"I love you," Tonks said, her deep brown eyes looking into his light hazel ones. Remus, pale, scars running down his face from his last transformation, and with grey streaks in his hair, sat directly across from her. They were in the dark, small, musty sitting room of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. He looked aghast.
"What?" he managed to say thickly.
Tonks grasped his callused hands firmly in her smooth ones. "I love you," she said again, her eyes now flitting across his face; the face she so loved.
Remus took his hands out of hers and stared at the ground. "Why?" he asked her, hardly moving his lips. "Why would you want to love me? I am too old, almost old enough to be your father, not to mention I am too dangerous. I could never allow you to put yourself in danger of getting hurt. I..." His voice trailed off into silence.
Tonks listened to every word he said. Did he honestly think she hadn't thought of everything he was saying before now?
"Remus," she said quietly, trying to take his hands in hers again, but he pulled them away. "No!" he said, sounding rather sharper than he'd meant to. "I cannot be involved with you. I can't love you."
He chanced a look at Tonks' face. Her shocking pink hair framed the shocked look on her face, and she looked as though she may start to cry. "Tonks," he said.
"Remus," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "Remus, do you love me?" There was a lump in her throat, but she wouldn't cry, she couldn’t; not in front of him.
"I can't love you Tonks," Remus said, though it seemed he was forcing this from his mouth.
"That wasn't my question," Tonks said. Her eyes were now glossed over with tears, making them appear like dark chocolate pools. "Remus, do you love me?" A tear slid down her cheek. Before he could stop himself, Remus reached out and wiped it away with his thumb.
That one small gesture told Tonks everything. "You do," she whispered. "You do love me."
"Nymphadora," Remus said. "I don't love you like that. I-" But his sentence was cut short by a short knock on the door. Tonks glared at him, and then hastily wiped her eyes as Mrs. Weasley, a short, plump woman with violently red hair walked in.
"Tonks," she said. "Mad-Eye is downstairs, he..." She stopped talking abruptly and looked from Remus to Tonks. "Am I interrupting something?" she asked quickly, reaching her hand behind her to grab the doorknob again as she backed toward it.
"No," Tonks said, her voice strangely high-pitched. And she jumped up from her worn old chair and hurried out of the room, wiping her eyes again as she went.
"What was that all about?" Molly asked, walking over and taking the seat Tonks had previously occupied across from Remus.
"Nothing," Remus said, trying to get up and move towards the door. But Molly had her hand wrapped firmly around his wrist. "Remus," she said. "What is it?"
"Nothing," Remus repeated, knowing full well he couldn't lie to Molly Weasley. She knew when someone was lying. After all, she had six sons, two of which were some of the biggest and best pranksters in the world. "Go ask Tonks, maybe she'll tell you," he said, his voice sounding slightly harsh.
"No Remus," Molly said firmly. She relinquished her grip, though only very slightly. "I'm asking you, not her.
"I- oh, alright," Remus stammered, realising he had been defeated. He was silent for a few minutes. He didn’t know if he really wanted to relay this private information to Molly.
"Go on, what did she tell you?" Molly pressed in that motherly tone of hers, placing a hand on Remus’ shoulder.
Remus was silent for a few more seconds, wondering how to tell Molly what Tonks had just told him. Finally, he found his voice, and the correct wording of what he needed to relay.
"She told me how she feels about me," he said quietly, almost inaudibly.
"Which is?" Molly inquired, thinking she knew what was coming.
"She... she," Remus stammered. "She loves me." He looked quite ill as he said it, as if it was the night after his transformation.
"Remus," Molly said. Her eyes began to fill with tears of happiness for Tonks, whom she sometimes considered as an older daughter. "That is absolutely wonderful."
"Molly," Remus said, sucking in a deep breath. "You don't understand. It is not wonderful, not at all. How can I live with myself knowing I am hurting Tonks while trying to protect her?" He looked up at Molly. She still had tears in her eyes, but she no longer looked happy. Her joy was gone, as quickly as it had come.
"Remus," Molly said, tears beginning to cascade down her cheeks now. "Remus, she loves you. You ought to think of the way she-"
"No!" Remus said, a look of pure anguish on his prematurely-lined face. "Don't you understand? How could I ever forgive myself if an accident were to happen and I hurt her? What if I lost control? What if I bit her and passed on my lycanthropy to her? Not to mention, Tonks is young. She deserves somebody young and whole, not old and broken. Also, I am far too poor. I can't just- she needs... someone better than me. Someone who could do more for her." Remus finished his sentence and put his head into his hands, shaking it and running his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. Then, he looked up at Molly, a tear threatening to slide down his cheek. He brushed it away quickly.
Molly pulled him into a hug for a minute. Then, sitting back again, she said quietly, "Remus, you don't need to worry about that. You would be cautious. Apparently she's fine with it. Besides, you're hurting her worse this way. Love is more powerful than anything else in the world." She looked at him for a second, pausing, and then said, "Do you love her?"
"I- no, I can't," Remus replied, looking even more anguished than before. "I can't love anybody, not like that. But, especially not her."
Molly looked at him tearfully again. "You do love her though. You're just worried for her. Am I right?"
"I- you're not." Remus looked into Molly's eyes. "Yes," he said, and tears began to spill from his eyes. Molly tried to comfort him, but he pushed her away. "Just go," he whispered hoarsely. She hesitated. “Please,” he added desperately.
So Molly slowly got up and exited the room. As she was closing the door, she looked back into the room to see Remus collapse to his knees and bend over the couch, crying. She sighed, then went to find Tonks.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tonks was lying in her room (the one reserved for her when she stayed at Headquarters). She had gone to see Mad-Eye and then ran up to the first door to the left on the third landing. Now, she was crying on her bed, her head in her arms and her whole body shaking. Suddenly, she heard a knock on the door.
"Come in," she said thickly, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her robes as she sat up on the edge of her bed. Molly opened the door and walked in quietly.
"Remus just told me what happened," she said, sitting down beside Tonks and hugging her.
After a few seconds, Tonks looked up at Molly and said, "What's wrong with me? How could I ever think that he could possibly have feelings for me?” She paused. “He just cares about himself." Tonks poured her thoughts out to Molly, who listened intently.
"Nymphadora," Molly began, but Tonks interjected, barely suppressing a shudder at being called by her first name. "Don't call me Nymphadora, Molly. How many times do I have to tell you?"
"Fine then. Tonks," Molly said, rolling her eyes. "None of that is true. He cares for everyone.” She sighed. “Do you know what his problem is?" She looked at Tonks, who nodded. "He's a no good prat of a werewolf who doesn't have feelings. That's his problem."
As she said these words, Tonks felt angry with herself. Molly looked surprised and half-laughed. She straightened up and hugged Tonks again.
"No," she said calmly. "His problem is that he cares too much. He loves all of us, and he doesn't want to hurt us. But most of all, he loves you."
"How do you know that?" Tonks asked, her voice scratchy from crying so much.
"Because, I just talked to him. Like I said before, he told me everything that happened between you and him just now."
Tonks moaned and began to cry again. "He doesn't love me,” she choked out between her sobs. “I-if he did, he'd tell me. He-he wouldn't let me feel this way. He doesn't love me." Even though she said all this to Molly, Tonks knew deep down in her heart that Remus did love her, whether he wanted to admit it or not. Her mind couldn’t just accept that under the circumstances at the moment, however.
After a minute or two of silence where both women’s thoughts ran in different directions, Tonks spoke again. "Love is absolutely the worst bloody thing in the entire world."
Molly stared at Tonks quizzically. "And what in the name of Hogwarts and the four Houses makes you say that? If your parents hadn't loved each other, would you be here right now, sitting here and talking to me about your love life?"
Tonks looked up at Molly reluctantly. "No," she said, a trace smile creeping its way onto her face. "But I might be somewhere else talking to someone else about my pitiful love life." The smile was wiped from her face in a second. "But it wouldn't be the same."
"That's right," Molly said. She paused, thinking. But Tonks interrupted her thoughts.
"Molly," she said. "Where's Remus?"
"In the sitting room where we left him," Molly replied, not mentioning the fact that when she had left him, he had been crying onto the chair.
Without another word, Tonks opened the door and sped out of the room, knocking over a vase that sent china crashing to the floor, and leaving Molly staring after her. After her mind relaxed a little, Molly waved her wand and repaired the vase, setting it back where it belonged.
Love Keeps Us Together (Sometimes Apart) by DontCallMeNymphadora
Story Notes:
I have this fanfic on fanfiction.net as well now.
My author name is HugglepuffOboeCrissGirl and the story there is now called
'The Highway to Their True Love' For those of you still reading, I won't be able to edit for about eleven days... I'm really sorry. I'm jsut busy right now, and my story isn't on this computer.
Chapter Notes: I am not J. K. Rowling, nor will I ever be. All of the ingenious ideas and characters belong to her wonderful, brilliant, wonderfully-brilliant mind. I am just borrowing them for a time.