“You see!” said a strained voice. “She still wants to marry him, even though he’s been bitten! She doesn’t care!”
“It’s different,” said Lupin, barely moving his lips and looking suddenly tense. “Bill will not be a full werewolf. The cases are completely-”
“But I don’t care either, I don’t care!” She said, seizing the front of Lupin’s robes and shaking them. “I’ve told you a million times…”
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“I’ve told you a million times… Remus.., Remus… are you even listening to me?”
A young man sat, half curled on the padded seat of a swaying train. His eyes were fixed on the heavy book he rested on his knees and never wavered, even as the train bounced across the countryside. At last, the shrill voice succeeded in rousing him from his studies, and he looked up, pushing his floppy forelock out of his eyes.
“I’m sorry Bridget, were you talking to me?”
“Only for the last five minutes,” the girl snorted ungracefully. “You need to tell your friends to settle down, and if they hex one more person…” she gave a withering look at a trio of boys staggering around in the hall, meandering from compartment to compartment. “Well, the stupid gits will have me to deal with then.”
“I don’t really know if I can,” Remus said heavily, wishing he could escape right back into his book and avoid this confrontation all together.
“You’re a prefect, Remus, you’d better start acting like one.”
So are you, he thought resentfully, but I suppose they are my friends. “I’ll deal with it later,” he muttered before sliding back into his book. I suppose I will just have to explain to them later…
“Aargh! Here they come now… I’m going to go find Lily and enjoy some civilized company.”
“Mhmm, of course,” Remus replied absentmindedly not really hearing her. The life cycle of the grindylow really was an amazing thing. To think of a creature being born with fingers like that. He wondered if they could…
Whump!
Something heavy fell on top of him, knocking the book from his hands and squashing the air from his lungs. It squealed at him, “Sorry Remus, James did it, it was James’s fault.” Heaving Peter Pettigrew off of himself, Remus quickly rescued his book and scrambled upright.
“That was a nice hello,” he coolly told the tall thin boy with his whirlwind of hair and a smug expression.
“Aw, come on now Moony, you can’t say you didn’t miss me.”
Remus raised an eyebrow, “Can’t I?” This just made the tall boy smile even wider. “All right,” he gave in, “it’s lovely to see you again James.” All three boys sat on the swaying benches. James sprawled with an air of leisure, quite a contrast from Remus who sat straight and primly, although as time went on he did slouch a little lower in his seat. Peter merely crumpled onto his, with a general aura of untidiness ranging from his bitten nails to his poorly tied tie.
“Where’s Sirius got to?” Remus asked after the first round of summer reminiscences died down.
“He’ll join us later. He was… detoured… by Maggie in compartment three. She’s a pretty little thing though. Say, how are things going between you and Bridget? She looked pretty friendly before she saw us coming.”
“Shut up Prongs. We’re friends; that’s it.”
“No need to get your dander up, I was just asking,” James said with a mock hurt expression on his face. “I was just thinking that she’s a pretty face, and she’s got a brain. She sounds like your type, that’s all.”
“I don’t have a type, remember?” Remus growled, tired of where the conversation was headed. “I have a condition instead.”
At last James backed off, and started describing this week’s quidditch team, and how he knew they were going to make it all the way to the top, not like the last one he picked. Remus slowly let his thoughts wander. I wish I had a type. But she couldn’t possibly like me anyway, could she? No one likes a werewolf. I can’t tell her or anyone, they just wouldn’t understand.
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“Hey, Remus, there’s a Hogsmead trip this weekend.”
Remus glanced at the bulletin board from where he sat in an armchair by the window. He had been watching the snow fall gently while waiting for his mates to get in from quidditch practice. “Last one before Christmas most likely,” he agreed.
Bridget bounced into a nearby chair, and kicked both of her snowy shoes onto the carpet by the fire. “So would you like to go with me?” she asked in an offhanded voice, which was ruined by the anxious glance she gave him from under her eyelashes.
“I don’t know…” he stuttered, suddenly stiffening as though the plush cushions contained a bed of nails. She likes me, she likes me, kept whirling around in his mind, shortly followed by, what should I do?
“Please?” Bridget twirled a strand of her caramel colored hair nervously around one finger.
Remus glanced outside again in an attempt to mask his confusion. The sun had begun to set, and the moon was beginning to rise. The moon! Desperately Remus cast his mind back, trying to call up a mental calendar. Let’s see, this weekend would fall on… Bother! The Hogsmead trip was the first night of the full moon. He couldn’t risk it.
“Err…”
“Yes?” she asked eagerly.
“I… I’d love to go, really, I would… but… I err… I have to see my Aunt!” he burst out in a fit of inspiration.
“Your Aunt.” Bridget repeated skeptically.
“Yes my Aunt,” Remus said somewhat relieved. “She’s sick, and they thought I should visit her being her nephew and all, and its just bad luck that it fell over the Hogsmead weekend, but I mean you never can tell when some elderly relative is going to fall ill so…”
“Look,” she cut into his babbling. “If you don’t want to go with me that’s fine. You could just say so.” Without a backward glance she flounced out of her chair and began up the stairs to the dormitory.
“Wait!” Remus called starting to leap after her. She turned around looking hopeful.
“I like you,” he wanted to say. “I’m cursed, I’m a werewolf, that’s why I can’t go. You’re a wonderful girl.” And then she would relent and they would sit back down by the fire and talk, and maybe in time… But he couldn’t say it.
“Yes?” she asked impatiently, as he just stood there and stared up at her.
Hearing her voice brought him back to his senses. He scrambled wildly for something to say. “Your shoes,” he came up with at last. Picking them up from where she had kicked them he handed them to her shivering a little where her warm fingers brushed his cold ones. “I didn’t want you to forget them,” he mumbled.
“Thank you Remus,” Bridget said with a puzzled look on her face. “Goodbye,” she called as she disappeared around a bend in the stairs. Remus kept watching the empty staircase long after she had left, wondering what it was that he had lost.
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It was graduation day. All of the seventh years gathered on the Hogwarts lawn, saying their goodbyes before being scattered to the winds. Remus watched a group of girls as they hugged each other, cried, and swore they’d never forget. One curly, caramel head caught his eye, and he watched as she moved among her friends, giving a hug here, offering a tissue there, always the practical one with a word of advice.
He watched her as he had done the past two years. She had long since forgotten him, he was sure of that, but every day he found himself still just a little in love with her. He had stood by and watched as she flirted with that dreadful Ravenclaw, Richard. And then as she dated that Hufflepuff lout, Matt. And then the Gryffindor boy on the quidditch team, John. He had heard her squeal over the love notes John wrote, giggling about my Johnny with her friends. He had walked in on them kissing in the common room only a month ago, a fact which neither of them seemed to be too embarrassed by.
And now, here she was, winding her way towards him, and he still could think of nothing to say, the words he imagined sticking in his throat.
“Hello, Remus.” She was all smiles and warmth, and Remus could feel his insides melt under her friendly gaze.
“Bridget.”
“Well I suppose this is it. We’re off and into the world at last.” She sighed and looked around contentedly, like a woman set on making her future
“Yes, I suppose.”
“Remus, I’ve been thinking, well I just wanted to say…” she looked about nervously, twisting her fingers in the cloth of her robe.
“Yes?” he asked eagerly, almost too eagerly he thought.
“Well, I’m sorry I’ve been so distant since that night. It was wrong of me and well,” her gaze drifted out into the crowd before finding a tall dark head and latching on it. Smiling a secret smile, she continued, “you were right, it just wasn’t meant to be, and I’m so happy now… Everything has worked out for the best. You were always a good friend and I was wrong to try and make it into something more. Can we part as friends?”
With her every word Remus felt his hopes dropping like cannonballs into the sea. Down, down, down, until there was nothing left to cling to. “Yes, friends,” he agreed woodenly, trying his best to smile.
“I’m so glad.” She pulled him into a sisterly hug. “You will write to me won’t you?”
“Yes, of course.” But in his heart he knew that she’d forget and he wouldn’t write. She might wait at first, but as time went by, he’d be nothing more than a memory, and in time perhaps not even that.
“Goodbye old friend. Goodbye, Remus.”
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“Remus… Remus!”
“Yes?” he asked thickly, snapping his mind back to the present.
Molly Weasley sniffed. “As I was saying, I’ve said all along you’re taking a ridiculous line on this Remus.”
“I am not being ridiculous,” Remus said steadily, although his heart still ached with the memory of what he had once given up, and was about to do so again. “Tonks deserves somebody young and whole.”
“But she wants you,” said Mr. Weasley, with a small smile. “And after all, Remus, young and whole men do not necessarily remain so.”
He gestured sadly at his son, lying between them.
“This is… not the moment to discuss it,” said Remus, avoiding everybody’s eyes as he looked around distractedly. His heart was aching harder now, they were making it so hard for him to do what he felt was right. Control was slipping through his fingers. He squeezed his eyes together tightly for a moment to hold back the tears of hopelessness he could feel prickling the corners of his eyes. He clung to the only straw he could think of. “Dumbledore is dead…”
“Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world,” said Professor McGonagall curtly, just as the hospital doors opened again and Hagrid walked in.
Remus heard nothing of what they said. Trying to pull himself together he walked over to the window. Before he had been so convinced that he was right, so certain that his bite signaled his doom, but everything was getting fuzzy now. It was as if all of his convictions had been turned over on their heads, and he wasn’t even entirely sure if they ought to be righted again.
Suddenly he was aware of someone standing behind him and turned slightly. Tonks stood there, still in the starlight, tear tracks running softly down her cheeks.
“Remus,” she said softly, “just answer one question, truthfully, and I will go away and never bother you again if you choose. But do you love me, in any way, no matter how small?”
I should lie, thought Remus, lie and let her go free to live the rest of her life. He opened his mouth, but his traitorous tongue betrayed him. “I do,” he said simply.
“Really?” Tonks whispered.
“Really. I don’t know why, I’ve told myself I should not, but I can’t help it,” he confessed half wonderingly and half angrily.
“Then let me love you too. We can work out the rest.”
“Can we?” asked Remus, still afraid. “Can everything really work out for the best?”
“Of course it can,” Tonks reassured. “And it always does.”
And in time, so it did.
Lupin's Tail by coppercurls
Chapter Notes: Everything you recognise is JK's, some quotes taken from book six, everything else is my own.