, even though he didn't see the others as much. There were disappointments, of course, since school had ended. For example, Peter never turned up in rat form after that, never snuck into the small basement room rented by Remus' parents. Sirius nearly always did, being Sirius; James came when he could. But they were still there -- all three of them -- and so to Remus the war never quite felt real, even with the Order, even with the daily risks-of-life-and-limb-and-love.

It wasn't real. Not then.

Then. Then there was Frank and Alice.

The Bones. The Prewetts. The McKinnons.

And then...

And then.

For the first time since he was very small, the Wolf mattered. Because there was no-one left. And with the ripping away of what had been and what was wonderful, the only thing left was what shouldn't have been, and what had become the only truth there was in the world.

Oh, some things were better. The war -- which had suddenly become realer than anything Remus had ever known -- ended equally suddenly. People surrounded him, tears drizzling from their eyes like the reflection of the moon on the tips of the night-grass. They were all people who knew. They knew about the Wolf, and about him, and about the shock of it -- they were feeling it too, they said, and if he wanted to talk -- if he needed help, perhaps -- they knew someone at St. Mungo's --

No.

He'd gone away, very quietly. His parents were dead by then -- Dragon Pox -- and he'd got their house, the old shed they used to have to lock him in, a spare and small bit of money. He used it; bought food, bought a wand to replace the one the Ministry had taken after questioning him -- a day before the End happened; something that had made him furious at the time but failed to produce any feeling anymore. The money ran out. He couldn't get a job.

The first night, the choking feeling began. In his throat. Deep down.

*

Wolves are color-blind, and so is Remus, always, a few days before. Another day and his senses hit overdrive -- not at all in a good way; in a difficult, sickening sort of way. It's been a rhyme in his head for years, the order in which things happen.

Colors. Nose. Humanity. Goes. A bad, totally unpoetic rhyme, but a true one.

It's not mentioning the headache either, which starts the morning of the FMN and escalates to such a point towards the end that he can only wait in agony for it to happen.

The colors went early, that month. Earlier than they'd ever done. For nearly a week Remus saw the world in black-and-white, knew what was to come, knew that this time -- nor ever again -- no one would be there, not even himself, or a piece of himself.

He knew he should contact St. Mungo's -- ask whether this was normal in grief, normal in the kind of dull, porous state he woke in every morning. But he couldn't. The whole Order knew who he was, now. They would feel sorry for him, or maybe not -- maybe they would go back to being how they were, before; before the euphoric few days (for everyone else) after it ended.

No -- Remus knew they would. Old prejudices did not die so suddenly. No-one had known about him until Dumbledore told them. And if it hadn't been Dumbledore -- if it hadn't been Dumbledore, he was sure, they'd never even have come near him...

And besides. Who had ever heard of a grieving werewolf? It was ludicrous. Werewolves, it was well-known, did not grieve. Remus was so much more than bitter.

Dumbledore sent him three letters. He did not respond to any of them. He couldn't bring himself to.

The transformation was worse than any he could ever remember.

*

Like Weasley sweaters, Remus knitted himself back up. Bit by bit. Stitch by stitch. For years -- three, Remus thought, but couldn't quite remember -- he lived in a haze, a haze of black and dark-grey, of breathing and of sharp teeth -- his, sometimes, when the moon turned bulbous and swollen. He couldn't imagine ever being happy again -- or light-hearted, or even okay, as Tonks calls it now. Black-and-white was exactly as the world should be, then, and he was almost relieved when the days before came and it could be.

Years passed. There were more letters from Dumbledore; seven or so a year, typically; not judging, not expecting anything. We feel our losses keenly. There is so much work still to be done. It is hard not to wonder if the world is being rebuilt differently. It is hard to rebuild it. There will be eight years yet, before Harry Potter enters it -- there is still time...

Harry Potter?

The reality of his identity flew into Remus' mind, something that hadn't happened before, something that couldn't have happened -- there was too much emptiness in what remained. Too little color.

He began to understand. To comprehend how it would be for James' son, for the boy with Lily's eyes. He would be an outcast of sorts -- a welcomed outcast. But the opposite of what Remus had known. He hadn't been known enough himself to be an outcast, only despised without recognition.

Gradually colors began to filter in again. It was as if the world couldn't help itself.

Years passed. He began to write back to Dumbledore -- newsy letters, mostly. He'd got a job writing a little here and there for the Daily Prophet; just enough earnings to eat. As always, he lost it after they found out. He got another job, temporarily again, with another paper, and ate a little more and lost it again before signing on with yet another.

He looked at old school photos and managed not to choke so hard he had to lock them away -- an accomplishment, he told himself. Harry Potter has started at Hogwarts, Dumbledore wrote. So like James. But so like Lily, too.

Yes, there were colors again. But he was seeing them with new eyes -- not eyes that were okay so much as eyes that knew. If he ever saw Lily's eyes again -- the ones that had redefined James, James' life -- those eyes were not going to be okay. They were going to have known. They were going to have known for a long, long time, even if they didn't realise it.

Years passed. A potion was invented, and then another, and another. The first one made his ears vibrate for days afterward; the second included so much Wolfsbane his throat almost closed. But the third was perfect. Remus could lie on a blanket next to the clock, counting down the minutes until the moon would slide from the sky, feeling furry, painful and dangerous in a way he'd never been allowed before.

He could. But it was expensive. And he needed to eat.

So he went back to padlocks on the shed, self-administered Episkeys in the morning, desperate job-hunts even a day later, when his head was only beginning to fade back to normalcy. That, too, was not okay.

The hunt came to an end with another letter from Dumbledore, this one the least-okay of them all, the most backwards and hard-to-understand. Sirius Black had escaped. Severus Snape wanted to brew him his potion. Dumbledore wanted to offer him a job.

He said no, no, no again. They would find out about the Wolf -- the parents would find out, eventually, because parents always did -- and everyone knew the job was cursed, that he wasn't going to be able to stay. Even if he wanted to.

But. There would be security. A respite from pain. People he could trust. People he could talk to; people who would talk to him. People he remembered -- Dumbledore, McGonagall, Flitwick, Pomfrey....

But. Even that wasn't enough. There was still so much emptiness. There were so many people who would -- he could tell, he could always tell -- people who would despise him, people who would pretend not to. There was Snape, who both knew and despised him at the the same time. There was so much not knowing. And Remus wasn't a coward -- he'd never been, he couldn't have been -- but he was tired, and it was all real, and now he did know. And --

It was what settled it. The reality. There was Sirius Black. There was Harry Potter. There were the stories in the Daily Prophet, the rumours even Remus was able to hear. And then -- when he heard --

He was after Harry.

The year flew by. He found he could teach, and that he was good at it. That he liked it; even loved it. There were moments of terror... the moon in the Defence classroom, for example... or Snape's presence, which insisted oddly on being a useful kind of menacing. There were moments of beauty... getting to know Harry, realising just how perfect the meshing of James' spirit with Lily's generosity were in a boy of such terrible, confining circumstances.

Later in the year Remus understood just how dangerous it was for him to be there, how much the others had been hiding. Dumbledore buried it well, but he found it among the other staff -- it had been Dumbledore, after all, who had made Remus learn the basics of Legilimency as a seventh-year, and sometimes he couldn't help using it. He was there because he was needed. He had to keep Harry safe. That was all.

And it hadn't worked, either. There was a flaw in the plan -- Sirius came to the castle anyway, came on nights after a week of Snape's potions and glares, when Remus had been sucked up into the knife-hot pain of a canine's body and all-too-human mind. And so Sirius knew he was there. Too many people knew he was there, knowing what he was.

Harry Potter remained alive, though. And the year finished smoothly... the attacks seemed to stop... Snape kept delivering potions to the roomy office Remus still couldn't fully comprehend he was allowed to work in...

*

It ended that night. The night when he'd found out everything. It was -- it was almost too much to realise that it had all been lies, misunderstandings, alterations of the truth.

It was the worst night of Remus' life, at least the fragmented bits he could remember, afterward. Worse than... than before, because he hadn't been there for it. He hadn't been trusted anymore by many of them, even the Order. It took the end of it all to make them realise he could be.

No... that night taught Remus that he couldn't always trust himself.

And he tried to come up with excuses for it -- reasons, perhaps, as to how he could possibly have let it happen -- but the colors faded slightly again. It felt like those guarding Dementors were hovering somewhere near, for weeks, for months. It had been his fault. It could not have been anyone else's.

He'd been thinking maybe he'd stay at Hogwarts, after a while -- nothing had happened to threaten his job -- maybe the position wasn't cursed after all? He blamed himself for thinking it. He blamed himself for not guessing where it would lead. He blamed himself for feeling that there might be hope.

And no-one had told him that six nights of Wolfsbane weren't enough to keep him at least partly sane. No-one had reminded him just how important the number seven was in their world, superstitious as he'd always thought it. He'd supposed that, if the worst happened and it took him longer to investigate Peter than he'd supposed that six would be enough to keep him himself enough to not harm anyone.

But he'd been so sure he'd be back in his office, away from a truth that didn't quite exist, far before the moon began to rise...

In truth the only good six nights of Wolfsbane did was to improve his memory. He'd been able to tell Hagrid he hadn't eaten a Hippogriff, for example. But he'd also been able to remember that it could have been Harry -- and Hermione and Ron, too. He'd so nearly failed at the only important job he'd ever been given: to protect James' son. And if it hadn't been for Sirius...

Well.

After that he'd been -- he'd been horribly... well, embarrassed wasn't quite the word; it wasn't strong enough, not brutal enough. But it was very real. And it was encased in memories.

In the old days, it had taken two years for him even to let his three best friends watch him transform. They'd begged, pleaded; they'd thought it was cool, at first. They never did again.

Remus had to force himself to talk to Harry, afterwards -- he had to force himself to stay calm and collected, careful and teacher-ly, because Harry didn't have a father anymore, and Remus was needed.

It was hard when the room was spinning and his head felt as though it was about to burst open. It was hard when Remus had to live with himself.

He'd let Peter get away.

*

Time went on again, and Dumbledore didn't blame him. Terrible things happened -- Voldemort came back, and Remus joined the Order, and people died, and still more people went brutally and sickeningly insane. Sirius' soul vanished -- then Dumbledore's. Remus was stronger for it all -- knew more for it all -- but could bear it even less.

The colors began to flow back, but only with determination, not with happiness. Dumbledore was the final piece in a puzzle that was broken. With him gone, there were no more letters. Remus had to write them into his own life.

And then there was Tonks. Almost an afterthought, thought Remus at first; now he can't see how he could have. She was... she is everything. She is okay. When no-one else is.

But she hasn't been living with a werewolf for long.

He told her then, on that December night, when everything was supposed to be okay. She asked "are you?" and he could only say "the first night of the cycle is always the worst." A lie. They were all, always, the worst.

What he meant was January -- the next moon cycle, the one that was coming -- the first moon cycle of the year. The first part of the cycle where he really felt its effects. It wasn't true; it never had been. It was December, and he pretended he'd be fine, for her sake.

The excuse covered the next month at least. If Remus had a particularly bad night, Tonks would understand, because she'd think the very worst was out of the way -- and he'd pretend it would get better as it went on; he'd pretend it did, while Tonks was really just getting used to it all. And then Remus could pretend he was getting better, when the next year's moons rolled around, and everything would be.

It didn't change the fact that he'd lied.

He's never been around Tonks for a transformation. This is the first. They've got their house a few miles away, but he has always come back -- somewhere -- for the FMN's. Tonks complained bitterly. Remus doesn't see how she has a right to.

That was another reason for lying.

And Remus can't explain all of... all of that, all of everything, to her. She's too young. There aren't words for all of it. There isn't a space inside people big enough to hold it properly, to grasp it gently enough so that it doesn't spill over the top. He trusts her with everything, but this inability to be... okay... isn't something that can be entrusted.

But is he happy? Yes. And should that be enough? Definitely yes.

And so he lives this reality. It's January -- just the beginning, now -- with a FMN on its way. One day and... nearly nine hours, Remus discovers from the calendar. He isn't glad of the extra time. He wants it to be over.

He has grown to despise the small, open circle on the glossy paper just as he has a distinct dislike for the letter "o". The moon's effects -- the mustard-tinted eyes, the throbbing inside his head, the vanishing of colors, the sudden rancid scents found everywhere, the exhaustion inside his bones, the urgent need to stretch his legs just before the pain turns to agony in force -- he can manage, just manage, but it's hard.

The hardest thing he's ever done. The thing he's had to do since the flutterings of time from before he can remember. The thing that was almost ignorable -- laughable! -- with James and Peter and Sirius, whom Tonks never really knew.

Maybe he's just getting older?

*

He's in the Burrow's kitchen, where they are visiting, feet propped up on the table, small plate of Mrs Weasley's blackberry cobbler poised just in front of his fingers. He hasn't eaten any of it -- it's too human, too carefully baked. (He adores it in real life, which he doesn't consider such days to be.)

Tonks, across from him, lifts small bites of it to her mouth every so often and swallows lumpily. Her hair is brown (though he can't see it), and he can tell she's nervous.

"I don't get it. I mean, you've got Wolfsbane this time, right? Doesn't that mean you're going to be... well, not okay, obviously, but not as -- not as bad?"

"Severus was kind enough to bring me some."

They look at each other solidly for a few seconds. Neither of them says anything.

"I'm sorry."

"-- No -- "

Remus tries not to breathe. There are kitchen smells, too, among the wafting fumes of the cobbler. Not meat, or dark, or woods. Not what he's supposed to be smelling, naturally.

"Do you need to go outside?"

He gives in to breathing, and the scents shoot up his nostrils, like that charm he and the others used against Peeves once-a-time-ago.

"I -- no."

He can almost feel his face turning paler, and he bridges his fingers and rests his face on top. Of being a werewolf, this is what he hates most -- the literal, easy-to-see change that hangs over him; the reality of everyone's pity; the fact that he can't be like everyone else, at least for those few days. Even Tonks falls victim to it sometimes.

"You're not okay."

Remus doesn't say anything. The room is spinning slightly.

"No," he admits, finally.

"It makes sense," says Tonks, the corners of her mouth drawing inward. "It's bollocks and everything, but it makes sense."

"Right," says Remus.

"As it's the first night of the cycle when the... FMN's start to get really bad."

He squints. "Right. I told you that. But where did you -- FMN's --."

"Full moon nights, right?"

"You've been reading that book again."

"You told me to."

"Did I? Well, stop reading it."

"No. And don't you get all stroppy with me."

A silence. If she expects...

Tonks sighs before he can finish the thought. "Sorry. Again."

Another silence. Remus is kicking himself mentally. If he expects...

Tonks tilts her head. "Wait. Don't be an arse, Remus, I shouldn't have had to apologise for that. Even if you are..."

"Say it, if you like."

"Yeah. What you are. It's not like I have a problem saying it. And if you're feeling poorly, well then --"

The room begins to tilt, and in his usual effort to stop it he presses his fingers onto his eyelids and breathes in deeply. Funny black sparks litter the air behind his eyes, which has begun to feel far too warm -- it's all typical, infuriating, familiar stuff. He grinds his teeth determinedly backwards. "I'm sorry. Never mind what I said, I'm perfectly fine. Don't worry about it."

Tonks clears her throat. "I'm not worrying!"

Remus can feel her looking at him.

"Yes, actually, you know, I am!"

He cracks open an eyelid. The room, thankfully, isn't reeling quite so much anymore, but Tonks' face seems blown-up, at least six times larger than the repulsive cobbler. Remus notes vaguely that her voice, hoarser than usual, seems to be vibrating from somewhere deep inside his lungs.

"I'm sick of all this 'let's pretend like it's normal and you can go all saintly on me' crap!" it says. "I'm sick of all this not talking about it, pretending it's all just fine when it so obviously isn't. Why won't you just shut up and let me take care of you? I thought -- I really thought that just this once, you know, since you're staying, you were actually going to be honest about everything. I know you're a martyr and everything -- I know it isn't as... as easy as you pretend. You don't have to pretend for me --"

But she doesn't really seem to know what else to say. He can see her mouth struggling for words, gaping like a fish. There is no okay about this situation. None at all.

It's my fault. Mine and the book's. But mostly mine.

He can't help thinking it. The cobbler seems to smirk at him.

He did buy her a book -- Hairy Snout, Human Heart (which is excellent, despite the title) -- for her last birthday. She wanted to know more and was threatening to call the Werewolf Registry if he didn't reveal something, so he...

But it doesn't matter now, he thinks. It was a mistake --

"It was a mistake," he repeats aloud, hand in front of his nose to ward of the now-demonic scent of the cobbler, which seems to be inspiring the room to spin again. "A stupid mistake -- I shouldn't have stayed -- it's so much easier just to -- when you didn't know -- but -- "

No.

"-- hell with this, Dora, damn it, I don't want to force you to --"

"Force me to what? What? At least you finally let something out -- now I don't have to feel like a bloody criminal all the time for swearing --" The cheeks on the enormous face go blotchier. "Just shut up, Remus. Shut up. Shut up and don't you dare go anywhere the way you always do when you --"

And she gestures, eyes flashing, to her swollen stomach.

He obeys. Tries not to look. Fails. He wishes -- he wishes --

He wishes he could fall blindly onto the floor; sob into his sleeves; scream like a lunatic; punch the blackberry cobbler with the quavering strength he's got left and watch the plate shatter --

He knows he can't. He sits.

But Tonks grabs his shoulder, her face suddenly morphing back into itself, as if in reproach. Remus watches. He realizes she's been watching him, watching again.

She looks much more normal now. Her face is smaller and more manageable for flickering, yellow-tinted eyes; her own eyes are dark-shadowed and pleading. "Okay," she says shakily, picking at a bit of skin on her cheek. "Okay. Remus, I -- please don't -- I did mean what I said. But I didn't mean --"

"I know what you meant."

They stare at each other.

Remus tries to laugh, but ends up nearly falling off the back of his chair. He tries to clear his throat, but it doesn't work. He sniffs the air, forgetting the cobbler, and is nearly knocked backward again with the force of its scent.

The nervous face hardens. "Don't lie to me. Please don't lie to me."

He lied to Tonks. He lied, and he loves her so much... so much, and he can't bear --

No.

All right.

"It's not the worst," he says, trying to keep his voice level.

"What's not the worst?" Her voice is cautious but steely.

"The first night. The first night of the cycle." He lets himself breath out, but not in. Running out of air is a small price to pay. Something is singing from the the dark trees by the kitchen window, but Tonks can't hear it.

Her voice drifts toward his ear. "I know."

"You know?"

"I'm not stupid."

He ignores the trees.

"I know."

"You know?"

"I'm not stupid either."

***

Lies are hard to build. The truth almost falls over itself trying to escape.

"You're too young. There aren't words enough for all of it," he says, trying to make her feel better about it all. As if he could.

"I'm not too young. And there are," she says. "You know there are."

"There isn't a space inside people big enough to --" he tries to say, but can't finish his sentence.

She reaches for the blackberry cobbler and pulls it away.

***
"Thanks."

"You too."

He doesn't know what he thinks anymore -- only that he's tired and ill and very much in love. The edges of what make things okay are sneakily brushing the tips of his toes as he talks and he doesn't have the strength to fight it back. But he can't breathe it in, either -- because you can't see what he's seen and still be okay --

The whispering trees jeer at the kitchen smells; at this struggling for -- for closure, perhaps; at Tonks, who can't hear them; at him. There are shreds of song embedded in the whispers -- a promise --

"You look funny."

"Mmm."

The kitchen tiles slide across the floor, like liquid earth under its crust.

"You need to go outside."

He sighs -- there is always going to be worry. "We should leave. In any case."

"Come on."

She pulls him up -- grabs his hand -- and suddenly the room rights itself; wobbles back onto its foundation. A vague glimmering of okay -- the sort he only ever feels around Tonks -- leaps whole and healthy into his chest.

Maybe -- maybe --

Maybe it's about learning to recognise those moments. Not analysing what's black and what's white; which is more and which is less. Not staring at the empty space in a goblet half-full, or staring, as he has been, mostly at the ground.

It's like light. Darkness is the only absence of it. It's like the truth. Lies are only evasions from it, distractions from it.

Okay -- when it is there -- is never meant to be ignored.

***
They move through the hall and towards the door. Remus can see the Weasleys in the sitting-room, watching them but mostly him as they walk --

Typical, infuriating, familiar stuff.

"Feeling all right, Remus?" says Arthur, jollily as always; wanting to know. "Are you okay?" Molly looks up from her knitting, lines carving themselves in her forehead; always, always, she watches.

"Yes," he says shortly. There is really nothing else to say. Maybe it's a lie, maybe it isn't... He can't tell if he is okay -- he was, a minute ago -- is he still? "Yes."

Arthur looks at him nervously. He beckons to Molly, who is muttering to Tonks about the cobbler, too low for Remus to hear. The four of them walk to the door.

Tonks opens it carefully. "It was delicious, Molly. Really."

"Are you sure you won't stay?" says Molly. A blast of night air hits Remus squarely in the face and he breathes it like a starving man. Yes, he's sure.

Tonks' voice. "No, we should go." A pause. Her voice gets softer -- "The first night of the cycle is always the worst."

A lie.

Thank you, he mouths.

No problem, she responds.

The door shuts; the wind rises; the trees keep singing, but less hauntingly.

"In the end," he asks, "what matters?"

Tonks shrugs; smiles at him. "Everything."

"Really," says Remus. There are so many things, then -- so many mistakes, so many... he doesn't know what to call them. Ignoring the wolf -- the only truth left -- the colors disappearing -- his fault -- so many letters -- so much time --

Maybe.

It's not just that. It's knowing how to feel. How to see it, how to balance it. How to -- how to look at it all, and still be happy.

Yes.

And it's --

"It's okay," he says, and the night drifts over his head in a cloud, passing by.

"Yeah," says Tonks, taking his arm and Apparating. "It is."